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From Shahbagh to Karbala: Rhetoric, Revisionism, and the Return of the Mob [1]

Iconus Clustus 4 July 2025

In Mahfuz Alam’s hands, the word “mob” becomes a political mirror — reflecting only those struggles that threaten the new order. From Shahbagh to the People’s Courts, he retrofits secular justice movements into spectacles of irrational rage, while carefully omitting the rise of Islamist forces now embedded in power. His rhetoric isn’t argument — it’s choreography, built from contradictions and cloaked in abstraction. But the real danger isn’t what he says — it’s what he replaces: memory with manipulation, ethics with performance, revolution with revision. When Mahfuz speaks of Karbala, he isn't invoking resistance — he's rehearsing a morality play for a regime in need of a conscience.

4 July 2025

“Mob means an opportunistic group that nurtures vengeful, directionless, revolutionary pretensions.” — Mahfuz Alam, Special Adviser to the Chief Adviser Let us begin with Mahfuz Alam’s own postscript — a sentence that reads like it’s been pulled from a thesaurus and passed off as philosophy. It is intended, one assumes, as a capstone to his moral framing of Bangladesh’s so-called “July revolution.” But this single line — vague, self-congratulatory, and strategically abstract — is far more revealing than its author might have intended. It does not define the mob; it betrays the mob of meaning. In Alam’s universe, a mob is not defined by who they are or what they do — but by who they threaten. And so begins the rhetorical sleight-of-hand: a redefinition of history, morality, and memory, with the aim of shielding the Interim Government’s foundational moment from scrutiny. But in trying to separate July’s student uprising from mobocracy, Mahfuz performs a quiet substitution: he lifts the

moral crimes of the present and lays them upon the past. The Mob Is Always the Other Who does Mahfuz include in his invented taxonomy of mobs? It’s instructive: • The 1971 violence against Biharis. • The early repression of anti-Mujib student voices. • Fifty-three years of attacks on religious minorities — but with no attribution. • The People’s Courts. • The ‘96 People’s Stage. • October 28 • Shahbagh. This is not analysis. It is a political Rorschach test — what shows up as “mob” in Mahfuz’s inkblot are the struggles that confront the forces he is now aligned with. Especially chilling is his treatment of Shahbagh — the spontaneous secular uprising that demanded justice for war criminals. In Mahfuz’s telling, it becomes “mob justice,” no different from communal riots. A movement rooted in the memory of the 1971 genocide is flattened into a faceless frenzy, and those who chanted for accountability are smeared as enemies of law and…

Bangladesh, Dr Yunus, Opinion

When the Tulip unfurls her petals!

Shweta Irina 24 June 2025

The article discusses Yunus' recent trip to the UK and the corruption allegation of Bangladesh government against British MP Tulip Siddique.

24 June 2025

‘Mandar dafa bajna /Abir gul lala kum kum/ Keshor charato karawato/Kutuhal has e/Mandar dafa bajna.’ (Mandolins are being played/colored powders getting sprinkled/ Tulip unfurling her petals/Women have curious smiles on their lips). (Hindustani Dhamar on the spring festival) …It was the year of 1989. Me and my immediate elder sister used to attend a Hindustani classical music class (as many other middle-class Bengali girls attend in their childhood or adolescence days and later most of them cannot continue for studies, work or etc. etc.) where our teacher used to train us in ‘Dhrupad’ and ‘Dhamar’- two unique forms of Hindustani classical music besides the too commonly practiced ‘Kheyal.’ Sometimes we used to ask the teacher meaning of all these Hindustani lyrics and he tried to explain at his best. The aforementioned lyrics of Dhamar was composed by any of the classical lyricists of the sub-continent (or to be more accurate, by the lyricists from Persia or Afghanistan up to

