This isn’t just a story about street power and regime change. It is about a new semiotics of takeover. Dhaka protests have a dotted line all the way to Colombo, Lahore, and Washington.

The loot and ransacking of Sheikh Hasina’s residence Ganabhaban in Bangladesh points to a disturbing new way in which people revolt against power these days, but also how power is being redefined. It all began with the 6 January 2021 inquisition in Washington DC, followed by the 10 July 2022 takeover of the presidential house in Colombo. Then came 9 May 2023 in Lahore when protesters damaged military homes. And now in Dhaka, rioting.

This isn’t just a story about street power and regime change. It is about a new semiotics of takeover. Dhaka protests have a dotted line all the way to Colombo, Lahore, and Washington.

Protesters attacked and vandalised the offices, portraits, flags, and furniture in Capitol Hill. They took over the presidential palace home of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo, swam in the pool, ate the food, smashed the vases, watched TV, worked out in the gym, and napped on the sofa. They looted korma, coke, ketchup, and peacocks from the Pakistan Army Corps Commander’s home in Lahore. Now, they have looted and ransacked Ganabhaban in Dhaka—ate the food, brought down the portraits, stormed the bedroom, fled with silk saris, cutlery, and an elliptical machine.

All this as they took selfies and uploaded TikTok videos and Instagram Reels. In the age of algorithmic, spectacle politicians, the protesters are also resorting to ‘I was here’ Reels. Each of them is breaching the Bastille for their social media accounts.

To dismiss these images as vandalism is facile. Something else is at play. Not all of these protesters are poor, so robbery isn’t the main motive.

More importantly, these episodes of storming the ruling elite’s offices and homes are a commentary on the complex dynamics between the state of ‘establishment-democracy’ and the impatience of people power that wants to visibly take over the places of ruling privilege. It’s more than a socio-economic uprising and class warfare. It is an expression of being fed up with the entrenched ways of rulers and a visible demonstration of a desire to overthrow the status quo.

They are neither against democracy nor are they restoring it. They are protesting a particular kind of democracy that has come to be—one of an elite, entrenched privilegentsia. They are railing against the tired, well-established, unchanging, best-practices model of democracy. That is why this is different from the Arab Spring anger and street mayhem. 

Immediate action

This new style of performative takeover is closer to the ‘occupy’ mindset—an anger that threatened to shake the financial world in New York in 2011. To be present at the physical site of contestation, stomping your feet and sullying the pristine glow, is the new game. They are telling their followers what it is like to be inside and live like a royal. Not unlike the authenticity-seekers on Instagram where they immerse themselves in alien physical settings. 

The forcible takeover of a site is enacted for the visual virality of the internet era. It requires no slogans, placards, or lofty speeches. Creating viral images is enough. Just a beaming man wrapped in a new silk sari of Sheikh Hasina—so new that even the price tag is intact; a man tearing the chicken leg with his teeth as he looked into the camera; a man who lay down on her blue bedspread and posed; a woman walking away with a grey Dior suitcase.

In that moment, they have created an ellipsis in the history of democracy and power.

Impatience requires immediate and demonstrable action—I went to the presidential palace and vandalised a wall and here’s my video to prove it. I have disrupted political inertia,” is what the protesters appear to be saying. By soiling symbols of privilege, they are in a way rejecting the old ways of practising politics.

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Also read: Sheikh Hasina was no progressive. She knelt down to Islamic fundamentalists, created a demon

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Fragility of politicians

All these incidents demonstrate a new vulnerability of democratic systems to internal and external threats. These vengeful and impatient expressions against perceived injustice expose the growing distance between the ruling elite and the common people. Concentration of power in a democracy won’t be tolerated, especially as social media has given a taste of power to the people too. The woman who stole the Dior suitcase wasn’t poor. She didn’t look angry. She smiled for the cameras. The act of stealing the suitcase was her way of chipping away at concentrated power. 

Modes of protest are changing. And it’s a reminder that the work of democracy is an ongoing, continuous process. It doesn’t stop at elections. There is a demand for continuous political engagement.

The incident also highlights the trust deficit between citizens and their rulers. It reveals the fragility of politicians in a new democratic environment in which an ordinary person can become a powerful influencer on social media. Power is experienced in a dispersed way in the new era. And the people want the rulers to know that. When they pose for the video, the message is to the rulers, not just their followers. Democracy and Dior suitcases are both public properties.

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Also read: Sheikh Hasina made us a very proud generation. We thought Bangladesh would be next Malaysia

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No clear agenda

These are not social movements or revolutions. These are eruptions. The former require collective organising, identifiable leaders, and long-term objectives; eruptions lack such organised structures. They lack a clear agenda beyond expressing discontent. But they serve as wake-up calls that force rulers to come face-to-face with raw discontent that goes beyond the simple template of poverty and joblessness.

The problem here is that Washington DC, Colombo, Lahore, and Dhaka may be part of a worrying wave of copycat protests. If these turn into a fad, they will ultimately erode democratic institutions. What they are saying is that the traditional checks and balances of democracy are not enough.

Rama Lakshmi is Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports at ThePrint. She tweets @RamaNewDelhi. Views are personal.