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IT IS an eternal reality that societies cannot remain static. Change is inevitable, sometimes forced upon people by the sheer weight of history, sometimes demanded through the sweat and sacrifice of ordinary citizens who dare to imagine a better tomorrow. From ancient times to the present, upheavals have marked the path of humanity. Yet one question lingers like an unshakable shadow: do these changes genuinely alter the condition of the common people, or do they merely rearrange the furniture of power while leaving the house itself in disrepair?

The great agitations that swept through South Asia in recent times once again bring this question to the forefront. In Bangladesh, the massive student protests of 2024 toppled Sheikh Hasina, who had ruled for over a decade and a half. In Sri Lanka, the Aragalaya movement of 2022 forced the resignation of the Rajapaksas after economic collapse left citizens queuing for fuel and food. Nepal has witnessed waves of unrest against corruption and systemic stagnation. In India, protests and agitation often flared up on issues ranging from agricultural reforms to regional identity. Each of these struggles carried with them immense hope, as if a new dawn had finally arrived. And yet, the everyday person, the rickshaw-puller in Dhaka, the shopkeeper in Colombo, the farmer in Terai, wonders quietly: Where is the change we were promised?

The paradox is not new. History is littered with revolutions that consumed themselves, leaving the common people with little more than disillusionment. As the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once warned, ‘The people of England think they are free; they are greatly mistaken; they are free only during the election of members of parliament.’ One could easily adapt his words to South Asia today: the people think they have won freedom when a leader falls, but what follows is often a reproduction of the same patterns — ego-driven leadership, suppression of dissent, corruption and disregard for the public good.

When power is merely transferred rather than transformed, change becomes a hollow ritual. Political scientists often describe this as ‘circulation of elites’ — a concept popularised by the Italian theorist Vilfredo Pareto. In his analysis, societies do not fundamentally alter their structures of domination; they merely rotate who sits on the throne. Old rulers fall, new rulers rise, but the logic of power remains intact. The slogans may differ, the symbols may be updated, but the experience of the people remains the same.

This reality is painfully evident in the aftermath of Bangladesh’s recent student-led mass uprising. Students had poured into the streets, chanting against authoritarianism, demanding justice for generations of wrongs. Yet, within months, the country’s interim arrangement began resembling what it had replaced. Familiar accusations of nepotism and inefficiency re-emerged. The mood of hopeful sacrifice turned into murmurs of ‘business as usual.’ As one Dhaka University student put it in frustration, ‘We didn’t risk our lives so that the same script could be played with new actors.’

Sri Lanka tells a parallel story. The dramatic images of protesters storming the presidential palace in Colombo in 2022 captured global attention. For a brief moment, it appeared as if a people crushed by inflation and shortages had finally reclaimed their agency. Yet, two years later, the economic malaise lingers, debt restructuring drags on, and political compromises dilute the radical promise of change. The protesters who dreamed of a ‘system change’ find themselves confronted with a stubborn truth: institutions do not reform themselves easily, and those who benefit from the system rarely volunteer to dismantle it.

The question, then, is not whether societies need change — they surely do — but what kind of change is sustainable, meaningful and truly emancipatory. Mahatma Gandhi once remarked, ‘The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within.’ The same applies to change. A movement that focuses only on replacing faces without transforming institutions risks becoming a performance rather than a revolution.

One of the recurring features of South Asian upheavals and uprisings is the rhetoric of vilifying the past. Every new leadership frames its legitimacy on condemning what came before. ‘All that was past is bad; all that is now is good.’ This template has been replayed endlessly, creating a vicious circle. People are told to erase their disappointment, for the new dawn has finally arrived. Yet dawn after dawn, the daylight looks eerily similar. The cycle of destruction and reconstruction becomes endless, without ever breaking from the design of the past.

This is not only a regional phenomenon. Revolutions elsewhere echo the same lessons. The Russian Revolution of 1917, which promised the withering away of the state, produced one of the most centralised states in history. The Arab Spring, which lit the imagination of millions across the Middle East and North Africa, often devolved into civil war or renewed authoritarianism. The American historian Crane Brinton, in his classic work The Anatomy of Revolution, observed that revolutions tend to move in predictable stages — moderate beginnings, radical overreach, authoritarian consolidation and eventual normalisation. South Asia’s current struggles seem to follow this very script.

But should we resign ourselves to cynicism? If change is always betrayed, is it futile to seek it? Here lies the philosophical dilemma. On the one hand, the sacrifices of students in Dhaka, the queues of ordinary Sri Lankans, the resilience of Nepali youth are too real to dismiss. On the other hand, history whispers caution: without structural transformation, sacrifice risks becoming little more than ritual bloodletting. The German philosopher Hegel once wrote, ‘The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.’ It is a bitter truth, but perhaps an avoidable one if societies consciously refuse to repeat the template.

What, then, makes change meaningful? The answer lies not in the grandeur of revolutions but in the humility of governance. True change means dismantling systems of patronage, decentralising power, ensuring accountability and prioritising public welfare over ego. It means creating structures where dissent is not punished but integrated into decision-making. It means avoiding the intoxication of power that transforms liberators into tyrants. Above all, it means recognising that leadership is service, not inheritance.

The recent experiences of South Asia highlight how fragile this ideal remains. Bangladesh has yet to prove that its current trajectory can avoid the trap of repeating the past. Sri Lanka continues to struggle with the burden of debt and the inertia of institutions. Nepal’s experiment with republicanism is constantly shaken by corruption and factionalism. And India, though often portrayed as a regional giant, is no stranger to protests that reveal the discontent simmering beneath its democratic surface. Each country, in its own way, illustrates how hard it is to convert upheaval into sustainable justice.

And yet, the persistence of hope cannot be dismissed. Every uprising, even when betrayed, carries within it a seed of possibility. The very act of people rising against injustice testifies to their belief in something better. Even when the fruit is denied, the sacrifice is not meaningless — it keeps alive the moral demand for accountability. Rabindranath Tagore once wrote, ‘Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.’ That faith, however bruised, is what sustains societies through repeated cycles of disappointment.

But faith must be paired with wisdom. To demand change without building structures for it is to prepare for disappointment. To sacrifice without designing institutions is to waste blood. The challenge for South Asia — and indeed for all societies — is to break free from the endless rotation of rulers and to begin the harder work of reshaping the state itself. Otherwise, every generation will rise in hope, bleed in sacrifice and whisper in despair, ‘My life has been wasted.’

The real question, then, is not simply where the change is, but who will make it real, and how. For if change is only measured in the fall of leaders, then history will remain a stage where actors change costumes but the script remains the same. And if we do not learn from that script, then change will continue to come and go until time itself buries us under the ruins of our own repetition.

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HM Nazmul Alam is a Dhaka-based academic, journalist, and political analyst.