Beyond the Barricades: What the Martyrs of July Taught Us About the Rights of Nature

By a Citizen Who Walked the Streets and Read the Skies

I remember the smell of tear gas more vividly than the monsoon that came three days later. That July, the sun seemed angrier than usual. Not the blistering kind, but the kind that watches quietly like it knows something the rest of us haven’t figured out yet.

We didn’t set out to rewrite history. We wanted fair exams, fewer lies, breathable air. But when Abu Sayed’s blood soaked the street in Rangpur, the questions changed. No one chanted about job quotas anymore. We screamed for dignity. For justice. For life. And it wasn’t just about us. Somewhere between the barricades and the batons, we realized that the river, too, had a right to rage.

They called it the July Revolution. A name historians will probably fight over in footnotes. But to me, it was the moment when my generation finally saw through the lie that growth could justify grief. That a rising GDP could wash over rising water, poisoned fish, and unlivable cities.

The revolution did something that five decades of policy papers never could: it made the young ask, Who speaks for the trees? Who defends a dying wetland when no human owns it? Can justice survive if it doesn’t include the forest?

That’s when I found M. Zakir Hossain Khan’s book on Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG). Not in a classroom. I was working in my desk and Salman Bhai (My beloved elder Colleague) came to me and asked me format the design of the books. Obviously, I was going through the texts. And what I read struck deeper than any political manifesto.

The Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG) framework proposes a fundamental restructuring of how societies govern nature by rooting policy, law, and economics in ecological integrity. At its core are six pillars, each offering a distinct shift: legal recognition of nature’s rights reframes rivers, forests, and ecosystems as rights-holders, not resources; rule by natural law and accountability aligns governance with Earth’s physical boundaries; nature justice demands reparative action for harm done to ecosystems themselves, not just to humans. Protection of life and shared property calls for safeguarding all living beings and treating natural resources as commons, not commodities; community-centric stewardship restores decision-making power to local and indigenous groups; and peaceful conflict resolution mechanisms introduce participatory systems to settle ecological disputes with restoration over punishment.

Together, these pillars call for science and technology to support—not override—natural systems. For example, AI and remote sensing could enforce legal protections for ecosystems; community mapping tools and data-sharing platforms could support local governance; and ecological indicators could replace GDP as measures of success. This isn’t just a policy reform agenda—it’s a paradigm shift that centers life, balance, and justice as the foundation for a livable future.

NRLG doesn’t ask us to hug trees. It demands we give them a lawyer. It insists that rivers be recognized as legal persons. That forests, like citizens, have the right to exist, to regenerate, to be heard in court.

At first, I laughed. Then I cried.

Because the logic of it the brutal, necessary logic—was too strong to deny. We had marched for a future, not realizing that our futures were tied not just to elections, but to ecosystems.

Take the Padma. Once a mother, now a construction zone. Under NRLG, she could sue the ministry that dammed her. She could be granted the right to flow. To live. To feed the fishers who once worshipped her tides. Isn’t that justice, too?

Some will say this is idealism. That we need jobs, not jungle rights. But I’ve seen how the jobs they promise come wrapped in cement and cancer. I’ve watched my cousin lose her land to a solar project that cut every tree and called itself green.

What NRLG offers isn’t theory. It’s survival. It’s accountability. It’s a way to tell future governments: you are not above the soil. You answer to it.

And science? It’s not left behind. In fact, it’s invited to the front row. NRLG demands evidence. Satellites that track deforestation. Sensors that measure river oxygen. AI models that expose polluters. The difference is, under this framework, that data has teeth. It leads to prosecution, not just publications.

The youth who led the revolution are still out there. Some limping. Some grieving. All watching. We don’t want more speeches. We want change written into law, coded into policy, rooted in the Earth.

Let this be our ask:

• Enshrine the Rights of Nature in the constitution.

• Create ecological courts where rivers can be plaintiffs.

• Fund community-led environmental monitoring.

• Teach our children that soil has standing.

  
  

The July Revolution was not just about replacing a regime. It was about replacing a mindset. One that saw the land as profit, the air as collateral, the forest as furniture.

It’s time we learned from those who bled in July. They didn’t just die for votes. They died because they believed life all life was worth defending.

And if we don’t honor that with more than monuments, then the revolution never happened at all.