For Bangladesh, a country which has been born out of blood and fire, the ‘last word’ is, as the constitution of the state once envisaged, ‘a democracy in which fundamental human rights and freedoms and respect for the dignity and worth of the person’ is guaranteed, so that the people of this country, irrespective of their religious, ethnic and gender […]

Finally, these times and the networks that they create can also lead to self-organised popular movements. Mobile phones, email, and Facebook have created quick systems of communication and allowed unusual forms of modern secular protests to show up as forms of resistance to various undemocratic practices prevailing in societies or a call for justice as in Shahbagh last February. But […]

The absence of democracy’s constructive role denies citizens an opportunity of what the leading philosopher John Rawls calls ‘the exercise of public reason’. They cannot participate in political discussions to be in a position to influence public choice. Nor can they learn from one another, and help society to form its values and priorities. In other words, instead of inclusionary […]

It could be said that, while the statistics is credible enough to represent the poverty reduction, I personally do not harbour rosy illusions about ‘poverty alleviation’ in Bangladesh. To me, the poverty condition in everyday life in Bangladesh society seems to have come all pervasive as majority of the ordinary people do not have access to basic needs. Naturally, one […]

APPEARANCE can be deceptive; sometimes very deceptive. Is that why we are having a hard time understanding Shahbagh? Many asked me to tell them why the media was so engrossed in the Shahbagh phenomenon. Maybe, they feel I have something to say about it just because I study political science. Well, Shahbagh is complicated, to say the least, and we […]

A 1993 conversation between the late Paul Sweezy and Professor Anu Muhammad PAUL Sweezy (April 10, 1910–February 27, 2004), one of the leading Marxist thinkers, economists and authors from the United States, studied economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Harvard. He taught economics in many universities in the US. In 1949, Sweezy and Leo Huberman founded a new […]

MEMORIES and amnesia are an essential part of the growing up process of an individual as well as nation to its selfhood. Indeed there is a big ethical question when one resorts to academic research based on memories. It is a question of intruding into the privacy of the individual concerned; and also the extent and the nature of the […]

PEOPLE democratise their spheres with own momentum, velocity and force manifested in its leadership, organisation and politics. Trajectory of people’s democratisation process that gets generated from contradictions in the realm of production relation ultimately frees itself from influence and control of dominant interests. Dominant interest, because of its prevailing paramount position in economy and politics, influences, manipulates, distorts and deactivates […]

CONSIDERABLE concern has rightly been raised in respect of accountability in Bangladesh in academic/research discourses, publications and roundtables/panel discussions and on the media. Surely, there are several types of accountability and several means of achieving accountability. Here, we talk, in the main, about financial accountability. Accountability lies at the heart of a public sector. By accountability we refer to the […]

Oh Bhai, kichhu paichhen? [Have you found anything, brother?] Hya, paichhi to. Iter dewal, ghar, matir khola, pathor ar pathorer bhanga tukra. [Yes, we have. Brick-built walls, rooms, pottery, stone and stone pieces.] Na, bhai, kichhu paan nai? [No, not these. Haven’t you found anything?] Koilam to… ei sab i paichhi. Anek kichhu. [I have already told you…we have found […]

THE social, academic and intellectual construct given to the baul movement of Bengal for centuries have been attempts by the elite status quo to box in the music, lifestyle and philosophy of fakirs, sadhus and sages of our time, thereby limiting them to easily explainable parameters and expected norms, practices of spirituality. Baul philosophy is, however, unique in that it […]