A country drifting into political paralysis

January 17, 2024

DHAKA – For a Bangladeshi who loves and treasures their motherland, Ali Riaz’s Pathways of Autocratization: The Tumultuous Journey of Bangladeshi Politics (Routledge, 2024) is a difficult read. It is so not because of any weakness in the presentation of the text or its arguments. Nor because of any contradiction in the content of the material investigated. What makes the book a heavy read is the fact that the writer leads the reader to the realisation that Bangladesh’s regression into an authoritarian and autocratic regime, with associated atrocities, was foreseen and precipitated by actors inside and outside the country.

The Bangladesh where I grew up promised much hope despite a myriad of challenges and constraints. But Ali Riaz sadly observes that the country is fast drifting into a political paralysis and descending into the abyss of authoritarianism, while maintaining a democratic facade. All these add up to a quagmire of corruption, injustice, repression, lawlessness, unrest, violation of human rights, and other abuses of power.

Pathways of Autocratization presents its author as a keen observer of Bangladeshi society and politics. His research interest in, and interpretation of, the political happenings in the country deserve careful reading and thoughtful consideration for the following reasons in particular.

First, Riaz is one of those writers and commentators who talks about Bangladesh from the depths of double consciousness and multiple experiential dimensions. He is a Bangladeshi who grew up, trained, and taught in Bangladesh. He then went abroad for higher education and has worked as a journalist and academic, focusing on Bangladesh’s society and politics.

Second, though currently a