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. Outside, the sky hung low like wet wool, and for a second, it felt as if time itself had pulled in its breath.
As I reached to close it, cold air stung my fingertips; Some intrusions don’t knock. Wondering how something so invisible could feel so sharp, I returned to my chair, and reached for the black and red Bergman cup. That’s when my phone─a battered device with a hairline fracture that caught the light like spiderwebs─ vibrated softly. One of those vibrations that hums not with urgency, but with omen.
Someone called from a world where producer nations gaze hungrily at Asia’s markets, a small land in South Asia with a heavy history braces for a quiet ‘War of Trade’ or the ‘Second Cold War’.
Bangladesh has been fighting not only in global corridors, but deep within its delta, its villages and cities, its prisons. It’s been a war for the land, for economy, for power, and also for the soul of the nation. Groups of believers aligned with the vision of an Islamic Bangladesh move in shadow and daylight, intent on unravelling the secular fabric that once stitched this multicultural country together─thread by thread, soul by soul, and drop by drop of its thousand rivers.
Another dissenter was murdered today. No investigations. No legal recourse. I’m terrorised by my phone now a days. After fifty three years our nation began full scale use of a lexicon that most people learnt a new. , a friend of mine made a list of new words which goes like the following:
Bengali–English most used words
America, Allahu Akbar, Al Badr, Al-Shams, Agun, Al Jihad, Alhamdulillah, Al aksa, Afghanistan, Area Domination…
B: BAL, Body, Bullet 7.62, Block Raid, Border, Byte, Begana, Burn, Barud, Beaten to death, BGB, BSF, Bonduk.
C: Covert-Operation, Cross-border, Camp, Refugees, Civilian, CBackdown, Code command, Check post, Corridor, Chicken -neck, Counter-intelligence, Kill, Cartridge, Cold War, Cover, Custodial Killing, Long distance, short distance,…
D: Disappeared, Arrest, Defence, Drone, Double Agent, Drug, Deal, Dead body, Decoit…
E: Endgame, Erdogan, Escalate, Education of Allah…
F: Fraud, Fatherless, Fascist, Fund, Found, Fear…
G: Gaddar, Guerilla, Genocide, Gang rape, Gang 138, Gestapo, Gaza-E -Hind, Hindal Al Sharkiya, …
People pronounced more often also: Hide, Hang, Human Rights, Hillary, Insurgency, Jews, Micro-credit, Player, World’s field, China, Russia, India, Myanmar, Rakhain, Rohinga, State, Seven sisters, Spokesman, Security, Social business, Special Powers, Terror, World order, Yunus, …
In the list there were some numbers as well: 32, 7.62, Three not three, AK-47, Long Distance Artillary, …
NINE.
My mobile screen blinked again to life with a post related to the Indian Prime Minister’s social media. I tapped it absent mindedly, thinking perhaps it would be another death, or a ceremonial acknowledgment of a boy or girl, who ould say, “Iam not dead”.Or it could be a message about another July-lal, the term some say to identify the July protesters. Lal is read, but it also means affectionate address of parents to a child. But what I found was quieter, stranger, like a thread slipping through our current time’s loom:
“Met USA’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard in Washington DC. Congratulated her on her confirmation. Discussed various aspects of the India-USA friendship, of which she’s always been a strong votary.”
And just like that, my tea turned cold.
There was a spell in that message—perhaps not a dramatic one, no, but the slow, careful kind used by powerful states to rearrange the futures of many nations through polite handshakes and quiet nods. Tulsi Gabbard—once a Hawaiian wildcard, now the sentinel of American intelligence. And across from her, the Prime Minister of India, ever the oracle of Hindu continuity. Two silhouettes meeting in the haze of history and strategy, while millions of us watched from our flickering screens.
Tulsi Gabbard, once a Congresswoman known for her unorthodox politics, had ascended to one of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence community. And here stood India’s leader, not only acknowledging her rise but reaffirming the bond between two of the world’s largest democracies. The words on X were formal─as expected of diplomacy─but they carried the weight of centuries, and the silence of shifting power.
