From Himal Southasian
In October 2024, two months after the monsoon revolution in Bangladesh toppled Sheikh Hasina as prime minister and Awami League government, four gender experts wrote a column in the Bangladesh newspaper Prothom Alo about the women leaders of the movement. They said that these women had been invisibilised in the initiatives and discussions around rebuilding Bangladesh.
In the months since Hasina’s ouster and the formation of an interim government, Bangladesh saw a resurgence of its Islamic parties, particularly the Jamaat-e-Islami, in the country’s politics. This has raised concerns about these parties trying to enforce restrictions on women’s participation in public life. In February, for example, a group called the Islami Andolan Bangladesh organised a protest rally in Rangpur in the northern part of the country against a girls’ football match, calling it un-Islamic. Police cancelled the event and asked the teams to return home for their own safety.
There has also been much discussion across the country about incidents of violence against women. In March, students from 30 colleges in Dhaka held a protest against what they called a rise in violence, rape and torture of women, demanding that the interim government institute maximum punishments for perpetrators. This protest ended in clashes between the protesters and law enforcement, an incident that had echoes of the clashes that took place during the monsoon revolution itself.
Nayantara Narayanan spoke to Samina Luthfa in June 2025, about what was happening with the feminist movement in Bangladesh, and how the country’s politics, which was in a state of flux, was affecting women. With the upcoming general election in Bangladesh in February 2026 many of these questions still loom over the country.
This interview was recorded on 4 June 2025. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Glossary
Moitree jotra: A March for Solidarity of Women in Bangladesh which is an annual women-led protest movement, particularly active around May, demanding equal rights, an end to gender-based violence, and societal reforms
Razakar: “traitor” or “collaborator”, a term historically used derogatorily, referring to the pro-Pakistan paramilitary force that committed atrocities during the 1971 War of Independence).
Nayantara Narayanan
Let’s first talk about what is being seen as a rising tide of violence against women in Bangladesh in recent months. I want to ask why you think there is such a rise in incidents? So is this a problem with law enforcement under the interim government? Or has there been a change in the way crimes against women are being reported or the focus on them? Or are there other elements contributing to this perceived rise in violence against women?
Samina Luthfa
The answer to this question is not really easy, or I cannot really answer in yes or no, because I think maybe the reasons that you just identified, all of them might be actually behind the sudden rise. Because on one hand, we always know that when there is political instability in any country, and in any society, it affects women in a negative way the most, and especially women, children and other marginalised communities. And that’s what we have seen in the last nine months as well. The deteriorating law and order situation right after the upheaval created a lot of unease and a feeling of lack of safety for women, especially in the public sphere. However, you have rightly pointed out that the women who were at the forefront of the movement and the uprising and women of all walks of life, women from all different age groups also, and ethnicity, were actually very vocal and active during the uprising.
However, right after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, I have not seen many women [involved in] constructive talks and leadership of the country and things like that. We have seen that women have kind of vanished into thin air. So what we see here is, on one hand, our age-old patriarchy, which is at play as well. This is not new for Bangladeshi women not to be able to enter the political sphere, the public sphere. This is nothing new. But what is new after the ouster, after the uprising is this: the 1952 language movement, ‘69 uprising, or even ‘71 and in the independent Bangladesh and all other political movements had women’s participation. However, every time we have seen that right after the movement is done and is successful, women used to vanish again. However, this time, I think women are not accepting this fact. They are actively pursuing careers in politics. Especially very young women who were the voices of the movement or joined later, but however you can see their contribution in the uprising. What we see now in the last nine months is a lot of young women are very interested and they’re actively pursuing their career in politics, which actually makes them visible.
Although they are small in number and because they are small in number, their visibility is actually creating a lot of ripple effect because these one or two women who are coming out are actually at the center of attention for the patriarchal society, which did not any woman politician as a politician by herself. Even though we have continuously been led by governments which were led by women like Khaleda Zia or Sheikh Hasina for decades, they represent the men behind them – either the father or the husband and now maybe the sons. This patriarchal understanding and perception of politics in Bangladesh, which actually did not really create a space for women’s voices and their agency. Now, after 5 August [2024], we are seeing that the women are trying really hard to get onto that table. And that actually has also brought a lot of cyberbullying and a lot of hatemongering in the cyberspace for them. And this actually attracts our attention to the fact that women are being bullied for coming to politics. However, I think this is such a new phenomenon that I was not surprised to see such a reaction from the patriarchy.
Samina Luthfa is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Dhaka and a social activist.
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