Politics Beyond Parliament: The Silent Engines of Bangladesh’s Politics

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead’s axiom mirrors the transformation in Bangladesh, wherein political hegemony is no longer sustained solely within the four walls of Jatiya Sangsad, but also in the dormitories of its university campuses and classrooms that function as the nuclei of power. 

The return of Tarique Rahman and his induction as the new Prime Minister of Bangladesh is the outcome of the sheer naivety that Hasina projected in the last few years of her reign before finally absconding, thus creating a vacuum by vacating her position amid the violent protests. The tensions between the administration and the public brewed over a prolonged period of time, episodes of which were witnessed during the 2018 protests.

Hasina’s downfall wasn’t triggered by a single miscalculation, but by a motif of flippancy towards the sphere of activism contained in the educational institutions of the nation itself. Issues revolving around students and teachers involving matters of quotas, pension, campus violence, academic policy & budget, employment & job, etc., have long dominated the domestic political zeitgeist in Bangladesh, which, in introspection, highlights the enduring capacity of these academic ecosystems to manufacture legitimacy, reproduce patronage, topple regimes, and change the bearer of the crown. And according to the voice of democracy heard during the recent election, that crown passes on to the revived political character, Tariq Rahman.

Hasina’s shortcomings in correctly assessing what actually acts as a true undercurrent of the political ecosystem and the nature of her frivolous actions shall act as the ne plus ultra of botched decisions. Administrative actions of deploying police forces alongside student wings against protesters, resulting in bloodshed, and eschewing faculty demands reflects the misjudgment which ultimately took the form of an anti-government revolt forcing Hasina out.

The elections of 2026 wrapped with a landslide victory in favour of BNP, with optimism of a more stable governance model. BNP led alliance won 212 seats, next to which is Jamaat led alliance with 77 seats out of the total 297 parliamentary strength. While BNP’s outstanding performance was widely predicted, Jamaat registered its best performance, sidelining Awami League due to declining public sentiments. After nearly two decades of being ruled by a single party, the upcoming phase will determine how the public tone shifts and settles, which will be influenced by the policy decisions and actions of the newly installed government.

Intelligensia: The Sanctuaries of Dissent

Politics is fundamentally the pursuit of power. And power, along with its vivid connotations, also has varied sources of its emanation. Its distribution transcends formal institutions and often coexists with intricate informal networks. With the coming of the new era, the most potent of these factors is the “academic institution.”

Universities occupy the strategic center of this ecosystem; they are not merely sanctuaries for scholarship, but they produce intellectual narratives and organize politically conscious youth, thus contesting hegemony. Drawing on Gramscian theory, campuses are the sites where “organic intellectuals” are formed – whether acting as a catalyst for regime change or a bulwark for sustaining the same, they represent a shadow parliament capable of legitimizing or delegitimizing the ruling elite. 

Across the globe, student bodies have catalyzed regime transformation, from the Paris uprisings of 1968 to the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe. Even well-established democracies and nation-states have often sought to regulate and suppress campus autonomy precisely because universities 'manufacture consent’ and threaten the ideologies that they don’t subscribe to. Through administrative barricades, funding, and the militarization of security, the states attempt to transform students from political citizens into passive consumers of education, seeking to depoliticize the very spaces where dissent is born.

In this context, there are multiple incidents that can be taken into account from Bangladesh’s political history that illustrate the importance of educational institutions and the influence they have exerted on government bodies. 

The Language Movement 1952: The Roots of the Awakening

Youth form a substantial fraction of Bangladesh’s demography, with individuals aged 15-29 years accounting for 28% of the total population. Demographically, this represents a potential political reservoir. Theorists suggest that large cohorts of educated young citizens, especially when struggling with problems of unemployment, restricted mobility, and injustice, constitute a structurally volatile force. Universities concentrate these cohorts both spatially and socially. Consequently, these spaces heavily influence an individual and their conscience in a way that affects the polis at large. Thus, these dormitories and unions provide free arenas, where grievance, identity, and aspiration are expressed.  

This gave birth to on-campus activism since then. Student politics in Bangladesh has a historical legacy, and the Bengali Bhasha Andolan of 1952 marked the first assertion of student political sovereignty. The demand for recognition of the Bengali was not merely linguistic resistance, rather, it was ‘rejection and restoration’ of national dignity against state domination. Students of Dhaka University deployed language as an instrument of mass mobilization and converted cultural identity into political consciousness. The state’s use of coercion, followed by the martyrdom of several protesters, endowed campuses with profound moral authority.

From that moment onward, universities ceased to be apolitical educational spaces and assumed the character of sacred political arenas within the national imagination.

Thus, the Language Movement represented the earliest and arguably the most formative phase of student politics, linking linguistic recognition with the broader struggle for national identity and eventual independence from West Pakistan. The very name “Bangladesh” fuses language and territory, Bangla signifying the cohesiveness of the said linguistic community and Desh denoting the nation itself. Thereby, the evolution from East Pakistan to Bangladesh was rooted in a growing national consciousness sharpened through the legacy of Raj and deepened under Pakistan’s centralized policies. The language question crystallized this tension, turning campuses into epicenters of collective assertion.

