‘I was prevented from working at ministry for last 4 months’: Mahfuj Alam

Mahfuj Alam has said that he was prevented from working during the last four months of his tenure as adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

He made the remarks at a discussion held at the TSC auditorium of the University of Dhaka on Tuesday evening.

The discussion, titled “State Reconstruction and the Relevance of a Referendum,” was organised by a platform called Rastrokolpo Library.

“I was not allowed to work at the ministry during the last four months because we wanted new media to emerge in place of the old media,” Mahfuj Alam said.

Following the fall of the Awami League government in a mass uprising, an interim government led by professor Muhammad Yunus was formed on 8 August 2024. Shortly afterwards, on 28 August, Mahfuj Alam was appointed special assistant to the chief adviser.

On 10 November that year, he was sworn in as an adviser, although he was not assigned responsibility for any ministry at the time.

After Nahid Islam resigned on 25 February last year, Mahfuj Alam was given charge of the information ministry. He remained in the post until his resignation on 10 December.

Describing his experience as information adviser, Mahfuj Alam said, “To manage the media, you have to deal with oligarchs, capitalists, and those who invest in the media… When people can walk out on bail directly from the High Court and shake hands with leaders of major political parties, how do you bring about change?”

Referring to the emergence of five to seven new media outlets, he said, “They have started working in favour of the uprising, of July, and of the youth. This has created significant fear among those who represent the old order.”

Mahfuj Alam said, “I also have to live in this country. Taking a courageous stand in the face of so many enemies and so many compromising elements is extremely difficult. The more courage I try to show, the more I am labelled a failure. But if other organs of the state do not support me, and if someone arrested on charges of lobbying can stand in the High Court and continue lobbying, that is not my responsibility.”

He added, “You arrest none of the oligarchs who provided the money, you do not bring them under trial, they continue funding activities and spreading repeated false propaganda—yet you expect the information ministry to handle this. I do not want to become Sheikh Mujib by shutting down newspapers or media outlets. We wanted to create new media. Were we allowed to do that?”

On the issue of a new political order, Mahfuj Alam said, “Today, the question of state reconstruction or a new order has become a subject of ridicule. There are many eloquent discussions and speeches—‘we will do this, we will do that’—but we failed. Why did we fail? Because a new order cannot be built by keeping the people of the old order in power, nor by colluding with or surrendering to the old order. If we had the courage we once had—even the day before 5 August, including myself—we could have established a new order and reorganised the power structure by now.”

He also said that the new political party that had embodied people’s hopes had taken a wrong step, and that he therefore was no longer associated with it. He added that during the period of the mass uprising, efforts had been made to prepare the ground intellectually and culturally through engagement with political, cultural, and intellectual groups.

However, he said, what has now become most important is the ability to envision Bangladesh’s future, and that understanding the future requires looking back at the past.