Bangladesh, Oct. 2 -- Recently, I spent a month in Bangladesh-mostly in Dhaka-revisiting friends and relatives after a three-year absence. Moving between conversations with writers, intellectuals, and political operatives, I sought the pulse of a post-revolutionary nation. Instead, what I found on the streets was a devastating, all-pervasive pessimism. Almost no one seemed happy. Nearly everyone shared the same unsettling sentiment: they saw no reason for hope.

This despondency was shocking. In the time I had been away, a historic, student-led mass movement had overthrown a deeply entrenched autocracy. A democratic transition was underway. Yet on the ground, few believed real change would come. In the new Bangladesh, hope felt like the ...