Originally posted in The Daily Star on 7 November 2023
Mahfuz Anam has been known to me from pre-liberation days when he was my student in the Economics department at Dhaka University. I cannot vouch for his performance as a student but he impressed me by his articulate skills and athletic aspect. His fluency as a debater not only ensured that he won medals in Pakistan but that he could later represent Dhaka University in a debating competition with St. Stephen’s College in Delhi one of the premier educational institutions of India. History records that at that competition Mahfuz out debated none other than Shashi Tharoor, later aspirant to be UN Secretary General and currently recognized as one of the best speakers in the Lok Sabha!
Mahfuz’s athletic capabilities were then invoked in confrontations between EPSU where he was an active member and the Chattro Shibir. In those days EPSU members were better known for their cultural and educational capacities and were more likely to come off second best in any physical encounters with their opponents. Having someone like Mahfuz on their side was a great asset. It was not surprising that Mahfuz joined the Mukti Juddha and was specially selected for training to be commissioned as an officer of the Mukti Bahini, at the 2nd Officers course at Murti.
Mahfuz eventually did not opt for a military career, inspite of his training or he may have ended up as a CMLA! Fortunately, he moved in a more cerebral direction and spent a number of years abroad with UNESCO. It was in this capacity that I used to meet him in my periodic visits to Bangkok in the late 1980s. It was there that he shared his ambition with me to return to Dhaka and found a daily newspaper. Since most people of his background and generation were striving to move abroad and work for various international bodies such as the UNESCO, to meet someone who was willing to return home and take up the high risk mission of founding a newspaper in the days of Cantonment rule under the late H.M. Ershad, greatly impressed me. I hope I encouraged him to come home, as I usually did, mostly unsuccessfully, with my expatriate students and colleagues, but warned him that Bangladesh was then hardly the home for bold and independent journalism.
Bangladesh should be grateful that Mahfuz decided to take his chances in coming home and to sufficiently inspire the late S.M. Ali to end his own long exile in East and South East Asia to join Mahfuz in this noble venture of founding a credible English language daily. I have written in my memoirs of my involvement with S.M. Ali, prior to the declaration of Martial Law in Pakistan by Field Marshal Ayub Khan, to establish such a paper. There was no more experienced or capable person than Ali to edit such an ambitious venture. But, if I recollect, it required the energy and entrepreneurship of the younger Mahfuz to operationalize such a venture. It is a tribute to both Ali and Mahfuz that they had the foresight to seek out prospective financiers from the business community such as Latifur Rahman and Azimur Rahman who would be sufficiently enlightened and courageous to back the bold and independent journalism which has characterized the 32 year journey of Daily Star.
The fates smiled on Ali and Mahfuz because the launch of Daily Star in 1991 coincided with the fall of the Ershad autocracy and the dawn of Bangladesh’s second democratic revolution. The promising start of this new venture was severely blighted by the unanticipated passing of S.M. Ali two years later, Mahfuz, for all his enthusiasm had only a limited experience in the newspaper business and banked heavily on the leadership of S.M. Ali to teach him the trade so that he may one day, far ahead, succeed him as the Editor of Daily Star. To find himself thrust into the driver’s seat of an as yet newly established newspaper, with all the hazards of bringing out a paper under a BNP regime which was far from friendly to the political tradition with which Ali and Mahfuz were associated and to also deal with the financial and managerial problems of keeping such a venture afloat, were unimaginable challenges for Mahfuz, then barely in his 40’s and still in a learning mode. It is a tribute to Mahfuz’s courage as much as his emerging entrepreneurial skills that he took up the challenge, kept Daily Star afloat as well as financially viable for three decades and survived the unexpected and turbulent engagement with what was rather optimistically believed to be Bangladesh’s rebirth of democracy.
Mahfuz and Daily Star have discovered at some cost to their own wellbeing, that ‘democratic’ regimes do not look on the independent media as their natural allies but as dangerous adversaries. Mahfuz had the option, as a young editor, to make his peace and fortune, kowtowing to successive democratic leaders, practicing ‘sensible’ journalism but knowing where to draw the line. Generations of those who believe that an independent media provides the lifeblood of democracy should pay tribute to Mahfuz Anam, that over the years, through two BNP, four AL regimes and a Cantonment backed regime, he continuously spoke truth to power. When the BNP was in power his powerful criticisms of their misdeeds served as a political resource to the AL-led opposition. When he chose to return the compliment to the AL regimes he was branded as their enemy, hostile to democracy and the liberation war! Not only were he and his paper tendentiously excoriated by the ruling party in and outside parliament but Mahfuz was exposed to unjust laws and their partisan weaponization which exposed him to numerous meritless legal challenges. Both he and his bold owner, the late Latifur Rahman, faced similar pressures from the revenue authorities under both the BNP and the AL regimes. Fortunately their high standards of integrity and fiscal compliance protected them from more severe action. This has not prevented Mahfuz and his partner Matiur Rahman, Editor of our leading Bangla daily Prothom Alo from living under the perpetual threat of some fabricated action which could silence their bold voices.
At the end of 30 years Mahfuz is still around, writing strong, highly readable op eds which continue to speak truth to power and strive to uphold the foundational principles of our nationhood. Daily Star continues to break stories which draw attention to the variety of problems faced by the people of Bangladesh while highlighting our many success stories and recognizing the achievements of government as well as the many unsung heroes behind our successes. As Bangladesh crosses its own half century we would hope that our rulers would have the good sense to appreciate that Mahfuz Anam and the Daily Star are not their enemy but their best friends. If Bangladesh hopes to graduate to a developed country status we need to keep in mind that developmental advancement needs to be sustained through qualitative and transformative improvements in the nation’s governance. In such a venture an independent media which can constantly hold a regime accountable for its deeds of omission and commission, can expose wrong doings while suggesting corrective actions, remains an indispensable asset in our march forward across the increasingly challenging landscape of the 21st century.
Professor Rehman Sobhan, Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).