Dhaka’s recent nights of crude blasts and burned buses felt like scenes the city has watched many times before. Reports noted explosions in several parts of the capital including Mirpur, Agargaon and Dhanmondi, and several buses set on fire after dark. The incidents were small in number but instantly recognizable. The method is old, and the thinking behind it has barely changed.
Bangladesh has seen this cycle during almost every period of political tension. Small groups move onto the streets, a bus burns, commuters panic for a night, and the next day the country is asked to read the moment as a sign of shifting power. The Fire Service record from late 2023 captured the scale of this practice. Between October 28 and 13 November, it documented 154 arson incidents nationwide, 94 involving buses. These figures underline a simple reality. Arson has become part of the political toolkit. It is used to generate pressure without taking responsibility.
This reliance on spectacle reveals a troubling habit. Many political actors still believe visible disruption can substitute for clear political argument. They treat acts of intimidation as a shortcut to public attention. Shake the city for a few hours, dominate the headlines, and present it as proof of influence.
This mindset assumes people still respond to fear the way they once did. They do not. A burned bus angers the public; it does not persuade them.
Commuters who face disruptions form neither admiration nor loyalty. They grow tired. Waves of political violence over the past decade have produced this reaction again and again. The pattern is consistent. Disruption breeds frustration, and frustration erodes whatever moral position the actors behind it hope to claim. Spectacle no longer produces political momentum. It produces impatience.
Failures in accountability deepen the damage. After major incidents, announcements about arrests or investigations appear quickly. Yet press reporting from earlier cycles shows how little follow-through many of these cases receive.
Files reach court late. Evidence is thin. In some instances the wrong people were detained while those actually involved walked free. This is more than an administrative weakness. It sends a signal to those who might repeat the tactic that the risks are low and the consequences limited.
For years, political culture has depended on quiet networks of people who can be mobilized to block roads, intimidate neighbourhoods, or damage property. Inside party circles, these groups are presented as assets, proof of organizational muscle.
In reality, they expose a lack of confidence in policy or negotiation. When a political movement relies on street pressure, it acknowledges its own inability to win through ideas.
Many political leaders still assume that ordinary people do not understand policy and that their choices revolve mainly around party symbols. This assumption no longer matches reality.
People follow prices, services, corruption, job prospects, and the direction of the country. They may not use technical vocabulary, but they recognize when institutions fail them.
Treating the public as unaware does not conceal political weaknesses. It exposes them. The gap lies not in public understanding but in how little political leaders have updated their thinking.
A younger generation has widened this gap even further. With access to the internet and broader sources of information, they compare policies, watch global debates, and judge leaders by what they deliver. They do not respond to symbolic theatre the way their parents once did.
The July protests made this clear. Young people showed that they have little patience for leaders who rely on confrontation rather than competence. When the public demands explanations and receives noise instead, the result is not fear but loss of respect.
The media environment has shifted as well. Disruptive incidents that once dominated coverage for days now lose attention within hours. Social media speeds this process even more. A video of a burning bus appears online, and within minutes people start asking who benefits, who organized it, and why it happened exactly there.
Users compare angles, question claims, and expose inconsistencies. This quick, public scrutiny cuts through the intended message. What once looked like a show of strength now often appears as a sign of desperation.
All of this points to a central truth. The politics of spectacle is reaching its limit. It cannot address the country’s complex challenges.
It does not move voters. It does not strengthen institutions. It signals weakness and contributes to the erosion of political credibility. A party that relies on intimidation announces, without saying it openly, that it has run out of ideas.
Dhaka’s recent unrest is therefore more than a security concern. It is a reminder of a larger political failure. Leaders still rely on force because they have not renewed their message. They repeat the same tactics because they have not learned how to speak to a changing nation.
July offered a glimpse of what can happen when the public has had enough. A generation that felt ignored stepped forward, and the political class found itself responding rather than leading.
If politicians continue to lean on spectacle instead of substance, the next rupture may come faster and be far harder to contain. The public has changed. The tools have not. And a political order that refuses to evolve will eventually lose its place in the country it once shaped.
Md Kawsar Uddin, Associate Professor, Department of English and Modern Languages, IUBAT – International University of Business Agriculture and Technology.
