Democracy is doomed when people no longer trust their ability to shape their own destiny. In Dhaka in 2024, a student-led uprising demanding equal access to government employment sparked a protest by the entrenched political establishment. In Delhi, India’s capital, young activists and opposition politicians protesting changes to electoral rolls are fighting another battle but share one worry: whether the people still have any way to check their leaders.
Though the settings and outcomes differ greatly, Bangladesh saw a revolt in July–August 2024 that resulted in Sheikh Hasina quitting her position on August 5, 2024, while India is dealing with problems related to electoral administration, independence of institutions, and peaceful demonstrations. This does not mean Delhi is following Dhaka’s path. However, both cases show the same problem: the government can maintain democracy in form but destroy the context of consent. At their core, both movements share one thing: politicians should be accountable to citizens.
The Bangladesh uprising started because of hiring practices by the government, especially the quota for the children of independence movement fighters. The government’s response transformed this fight for recruitment reform into a fight for accountability and, ultimately, Hasina’s resignation. This resulted from years of declining political competition. As documented by Human Rights Watch, there have been widespread arrests and threats around the January 2024 election in Bangladesh. For many Bangladeshis, the complaint was about more than job opportunities. The lack of effective means to correct the government’s mistakes peacefully became an issue.
The immediate disagreement between India and Pakistan is about the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. Over 130 million people have allegedly been debarred from voting because they were registered either as deceased or as having changed locations. This does not prove that 130 million citizens have been wrongfully deprived of their right to vote. The real issues are how many people were wrongly excluded and how to correct the mistake.
Bangladesh’s students challenged unequal opportunity within a political order resistant to correction. Indian protesters challenge suspected exclusion from the mechanism through which political correction should occur. The state is experienced by youth through tests, employment opportunities, universities, and interactions with the police. If these institutions fail to demonstrate justice and respect, a specific injustice becomes part of an attempt to redefine what equal citizenship means. It stops being about personal ambition and becomes a fight for equality before public institutions.
In Bangladesh, repression helped escalate student protests into a nationwide campaign. In India, the youth-led ‘Cockroach’ movement joined forces with the political opposition despite the arrest of its founder and students prior to an October 16 protest in New Delhi. In these different struggles, young citizens demonstrate their ability to ask crucial democratic questions: who gets to be heard, whose rights are secured, and who can hold whom to account.
These coalitions carry inherent contradictions. The established parties pursue their political goals; the young people may view the very parties they work with skeptically. Their only shared goal is institutional change. A democratic movement must retain enough autonomy to challenge its partners as strongly as its opponents. Otherwise, a struggle for democracy risks becoming a struggle for redistribution.
The protest in Bangladesh was not initially a voter registration effort, and the agitation in India has not followed the same revolutionary path as in Bangladesh. This link becomes more obvious when electoral participation is viewed in broader terms. Meaningful elections are characterized by competition, full and fair voter rolls, freedom of organisation, administrative impartiality, and the ability to defeat the incumbent.
If opposition candidates cannot campaign freely, competition is limited. If eligible citizens cannot vote, public choice is limited. This does not mean democracy is directly related to each of the above; rather, they affect democracy in different ways. No elaboration is needed.
There were some reports regarding the violation of human rights by the previous government, the security agencies, and various militant groups that were connected to the Awami League, according to a report by the United Nations. The deaths between July 1 and August 15, 2024, have risen to 1,400 people. The facts above do not require exaggeration. India faces a different problem: administrative issues, control of demonstrations, and police work. India’s implications for democracy need to be assessed separately.
The issues are straightforward: are the measures justified and proportionate? Can ordinary people gather peacefully? Are administrative processes consistently implemented? Are the dissatisfied people allowed to address their grievances before elections that will make their disenfranchisement permanent? Public order cannot be used as an excuse for insulating authorities from criticism.
The protesters regularly use ‘autocracy’ and ‘fascism.’ They use them to express outrage, but to analyse them, we must understand the practices these terms represent. Autocratisation refers to the gradual reduction of constraints on the executive and political competition. Fascism is a term referring to an ideology characterised by ultranationalist exclusionism, anti-pluralism, personality cults, and political violence. Not all repressive regimes are similar.
The Awami League is a liberation-nationalist party, while the BJP is Hindu nationalist. The parties’ practices can still be studied, even when party allegiance and nationalism are conflated. Democratic institutions suffer when the rulers claim sole proprietorship of the nation.
A key question is whether proximity in diplomacy led to the adoption of similar means for political survival. Proximity alone does not prove that the BJP and the Awami League exchanged instructions on how to control their opponents and manipulate elections. That kind of accusation needs evidence.
The worry about authoritarianism lies in ‘learning’ from one another about how other states centralise power, deal with opposition, and justify using security arguments in politics. Similar incentives can lead to similar strategies. The fact that partnerships glorify stability but ignore violations of human rights can make it cheaper diplomatically to repress people. The Indian Bangladeshi relationship will inspire greater confidence when it is based on lasting popular legitimacy.
Dhaka offers a lesson: political repression can turn a policy issue into a question of legitimacy. Dhaka also provides a responsibility. Removing one regime does not mean democracy. Successive regimes need to subject themselves to the same scrutiny that was imposed on their predecessors. India needs to ensure that its electoral process is transparent, wrongfully disenfranchised citizens are allowed to participate, there is an avenue for appeal, and rights of assembly are protected. The challenge for Bangladesh is to ensure that the state never becomes an apparatus for making any party irremovable.
Both require protection for minorities, journalists, political opponents, and unpopular voices. Rights become dependable when they protect people the governing majority dislike.
No party acquires permanent entitlement to govern through historical sacrifice, religious identity, economic achievement, or repeated victory. Democracy endures when institutions make power temporary, and citizens retain the freedom to decide when its holders must leave.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author
The writer is a Professor and Former Chair, Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, Savannah State University.
E-mail: [email protected]
