Sheikh Hasina’s July 14 Speech: A Rhetorical Misstep in Bangladesh’s 2024 Political Crisis

AKM Zamir Uddin (Ph.D. student), Mst Rokshana Pervin (M.A. student), and other graduate Missouri State University students. “Sheikh Hasina’s July 14 Speech: A Rhetorical Misstep in Bangladesh’s 2024 Political Crisis,” paper accepted for presentation, Critical and Cultural Division, National Communication Association annual conference, Denver, Nov. 2025.

Abstract: This essay focuses on how an authoritarian ruler was ousted from power due to her rhetorical failure in addressing a political crisis. It conducts a rhetorical analysis of a speech made by Sheikh Hasina, the immediate past prime minister of Bangladesh, at a press conference on July 14, 2024, when she produced demeaning discourse aimed at protesters. The speech played a major role in deepening the political crisis stemming from a student movement, which had been demanding the scrapping of a quota system in government jobs. In this essay, we argue that the press conference functioned rhetorically to intensify the political crisis she was already facing and ultimately led to her oust. Her remarks were characterized by both a failure to competently read and respond to the rhetorical situation and demeaning discourses directed at the protesters.