13, Lord Singh Road.
An office in Kolkata with no signboard, and a huge wooden door always closed. Inside, an armed soldier is guarding the house. Not a fly can enter this building (without any earlier reference)! Known as the most haunted house in Kolkata in those days, the office was super powerful but with no written job description. A pin drop silence permeated the office. Secrecy was of the uppermost importance.
This was the West Bengal office of the Intelligence Bureau during British India.
I pulled out from my bookshelves an ancient autobiography of my grandfather, Tero Numberey Panch Bochor. 13, Lord Singh Road used to be his workstation for five years, from 1926/27 to 1931/32. The book contains his insightful reflections, from the third decade of the 20th century, of the India imperial intelligence, and policing directed against revolutionaries in the Indian province of Bengal. The Indian officers were the primary mode of contact between informants and British officers.
Certainly, a valuable document describing key facts and events relating to the political and social revolutionary movements of that era. A vivid narration of what was happening in that special intelligence branch office of the police that no one outside knew about. Indeed, a time appropriate book to read about the tradition of our police intelligence unit.
The officers of the unit would collect masses of information and dig into the histories of Bengal revolutionaries so that they could strategize their future actions. Their extensive intelligence gathering would often, but not always, lead to a favourable outcome. Ahsanullah, an Indian Imperial Police intelligence officer, used to be a terror in the Hindu villages in Chittagong in the early 1930s. He was shot and killed by a poor 14-year-old boy and the incident was never resolved.
The powerful and most respected officer, Rai Bahadur, warned my grandfather not to ask anything of anyone, to show no curiosity whatsoever about what he would see, hear, or read, and to not even dare to discuss it with anyone, laugh, or speak loudly. To him, the inside of 13, Lord Singh was very spooky.
The book initially featured weekly in one of the newspapers. Later when my grandfather compiled the articles into a book in the 60s, it became very popular among Bengalis in both parts of Bengal.
It is early autumn in the northern hemisphere. The days are gloomy with intermittent drizzling rain outside. I sit at home with melancholy. Watching online the relentless streaming from Bangladesh. Images of demonstrations, sometimes turning violent, talk shows, the expert discussions by scholars, commentators dissecting the peoples’ concerns, and the causes of the recent uprising.
Politics is indeed like science -- as in Physics, where something in balance may suddenly topple or tip over when a small weight is added to it. The recent uprising around the quota issue resembled a small weight which tipped the structure. It started with students but soon people from all levels of society joined the protest movement.
What triggered the student uprising -- the widespread, intense, and violent protests that led to the death of hundreds of people nationwide and caused the worst political unrest in Bangladesh? Was it when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made a comment on razakars (a pejorative word that refers to those who supported the Pakistani military operation against the liberation war and committed heinous crimes) in response to a reporter’s question about the student protests? Or was it something else?
Over the past decades, Bangladesh had expanded its economy, which in recent years was one of the fastest growing in Asia. The country achieved a remarkable economic transformation, driven by a dramatic surge in garment exports and significant infrastructure investments that also stimulated a sharp rise in women’s employment. Over the past two decades, poverty rates have been halved, and Bangladesh’s per capita GDP surpassed that of India in 2019. The economy is poised to graduate from “least developed country” status in 2026.
Why then did the government fall? I keep wondering …
In recent years, the country has been suffering from one of its highest rates of inflation and unemployment, a deep drop in its foreign exchange reserves, which fell to about three months equivalent of imports. The GDP growth rate, which was about 7.5% five to six years ago, is now less than 4%. The exposure of corruption on print and social media is telling people that the benefits of economic growth are concentrated with the top powerful groups. The public thus started to lose faith in the official narratives of economic dynamism. Such unfortunate and sad irony!
I spend my time dwelling on things far, far away from the other end of the planet …
Not so long ago, during 2018-2019, Bangladesh confronted several serious public social unrests: Garment workers protesting their harsh working conditions and deteriorating real wages, massive demonstrations led by political parties that rocked the country after the 2018 general election, and a series of public protests ignited from July 29 to August 10, 2018, following the death of two high-school students in Dhaka after being struck by an unlicensed aggressive driver ignited a series of public protests.
The movement for improved road safety and strict traffic laws in 2018 spread rapidly throughout Bangladesh. Police brutality and deadly clashes at protest movement sites led to the deaths of many people. Even though people were increasingly disillusioned with traditional politics, and the omnipresence of fast-growing faulty governance that heightened the crony system, the protests could not gain much traction. These did not turn into a combined movement involving the middle class and youth. Why was it different this time?
Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping point, published more than 25years ago, popped into my head. He described a tipping point as “That magic moment when an idea, trend or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”
I reflect on Gladwell’s Tipping Point concept. He uses multiple examples to explain how these trends spread, but they all connect back to a few central concepts -- three things that every trend must possess to spread: The law of the few, a stickiness factor, and contagiousness. With these features present, little causes can have big effects, and change can happen in a single moment.
The 2024 protest was initially sparked by students demanding the abolition of the controversial 30% quota. The narrative had a stickiness that fit right into the heads of the public. It became contagious due to the high internet connectivity. Social media increased communication and awareness on social issues among civil societies, and played an extraordinary role in convincing the public about corruption across executive, legislative, and judicial powers.
I could see that the Gen Z students were quite innovative in using social media and could generate public pressure to force the regime to fall. They already had years of frustration about this government's deep-seated corruption. Corruption, of course, has its long legacy and has existed since ancient times. Nowadays, it is ubiquitous because of fast economic expansion -- the United Nations and World Economic Forum estimate the cost of corruption as equal to about 5% of global GDP. Certainly, this historical revolt against the Quota system was the literal breaking point of the pent-up frustrations with the regime.