the Indian sub-continent) to welcome the advent of spring and the word ‘gul lala’ means Tulip in Urdu and this Tulip is opening her petals in the spring (Keshar charato karawato). We know how much our Hindustani classical music has been enriched by the composers from Persia like Ameer Khasru and others. In fact, the word ‘Dafa’ means ‘Mandolin’, a particular type of musical instrument which used to be played in any festival in Persia and the adjoining regions and still it is played across a long route from Persia or central Asia to the Pakistan-North Indian territories. Although reputed Bengali musicians like Kabeer Suman are now-a-days advocating for writing Bengali Kheyals for better comprehension of the Bengali learners (as language often seems to be a barrier in understanding the North Indian classical music and learning Hindustani classical is a pre-requisite for achieving minimum skills in music of this region), but can we ever deny that how the ancient and…

Analysis, Bangladesh, China, Current Affairs, India, Myanmar, Proxy War, USA, War

The Corridor of Complicity: Bangladesh at the Edge of a Proxy War

Iconus Clustus 9 May 2025

In the shadow of Myanmar’s civil conflict and the ongoing humanitarian tragedy of the Rohingya, a new geopolitical proposition emerges: the creation of a humanitarian corridor through Bangladesh. While clothed in the language of compassion, this proposition is anything but innocent. This piece examines the philosophical and ethical stakes of such a corridor, the actors involved—state and non-state, regional and global—and the legitimacy crisis of Bangladesh's interim regime. It warns that the corridor risks becoming a conduit for proxy warfare, drawing Bangladesh into a dangerous entanglement, compromising its moral identity and national sovereignty.

9 May 2025

1. Setting the Stage: The Specter of the Corridor The emergence of a proposed "humanitarian corridor" connecting the Arakan region of Myanmar to the outside world through Bangladesh is not an isolated gesture of international goodwill. Instead, it harks back to historical precedents where similar rhetoric masked hard geopolitical motives. Corridors have often functioned as the thin edge of interventionist wedges, paving the way for foreign involvement, regime change, or the legitimization of proxy actors. In this context, the corridor risks becoming a gateway for U.S.-led strategic penetration, not just into Myanmar, but into the heart of South Asian balance. The alignment of the corridor with insurgent activity and covert arms movement under the guise of humanitarianism bears striking resemblance to past interventions in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. 2. An Illegitimate Regime, An Unrepresentative Gamble At the heart of this unfolding dilemma lies Bangladesh – a nation whose current government holds no electoral mandate. The Yunus-led interim regime, installed following

the ousting of the elected government, lacks constitutional legitimacy. It neither represents the will of the people nor adheres to the foundational principles upon which Bangladesh was founded. Any decision it takes, especially those with massive geopolitical and ethical consequences, must be questioned not only for their outcomes but for the very authority under which they are made. The regime’s submission to U.S. designs casts a long shadow on national sovereignty, one that cannot be overlooked or excused. 3. The Chorus of Actors: State and Non-State Entanglements The scenario brings together a complex cast of actors: the United States with its strategic doctrines; China, wary and watchful; Myanmar, whose sovereignty is directly endangered; the Arakan Army (AA), a non-state military actor now courted by Western support; India, in whose backyard the entire drama is being played out; and Bangladesh, which finds itself caught in a web of foreign interests and domestic instability. Crucially, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), another…

Political Memoir

DIPLOMACY: The Scandal at the Bay

Jahanara Nuri 29 April 2025

This article delves into the intricate web of political and social upheaval in Bangladesh, set against a backdrop of international diplomacy and internal strife. Following a scandal that rocked the nation, the narrative captures the tension and chaos that ensued, highlighting the swift actions of the ruling party and the subsequent crackdown on opposition members. The story unfolds through the eyes of the narrator, who reflects on the broader implications of these events, both locally and globally.

