There can be no denying that what happened on August 5, 2024, with the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, was also a huge turning point in the nation's ongoing Culture Wars, that date back to at least 2013 in a quite concrete sense, with the Shapla Chattor v Shahbagh debate.

While Shapla Chattor represented the madrasah-going, largely Islamist element in Bangladesh society, Shahbagh represented the secular middle class. The first half of march has witnessed a revival of this debate, although it has taken disturbing extremist turns. It all started with an incident of misogyny on March 3, when two women were attacked by a mob allegedly over smoking in a public place near NHA tower at Lalmatia in the capital.

The two female students were harassed over smoking in the area, police said, adding that they went to the scene, rescued the students and took them to Mohammadpur police station.

Later, the matter was resolved through police-mediated talks between the two parties and the two students were released in the custody of their families.

The incident occurred when an elderly resident allegedly asked two university female students, sitting on chairs on a footpath at Lalmatia, to get up from there. The women, who were customers at a nearby tea stall, then asked why they should move, and an altercation occurred.

The elderly man ordered the tea stall owner to remove all the chairs. Later, a 'mob' of 40-50 people gathered at the scene. The elderly man claimed to the mob that the girls were smoking cannabis, although they denied this, saying they were only smoking cigarettes.

A Facebook post the next day, detailing the victims' account, said that the two women were surrounded by the mob, and were slapped and punched by 10-12 men. The elderly man allegedly shouted expletives at the women and at one point of the verbal altercation, one of the women threw tea at the man. The man then grabbed her hair and began to strike her, eyewitnesses said.

Meanwhile, the embattled home affairs adviser, already fighting a surge in crime, commented that smoking in public was prohibited for both men and women - essentially legitimising the violent actions of the mob.

"It's a crime for both men and women to smoke in public and everyone should adhere to it. I urge everyone not to smoke outside," retired Lieutenant General Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury told reporters, responding to a query about the attack.

Give the anarchist a cigarette

Alam's words also painted the false picture that men may also have faced such an attack, when clearly the problem was that two women were doing it. For some reason, Bangladeshis are particularly sensitive to the sight of women smoking. According to Naziba Basher, a journalist for The Daily Star:

"It is not about the consumption of tobacco (chewing zarda, for instance) but the act of smoking by women that is generally associated with Westernised rebelliousness, that almost automatically lends itself to "bad character." Women who smoke are frequently labelled as "wayward," implying they lack traditional values."

Women and girls have become an unwitting battleground in the latest version of the Culture Wars. Truth be told, they always have been. Given the number of expectations and norms attached to women that have proliferated in society over the years, from what they wear to to how they speak, this is perhaps to be expected.

The home adviser's characterisation was certainly not helpful. Together with the deteriorating crime situation, that saw some highly publicised incidents coming to the fore around the same time, it prompted a cross-section of people, including students and cultural activists, to burn his effigy in front of the Jatiya Sangsad in the capital, demanding his removal for failing to ensure security of people, particularly women.

Protesters under the banner of 'Dhorshon o Nipironer Biruddhe Bangladesh' (Bangladesh against Rape and Persecution) said that the home adviser had failed to provide security to people and contain crimes. Some of the women attending the rally symbolically lit cigarettes to symbolise that they have as much right as men to choose their vices. Some men joined the rally too.

Organisers were at pains to insist however, that their point was not at all about encouraging women-or men-to smoke. They argued that while smoking in public may be subject to legal restrictions, it does not justify physical assault. They also criticised the adviser for failing to acknowledge the criminal actions perpetrated by the attackers against the two women in Lalmatia.

They possibly intercepted the line of attack their critics would follow. And the backlash was as swift as it was vicious. The word went around that rather than being genuinely aggrieved protesters, those who organised the rally were a bunch of 'Shahbaghis' who were just looking to stoke up issues to disrupt the path the country was on. And of course pave the way for the Awami League to make a comeback in the nation's politics, after the most spectacular capitulation of a ruling party we have seen in modern times.

The aims and objectives of the Shahbagh movement in 2013 dovetailed nicely with the political objectives of the Awami League, of course, and helped lay the groundwork for the meaningless elections of 2014, 2018 and 2024. As such, to say that the AL were the vanguards of the movement would be an understatement. It was, for all intents and purposes, the architect. It started out as a protest, then transformed into a 'movement', that was essentially sustained for months on end by the government's clear patronage. Police protection, free biryani, WiFi, etc were all thrown into the package used to entice protesters. Or let's just say participants.

Beyond playing its intended part in shaping public opinion at the time, which was then amplified to weigh on court judgements, and allow some glaring breaches of international standards in the workings of the International Crimes Tribunal, it is difficult to gauge any lasting impact of the movement today. Yet among the conservative, Islamist-minded segments of society - and this applies to both the more political, Jamaat Islami Bangladesh strand and that represented by the alliance of madrasahs, Hefazot e Islam - 'Shahbaghi' still stands today as a term of derision, capable of instantly discrediting someone.

