When symbols, memory and interpretations of history dominate in the governance of a country rather than policy, economics or practical administrative decisions, the meaningful world of symbols and signs becomes an arena of intense political contestation. There can be no vacuum here—especially in moments of rapid transition. Over the past decade and a half, portraits, statues and unidirectional historical narratives built with state funds have functioned everywhere as a kind of “consent-manufacturing machine”.
During the mass uprising of 2024, this costly mural culture was confronted by fast, spray-painted graffiti. Its language was different—one that polite society does not easily comprehend. At the same time, the raw energy of rap music, Awaaz Uda, effectively overwhelmed many official narrative machines. Meme culture joined this assemblage.
Four decades ago, Bangladesh’s avant-garde writers, the little magazine movement, new waves of cinema and advertising agencies variously popularised colloquial speech in opposition to standardised Bangla and the Kolkata-centric “bhadralok” idiom. At one point, under social pressure, there were even attempts to ban “Banglish” in advertising. That language politics has since shifted hands again and arrived with a new generation, in the form of graffiti that neither “care” nor recognise anyone.
It was precisely this coded language that allowed the intensity and momentum of the street movement of 2024 to slip, to a significant extent, beneath the gaze of governing institutions. To surveillance agencies, the embedded signals of these languages appeared utterly alien, messages from another planet, for which they possessed no dictionary. In this context, a comment circulating on social media about the hollowness of conventional television statements is particularly telling: “This generation grew up watching Christopher Nolan films, and you are now trying to feed them stale movies by Delwar Jahan Jhantu.”
New statues, highways or museums require long timelines. Rather than waiting, in the months following the fall of the old regime the city’s streets turned into a new canvas for slogans, icons and images. Yet the graffiti and scrawls of the uprising were not, in one sense, symbolic artefacts. The graffiti of that moment was spray-painted—quick, covert, monochrome or red. By contrast, many of today’s graffiti are formal, slow and multicoloured. Even so, by reading these graffiti, one can analyse certain future-oriented “European hopes” (the aspiration for a rational and just society).
There is a Bengali proverb: “What is written on the forehead cannot be erased.” Yet when one looks at the continuous conflicts and struggles that shape Bangladesh’s history, it becomes clear that graffiti on the wall are rewritten again and again at every new conjuncture—always accompanied by the risk of erasure.
Anthropologist Lotte Hoek’s 2009 research, based on fieldwork with the workers who paste on walls posters of Dhaka’s films, is instructive here. These young men would paste posters at night announcing films as “coming soon”. Hoek shows that Dhaka’s walls are “densely populated” and constitute a kind of “competitive symbolic and material site”, where film posters compete with those of political parties. At that time, a certain balance existed among multiple political forces in the city. Over the past decade, that competition has disappeared; the walls have been taken over by state-sanctioned murals and posters.
Since the uprising, the expansion of authorised graffiti has been striking. These often extend across multiple walls, indicating time and permission—or at least support. They are executed slowly, in daylight; they are not nocturnal, anonymous, on-the-go postings. Alongside generational slogans, commemorations of martyrs and meme memory, these murals are also performing another important role. Humayun Azad asked, “Is this the Bangladesh we wanted?”. In response to that question, they appear to offer a manifesto: “What kind of Bangladesh do we want?”
This question also circulates persistently within the ongoing seminar culture. From the RC Majumdar Auditorium at Dhaka University to YouTube panel discussions, PVC backdrops frequently display the words kemon (what kind) and chai (we want), filled in with “university”, “culture”, “literature”, “cinema”, and so on. Compared with these bhadralok claims, the language of the wall communicates far more directly with its audience.
Yet even this directness has its weaknesses. Set against European hope, there exist powerful groups within society and the state that desire no part of these changes.
Some murals are far more specific. In places one sees tea-garden workers, who went on strike in early August 2024. Elsewhere, the rights of indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are articulated in more direct terms. These graffiti offer an initial outline of the possible position, vulnerabilities and contestations surrounding secularism within a new political settlement.
One image depicts a bloodied fist bearing a flag alone, with a rising sun behind it, rendered in a Japanese “manga” style. Below appear the silhouettes of a mosque, church, gurdwara and temple. While the composition recalls the iconic 1971 poster “Amra Shobai Bangali” (We are all Bengalis), the bloodied flag is a new addition. In another version, the flag is replaced by a “helicopter gunship” as a symbol of the adversary, with the word “Struggle” emblazoned in large letters.
This mural is executed in the idiom of Soviet realist posters. Below are three faces that bring together religion and ethnicity; the third face in particular signals both indigenous and Buddhist identity. In other murals, faith is represented through clothing. The slogan is familiar: “Religion is personal; the state belongs to all.”
However, the articulation of aspiration through murals has its own limits. In the year following the uprising, religious and social pressures on women have increased; attacks on Hindu and indigenous communities have also occurred. In this context, the language of some murals has begun to express anxiety. Emotion shifts away from European hope towards dystopian apprehension (the fear of an imagined society defined by pervasive misery). Warning messages now appear on the walls. Once again, figures from multiple faiths are depicted, with the words above them: “Listen—don’t try to mix religion and country, or else what will you name the flower, (Krisnachura), Fatema Chura?”
Here, the name “Fatema” is invoked as that of a Muslim woman, alongside the anxiety of replacing it with the name of the Hindu deity Krishna; yet the language feels somewhat dated and static. The sentiment of secularism is laudable; “the state belongs to all” is unquestionably our collective goal. Still, in the idiom of this ideal there appears a certain loss of momentum.
In Bangladesh, the language of secularism has largely occupied a defensive position for 55 years. For five decades it has primarily articulated what it does not want, without clearly stating what it does want. As a result, a gap in popular connection has persisted. Declarations of secularism written in bright colours on walls quickly fade when confronted with the real equations of power.
There is a Bengali proverb: “What is written on the forehead cannot be erased.” Yet when one looks at the continuous conflicts and struggles that shape Bangladesh’s history, it becomes clear that graffiti on the wall are rewritten again and again at every new conjuncture—always accompanied by the risk of erasure.
* Naeem Mohaiemen is Director of Graduate Studies, Visual Arts, Columbia University
* The views expressed are the author’s own