Asif Mahmud is a stranger to the corridors of power. On Monday, August 12, the youngest "adviser" – the title given to members of Bangladesh's interim government – was received under a fine monsoon rain in front of the Jamuna State Guest House, now the official residence of the interim prime minister, Muhammad Yunus, and the country's new center of power. Unfamiliar with security protocol, the new prime minister, dressed in an elegant burgundy kurta (a long traditional shirt), did not have his visitors' names registered at the building's entrance. As the soldiers looked on in bewilderment, the 26-year-old sports minister stepped out of the fortress to give his promised interview on the sidewalk.

A few days earlier, this linguistics student had taken to the streets of Dhaka alongside hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was forced to flee on August 5. From ministries to traffic management, Generation Z has since taken control of the country. With the police having deserted for several days, high school and university students regulated traffic and guarded public buildings. They also painted the walls of Dhaka in the colors of the revolution, as if to inscribe this new chapter in the capital's memory. Slogans hastily written to demand the departure of the "dictator" were covered with paintings praising the movement.

The Students Against Discrimination coalition, which pushed autocratic Hasina out of office, was born on the bustling campus of Dhaka University. At the origin of this large rally to fight against quotas in civil service recruitment is the very young student organization Ganatantrik Chhatra Shakti (Student Democratic Force), created nine months before the giant protests. Founded on October 4, 2023, by Mahmud and his comrades, it aims to break with the partisan politics that divide the country and claims no affiliation with existing parties.

The authorities immediately sensed danger. The very day this new political force was created, its president, Akhtar Hossain, a charismatic law student, was attacked by the Chhatra League, the student wing of Hasina's Awami League party. He emerged with a fractured tooth. The lanky 27-year-old had long been on the regime's radar. He was arrested for his political activities in 2021, in 2022, and in July this year. "Intelligence agencies consider me to be the mastermind of the anti-Hasina movement," he said, half amused, half proud. Arrested by the police on July 17 in front of Dhaka University, he was not released until the day after the fall of the "Iron Lady."

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