During this phase, students emerged as a formidable political constituency. Mobilization at Dhaka University catalyzed nationwide protests demanding recognition of Bengali as a state language of Pakistan. The casualties of 1952 transformed the movement into a moral watershed, establishing student organizations as vanguards of Bengali nationalism and embedding campus activism into the architecture of state resistance. In the years that followed, the institutionalization of major student bodies such as Bangladesh Chhatra League and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal formalized student politics within party structures. This marked the beginning of a structural shift: from autonomous agents of liberation to embedded fragments within national political networks. Student activism thus evolved dynamically, oscillating between independent mobilization and partisan integration.

The 1969 Mass Uprising & Liberation War of 1971

The political momentum generated in 1952 did not dissipate. Rather, it expanded across the campuses over successive decades, and by the mid 1960s, these student organizations were no longer a part of the high-school ecosystem but actively and consciously shaped the political imagination of the masses. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman introduced the Six-Point Movement in 1966, it was students who carried its language into classrooms, hostels, tea stalls, and public squares. Campuses became spaces where constitutional demands were debated with urgency and where autonomy was translated from abstract policy into emotional necessity.

The Mass Uprising of 1969 marked another turning point. What began as campus demonstrations against authoritarian rule rapidly spilled beyond university gates. These movements ultimately weakened the iron-handed regime under the military and paved the way for the 1970 general elections. During the 1971 War of Liberation, student organizations actively participated in the struggle for independence. They mobilized volunteers, acted as channels for information, and engaged in guerrilla operations as part of the Mukti Bahini. This period solidified their reputation as patriots, martyrs, and key actors in the nation's birth. 

This historical experience shaped how student politics would be perceived in the decades that followed. Their involvement in the creation of the nation endowed campus activism with a kind of inherited legitimacy. Governments that came into power after independence understood this power and subsequently recognized the fact that universities were not solely academic territories, but rather “manufacturers of consent and dissent.” They were arenas that could nurture loyalty or opposition. And control over them meant control over a vast constituency that had already demonstrated its capacity to alter the course of history and politics. 

Post-Independence Patronage and Partisanism

Dorms and Canteens as spaces of political re-engineering

Independence, however, altered the character of student politics as the moral fervor of liberation was confronted by the practical imperatives of a nascent democracy. These very organizations that had once mobilized against authoritarian rule now found themselves navigating problems of a newly sovereign state where political power needed to be consolidated and maintained. And gradually, this paved the way for the absorption and institutionalisation of student politics within the state apparatus. Political parties started recognizing the strategic utility of these student bodies, not simply as ceremonial, but as long-term investments in the cultivation of legitimacy. 

For instance, the Bangladesh Chhatra League, aligned with the Awami League, and the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal, aligned with the BNP, expanded their presence across public universities, particularly in Dhaka University, Chittagong University, Rajshahi University, and Jahangirnagar University. Leadership positions within these organizations often became stepping stones for future party leadership, and they also began functioning as instruments of intra-party competition and local dominance.

Like Sheikh Hasina herself rose up from Bangladesh Chhatra League and Odaidul Quader are some examples.  As this integration deepened, campuses began to reflect the broader culture of Bangladesh’s competitive and often confrontational politics. University elections mirrored national rivalries and contested issues from major parties. Violence, factionalism, and coercive practices gradually entered this academic environment.  

Here, dormitories became a critical point of evolution in student politics. They acted as ‘microcosms’ of political organization and exercised informal authority within the college halls and canteens. Eventually, national politics conveniently entered the day-to-day routines of a student. Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) reports have periodically documented allegations of allocating hall seats to partisan loyalty, tender manipulation linked to contractors, and factional dominance influencing administrative decisions. By the 1990 mass uprising that culminated in the resignation of Hussain Muhammad Ershad, student alliances once again demonstrated their capacity to destabilize entrenched authority. 

Teacher Unions as stabilisers or defactors?

Teacher unions constitute the second structural pillar of this ecosystem. Faculty members in public universities possess institutional permanence as well as public credibility. Associations affiliated informally with major political parties frequently influence vice-chancellor appointments, board of directors, and other stakeholders’ positions. The University Grants Commission framework formally regulates appointments, yet informal political consultation has historically shaped outcomes. Historically, these teacher unions have functioned as stabilizing agents during moments of campus crisis. During political stability, they aligned with ruling coalitions and provided legitimacy to policy decisions and tempered student unrest. Conversely, when faculty bodies exhibit visible fragmentation or cautious neutrality, it often reflects broader elite hesitation.

