Should Mahfuj Alam Get a Second Chance?

Everyone deserves a second chance, even Mahfuj Alam.

But second chances are not acts of grace; they are contracts. They come with conditions, memory, and a clear accounting of what failed the first time. In politics especially, a second chance is meaningful only if it is not merely a reset of tone, but a change in structure -- of responsibility, of institutions, of consequences.

In recent weeks, Mahfuj Alam has asked for precisely such a reconsideration. Through carefully worded public statements, he has acknowledged disappointment, distanced himself from compromised alignments, and appealed to a generation exhausted by binary politics and hollow promises.

He has spoken of a “new political-economic settlement,” of reconciliation, of policy-based politics, of trying once more. The language is earnest. The mood is reflective. The invitation is open.

And yet -- this is where the caveats begin.

If Mahfuj Alam is asking for renewed trust, he owes the public answers to questions that go well beyond personal sincerity.

First, he must explain why Bangladesh should treat state-sanctioned mob violence by the goons associated with the National Citizen Party as categorically different from the state-sanctioned terror long exercised by the Bangladesh Student League during the regime of Sheikh Hasina.

Moral distinctions cannot rest on who gives the orders or which slogans are shouted. Violence legitimized by proximity to power is violence all the same.

Second, transparency cannot remain selective. If a new politics is to be built on accountability, when will Mahfuj Alam disclose his own finances -- and those of his immediate family? Moral authority in a post-corruption Bangladesh cannot be inherited; it must be audited.

Third, reconciliation cannot be achieved through amnesia. Why should Bangladesh be asked to forget the genocide carried out by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami in 1971? Any political project that treats this history as negotiable forfeits the right to speak in the language of justice.

Fourth, moral consistency demands symmetry. Why is there such reluctance to speak plainly about the corruption of Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman? A politics that indicts one dynasty while tiptoeing around another is not post-partisan -- it is merely strategic.

Fifth, the mythology of July requires clarification. Was the July movement a civil war? If so, why is there silence about armed actions from the movement’s own side? Why the secrecy? If violence occurred, accountability must be mutual -- or reconciliation becomes a performance.

Sixth, sovereignty is not a rhetorical flourish. Which foreign embassies and external actors were involved with the July movement? When did Mahfuj Alam become aware of their involvement?

And on what basis should citizens assume that foreign interests aligned seamlessly with Bangladesh’s own? National interest cannot be asserted; it must be demonstrated.

Seventh, legitimacy matters. The people of Bangladesh did not grant the leaders of the July movement an electoral mandate. They expressed frustration -- over poor governance and attacks on students. How did that frustration come to be interpreted as authorization to rewrite constitutional fundamentals?

Eighth, accountability cannot be pre-emptively erased. Why is there a demand for blanket indemnity? In the absence of a truth and reconciliation commission, how is the public to know what acts require indemnity -- and which require prosecution?

And finally, power without mandate demands restraint. As an unelected government official, where does Mahfuj Alam believe his privilege ends? In a democracy, moral clarity does not substitute for constitutional authority.

These are not hostile questions. They are democratic ones. A second chance worthy of the name requires more than fresh language and new mailing lists. It requires answers -- public, specific, and binding. Bangladesh does not need another moment of hope. It needs a politics that can withstand scrutiny after the applause fades.

History offers its own lessons about second chances -- and about humility. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman began his political life, Sher-E-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq was not an ally but a rival.

Yet Sheikh Mujib’s father, Sheikh Lutfur Rahman, made him promise that he would always acknowledge Fazlul Huq’s contribution to Bengal, and that he would never allow power to turn into arrogance. Sheikh Mujib kept that promise until the final day of his life.

Political rivalry never became historical erasure. That moral lineage matters. It is clear that Mahfuj Alam never had such a figure in his life -- someone who would teach him that nations are built not by revision, but by recognition.

That absence perhaps explains his ill-fated attempt to reopen settled questions about the Father of the Nation. History is not clay to be reshaped by every generation’s impatience. It is a trust.

Mahfuj Alam would do well to remember that Bangladesh does not produce a Sheikh Mujib -- or a Tajuddin Ahmad -- every decade. These figures were not born of rhetoric, but of sacrifice. Sheikh Mujib spent thirteen years in prison for the people of this land. Tajuddin Ahmad governed a nation in exile, without applause or ambiguity.

Mahfuj Alam is no Sheikh Mujib. He did not endure prison, exile, or the long solitude of resistance. He emerged only when the incumbent order was already weakened -- when the risks were lower and the moral drama safely retrospective. History, however, has little patience for those who arrive only after the danger has passed.

Second chances are possible. Growth is possible. Learning is possible. But history is unsentimental. It does not reward clever positioning or carefully worded distance. It honors courage, sacrifice, and fidelity to truth -- especially inconvenient truth.

If Mahfuj Alam wants a second chance, he must first learn the oldest lesson in Bengali politics: Humility before those who paid the price of nationhood. Without that, no reset -- political or moral -- will endure.

Omar Shehab is a theoretical quantum computer scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, New York. He is also an alumnus of the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.