Two years after mass protests forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from power on August 5, 2024, Bangladesh is still debating whether the uprising delivered lasting democratic change or merely a change of faces. The demonstrations — which began over government job quotas before broadening into a wider revolt against authoritarian rule and left roughly 1,400 people dead between July 1 and August 15, 2024, according to the UN — succeeded in ending Hasina's 15-year grip on power, but surveys show public optimism has since fallen sharply, with the share of citizens believing the country is on the right track dropping from 71 percent in August 2024 to 42 percent by July 2025. Critics point to stalled institutional reforms, the revival of contract-based political appointments, a rebranded successor to the dissolved Rapid Action Battalion (a paramilitary unit accused of serious abuses), and proposed cyber laws that opponents say could revive tools of censorship, while the government argues that democracy has been restored through elections and that contested ordinances are under revision rather than abandoned.