Not All Springs End Winter

From the language movement of 1952 to the Road Safety Movement of 2018, the history of Bangladesh is deeply rooted in its history of mass youth movements. This book is dedicated to analyzing the specific methods that worked and did not work in those movements, from the theoretical framework of political economy.

It will discuss movement strategies, grievance framings, mobilization tactics, organizational structures, usage of symbols, framing of demands and objectives, etc., both in the historical movements and in the contemporary movements.

The book briefly discusses the Language Movement of 1952, Mass Uprising of 1969 and the Movement for Democracy in 1990. It, then, provides an extensive critical analysis of the 2013 Shahbag movement and the political events and the overall atmosphere of the democratic space ever since. It also provides an analysis of the new movements, i.e the “No VAT” movement of 2015, and the quota reform movement and the road safety movement of 2018.

The book shows how the new movements have learned from the old movements and how they are increasingly improving in terms of methods and tactics. It also provides critiques of the methods used historically and the methods amended. It also provides a brief history of the past and the contemporary, and discusses, in some detail, the third force leadership that is brewing from the leaders and participants of the movements of the past decade that can lead to new politics in the Bangladeshi landscape in this decade.