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JANUARY 24 is observed as Mass Uprising Day in Bangladesh, commemorating the 1969 movement that, fuelled by the radical and revolutionary energy of the global 1960s, toppled the decade-long dictatorship of Pakistan’s military ruler Ayub Khan. The day honours the martyrs of that struggle, most memorably the teenage activist Matiur Rahman Mallik, who left behind a moving note to his mother: ‘Mother, I am going to the procession; if I don’t return, I fear I have become a martyr.’ I have seen new Matiurs emerge in our own time, etched in collective memory is Abu Sayeed, killed by police fire during the July 16, 2024 uprising. The true significance of the 1969 mass uprising lies not only in resisting the orchestrated violence of Ayub Khan’s military-bureaucratic regime or in his eventual downfall, but also in its enduring legacy of people’s defiance and sacrifice.

Can a single image encapsulate the vast history of a mass movement written in blood? Is it possible for the political and the historical to converge and crystallise within the luminous space of a singular poetic image? Walter Benjamin, the German Marxist cultural theorist, offers a lens through his notion of the ‘dialectical image’, a moment where ‘what has been’ fuses with ‘the now’ in a sudden constellation, a flash of recognition. Such an image emerges powerfully in Shamsur Rahman’s iconic poem ‘Asader Shirt’ (Asad’s Shirt). The blood-stained shirt of Asad, brutally killed on 20 January 1969, becomes a visceral emblem, igniting outrage, stirring indignation and galvanising collective resistance. His death transformed a student-led struggle into a full-fledged mass uprising. In the poem, Asad’s shirt refuses to fade; it flutters across scorched hearts, awakened crowds, and the crossroads of a united consciousness, until it finally becomes the very flag of the people’s souls. Every mass uprising gives birth to such a symbol, or a constellation of them, drawn from shared rage and unyielding discontent, held together by a common purpose and carried forward by the voices and hands of a mobilised people.

Within the history of Bangladesh’s formation and its Liberation War against Pakistan’s neocolonial military-bureaucratic regime, the 1969 mass uprising stands as a defining milestone. In a comparable way, the unprecedented 2024 uprising, the largest in the nation’s history, has itself become a milestone, shaped by its own conjunctural conditions. Although these two movements differ, one confronting a foreign military despot and neocolonial subjugation, the other rising against a home-grown autocrat and a historically specific form of fascism, they are not wholly severed from one another. Here I find resonance with Italian philosopher and social theorist Alberto Toscano’s argument in ‘Late Fascism’ (2023): that fascism is mutable, and that ‘fascism, like other political phenomena, varies according to its socio-economic context.’ I do not claim a total rupture between 1969 and 2024, just as I resist positing a strict break between 1971 and 2024. Rather, these moments are deeply interconnected. I will return to this issue later; for now, I wish to chart some of the key thematic and politico-ideological trajectories of the 1969 mass uprising, an event best grasped through what I call its ‘dialectical temporality,’ a temporality animated by converging motions and historical resonances moving back and forth across time.

Every mass uprising must be understood as an unfolding process rather than a singular event. The 1969 uprising represented the climax of a long trajectory of resistance, rooted in deep structural inequalities and class contradictions produced by what I term a neocolonial mode of production, organically tied to the uneven development of global capitalism. East Pakistan, treated as a colonial periphery, generated vast wealth through agriculture and trade, yet remained trapped in stark economic disparity with West Pakistan. The working class and peasantry bore the heaviest burdens of this exploitation, suffering from acute poverty, recurring food crises and relentless price hikes. The One-Unit policy, along with the 1968 Agartala Conspiracy Case, brought against Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, further inflamed popular anger. Under Pakistan’s militarised state structure, democracy was virtually absent, with power concentrated in the hands of a comprador bourgeoisie and feudal elites aligned with imperialist interests, leaving workers and peasants especially disenfranchised, an injustice repeatedly underscored by the movement’s most prominent leader, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani.

Culturally, the attempt to impose Urdu as the sole state language and to erode East Bengal’s distinct identity only deepened and accelerated the growth of an increasingly insurrectionary Bangalee nationalism. The 1952 Language Movement erupted as a foundational act of resistance against this domination, linking the struggle for language and culture with broader political demands for justice. These intersecting grievances and accumulated hardships ultimately drew students, workers, peasants and intellectuals into the collective uprising against Ayub Khan’s regime in 1969. It is worth stressing a point often neglected in mainstream or partisan accounts: in 1968, Maoist revolutionary Siraj Sikder was the first to theorise East Pakistan as ‘a colony of West Pakistan,’ advancing the call for armed struggle to establish an independent and socialist East Bengal. Any political, theoretical and conceptual account of the 1969 mass uprising remains incomplete without acknowledging the contributions of left revolutionary figures such as Maulana Bhashani and Siraj Sikder. The fascistic narratives of the Awami League have consistently erased or sidelined their roles, just as they have downplayed the centrality of peasants and workers, without whose sacrifices the uprising cannot be meaningfully understood.

