The Tamesis
May 5, 2026
Dhaka – A fact that we don’t discuss much and seem to take for granted is the politicization of our various professions. Over the years, this phenomenon has undermined our ability to achieve professional excellence, replacing meritocracy with mediocrity, competence with obedience, ambition with lethargy, critical thinking with adulation, and the desire to build self-worth with shamelessness. We would rather kneel down than be sincere.
Most of our professional groups are partisan; as a result, professional standards are set aside to promote partisan interests, which serve personal ambition—to occupy leadership positions or exploit opportunities—in the name of partisan loyalty. Our doctors, lawyers, engineers, journalists and many other professions have blatantly allowed professionalism to give way to party interests, thus lowering the standards of our respective professions. One of the key factors holding back our modernization and progress is the politicization of public services such as bureaucracies, administrations and law enforcement agencies, whose responsibilities have shifted from the people to their loyalty to the party in power of the day.
We start with doctors because this is a profession that is closely related to our lives. The politicization of doctors’ representative bodies, established with the support of the BNP and Awami League, began decades ago. These institutions effectively took over the health sector after their party came to power. They decide on all key government positions and new appointments, and have a say in the allocation of funds and major projects. It doesn’t matter how successful one is as a doctor; How powerful these bodies are determines everything. Can a health department with public service as its basic ethos operate like this? After 55 years of our independence, don’t the current ills of the industry prove this? Obviously, every doctor has the right to have his or her own political stance and even to freely participate in the activities of their respective political parties. But letting politics and partisanship dominate all relevant policies, priorities, decisions and appointments would be suicidal.
The politicization and partisanship of faculty, especially college faculty, has done great harm to our higher education. The formation of various faculty groups – white, blue and pink groups, respectively associated with the BNP fraternity, the Awami League and the Left – has created deep divisions within the faculty and has greatly affected the academic climate in most of our public universities. Important positions as well as scholarships and research funds are awarded along party lines. Appointments of pro-VCs, invigilators, hostel provosts and even college tutors show clear signs of favoritism. Scholarship disappears as a condition of success or recognition.
Faculty partisanship gradually coalesced with like-minded student partisanship, creating a disgraceful teacher-student divide that transcended dignity and civility, with party lines becoming the only factor in success. Partisan students feel entitled to insult teachers from opposition groups, sometimes even physically attacking them with behind-the-scenes encouragement from teachers of the same political line. It is not difficult to imagine how the academic atmosphere in these universities has been almost completely lost, and how force has gradually overwhelmed the freedom of thought, concept, and expression. Teachers who are committed to their scholarship are gradually marginalized and can only survive by remaining completely silent.
Perhaps the greatest damage to these academic institutions has been the appointment of venture capitalists for political reasons. Many of them are not even qualified for such appointments. They formed their own teacher-student groups and ran these academic institutions as private domains, completely destroying the academic atmosphere. Sadly, the VC appointments during the Provisional Government have not escaped this legacy.
Sadly, presidential appointments at prestigious universities across the country follow the same pattern. Those who gained positions through party affiliation were more dependent on local MPs and student parties in governing institutions.
In both categories of academic institutions, merit and scholarship fade away, leaving students as tragic victims of politicization.
My own profession—journalism—has also been a victim of this politicization. Like doctors, journalists are divided along partisan lines. Maybe it started earlier, but from 1991 onwards we can clearly see that whichever party was in power, its journalist affiliates would dominate the professional establishment. They will receive all official support and foreign appointments (in the press) and receive official sponsorship. During the more than 15 years of Sheikh Hasina’s rule, we hardly saw any pro-BNP journalists at any official function. Not even at the National Press Club, just like we don’t see any pro-American League journalists there right now.
Journalists involved in this process appear to be unaware that the political context betrays a bias that is antithetical to the values of neutrality and objectivity that are core to the profession. This has significantly reduced public trust in journalism, and journalists themselves appear not to realize this, or they deliberately ignore it. Now, hundreds of journalists from one side have been accused of murder, nearly 21 months later, without any evidence, while journalists from the other side have remained silent. Well, don’t protest, but at least ask. This is political leaning.
Politicization has also had a fatal impact on the bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies. As part of the government, they cannot publicly choose sides, but undisclosed affiliations are known and evidenced by the benefits one group receives over another. The costs of this bureaucracy are obvious in terms of accountability and efficiency. The most important influence is the cultivation of merit. If a good officer is to be properly evaluated, he must demonstrate loyalty to the party, if not direct loyalty, at least a clear inclination. Promotions and evaluations are less based on merit and more based on partisanship, and the louder their voices, the greater the rewards. The sense of responsibility disappears and sycophancy takes over.
After 2014, elections began to be usurped and the government entered perhaps its darkest phase. In order to rig elections, the ruling party at the time needed more bureaucrats and enforcers; therefore, their power and privileges were virtually unquestionable, as evidenced by the wealth accumulated by former Governor Benazir Ahmed and others.
It was hoped that the interim government would put an end to this aberration, but what we saw instead was a festival of appointments whose rationale we had no idea. Yes, many bureaucrats were punished and harassed by Hasina’s government for political reasons and they probably deserve some kind of compensation, but keeping some of them at the bureaucratic helms of ministries years after leaving office does not restore accountability or efficiency to our bureaucracy.
What we are seeing now is perhaps the most politicized example of an extremely important profession: lawyers. The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on Wednesday canceled the nomination papers of 42 lawyers out of 90 candidates for the elections scheduled to be held on May 13-14, citing their links with the Awami League, whose political activities are prohibited under the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2025. Eliminate all electoral opponents in one fell swoop. The SCBA should disclose under which provisions of its articles of incorporation it took the action. The association has so far refused to make its formal resolution public, a fact that raises questions about an attempt to conceal something the public should know.
An organization’s activities may be banned, but an individual’s rights cannot be taken away without due process. Not allowing 42 lawyers with legal and professional qualifications to participate in the election means depriving them of their legal and constitutional rights. The de-nominated lawyers did not file as Awami League candidates; they reportedly did so in their personal capacity. Today, the SCBA is effectively taking away their right to run, and tomorrow, they may use the same laws to take away their right to practice law. The SCBA’s decision therefore has serious implications and must be thoroughly reviewed.
We are concerned that an institution that is supposed to uphold the highest laws of the land, the Supreme Court, is taking legally questionable actions. Lawyers practicing before the Supreme Court are expected to serve as the highest representatives of the law and the legal system as a whole. They are regarded as legal officials and an important part of the judicial system. They are absolutely moral torchbearers of justice and defenders of the highest standards.
As an ordinary citizen, my understanding is that in addition to the “letters of the law”, there is also the “spirit of the law” from a larger perspective. The SCBA must understand more broadly the impact of its decisions on society, democracy, individual rights, personal freedoms and the overall values of the legal system. To exploit it for temporary political gains and the personal gain of some is to play with the law, the judicial system, the image of the Supreme Court and the public trust. This is not only dangerous but also extremely damaging to the reputation of the current government, whose head, the Prime Minister, has strongly declared that he opposes this phenomenon. It reduces public confidence in the law and the Constitution. We should never let that happen—and definitely not by a lawyer who is a member of the Supreme Court Bar.
Finally, I repeat the original question of how the politicization of our profession has hindered the development of Bangladesh. Look at the world and understand the past, future and direction of each profession. If we don’t change ourselves, do we still have a chance to compete? The first is to restore professionalism across our country’s industries and institutions.
Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
