A new dawn interrupted by an old shadow

After an election defined by discipline, humility, festivity and a promise to break with old habits, the country begins to believe that politics might finally look different.

The early signals are unmistakable.

The new Prime Minister—eschewing the usual motorcades and theatrics—moves around the city like a normal citizen in charge of public office. His first address to the nation is measured and humble. No triumphalism, no chest-thumping—just a quiet pledge to rebuild trust and deliver change.

Then comes the symbolic masterstroke: newly elected members, from both government and opposition, vow not to take duty-free luxury cars or government land. It is a gesture that says, without ambiguity:

We came to work, not to enjoy the perks of being elected.

For a country long accustomed to the opposite, this is a political culture shock of the best kind. People begin to think: perhaps this time, the page really is turning. As they start to hope that this restraint signals a durable commitment—that leaders are willing to take their own discretion over perks off the table—there comes a press briefing.

The transport minister steps up to the podium and unveils a new moral philosophy: what some call extortion is actually "mutual understanding." Money collected at terminals, checkpoints, and intersections in the transport chain is not coercion at all but an unwritten rule—a welfare contribution, a cultural handshake.

Influence, we are told, is part of the natural ecosystem—an arrangement in which the powerful gently "guide" the less powerful, especially when political winds blow in their favor. Extortion is an unnecessarily dramatic label for what is framed as mutual understanding: people contributing because they have long since learned the consequences of failing to demonstrate the appropriate level of understanding.

These are the very practices people have endured for years, the very abuses they voted overwhelmingly to end, the very distortions the new leadership promises to dismantle. And this is the moment when the political class is signaling restraint, humility, and a commitment to public service.

Yes, a single aberrant remark does not erase a new dawn, nor does it negate the discipline and restraint the new leadership has already signaled. It is just one drop of the old poison, not a bucket. Just one drop too early. And everyone knows what one drop can do—a reminder of how fragile a turning point can be.

The mood carries the familiar sting of kabab me haddi—that uniquely subcontinental disappointment where the promised meat turns out to be nothing but bone, all risk to the teeth and no reward to the appetite. That little social theatre, where language is drafted to rescue the indefensible, belongs to a much older playbook.

Across continents and centuries, power repeatedly reinvents the same trick: "voluntary contributions" that no one can safely decline, "public-spirited donations" that somehow align with private appetites, "civic duties" that punish anyone who performs them without the required enthusiasm. The terminology shifts with each regime, but the pattern remains stubbornly familiar. When coercion is wrapped in polite language, it becomes harder to confront, because everyone is expected to pretend the euphemism is real.

We in Bangladesh have seen our own versions of this linguistic sleight of hand, especially in the not-so-distant past when certain "requests" arrived with a politeness so elaborate it practically served as a warning. The rituals were familiar: the soft voice on the phone, the careful phrasing, the invocation of national duty—all designed to make refusal feel both unpatriotic and unwise. It was a choreography everyone understood, where strategic silence often delivered the safest payoff.

That is the warning. Even when no one is proposing to legalise anything, softening the language around a long-suffered abuse risks normalising it.

Be careful how we describe a problem. We may end up giving it room to grow. Old shadows need only the smallest crack to slip back in.

Zahid Hussain is a former lead economist of The World Bank, Dhaka Office