Just about two years ago, March 7 would arrive in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi, the area where I live, with a kind of orchestrated loudness that felt almost ritualistic.My parents live on Road No. 3A, the same road that once housed the Awami League chairperson’s party office before it was burned down after August 5, 2024. For years, every March 7 meant an unavoidable soundscape.Loudspeakers would blast Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s historic speech throughout the neighbourhood from morning until evening, often on a continuous loop. The speech would only briefly pause during the adhan from nearby mosques before resuming again.If you lived anywhere near that office, you probably did not choose to listen to the speech, you endured it.This year, however, March 7 arrived almost silently.The once-busy party office is still a charred ruin more than a year and a half after the uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic government. The crowds that once gathered there are gone.Newspapers carried the historic day in small columns rather than front-page celebrations. Apart from a few opinion pieces and scattered social media posts reflecting on the speech and Mujib’s legacy, the overwhelming spectacle that once defined March 7 in Dhaka was absent.This transformation is not merely about the fall of a regime. It reflects a deeper crisis surrounding the legacy of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in post-Hasina Bangladesh.There is little dispute that the March 7 speech remains one of the most important moments in Bangladesh’s history. Delivered before a massive crowd at the Racecourse Ground in 1971, the speech mobilised Bengalis during the escalating confrontation with the Pakistani state and effectively prepared the nation for the coming Liberation War.UNESCO later recognised it as part of the Memory of the World Register, acknowledging its historic significance.Also read: ‘What I Want Is Justice’: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Speech That Changed HistoryBut over the past decade and a half, the speech was transformed from a historical document into something far more political. Under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, the state institutionalised a narrative that centered almost entirely on Sheikh Mujib as the singular architect of Bangladesh.From sacred symbol to dustThis process gradually turned the speech into something resembling a sacred text in the official imagination of the state. The message that Bangladesh existed because of Mujib – and that loyalty to his legacy meant loyalty to the Awami League – became deeply embedded in government rhetoric and public commemorations.The process went beyond simple historical remembrance. Portraits of Mujib became mandatory in public institutions. “Mujib corners” were established in offices, schools, universities and government buildings. His birthday was celebrated with elaborate national events, and his speeches were regularly broadcast on state media.The narrative was that Mujib was the unquestioned father figure of the nation whose legacy the Awami League alone represented.This strategy helped Sheikh Hasina consolidate political legitimacy. But it also produced an unintended consequence. By tying Mujib’s legacy so tightly to the authority of her government, she made that legacy vulnerable to the backlash that would eventually emerge against her rule.The July-August 2024 uprising that forced Hasina from power was thus more than just a political revolt against an entrenched government; it was also a revolt against the symbols associated with it.During the protests and the chaotic months that followed, monuments dedicated to Mujib became targets of public anger. One of the most striking images of the period was the destruction of a massive golden statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka. The act was widely interpreted as a symbolic rejection of the cult of personality that had grown around him during the Awami League’s long rule.Soon after, demonstrators went even further. The historic residence at Dhanmondi 32 – once Mujib’s home and later a museum – was demolished during a period of intense unrest.For decades, the house had been treated as a near-sacred site in Bangladesh’s political landscape. Its destruction marked a dramatic shift in the country’s relationship with the symbols of its founding narrative.These events were shocking to many observers, particularly those who had grown up in a political culture where criticism of Mujib was almost taboo. But they reflected something deeper than mere vandalism.They reflected the accumulated frustration of a generation that had come to associate Mujib’s image not only with the birth of the nation but also with the authoritarian practices of the government that ruled in his name.An image of Mujibur Rehman’s house, Dhanmondi 32, completely destroyed. Photo: Arka DebThe resentment is likely to lingerDuring Sheikh Hasina’s fifteen-year rule, Bangladesh experienced notable economic growth and ambitious infrastructure development. At the same time, the period was marked by increasing allegations of authoritarian governance.Elections were widely criticised as uncompetitive, opposition parties faced systematic repression and dissenting voices – particularly student activists, journalists, artists and online critics – encountered legal and political intimidation.These tensions eventually exploded in 2024. It began as student protests over a controversial quota system but soon escalated into a nationwide uprising after violent crackdowns by security forces. Hundreds of people were killed during the unrest, fueling public anger that ultimately forced Hasina to flee the country in August 2024.For many young Bangladeshis, these events are not distant historical episodes – they are personal memories. They remember the shutdowns, the arrests, the brutality and the killings. They remember friends and classmates who never returned from protests.In such a context, the invocation of Mujib’s name as a symbol of our freedom struggle and independence no longer resonates the way it once did. For this generation, the repeated use of the Liberation War narrative to justify contemporary political repression created a sense of deep cynicism toward the state’s official history.For decades, the Awami League’s political legitimacy rested heavily on its association with 1971. The party portrayed itself as the guardian of the Liberation War’s ideals, while portraying its opponents as forces opposed to the spirit of independence. This narrative worked effectively for a long time.But the generation that led the 2024 uprising did not experience the Liberation War. Their political consciousness was shaped by very different events – campus violence, controversial digital security laws, enforced disappearances and the violent suppression of dissent.For them, the defining political moment of their lifetime is not 1971. It is [July] 2024.This generational shift in historical memory poses a serious challenge to any attempt to restore the same level of reverence around Sheikh Mujibur Rahman that existed during Sheikh Hasina’s rule.Political symbols depend heavily on emotional distance and collective myth-making. When those symbols become associated with contemporary grievances, their power inevitably weakens.None of this means that Mujib’s historical importance will disappear from Bangladesh’s national narrative. His leadership during the struggle for independence remains a central part of the country’s history. The March 7 speech will continue to be studied and remembered as one of the most powerful political speeches of the twentieth century.But what may be ending is the monopolisation of that history by a single political family or party. In the absence of state-enforced reverence, Bangladesh is beginning – perhaps for the first time in decades – to re-examine its founding leader as a complex historical figure rather than a sacred icon.Faisal Mahmud is a Dhaka-based journalist and analyst.