Tasneem Tayeb

Bangladesh is not unfamiliar with the image of women in power. In fact, two women have governed this country for nearly the entirety of its democratic era.

Grievance is often spoken of as excess these days—too emotional, too resistant to pragmatism. In political life, it is frequently treated as something to be managed or simply waited out.

As Bangladesh and India begin the long, delicate process of discussing the future of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty, the real challenge may not lie in hydrology, technical committees, or even climate variability.

Recently, while rereading The Museum of Innocence, I was struck again by Orhan Pamuk's insistence that memory does not disappear all at once.

The question is not only who attacked our cultural spaces in 2025, but what kind of responses followed.

Tarique Rahman’s return to Bangladesh after 17 years in exile has been greeted with a scale of emotion that is understandable. There were crowds, chants, tears, symbolism layered upon symbolism.

Every so often, news reports surface to remind us of the painfully perpetual existence of the Rohingya crisis in our very own backwaters.

The image of a burnt copy of The Daily Star, dated Victory Day, is difficult to shake off. It stays with you long after you scroll past it on your social media newsfeed—not because it is dramatic, but because of what it reveals.