29 April 2025

Graffiti-style-artwork-with-the-words-Political-Memoir-and-a-city-skyline-of-Sweden

PART 2 EIGHT In the hours that followed, headlines screamed, advisors, king's party NCP, their street fighting brotherhoods and influencers ─ home and abroad ─ scrambled like startled crows of Dhaka. Spaces in prisons, emptied since July by convicted Islamists and criminals, were now being filled with detainees from the opposition Awami League. The grass pellets of the plain-lands suddenly began revealing deceased bodies, hidden among small bushes and gardens — like decayed morals pouring out from a collapsing social status quo. The air felt thick. Not with dust, nor with smog, but with something slower, heavier. A silence pressed against people's skin. Tension stirred underneath, slipped between tea stalls in narrow lanes, breathed across newsroom floors in Kawran Bazaar, leaned against embassy gates in Baridhara, and spilled like floating things from a vandalised fair of the new year into the restless currents of social media. It threaded from the heart of the Delta to places the stars barely knew.

Something quieter set in. Something had shifted. Something had begun. Between official denials and unofficial panics, I found myself stepping out of the noise and into something else entirely. A slower current. A deeper breath to pause. The kind of pause that comes just before time changes shape─softly, almost imperceptibly─and no one notices until the change is visible. In Delta, that March morning was warmer─the kind where rickshaw bells ring like distant memories, and in the gloomy air of dawn, people begin to miss the sight of tea steam rising as it does in winter ─ like incense offered before a headless god, a haunting symbol of the ongoing wave of temple attacks across the country. But here, far away, the cold made a different kind of presence. I cracked open the French window of a flat the Swedes call a lägenhet, and an emboldened icy air froze me almost instantly. My hot lal cha was moments away from freezing.…

Analysis, Bangladesh, Current Affairs, India, Opinion, Pakistan, Politics, Secularism, War

A Region Unravels: From the Indus to the Bay of Bengal, the Secular Order Faces Its Greatest Test

Iconus Clustus 25 April 2025

The Indus Treaty has collapsed. The Shimla Agreement lies suspended. From Pakistan’s proxy warfare to Bangladesh’s creeping Islamism and great power maneuvering, South Asia is entering not just a geopolitical spiral—but a civilizational eclipse. What we’re witnessing is the slow disintegration of the pluralist soul that once defined this region.

25 April 2025

I. Introduction: The Breaking of a Compact When India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty following the terror attack in Pahalgam—carried out by The Resistance Front (TRF), a group with clear operational and ideological ties to Pakistan's deep state—it did more than nullify a water-sharing agreement. It shattered one of the few remaining symbols of post-Partition cooperation between the two nuclear-armed rivals. For decades, the treaty withstood wars, diplomatic breakdowns, and public rage. That it should now collapse in response to yet another incident of state-proxied terror speaks volumes—not only about India’s strategic posture but about the region’s crumbling secular compact. Now, that compact has fractured even further. In a retaliatory gesture of its own, Pakistan has suspended the Shimla Agreement (1972)—a foundational accord that once governed diplomatic protocols, bilateralism, and conflict resolution between India and Pakistan. If the Indus Waters Treaty was the hydrological pillar of cooperation, the Shimla Agreement was its diplomatic spine. Together, these two treaties formed the

last architecture of mutual restraint between nuclear neighbors. Their dual collapse signals a freefall into a pre-1970s strategic environment—one where war, not negotiation, is again the default setting. However, to treat the Treaty’s dissolution as a bilateral escalation alone would be myopic. It is better understood as the tremor before a regional quake. From the Indus in the West to the Bay of Bengal in the East, a new geopolitical alignment is taking shape—an alignment that threatens to undo the fragile, secular, and postcolonial order that had once offered a vision of stability. Across South Asia, terror proxies are resurgent, Islamist politics is infiltrating interim governments, and foreign powers are circling zones of instability under the guise of humanitarian concern. India, at the heart of it all, finds itself in a two-front dilemma. In the West, Pakistan continues to serve as an incubator for transnational jihadist ambitions. In the East, Bangladesh’s descent into political instability and Islamist resurgence—combined with creeping…