As the anti-misogyny protests kept raging, one of the organisers of the movement, an activist called Adrita Roy, who is a student at Jahangirnagar University, was attacked as a 'Shahbaghi', drawing on the fact that she is the daughter of Anjan Roy, who worked for media outlets that were part of the AL's own network of "Godi Media", with little regard for journalistic standards. Roy himself was a big supporter of both Shahbagh and AL. But these assertions came a cropper, when it emerged that Roy Jr, i.e. Adrita, had been an active participant in the July 36 Movement that toppled the Awami League government.

She was even identified as one of the students in a famous image from the July-August protests, of three friends carrying a fellow protester to safety, amid chaotic scenes near the Dhaka University campus. She represents the difficulty in trying to capture the different contours of the new generation of Bangladeshis, if we insist on applying the same old microscopes, such as Shahbagh and Shapla Chattor. There will be many who don't fit either category.

Citizen Alom's view

Mahfuj Alom, once hailed as the mastermind of the movement last year, recently touched upon the new generation's view of the Shahbagh v Shapla dichotomy. It is worth quoting in length, in order to get a sense of those who won July, and their worldview:

Jamaat-e-Islami was complicit in war crimes. However, as Nahid Islam pointed out, they have atoned for their [past] actions through this uprising.

I too have stated that those in Jamaat who align with Bangladesh's interests have every right to participate in politics here.

With only a few exceptions among the new generation of Jamaat, none are pro-Pakistan. Therefore, the political rights of Jamaat and Chhatra Shibir cannot be stripped away by branding them as anti-independence.

Our battle must be won through political and ideological struggle, confronting their propaganda with the truth.

A significant portion of those who joined Shahbagh fell prey to a misguided sense of 'consciousness.'

Many students and young people weren't there due to Islamophobia, but simply to demand justice for war criminals.

The Awami League and left-wing Mujibists manipulated the emotional fervor of the youth to push their agenda for democracy, which culminated in a decade-long fascist regime marked by the disappearance, murder, rape, and oppression of opposition members.

However, many of the students and youth who once stood at Shahbagh have since recognized their errors and sought to move beyond the Mujibist narrative.

Over the past few years, they have actively fought against fascism-many have been injured or even killed in the process. These individuals are now our comrades. They played a pivotal role in this uprising, securing the defeat of the League and Mujibism.

They have already paid for their political misjudgments.

I personally went to Shapla Chattar during the long march out of my love for the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). I could not attend on May 5th though.

However, our interest was never in the trial of war criminals or the involvement of Jamaat leaders. Our sole purpose in coming to Dhaka was to honor and express our love for the Prophet.

I studied in a madrasa that followed the Sharsheena path, where Jamaat leaders were considered to hold misguided beliefs.

The execution of Jamaat leaders was seen as a consequence of their opposition to scholars and true 'Islam.' From childhood, we have known Jamaat as being anti-scholar and anti-religion.

What many may not realize is that most of the Shapla activists are actually opposed to Jamaat's ideology and leadership. Many of Shapla's leaders have been victims of Jamaat's hostility toward scholars and the Pir-path.

In fact, many have suffered oppression and torture at the hands of Jamaat and Chhatra Shibir leaders. Yet, Jamaat has effectively used them as proxies, just as the League used the 'Shahbaghis.'

(Translation from Bangla Outlook)

It is clear that Mahfuj set himself and his fellow activists apart from Jamaat, even though they are obviously closer to them than the previous regime.

Accommodation, not eradication

Towards the ultimate climax of the July-August movement, or even in its aftermath, the appearance of Arabic calligraphy in graffiti around the city, and the return of Qawwali music to social occasions, was actually enough to demonstrate the cultural shift underway, and to clearly signal which side was on the ascendancy. Even the return of the Pakistani artists to perform at live venues in Bangladesh fits in with a swinging of the pendulum in the opposite direction, from the one in which AL took it for 15 years.

Although the ramparts of 'Rabindrik' (Rabindranath Tagore -influenced) Bangaliana may be on the backfoot today, it would be foolish to discount their entrenchment in society, and not giving them their due space would only lead to the kind of explosion it required for Qawwali to make a comeback in Bangladesh.

Yet without strong foundations, any change the present dispensation is able to bring about will be unsustainable. After independence, Bangladesh underwent spectacular cultural innovation. Early statehood demanded the creation of a national culture, new transnational linkages brought novel ideas, and growing wealth among some groups found expression in new lifestyles, according to Willian Van Schandel, a Dutch historian of the region.

"The delta's culture was pulled in different directions, and clashing trends had to accommodate each other. It has been a half-century of renewed idealism and passionate soul-searching. Local political culture became more violent, and a new concern with Islamic propriety produced an intense dialogue with the liberalism on which the state had been grounded. A distinct youth culture emerged, and food and sports became important aspects of national culture," Van Schandel wrote in 2021.

When society is so polarised, culture wars find succour. Similarly, political discord too can beget these battles for domination. The key, in the long term, will be to develop the kind of tolerance we need, in order for all people and their cultures to thrive within the territory of Bangladesh.