A year ago, Sheikh Hasina was shoved out in a moment of cathartic collapse—equal parts arrogance, exhaustion, and engineered chaos. The students marched, the system cracked, and the West cheered. But what followed wasn’t freedom. It was a managed unraveling—by design, not accident. They said it was a revolution. They said we’d be free. What they got, instead, is a state run by hashtags, prayer caps, and baying mobs. The new regime came in like a TED Talk: clean suits, clean slogans, and a “transition plan” sold to diplomats in PowerPoint decks. The new regime came cloaked in borrowed nobility—"interim," "inclusive," "transitional." It was a farce, turns out. The old autocracy is gone, yes. But it’s been replaced not with democracy, but with drift—and at the heart of the drift: fear. The Awami League was banned without protest from the so-called guardians of democracy. Tens of millions disenfranchised overnight. No tears shed in Washington. No statements from Brussels. Only nods and nervous silences. Turns out, coups are fine—as long as they are polite and don’t get in the way of business. With Hasina gone, the Islamists emerged from the woodwork like it was 1979. Hizb ut‑Tahrir out in the open. Jamaat rebranded as “relevant stakeholders.” Even the caliphate whisperers got their moment. And no one—not the West, not the interim government—dared call it what it is: a creeping Islamist capture of the political vacuum. The clerics are no longer just at the podium. They’re in the ministries, the press rooms, the think tanks. And everyone else is either too scared or too “strategic” to object. The security vacuum didn’t take long to fill. With cops on their heels and the army sulking in barracks, it's open season for radicals. Murders are no longer ideological—they’re routine. The mobs decide guilt. Militancy doesn’t wear black anymore; it wears suits, badges, and prayer caps. Bombings, lynchings, communal riots—no centralized orders, just decentralized terror. The state’s only job now is to explain it all away. If you’re Hindu, Christian, Ahmadi, Buddhist, or tribal—congrats. You’ve been recategorized. Gone from “citizen” to “target.” Homes looted, temples torched, women targeted. Nothing spontaneous about it. It’s strategic. A purge without uniforms. And once the regime settled in, the journalists—the same journalists that cheered the revolution thinking they’d found freedom—were next. They’re either co-opted, exiled, or buried under legal threats and tax cases. Media is now sanitized. “Balance” means giving radicals a platform and calling it nuance. The West shrugs. As long as the headlines are in English and the Islamists don’t mess with investment flows, all is well. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel-buffed face of the new order, still promises elections. Eventually. Maybe. Once the Islamists are "listened to." Once the old guard is "re-educated." Once everyone learns to shut up and behave. No one’s buying it—except the foreign NGOs who write the press releases and sip coffee in Gulshan. Because let's be clear here: the U.S. helped light this fire. Let’s stop pretending otherwise. Hasina was a problem: too independent, too cozy with China, too defiant about Western lectures on “inclusive governance.” So they backed the revolt—not directly, but loudly and clearly enough. Now, they’ve got what they wanted: instability they can micromanage, a leadership weak enough to listen, and their man on the job. The new regime dances to every Washington tune. Promises elections, reforms, human rights—eventually. In exchange, it gets funding, attention, and quiet absolution for letting the Islamists run loose. Strategic patience, they call it. Strategic cynicism is closer to the truth. Pakistan is loving it. Their proxies have gone from underground to tolerated. The ISI doesn’t need to destabilize Bangladesh anymore—Bangladesh is doing it to itself. With Hasina out, Islamabad found its opening. Jamaat gets breathing room. Madrasas swell. The ISI's old networks have returned—not in the shadows this time, but through charitable fronts and “intercultural exchanges.” The goal? Not invasion. Just erosion. Slowly unravel Bangladesh’s secular, pluralist core until there’s nothing left to defend. This wasn’t an accident. It was a controlled demolition. Hasina was removed not for failing democracy, but for threatening a regional order not scripted in D.C. and Rawalpindi. What followed was precisely what her enemies wanted: a fractured Bangladesh, teetering between Islamist populism and geopolitical dependency. Bangladesh is not in transition. It’s in free fall. And the worst part? The collapse is quiet. No tanks in the streets. No fiery speeches. Just slow-motion surrender to fear, fanaticism, and fracture. This was never about Hasina. It was about what came after. And what came after is uglier, weaker, and far more dangerous. The people lost. The minorities lost. The secular project lost. But for the U.S. and Pakistan? This is the sweet spot: not too stable, not too strong, just easy to manage. So here we are. One year later. No freedom. No elections. Just slogans, mobs, and silence. The revolution ate its children. And then sold the bones to the highest bidder.