In the outskirts of a small city in Bangladesh, outside an ordinary residence, a street vendor shouted─was it for things only found at Boishakhi fairs? Perhaps children from the adjacent houses darted past like torn promises, chasing after jhumjhumi or muri-moa.
My mind slipped through time, already leaving that wide open house and its surroundings guarded by lines of over fifty coconut trees, with the shouting kids behind.
And then─suddenly─you awaken to the present, and it becomes clear:
you are no longer in your land, but in a realm where algorithms speak in code,
and you know─with the quiet certainty of revelation─
that in this new world,
friendships are no longer measured in affection,
but in leverage.
Empires, after all, do not speak. They update.
What struck me most wasn’t the meeting itself─it was how they became two symbols of the power shifting that was going to shake the world. Two nations ─ one of which, just a hundred and twenty years ago, had been a colony of the power with whom the U.S. would later share a ‘special relationship ─ now found themselves represented by two figures long considered outliers within their own systems. Bound by shared democratic ideals, yet marked by a thousand threads of geopolitical tension, they stood at the precipice, gazing into the time to come. In between the silence of words conveyed a horizon of trembling uncertainty heavy with worry, and perhaps also lit with hope. A new chapter was being drafted─quietly, carefully, but undeniably.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,” Shakespeare’s Caesar said, “which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”(Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene III )
Perhaps this was one of those tides─not with a declarations by drumbeats, but with a glance across a table and the echo of old empires something was whistling.
By then the effect of President Trump’s presence set foot on earth. A ripple effect of what Gabbard said in Indian media across the Bay of Bengal─appeared as a thunder clapp echoing in the silky route, which could be heard even in fashionable Paris. Awakening Parisians’ self consciousness, the sound bites unsettled their old salt and memory. Far away in the city of wine and revolutions, Paris, the sky was brooding with a grey European melancholy, that takes away sleep of many a visitors, and she exhaled a kiss─not of teenage romance, but of rupture.
TEN
On the 18th, as Tulsi Gabbard stirred the waves of the Indian Ocean. across the continents, Raphaël GLUCKSMANN─the leader of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Member, France – Place publiq’s voice cracked the Parisian fog. He spoke not to one, but to the centuries. And though news told that he stood bare of theatrics, I imagined─a crystal flute of Champagne Ruinart, trembling in his grip, its golden fizz mirroring his indignation.
Or perhaps─no, it had to be red─a goblet of Château Margaux, breathing deep and slow,
as he whispered to the lady Liberty, “They’ve chosen the tyrants. Come home, ma belle.”
In my mind, she stirred in New York’s harbor, tired of the ash and slogans, her torch flickering like a Parisian café candle in the mistral─ the strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Mediterranean.
The crowd whispered. As if a wound re-opened in velvet gloves.
Raphaël Glucksmann, after climbing his modest stage, still real on the podium, became─if only for a second─a sommelier of revolt, and said “Give her back,” as if he let loose a ghost to encounter the USA. From Paris to the President Trump in the White House in Washington D.C the demand was placed, “Give her back,─ The Lady with the torch”. Glucksmann is not a president, nor a prophet, but a voice of conviction. As if the Alliance of the two nations swirled with the sorrow of ageing like old oak.
“Liberty no longer lives on your shore.” he completed his claim.
Seriously!
Some of the onlookers wondered what did he mean? Yet he really meant her─the ‘Statue of Liberty’ who once looked westward with hope, A gift born of French ideals and iron hands, now aching to return home, like a betrayed lover.
Parisians, quiet a good crowd, clapped in agreement, and then mourned─for a friendship frayed by flirtation of the new tyranny’s, for the fact that people of France realised liberty’s growing silence.
“She will be happier here,” Raphaël Glucksmann declared, as if on behalf of France he had written the note:
Dear America,
You’ve changed. I no longer recognize your dreams.
Let lady of liberty come home.
Winds from the suburban plains danced around Notre Dame’s scarred spires and the iron bones of the Eiffel Tower.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the monuments of Washington standing indifferent under the same sun—silent, statuesque, unmoved.
A French kiss passed quietly through the city,
not of love,
but of farewell.
