Some photographs capture a national possibility, serving as markers of what a country is and what it might have become. One such image belongs to the early 1990s, when Bangladesh returned to parliamentary democracy following the collapse of military autocracy.
The passage of the 12th Amendment restored the primacy of parliament, igniting a fragile optimism that national politics would henceforth be conducted through debate, institutional oversight, and constitutional accountability.
In that brief, luminous interlude, the country witnessed something profoundly symbolic: the newly elected Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, and the Leader of the Opposition, Sheikh Hasina, sitting together in the parliamentary chamber, exchanging genuine smiles.
For a nation emerging from decades of authoritarian rule, that single frame carried immense weight. It suggested that political rivalry did not have to equate to existential enmity, that disagreement could coexist with democratic decorum, and that parliament could genuinely become the centre of gravity for national political life.
Yet history proved a cruel custodian of that hope. The superficial civility of 1991 never matured into a resilient democratic culture. Instead, Bangladesh devolved into a punitive, decades-long cycle of parliamentary boycotts, deep-seated mutual distrust, violent street confrontation, and systematic institutional capture.
Elections grew increasingly farcical, the state machinery was thoroughly politicised, and the democratic arena was ultimately suffocated by a deeply entrenched authoritarian order.
The two leaders, whose shared laughter had once promised a new dawn, became permanently estranged. In time, a fatigued public was reduced to waiting for rare ceremonial occasions just to see them inhabit the same physical room.
This bitter historical trajectory offers an essential lesson for contemporary Bangladesh. Following the seismic student-led, people-powered uprising of July 2024, the subsequent collapse of the regime, and the pivotal elections of February 12, 2026, the country stands once more at a historic democratic crossroads.
Inside the newly convened parliament, a familiar scene has replayed: Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Shafiqur Rahman, were photographed exchanging warm greetings, shaking hands, and embracing.
For a populace utterly exhausted by decades of toxic political rancour, this display of mutual respect is undeniably significant.
Political civility is not a luxury; it is a structural necessity. In a deeply fractured society, a simple handshake between the government and the opposition lowers the public temperature, signaling to partisan bases that political opponents are adversaries to be debated, not enemies of the state to be eradicated.
It offers a vital antidote to a political culture long poisoned by the impulse for vengeance.
However, a handshake is no substitute for structural reform. Courtesy cannot replace constitutional guarantees, and personal civility can never restrain the natural arrogance of power unless it is hardwired into independent institutions.
The fundamental question facing Bangladesh today is not whether its current leaders can smile for the cameras, but whether they possess the statesmanship to forge a democratic settlement robust enough to permanently prevent a slide back into autocracy.
The July uprising did not merely orchestrate a change of personnel; it delivered an explicit moral mandate for state renewal. It exposed the existential perils of over-concentrated executive power, compromised courts, a weaponised police force, a cowed media, and a hollowed-out electoral process.
The core demand of the street was to make the infrastructure of fascism structurally impossible to rebuild.
Consequently, systemic reform cannot be treated as a matter of ruling-party benevolence or left to the discretion of those currently in office. Any administration, regardless of its initial popularity, becomes inherently dangerous when state rules depend entirely on its goodwill.
A system reliant on the temporary virtue of rulers is an illusion of safety, offering only a brief reprieve from tyranny.
The incumbent government must recognise that institutional reform is an absolute obligation to the citizenry, not a tactical concession to the opposition. Conversely, the opposition must see reform not as a bargaining chip to embarrass the treasury benches, but as a collective imperative.
Both factions must transcend short-term electoral calculus, recognizing that today’s rulers are tomorrow’s opposition, and today’s critics are tomorrow’s state executives. The rules written today will either protect everyone tomorrow or endanger everyone equally.
At the core of this transition lies the question of democratic legitimacy. In the referendum of February 2026, the public delivered a clear verdict on the constitutional future of the state. The current parliament has a legal and moral duty to implement that mandate. While political differences will inevitably persist, the broader architecture of the state must rise above partisan warfare.
Furthermore, Bangladesh suffers from a profound deficit of trust that cannot be remedied by rhetorical assurances. If major institutional overhauls are perceived as unilateral projects of the ruling party, they will lack national ownership.
To endure, they must be negotiated transparently, debated vigorously in the public square, and transformed into a durable democratic covenant rather than a partisan manifesto.
A serious reform roadmap must urgently address electoral independence, a neutral interim framework for polling, comprehensive police and judicial reform, and explicit safeguards against state-sanctioned violence like enforced disappearances.
It requires strengthening parliamentary oversight, imposing strict constitutional limits on executive overreach, and guaranteeing media freedom.
This process requires a defined timeline and a broad-based consultative framework including jurists, journalists, civil society, and critically, the youth. The July uprising was fundamentally a generational intervention by young citizens who risked their lives not to swap one ruling elite for another, but to demand a state that treats them as citizens rather than subjects.
Similarly, the opposition must be afforded the space and dignity required to function as a core instrument of state accountability, while themselves abandoning the self-defeating politics of permanent obstruction. The country requires an entirely new political ethic: robust opposition without sabotage, and firm governance without authoritarianism.
The promise of 1991 withered because the transition stopped at the ballot box. Executive dominance remained unchecked, electoral bodies remained weak, and the culture of revenge was left intact.
Autocracy does not reappear overnight; it returns through compromised courts, compliant law enforcement, an obsequious media, and an arrogant ruling class that invites the public to trust personalities over rules. Institutional reform is the non-negotiable price of democratic survival.
The handshake of 2026 offers Bangladesh a rare second chance. But hope without structural reform remains fragile, and courtesy without robust constitutionalism is merely temporary. This time, the nation must look past the photograph and build the state it promises.
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Mohammad Waliuddin Tanvir is a political analyst