鈥楤E READY, there is a chance that they can take you away any day now.鈥� This was the warning my editor, Nurul Kabir, gave me after more than two decades of career as editorial cartoonist at the daily 抖阴精品. It was July 23, and by then, the student鈥檚 movement for reforms in the quota system in public services had already...
GENDER鈥� is always a thorny topic at times of mass uprising. Historically, leaders of countless mass uprisings around the world decided to put away the gender question for dealing with later. The 鈥榤ass鈥� had been typically framed as a body that does not have any gender in the common imagination, only to eventually reveal...
BANGLADESH, following the overthrow of an extremely repressive government of the Awami League, in the face of a great democratically oriented student-mass uprising and subsequent voluntary disappearances of all the League leaders from the country鈥檚 political scene, obviously with a view to escaping court proceedings...
IN THE annals of human civilisation, democracy stands as a magnificent garden, a living, breathing ecosystem that requires constant care and attention. This garden, with its countless plants representing the diverse voices and ideals of society, is not a barren, untamed wilderness but a carefully cultivated space where the fruits of freedom and justice can flourish...
RESUMING teaching after my doctoral degree, I soon found myself in a new situation. One of the formidable aspects of this newness was, of course, the big class sizes I was having to deal with. In the academic department where I have worked in the past many years, I have usually taught a class size of around 25鈥�40 students. When I first began...
ARCHAEOLOGY 鈥� as a modern discipline encompassing other two areas of study 鈥� humanity and social sciences 鈥� helps us to understand the living activity of pre-historic people covering 99 per cent of the human past from the Paleolithic period until the advent of literacy in societies around the world. It deals with the material culture of human...
IN THE recent rise of secular authoritarian government and the rise of religious orthodoxy in response to the so-called development-focused regime, let us take a step back and reread Lalon Fakir (d. 1890) to find what he professed and practiced in a similar situation. Lalon鈥檚 reformulation of the concept of spiritual practice was informed by the...
THE constitution of Bangladesh had been the core legal instrument to provide protection of the fundamental rights of the citizens, and that should have been the primary task, albeit creating institutions to run the state and to set rules for running those institutions. But our constitution at the very outset wrongly attempted to define the ethnic identity of...
JAMES C Scott, who passed away on July 19 this year, was a prominent political scientist and anthropologist known for his interdisciplinary work platforming the ways ordinary people resist domination, emphasising the value of local knowledge, hidden transcripts of resistance, and the limits of centralised power. To me, the character is vehemently...
SELFIES are not my speciality. I also tend to avoid weddings, birthday parties or tourist spots. On the other hand, complete strangers handing me their mobile phone and asking me to take a photo, I can cope with. I鈥檝e even saved a few tourists from potential disaster as they risked life and limb to take a picture of themselves in a precarious 鈥業 was there鈥� moment...
AN IRONY points to the gap between what is said and what is implied, or what is expected and what happens in reality. It is a rhetorical technique that is widely used in literature. It creates dramatic effects by presenting contrasts or opposites. What is called dramatic irony is often used in tragedy to illustrate a character鈥檚 ignorance of happenings on one hand and tragic consequences on the other...
THE word 鈥楻azakar鈥� originates from Arabic and translates to 鈥榲olunteer鈥� in English. On August 2, 1971, during the height of Bangladesh鈥檚 liberation war, the then-governor of East Pakistan, Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, issued the East Pakistan Razakars Ordinance. This ordinance called for the creation of a voluntary force to be trained and equipped by the...
AS A navy veteran, the naval battles of Trafalgar and Jutland have always captivated my attention. These pivotal encounters, while defining moments in maritime history, have broader implications that resonate across continents and centuries. Their echoes can be heard in the struggles for freedom across the globe, including Bangladesh鈥檚 relentless...
THE student-led July mass uprising for a democratic political and economic order, which culminated in the ouster of the brutally authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina from power, forcing her to flee the country and take refuge in India, the hegemonic neighbour that patronised Hasina to cling to power without proper people鈥檚 mandate for years, has installed an 鈥榠nterim government鈥�, led by globally known Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, to fix the order 鈥� if not fully democratise the state...
WHEN I was in sixth grade, around twelve years old, I used to attend math tuition with a local teacher. It never bothered me or anyone in my family that I was a young Muslim girl walking more than a mile alone through a predominantly Hindu area to study with a Hindu teacher...