For example, during major campus confrontations in the early 2000s and again during the quota reform protests of 2018, faculty mediation played a pivotal role in preventing escalation in certain institutions. Their statements carried weight beyond campus boundaries, influencing middle-class public opinion. Teacher unions thus function not merely as occupational associations but as signaling mechanisms within the regime legitimacy framework. However, the structural dependency between national parties and these campus based vigilantes has always been a double-edged sword and the 2018 Quota Reform Movement and the Road Safety Movement precisely signaled this friction. Despite the presence of established partisan wings, independent groups emerged, thereby mobilizing large sections of youth who were frustrated with recruitment systems perceived as politically filtered.

From Hasina to Tarique Rehman 

The collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s regime in 2024 represented the most dramatic manifestation of this accumulated tension. Initial protests centered on inequities in government job quotas expanded into broader critiques of incumbency, inflationary pressure, and political centralization. Bangladesh’s youth unemployment, compounded by rising costs of living, amplified frustration among graduates and the larger middle class population seeking security in state employment. 

The velocity and zealousness at which these anti-Hasina protests expanded reveal the conventional channels of power and persistence. Dormitories once again became the organizational nerve centers. The residential halls allowed rapid coordination, daily discussion, and collective strategizing. Students did not rely solely on established party wings but rather, informal networks were combined with new age digital platforms, which circulated information horizontally.  Equally significant was the tone adopted by stakeholders of this intelligentsia or the academic community. Teacher associations did not uniformly rally behind heavy-handed responses. Their statements were weighed and quietly critical, further giving momentum to the already spurred fire. 

The transition from the interim stewardship of Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus to the newly minted premiership of Tarique Rahman on February 17, 2026, represents more than a mere change of guardianship of Bangladesh. It is a profound structural realignment of the silent engines that fuel the state. If the 2024 uprising was the “Monsoon Revolution,” then Dr. Yunus served as its necessary agent of stimulus – a bridge across the chasm of institutional collapse. His tenure was characterized by transitioning the "Intelligentsia of Dissent” from the raw, street-level energy of the barricades back to the formal, legalistic requirements of the ballot box. By the time the 2026 elections arrived, the July Charter had successfully rebranded the quest for power as a restoration of the democratic contract.

Tarique Rahman’s swearing-in as the 11th Prime Minister marks a historic departure. His legitimacy was not merely inherited but rather resurrected by the very academic ecosystems that once viewed this old guard with skepticism. The BNP’s victory is not an accidental byproduct of anti-incumbency – it was a result of a strategic, almost Gramscian integration with the ‘Generation Z’ demographic. This was most visible in the rise of the National Citizen Party (NCP), led by former student adviser Nahid Islam, whose alliance with traditional parties forced a "New Social Contract." Rahman enters this era as a leader tethered to a New Social Contract and not as a dynastic heir with ascribed political prestige.  

Central to this new political gravity was the intervention of Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose organizational muscle provided for the campus-led transformation. In a seismic shift marking their first major authorized victory since 1971, Shibir-backed candidates swept the September 2025 DUCSU elections, capturing 23 of 28 seats, including the presidency under Abu Shadik Kayem. In the vacuum left by the previous regime, the Gonoroom culture of the dormitories was repurposed from a site of partisan bullying into a hub of Digital Vigilance and coordination. For Rahman, these dormitories became a ready-made network; by the time he returned to the domestic stage, these students had already vetted the ground-level leadership, essentially delivering a pre-packaged youth vote in a bottom-up deal where organizational power was traded for a real seat at the reform table.

At the same time, teacher unions pivoted from being simple party supporters to becoming geopolitical agents. Before the 2026 polls, faculty associations at major universities like Dhaka and Rajshahi acted as an informal second foreign office. They held quiet dialogues with diplomats from Washington to New Delhi, essentially vetting the New BNP for a global audience. These teachers signaled to the world that a Rahman premiership wouldn’t be a repeat of the volatility of twenty years ago. By backing the July Charter, they provided the intellectual cover Rahman needed to transition from an exiled heir to a reform-minded statesman.

The Rahman premiership, therefore, signals a transition from the era of personality-driven autocracy to a period of negotiated sovereignty. In this new configuration, the state is no longer a monolithic entity directed from the top but rather it is a contested space where the legitimacy of the crown is underwritten by the ‘first-benchers’ of the classroom. The intelligentsia has moved from being a sanctuary of dissent to a factory of governance, effectively transforming the university from an ivory tower into a watchtower.  

Ultimately, the 2026 mandate proves that these Silent Engines are no longer content with being the mere catalysts of change; they have become a party and an outcome to it. As Tarique Rahman takes the oath of office, he does so under a canopy of intellectual vigilance that suggests the true seat of power has evolved, changed and migrated. The classroom has replaced the barracks as the ultimate source of political authority, and the dormitory has supplanted the party office as the site of mass mobilization. In this sophisticated, often fractious new reality, the state’s survival depends on its ability to harmonize the noise of the streets with the logic of the laboratory, proving that in the new Bangladesh, the only hegemony that holds is the one that remains open to perpetual revision.