The power of humour, art in mass uprising
Young artists, singers and netizens are coming up with new ideas to express themselves and wash away the unease that loomed over the country for the past 15 years
For the past few days, our revolutionary students have decided to be on roads as volunteers to control the traffic, and fight 'dakats' (dacoits, robbers) throughout Bangladesh. And they have decided to spice up this social change with funny masks, costumes, slogans etc.
Young people are donning masks, Winnie the Pooh's mascot, etc, while performing traffic duties and guarding their area.
People in different residential areas hosted late night karaokes and community dinners while they guarded their homes. Some of the dacoits or robbers who were caught were made to sing and dance with the young volunteers.
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They are also detaining local 'chadabaz' or extortionists and painting their faces and bodies with 'I am a chadabaz' in black.
The videos and pictures are gaining traction all over social media platforms. Netizens are loving these and coming up with new ideas to guard the areas night after night. One picture showed two extortionists tied with the same belt around their waists!
In January 2024, Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of US history at Boston College, was interviewed by satirist Ben Tumin to speak about the rise of fascism in the US and how the Americans resisted it in the past. In the interview, Cox pointed out that it was focus and creativity that played a great part.
According to Cox, "In moments when it looks as if the hierarchical strand of history is going to win out, the answer has been to get creative. For example, the period after the Civil War in the US (in the 1860s) gave us new forms of literature. We still have around us the buildings, the murals, the sculptures, and the art from the 1930s. There are examples of extraordinary creativity from every inflection point in our history."
The words and raw expressions that we used in our songs, everyone could relate to them- a rickshahwala, a university student, someone who belonged to the upper class of the society, and even an army officer. What we said in our songs was something that was repressed for many years and suddenly, the truth was not hidden anymore.
This has been true throughout history. Take the graffiti art on the Berlin Wall before it fell in 1989. Or the songs, movies like Jibon Theke Neya by Jahir Raihan, posters and caricatures painted by Bangladeshi artists like Qayyum Chowdhury, Quamrul Hasan, Biren Shome etc during the war of liberation in 1971.
Any major social change gives birth to new forms of art, as Gloria Steinem said, "Like art, revolutions come from combining what exists into what has never existed before."
What Cox said could be applied in the context of present-day Bangladesh as well, where an authoritarian prime minister recently resigned and fled the country. In the past two months, starting from a government job quota reform movement to a mass uprising to topple a repressive regime in the country - we have encountered new voices on current events, new ways of thinking about politics, and new combinations of ideas that young people are pioneering.
This includes unconventional art forms that are not regarded as 'high culture', like rap music, sarcastic cartoons and illustrations, posters, graffiti, social media memes, funny posts etc.
Young artists, singers and netizens are coming up with new ideas to express themselves and wash away the unease that loomed over the country for the past 15 years.
Humour as a part of the protest
Recent developments in the field of social movement theory regarding ideologies, collective identities, and emotions are combined with insights from humourology.
In 1971, 'Charampatra', a comic radio show by M R Akter Mukul that was aired on Shadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, was a good example of that. It was highly popular among the people of Bangladesh.
In 2024, during the JUly revolution, memes and cartoons on Professor Zafar Iqbal flooded social media, when he commented that he will never step into the Dhaka University campus as it is the campus of 'razakars' (another word for traitors, those who helped the Pakistani regime during the war of 1971).
Zafar Iqbal had said it after Sheikh Hasina made that comment comparing the children of freedom fighters and the children of razakars.
Many others who either remained silent or were too vocal (for completely wrong reasons) during the protest were equally criticised by people. Those who came in the limelight for doing or saying obnoxious things were also not spared.
For example, Bangladeshi cricketer and former MP Shakib Al Hasan, DB officer Harun and his 'bhaater hotel' (he would take people in his office, torture them and then serve them food, and take pictures of it!), Obaidul Qader and his hilarious statements such as "she (Sheikh Hasina) has made us fly high" etc have been depicted in various cartoons and memes.
These images set people free in a way, as they began to share them on social media platforms, something that was unimaginable even a few months ago. After all, jailing cartoonists and humourists was a fairly common thing during Sheikh Hasina's reign.
The students have been checking vehicles for smuggled goods and money in various check posts. After checking everything, they are giving the driver a handwritten chit that says, 'chake', 'chick' etc which basically mean 'checked'. When asked about the spelling mistake, one of the volunteers said, "Every day, we change the spelling of the word, so that no one can cheat."
While patrolling on the streets at night, these young volunteers announce on mikes, "We are here on the roads. Do not worry. Just cook 'tehari' for us". Or "Come out dakat brothers, we have cooked khichuri for you guys".
In social protests, humour acts like a glue that binds everyone together and also uplifts their morale.
In 2008, Sociologist Sørensen, who studied humour in the Otpor movement as a strategy for non-violent resistance, listed three important factors behind this: 1) humour that provokes, mocks, or ridicules escalates the conflict and puts pressure on the oppressor, (2) it reduces fear within the resistance movement, (3) it reduces the oppressors' options for reacting. Humour and laughter make the rebellion more enjoyable, inclusive, joyful, irresistible and resilient.
A mass uprising ignited by unconventional art forms
On 16 July, six students were shot and killed by law enforcement agents. Abu Sayed, a university student in Rangpur, was one of them.
That night, a Bangladeshi rapper called Shezan released a song titled 'Kotha Ko' (Speak Up). The lyrics depicted how Abu Sayed stood tall in front of the shooting police officers, spreading his arms before being brutally shot. This moment captured on video ignited a mass protest.
The song's rebellious lyrics and powerful music urged people to speak up and overcome the fear imposed by the ruling regime and its brutal police force. Millions of people embraced the song overnight as their 'theme song' for a 'revolution against the dictator'.
In the following days, more rap music surfaced as at least 210 students were shot dead in the protests. That included 'Awaz Utha', meaning raise your voice, by rapper Hannan.
On 10 August, both of these rappers performed in Dhaka's Chobir Haat. When we asked what really made their song so popular, Shezan said, "The words and raw expressions that we used in our songs, everyone could relate to them - a rickshahwala, a university student, someone who belonged to the upper class of society, and even an army officer. What we said in our songs was something that was repressed for many years and suddenly, the truth was not hidden anymore."
It is true that the raw, provocative nature of rap songs has always allowed for expressions and criticisms that traditional music often cannot convey.
Artist Debashish Chakrabarty's iconic red and yellow posters have been popular throughout this entire movement. His posters have slogans like 'From the plains to the hills, everyone should be free', 'There is no bigger constitution than mass uprising', 'We will not allow you to betray the blood of the martyrs', 'The July revolution of students' etc.
Debashish has named the poster series 'Rashtro Jontrona' or the 'Pain of the State', which he started in 2020.
"The main themes of this series are the Bangladesh state, power relations, civil imagination, etc. I have tried to engage with the everyday experience of the people, find endless ways to address the state and envision the welfare and liberation of the masses. Along with this, there was a desire to imagine a different state as well," he told us.
