New Delhi, Feb. 3 -- The youth-led uprising in 2024 in Bangladesh succeeded as a moment of collective emotional mobilization through the ideals of 1971 and in Bengali cultural pluralism. Mobilization did not evolve through clear leadership or a roadmap. But through a shared political language, shared symbols through graffiti, memes, and images. The graffiti on the walls and the memes on social media painted a picture of pluralism. Most importantly, shared moral roots are driven by freedom, dignity, justice, and resistance to discrimination.

The uprising was held together more by a shared moral imagination. This imagination drew from the Bengali civilizational foundation, and that is the Liberation War and the Bengali tradition of religio...