In Dhaka, the street art is still visible: a cuffed hand clenched in a fist; an injured student being rushed towards aid on a bicycle; the words “the blood of martyrs shall not go in vain”.
These murals were daubed in July and August, after police opened fire on people who had gathered to protest against a job scheme favouring Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League party. With hundreds dead, students from Dhaka University seized control of the uprising and forced the country’s authoritarian ruler, Sheikh Hasina, to flee to India. It has been one of the most striking victories for people power of recent times.
The three months since what the students call a “revolution” have been equally extraordinary. In August, they invited Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel peace prizewinning economist and entrepreneur, to serve as “chief adviser”, in effect caretaker leader. Yunus has embarked on a sweeping reform of Bangladesh’s broken political system and institutions. Elections are promised at a yet-to-be defined point in the future. And the students sit in a privileged place, with two holding cabinet positions in the interim government. Yunus insists he has no ambition to continue in politics after his current role.