When it comes to democratic dysfunction, the fiasco of the 'Mancha 1971' meeting in Dhaka on August 28, 2025 deserves a place among the most ruinous acts of self-sabotage. The facts are as troubling as they are revealing: a group of self-styled “July Fighters” stormed a discussion commemorating the Liberation War, heckled the speakers, confined participants, and vandalized banners. Their targets were not radicals plotting insurrection in secret but freedom fighters, intellectuals, and even a former Awami League minister, Latif Siddique.

One would expect the state to act as an arbiter of law, restraining the aggressors and protecting the right to free assembly. Instead, the opposite occurred. The police, far from dispersing the disruptors, detained the victims. Sixteen participants, including Siddique, now face charges under the Anti-Terrorism Act, with allegations that they sought to destabilize the state and launch an armed struggle against the interim government. Courts have compounded the absurdity by denying bail, treating a peaceful discussion on the Constitution and the Liberation War as if it were a jihadist cell plotting insurrection.

This is not justice. It is a parody of justice.

Mob Rule, Institutionalized

The decision to arrest the organizers rather than the attackers is more than a bureaucratic misstep. It is a dangerous signal. It tells the “July Fighters”—or any other mob—that their violence will be tolerated, even rewarded, if it serves political convenience. It legitimizes the heckler’s veto: shout loudly enough, disrupt forcefully enough, and the state will not only look the other way but hand over your opponents to the police.

This, in turn, creates a vicious cycle. Each disruption emboldens the next, each mob grows bolder than the last, and the line between dissent and disorder collapses. A fragile democracy cannot survive when its police force acts less like guardians of law and more like errand boys for whichever group shouts the loudest.

The Lie of “Terrorism”

The charges filed against the detainees deserve not only dismissal but outright ridicule. To allege that Latif Siddique—an aging politician with a record of blunt speech but no credible history of militancy—was plotting armed insurrection is to stretch the imagination into the realm of farce. It is a state-sponsored lie, reminiscent of the discredited practices under the Awami League government, when opposition rallies were broken up with fabricated cases and dissenters were labeled enemies of the state.

The Anti-Terrorism Act, designed to confront real threats to national security, is being wielded as a cudgel against political expression. By doing so, the government devalues the law itself. When everything becomes “terrorism,” nothing is. This is not only an affront to due process but also a strategic blunder. It blurs the distinction between genuine extremists, who deserve the full weight of the law, and political critics, who deserve protection. The result: the state weakens its own credibility and erodes public trust.

Echoes of the Past

Bangladesh has been here before. Under the ousted regime, fraudulent cases were the norm; the magistrates were pliant, the police complicit, and dissent criminalized. The current government, by repeating the same tactics, undermines its claim to represent a break from the past. What, after all, is the substantive difference between yesterday’s suppression of BNP gatherings and today’s crackdown on the 'Mancha 1971'? The uniforms may be the same, the rhetoric recycled, the targets shifted, but the underlying principle (political convenience over constitutional rights) remains depressingly identical.

And therein lies the danger. When interim governments mimic the abuses of elected ones, they forfeit legitimacy faster than they accumulate it.

Against Spirit of 1971

The irony, of course, is painful. The 'Mancha 1971' discussion was centered on the very spirit of the Liberation War—on freedom, constitutional integrity, and national identity. By allowing mobs to disrupt the event and then punishing the victims, the government has created the impression that it is not only indifferent to the spirit of 1971 but actively hostile to it. The Awami League, predictably, has seized on this narrative, painting the interim administration as “anti-liberation.” What better gift could the government have handed its most determined political rival?

A wiser leadership would have understood that suppressing debate about 1971 only deepens divisions. That the legacy of the Liberation War is not a partisan possession but a national inheritance. That to police memory with terror laws is to betray the very principles for which that war was fought.

The Judiciary’s Complicity

No less troubling is the judiciary’s role—or rather, its abdication of the role. A truly independent magistracy would have thrown out the charges, recognized the arrests as unlawful, and granted bail. Instead, the courts have acted as rubber stamps, compounding the state’s deceit with judicial endorsement. In doing so, they confirm what critics have long feared: that Bangladesh’s judiciary, particularly at the magistrate level, is incapable of serving as a check on executive overreach. Without such a check, the criminal justice system becomes little more than a conveyor belt for political persecution.

The Cost of Political Convenience

What, then, has been achieved? The government has not secured itself against destabilization; it has invited it. It has not silenced its critics; it has amplified them. It has not shown itself as a protector of national security; it has exposed itself as an abuser of power. And in the process, it has undermined the very stability it claims to defend.

Political convenience is a poor substitute for political wisdom. Arresting opponents may buy a week of quiet, but it sows a year of resentment. Fabricating charges may silence a handful of critics, but it delegitimizes the justice system as a whole. Pandering to mobs may energize a partisan base, but it erodes the foundations of civic order.

A Way Back

If the government wishes to salvage credibility, it must begin by undoing this mistake. The detainees should be released, the charges dropped, and the real perpetrators—the disruptors—held accountable. The judiciary must rediscover its independence, however belatedly, by refusing to indulge political prosecutions. And the Anti-Terrorism Act should be reserved for what it was designed to combat: genuine terror, not dissent.

Above all, the government must learn the simplest but hardest truth: that legitimacy cannot be secured through fear. It is built through fairness, transparency, and the willingness to tolerate—even defend—speech one may find offensive.

The Stakes

The stakes extend far beyond a single disrupted meeting or a dozen wrongful arrests. They concern whether Bangladesh will continue down the path of political mimicry, repeating the sins of the Awami League era under a different banner, or whether it can genuinely chart a new course—one in which dissent is not criminalized, mobs are not emboldened, and courts are not politicized.

The lesson of 1971, if it still matters, is that the denial of basic freedoms can never be the foundation of stability. To forget that lesson is to betray not just a handful of detainees but the entire nation’s democratic promise.

(The author is a political and strategic analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at writetomahossain@gmail.com)