Why, then, is January 24 observed as Mass Uprising Day in Bangladesh? As noted earlier, the killing of leftist student leader Amanullah Mohammad Asaduzzaman (remembered simply as Asad) on 20 January unleashed a wave of public outrage, his blood-soaked body, and especially his shirt, emerging as a potent emblem of resistance, even a ‘material force’ in the Marxist sense, fusing grief with fury across the region. Just days later, on 24 January, the police killing of young Matiur Rahman Mallik, alongside fellow students Mokbul, Rustam and Alamgir, escalated mass indignation to unprecedented heights. Yet this was no spontaneous eruption; it was the culmination of a resistance already in motion. Maulana Bhashani had set the stage by calling for strikes from 6 December 1968, actions that claimed lives but also intensified defiance. His call for a nationwide strike and closure of markets on 29 December reignited public momentum, while students soon advanced their 11-Point Programme demanding full autonomy for East Pakistan, which gained traction by mid-January 1969. On 24 January, nearly half a million people assembled at Paltan Maidan. Their resolve was unmistakable, yet they exercised restraint: rather than storm the Governor’s House, they marched instead to Iqbal Hall after Matiur’s funeral prayers. This unprecedented unity of students, workers, and political parties carried the struggle beyond the state’s control.

Yet ruling-class narratives routinely erase or sideline martyrs already marginalised in their lifetimes. Such erasures are, at their core, matters of class politics. Consider Hasanuzzaman and Janu Mia, workers gunned down in Chittagong on 24 January 1969, or Anwara Begum, after whom a little-known park in Farmgate, Dhaka is named. She was killed by police on 25 January while nursing her four-month-old daughter, Nargis, at her Nakhalpara home. The uprising claimed the lives of countless other peasants and workers, a full record of whom no state has ever compiled. Still, a few names deserve remembrance: Abu, a bicycle mechanic killed in December 1968; Musa Mia, a labourer from Faujdarhat; and farmers Mia Chan, Hasan Ali, and Cherag Ali from Hatir Diya, all of whom gave their lives. In January 1969, workers such as Sorol Khan, Anwar Ali and Julhas Sikder were killed in Dhaka, Shimulia, and Siddhirganj. February brought further sacrifices, including Abdul Ali in Dhaka, press worker Ishaq in Nazirabazar and workers Lokman, Mujibur Rahman, Hafizur Rahman and Abdur Rahman in various regions. Others included tailor Atahar Khan, carpenter Abul Hashem, and hotel worker Shamsu, ordinary labouring people who became extraordinary martyrs. Their sacrifices testify to the central role of peasants and workers in fuelling the struggle against Ayub Khan’s regime.

Yet the 1969 uprising, despite its revolutionary aspirations, lacked a cohesive revolutionary party or unified platform capable of channelling its momentum into lasting transformation. While leaders such as Maulana Bhashani and the student movement played pivotal roles, the divisions within the left and the dominance of status quo–oriented political forces ultimately blunted, if not dismantled, its radical potential. As a result, Ayub Khan’s dictatorship gave way not to genuine democracy but to another military regime under General Yahya Khan, one that quickly betrayed the people’s will and eventually unleashed genocide in East Pakistan. Even so, the uprising achieved critical gains. It forced the Pakistan government to release Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all others implicated in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, a major victory for the movement. It also pushed the Six-Point Demand to the forefront, solidifying it as the central call for East Pakistan’s autonomy. At the same time, the uprising fostered the growth of class consciousness and propelled class struggles in both rural and urban settings. Most importantly, it deepened the aspiration for an independent state, laying the groundwork for Bangalee nationalism to assume a decisive role in the Liberation War of 1971.

East Pakistan and, later, Bangladesh have witnessed five major uprisings that shaped their political trajectory. The first was the 1952 Language Movement, which awakened East Bengal’s political consciousness and led to the Muslim League’s downfall in 1954. The second, the 1969 mass uprising, toppled Ayub Khan, though military rule soon continued under Yahya Khan. The third came in 1971, when relentless popular movements brought the state to a standstill and opened the path to the Liberation War. The fourth was the 1990 uprising that overthrew Ershad’s autocratic regime. The fifth and most recent began with the quota reform protests against job reservations and campus repression, which transformed into a broader and unprecedented nationwide movement, now remembered as the July uprising.

No uprising, movement, or even revolution can ever be deemed an absolute success or an absolute failure. As the great African writer and activist, my comrade, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o reminds us, there is a crucial difference between ‘independence’ and ‘liberation.’ While we achieved independence, the quest for genuine liberation remains profoundly unresolved in our history. It is in this sense that 1969 and 2024 are bound together: the unfinished struggle for equality, social justice and human dignity has carried forward across generations. And yet, the road ahead remains long, with much still to be achieved.

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Md Habibul Haque is a lecturer of English at ZH Sikder University of Science and Technology.