Raphaël Glucksmann’s words often arrive as if by accident─a breeze curling into a crowded room—but what they carry is the full weight of European conscience. His voice drifted into a room like a mischievous breeze—light enough to stir a thousand murmurs, yet charged with enough gravitas to upend a parliament.
Born in 1979 under the generous shadow of his father, André—one of France’s fabled “New Philosophers”—he inherited fierce dinner-table debates and a thirst for truth that no amount of political fog can quench. That day, he wore his moral clarity like a bespoke jacket: tailored, unmissable, and occasionally startling in its bluntness.
Glucksmann strides the marble corridors of the European Parliament as Europe’s self-appointed conscience, wielding words with the precision of a maître d’art. One moment, he’s charming colleagues with an offhand quip about mass surveillance (“Big Brother watches you so closely, even your snooze button files a complaint”); the next, he’s lambasting autocrats in tones that could curdle Camembert at twenty paces.
His passions have taken him from the ruined theatres of post-Soviet capitals to the neon-lit detentions of Xinjiang. There, he has raised his voice against persecution and lies with the same fervour he reserves for charging down populist scapegoats on home soil. Whether railing against Putin’s iron fist or dismantling the rhetorical pyrotechnics of far-right demagogues, Glucksmann comes armed with intellect, empathy─and the occasional well-timed literary flourish.
He is also a writer, his books shimmering ballets of memoir, manifesto, and philosophical waltz. In Les enfants du vide, he conjures the emptiness of modern politics and invites readers to refill it with hope, daring them to reject the siren songs of extremism.
In the grand theatre of European politics, Raphaël Glucksmann remains the irrepressible character who insists that democracy must not only be defended, but also enlivened─and that a little wit, a touch of poetry, and an unwavering moral compass might just be the secret ingredients Europe forgot it needed.
Imagine what happened when Glucksmann stood on the podium to speak.
A hush fell over the audience as the heavy velvet curtains parted. In the centre of the bare stage stood his lone figure—bathed in amber light that danced across his solemn face.
“Friends, strangers, wayfarers of a fading promise,” he began, voice rippling like silk caught in stormy wind. “My plea tonight is no mere complaint─it is a lament, a dirge for a turn in the tide. Give us back the Statue of Liberty.”
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the dim auditorium.
“I speak not of iron gates nor of distant wars alone, but of a mood that has curdled into complicity,” he continues, eyes blazing with quiet fire. “When your leaders cozy to tyrants─strongmen from Moscow to Budapest to Pyongyang─it is not strategy but betrayal. When the torch-bearer of freedom retreats behind walls of isolation, it is not prudence but cowardice. And when truth itself becomes a casualty─when migrants are demonized, rights are eroded, and lies flourish─then the monument we built together has lost its meaning.”
He lifted an imaginary torch above his head, the beam invisible but felt.
“Look to that statue, she stands as our shared creed: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Yet here she is, leaning toward indifference. A gift from the children of France, she was meant to light the world—now she flickers in a gale of disillusionment.”
Drawing closer to the edge of the stage, he lowered his voice to a resonant whisper.
“Know this: I do not condemn America─I mourn for her. I warn my fellow Europeans: do not follow a colossus stumbling into darkness. Every giant can fall, every promise can fade. So, we ask, reclaim your torch. Rekindle the flame. For in these embers lies the only power that fear cannot extinguish.”
As he bowed, the velvet curtains fell once more, leaving behind a silence heavier than any roar─a silence charged with the promise to remember, to resist, to reclaim the light.
ELEVEN
The international spotlight flared again in Dhaka─but this time, not over trade corridors or legal frameworks. It began with a camera, a headline, and an American voice speaking into a new storm on the bank of Bay of Bengal.
The U.S. DNI’s interview with NDTV World, offering remarks on situation of Hindu communities in Bangladesh landed like diplomatic shrapnel. “The long-time unfortunate persecution, killing, and abuse of religious minorities─Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Catholics, and others─have been a major area of concern for the U.S. government,” she said. The words hung in the air with the weight of history. It was insinuating.
She didn’t stop there. Her voice, calm but sharp, cut further: “The threat of Islamist terrorists, and their overall effort… is rooted in the same ideology and objective─to rule or govern with an Islamist Caliphate.”
