Social-media Sub-elites and the July Movement in Bangladesh: Implications for India–Bangladesh Relations

The July Movement in Bangladesh marked a major political transformation in which student mobilization, opposition politics, diaspora activism, and digitally mediated communication converged to challenge the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL)-led government. This article examines the movement through the combined analytical lenses of elite circulation, digital elite formation, and the changing character of India–Bangladesh relations. It argues that the movement should not be understood either as a purely spontaneous expansion of mass participation or as an elite-driven process. Rather, mass mobilization and elite formation occurred simultaneously: domestic political actors, student leaders, social-media content creators, diaspora networks, and transnational digital platforms interacted to reshape political influence and public discourse. Drawing on Pareto’s theory of the circulation of elites and Bolter’s analysis of the decline of elite cultural hierarchy and the emergence of a digitally enabled cultural plenitude, the study conceptualizes prominent digital actors as a social-media sub-elite and major platforms as transnational actors operating within a contested ‘Zero Point’ between national sovereignty and liberal claims to freedom of expression. Using the content analysis method, this study shows that the digital sphere did not eliminate elite power; it reconfigured the actors and mechanisms through which political influence was exercised. This reconfiguration also contributed to a change in how India–Bangladesh relations were politically interpreted, from a predominantly cooperative framework associated with mutual benefits toward a more competitive and security-oriented framework associated with relative gains.