The students belonging to the Gen Z generation hit the streets and created a rare opportunity for a broad coalition among opposition parties and civilians. Law enforcement officials came down in a high-handed manner that led to deadly chaos and confrontation which led to the deaths of many people. It started with the killing of Abu Syed (an unarmed protester) and eventually took the lives of many students, civilians, and also members of the law-and-order agencies.
Videos and images circulated on social media platforms of the police using deadly force and shooting at unarmed protesters. The images immediately reached the wider national and global viewers on the Web. Media and protesters blamed police for the spiraling death toll. This is how the 2024 movement, triggered by the quota issue, gained the ultimate momentum.
Scholarly studies have shown that emerging technologies and social media play a crucial role in influencing people’s perceptions and behaviors by disseminating information, raising awareness, and providing education. As a point of comparison, I thought about the Arab uprising in 2011, which spread like wildfire across the Arab world, spurring events that shook the region. At that time, their use of social media, such as live updating about protest planning, contributed to a discrete and successful mobilizational outcome. Facebook and Twitter facilitated the staging of large, nationwide, and leaderless protests.
Electronic media have become immensely powerful, much more than print media, as they shape the way individuals view the world, influencing their attitudes towards social, political, and cultural issues. People now consume their news from social media, and they are more polarized compared to traditional print news consumers.
I remember how I binged (online) the entire two seasons of the web series Mahanagar just a year ago on Hoichoi, a low-cost OTT platform like Netflix. While Netflix offers a wide variety of content, Hoichoi focuses on Bengali-language content.
Mahanagar, which consists of eight episodes per season, is a powerful production that gives a strong message against Bangladesh’s deteriorating police and law enforcement service. It provides a mirror to our own society. Indeed, a sweet spot of content -- gripping story, powerful acting, crime, and suspense -- and reflects the brutal reality that people face daily.
The actions revolve around a Dhaka police station, typical scenes where a group of criminals, an industrialist, media, and the public gather. The son of a rich and influential industrialist was driving drunk during midnight after leaving a party when he fatally hit a cyclist. The story then evolves. The Officer-in-Charge (OC) of a police station, OC Harun, implicates an innocent man using money and power. The man is brought to the police station and framed for murder. How this honest person gets trapped within a corrupt system resonated with incidents that take place regularly in people’s lives and reflect very well our current society. The many layers of deception and the multiple dimensions of complex corruption on Mahanagar built the most compelling dramatic narrative.
Mahanagar was a game changer for Bengali online web series. The series abounds in dramatic twists of vibrant crime and suspense. It is a masterpiece crime thriller, reflecting some recent heavyweight corruption cases involving law enforcement agencies, big business, and powerful politicians of the country. A genre with a startling effect, one that entertains but also triggers raw emotions. The characterization of OC Harun and others, and the details of the series kept us, the audience, on tenterhooks. It was also interesting to see the implications of the country’s real-time political and social climate unfolding on OTT platforms.
Generally, content strategy is dependent on what regional and international audiences like to watch as well as territory-dependent genres. The adoption of the genre and the story lines to focus on Bengali content creation is the basis of Hoichoi’s business strategy. I wonder if it is just a coincidence that after Hoichoi premiered Maganagar web series season 2 in 2023, a news report stated, “The platform has seen a 40% surge in direct subscriptions and a 60% rise in individual watch time per subscriber compared to 2022.”
As I think more about the storyline, I wonder about the Bangladeshi police force. It has never freed itself of its colonial legacy, something my grandfather described in his book. Its approach is public control, not community service. Not a surprise that its public image is not satisfactory. It has long been perceived to be corrupt and inefficient, and an instrument of political repression.
Content creators have a lot of power and influence. They shape public opinion and can even start social movements. Studies have shown that films are more persuasive than other media. These can powerfully change attitudes towards certain groups of people and generate hatred towards agencies.
Mahanagar reflected the internal workings of a local police station and the dark realities of our capital city. The accidents, occurrences, and intimidation are so real, and people could relate to this web series and feel that these things can happen to anyone! The audience felt scared and vulnerable. I wonder about the broader ramifications of the public backlash against OC Harun, the lead police officer in Mahanagar.
I wonder if people had already pressed the reset button a couple of years back and for them the quota issue was just the tipping point! Social media can bring positive changes but can inflame passions too, sometimes with dangerous consequences. During the July-August movement, the police not only killed but were also killed -- brutal victims of the public’s wrath. OC Harun’s voice is still ringing in my ears “… but you must remember two things: One is the truth can never be suppressed. Number two is you will face the consequence for what you have done.”
The 2025 Oscar nominations of the best international feature film category include India’s Lapatta Ladies, which highlights the unfairness of patriarchal rules of a corrupt police inspector in Indian society and how it impacts women. Kiran Rao, the director of the movie, spoke to the press about the film’s evolution. She admitted the extensive editing she did after the movie was made -- from serious social messages to comedy. She said, “it was her conscious choice to not demonize anyone or anything -- neither men, nor the society, when addressing the problems with how the society functions.”
I wonder which is more appropriate. Kiran Rao’s subtle approach (she wanted to give a solution from inside), or the brutal reality of Mahanagar (throwing things in the viewers’ face)?
Perhaps my grandfather, S’adat Ali Akhand, a special branch intelligence officer, implied in his memoirs that truths have consequences, and they may not be worth its full exposure!
Atiya Rumni Mahmood is a long-term resident of Maryland, who studied at University of Dhaka and University of Maryland at College Park, and worked in the greater DC Metro area in corporate finance and accounting. She enjoys cooking, reading and travelling.