The ground shifted in Dhaka.
The Technocratic interim government issued a rare and fiery rebuke through the Chief Adviser’s press wing. “This statement is both misleading and damaging… Groundlessly linking Bangladesh to the idea of an ‘Islamist caliphate’ undermines the hard work of countless Bangladeshis and their partners around the world.”
It was no ordinary statement what the press secretary wrote. His language was crisp, sober and deliberate that drew a line in the silt of Padma, with references to Bangladesh’s inclusive Islamic tradition, its counterterrorism partnerships, and added a broader warning against “painting entire nations with broad and unjustified brushes.”
But what followed was even more telling.
The government’s tirade, instead of fading into the usual diplomatic oblivion, was quickly picked up and amplified─by none other than the French Embassy in Bangladesh, already playing a high-stakes diplomatic game. They retweeted the government’s statement─with quiet emphasis. Their social media handlers, possibly high on some Parisian caffeine, enthusiastically shared the statement across social media.
And that’s when things went from absurd to surreal.
It was a gesture that carried no additional commentary, and yet spoke volumes.
The act was noticed.
Former Indian naval officer Manoj Rawat, known for his razor-edged commentaries, fired off a tweet: “Deeply concerning that the French Embassy in Dhaka is endorsing criticism of Tulsi Gabbard’s statement on the genocide of Hindus… Seems France prioritizes defense deals and trade over strategic partnership with India.”
What had begun as a verbal critique of extremism metastasized into a new battle of alignments, alliances, and shadows.
At the European Parliament, Raphaël Glucksmann─ever the defender of pluralism and principled foreign policy─was asked about the controversy. He didn’t name Gabbard, but his meaning was unmistakable. “We must resist the instrumentalization of human rights as a tool of division. If we speak of minority rights, let us also speak of dignity, sovereignty, and partnership─on equal terms.”
If Gabbard’s remarks had opened a door to one narrative of Bangladesh─as a land teetering on extremism, which to some extent has facts and issues for India to be worried about. One might expect the French to take the high road, but non! Their embassy swiftly retaliated. Came the French response─sharp, unapologetic: “How ridiculous, baseless, and intellectually weak.”[5] It was not just a clap-back. It was a declaration. France was no longer a passive observer in South Asia’s diplomacy─it had picked a side, and wasn’t afraid to say so.
The message, dripping with Gallic disdain, only served to escalate tensions.
It was a moment of diplomatic slapstick─but also a window into the contradictions of French foreign policy in the post-2024 world. France, the land of Voltaire and liberté, had long prided itself on moral clarity. And no one carried that torch louder in recent times than Raphaël Glucksmann, the philosopher-turned-politician who once pleaded,
“Give us back the Statue of Liberty.”
His cry wasn’t nostalgia─it was a rebuke to a world where values were being traded for interests.
Yet here was France, doing the very dance Glucksmann warned against: cozying up to a fragile regime, deflecting criticism with bravado, and papering over real human rights concerns with hashtags and handshakes.
Where Glucksmann saw diplomacy as a stage for moral courage, the embassy in Dhaka performed it like a play of expedience. Where he confronted creeping fascism with verse, they deflected legitimate scrutiny with memes and mockery.
And so unfolded the final irony. France seemed to lead with principle, but it was unclear whether it acted on conscience ─ or simply followed the silent current flowing through the cable it had helped lay from Chattogram to Marseille. The line threaded through Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Djibouti, Egypt, Turkey, Italy ─ and finally, France.
In this dense web, choices felt like hasty notes, their words rushing down wires too entangled for any true independence of meaning.
The final irony unspooled.
On March 20, the web twitched.
The French Embassy in Dhaka sacked three Bangladeshi staffers, accused of leaking the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government’s riposte to U.S. DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s warnings about rising fundamentalism.
Whispers in the city confirmed: a senior voice inside Yunus’s press team ─ once AFP’s man in Dhaka ─ had lent a hand. Helped smuggle a statement across embassy walls.
And in that diplomatic skirmish, a new truth was carved into the unfolding architecture of politics in South Asia:
Words are weapons.
But in the hands of states, they are also realignment, re-ordering maps.
Journalist and writer.
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