This is the first such event, at least in our recent memory. The Prime Minister is apologizing for public suffering. You might think this is not particularly difficult, but it is a monumental task — to convince your party stooges to accept a public apology that might make you appear weak, or at least it is so in our conscience, still suffering from a colonial hangover.
Even a distant idea of political culture in Bangladesh would tell you that you are surrounded by people — especially when you hold a position of enormous power — who compete, saliva dripping from their mouths, to tell the “leader” how his leadership is having a magical effect on people. In a society that has mediocrity at the helm of its national sensibilities, being a yes man is, to most, not only a survival instinct but also the only way to climb to the top of the food chain.
The apology, therefore, is an achievement by our PM — as much a battle against the salivating stooges as it is a triumph over his own insecurities. The recognition of one’s own limitations has always been lauded as the foundational step toward change. I, as a citizen, recognize this as a precedent set for the future leadership of Bangladesh.
From the beginning of its tenure, the current administration has focused on cosmetic changes. From a former ruler whose words were proof that she looked down on her people as if they were some kind of sub-humans, we have found a PM who has shown chivalry in public settings — not halting usual traffic for his movements, showing respect to elderly people, recognizing talents who otherwise probably would have gone undiscovered, etc.
Yet, with a critical mind, you’d have difficulty making sense of any of this in terms of its ability to solve actual problems that affect public life. If a British PM takes the subway, it adds to their public image because they have a functional public transport system that is used by people of all comprehensible social classes.
When a working-class dweller in Dhaka takes a piece of scrap metal called a public bus that’s unfit for any road imaginable in any corner of the world, our PM’s wait in traffic with his motorcade feels like a drama with a touch of black comedy.
Tell me, would you ever see a spark in the eye of a common man or woman if you told them our PM cares? Because we carry the generational trauma of things not only not working — on rough days, they tend to kill us. Imagine how Dhaka feels after a couple of days of heavy downpour, or when there is a political rally.
For a person like me, or us, who understands public policy a little, almost everything our government does feels cosmetic. Because we know that for Bangladesh to grasp change, we don’t need road fixation, newer flyovers, or distribution of “cards” — we need innovative policies to desensitize our minds from the colonial hangover and inject meritocratic bureaucracy.
It’s a generational struggle, but we haven’t even started that journey. And it’s been almost six decades since our independence. You would have to decolonize your mind to understand that when a party believes 1,500 taka a month, in 2026, for the people at the bottom of the country’s pyramid is generosity, it is actually treating a large part of its citizens as beggars. And the satisfaction it derives from such acts is the same satisfaction a colonizer would feel seeing the people being looted feel grateful for the breadcrumbs thrown their way.
It doesn’t deal with poverty — it deepens it. And it prolongs the colonization of your self-worth.
With most of the ministerial recruitments, I don’t think we’ll see the country recovering from the debris created by the last regime’s economic mismanagement and doctored developments. The only government that could claim fresh approaches to problem-solving was the interim one.
Bangladesh has little critical journalism that could objectively document how many of the approaches taken by the interim came from an angle of solving problems quickly. I understand the scale of the public task is enormous, but with good intentions, you could reform laws and restructure the decision-making framework to support projects that not only have long-lasting effects but also deliver immediate benefits.
The IT, Cultural Affairs, Industry Affairs, and Foreign Policy portfolios, and a couple of commissions under the interim, showed efficiency for the first time in decades, even under severe constraints, right after a sudden collapse of public order post-revolution.
I have had a thousand criticisms, but with an objective lens, you can’t possibly find another government in Bangladesh that has worked like a private enterprise, with specific, measurable indicators to assess performance. Although we don’t have accepted KPIs to measure government performance, almost all the departments I’ve mentioned above regularly reported their activities in public and private media.
This largely happened because the head of the interim showed good intentions and was a great performer himself — having built an institution with impact the world over, not without its own criticism, of course. The low political ambition of the interim made it appear weak and led to some grievous mistakes, but it’s the only government I’ve seen in my lifetime that took a problem-solving approach to its work, not political populism.
With the opposition’s “long march,” protests have begun. From the pictures published in some of the leading media, I gather it drew a considerable crowd. The rallies took place with minimal or no government intervention, showing that space for political dissent is still being protected by the government, which is welcome.
But if history teaches us anything, widespread grievances at continuous public suffering and more opposition protests will lead to the government’s patience wearing thin — the party men unleashing violence and, God forbid, greater attempts at silencing dissent. The arrest of Sifat and the reported violence by party men are a testament to such grim possibilities.
The government has seemingly decided to protect the bureaucratic framework of public decision-making, as it sees that framework as essential to gaming the system as much as possible to get re-elected. But even in doing so, it needs competent people in the energy, finance, and industry sectors to reverse the damage of the past, and to do it relatively quickly.
But I fear an innovative approach to public policy isn’t what the current administration wants exclusively, which will eventually keep creating spiraling inequality and suffering. If PM Tarique Rahman wants to remind us of his father’s statesmanship, he must understand that the BAL administration gamed the system in its own favor with shrewd people — who were evil, but smart.
To undo the work of a competent criminal, you would require extraordinary talent, paired with good intentions. And that’s not what we’re seeing happen. Because, for that to happen, innovation has to begin with rethinking the very model of political appointees serving as Ministers in the aforementioned sectors. I admit, that sounds utopian — but perhaps that is precisely the kind of thinking required to move upward.
We want this government not to fail. The failure of this government will lead to a catastrophe we aren’t ready to handle. We have an opposition whose idea of complex thinking is quite laughable. The sooner Tarique Rahman, the PM, realizes this, the better.
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Omar Nasif Abdullah is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing of North South University