ONE rhetorical legacy of Bangladesh’s political history is that the very words which once united and awakened the nation have now become vessels of deceitful promises. The vocabulary that shaped our liberation — jonogon (people), gonotontro (democracy), khomota (power), and unnayan (development) — once carried moral force. In the past five decades, these four words have become inseparable from the deceitful jargon of politicians. Over time, each of these words has been emptied of sincerity and swollen with self-aggrandizement. Politicians invoke them endlessly — in speeches, manifestos and slogans — until their repetition has numbed the public. Their utterances have grown so platitudinous that the jonogon have become inoculated against these words, dismissing them as nothing more than deceitful soliloquies and self-indulgent rhetoric.
When our past political leaders like Maulana Bhashani, Fazlul Haque and Sheikh Mujib, spoke of jonogon, they meant the farmers, the workers, and the millions whose sacrifices birthed the nation. Khomota meant empowerment, not domination; unnayan meant rebuilding lives and economy, not erecting monuments; gonotontro was the promise of freedom, not the privilege of the few.
Half a century later, these words have become ritual relics of Bangladesh’s political culture — recited by politicians, young and old, drained of sincerity yet swollen with bravado and self-righteous pride. Once they stirred the imagination of a newborn nation, now they echo in hollow repetition, mouthed by braggarts who mistake noise for conviction. Each speech that recycles them without meaning further erodes public faith, deepening the gulf between rulers and ruled.
This article seeks to impress upon politicians not to abandon these words but to redeem them — to restore their integrity through deeds that make them real in people’s everyday lives.
In the early 1970s, politicians’, like Sheikh Mujib’s, language carried the moral conviction of statesmen who had suffered for their beliefs. Their words resonated because they were fused with sacrifice and sincerity. When they spoke of jonogon, the people listened not merely to the sound of their voice but to the echo of their own struggles. Their appeal to unnayan was not abstract — it was about food, dignity, and rebuilding the ashes of war. This vocabulary was rooted in moral realism: power was service, not supremacy.
But as the euphoria of liberation gave way to disillusionment, the vocabulary of politics began to mutate. The sanctity of jonogon faded behind the slogans of khamota. The ideal of participatory gonotontro succumbed to the culture of sycophancy. When political loyalty became the path to privilege, the word unnayan was repurposed to justify inequality and corruption. Development became visible in concrete, not in character.
Once Mujib tested the limits of his leadership as prime minister, he found the power of persuasion insufficient to enforce unity and discipline. In 1975, he assumed the presidency, concentrating authority within his own hands, dissolved the multi-party system, and formed BAKSAL — the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League. It was a tragic turn in the nation’s democratic experiment: the popular leader who fought for democracy presided over its eclipse. The one-party rule silenced dissent, strangled the press and extinguished the pluralism that had been the lifeblood of liberation. That autocracy finally had a tragic end — but it also gave birth to both dynastic politics and military rule that would dominate the nation for nearly the next three decades, casting long shadows that persist even today.
Mujib’s assassination in August 1975 shattered the dream of democratic reconstruction. The revolutionaries of language and liberation were replaced by the language of control. The vocabulary of politics shifted from moral persuasion to the rhetoric of power.
The vocabulary of control
UNDER successive regimes — from Ziaur Rahman’s militarized populism to Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s engineered democracy — the language of politics was further drained of honesty. Khomota became synonymous with coercion; gonotontro was confined within martial law proclamations; and unnayan was measured by donor-driven statistics. The lexicon of governance turned transactional, not transformative. The military learned the art of politicking; the politicians learned the art of manipulation.
Ziaur Rahman reintroduced party politics under the banner of ‘Bangladeshi nationalism,’ but the inclusive moral vocabulary of the liberation era was replaced by exclusionary rhetoric that divided rather than united. Ershad institutionalised corruption as the lubricant of loyalty, expanding bureaucracy to sustain control. Unnayan became an alibi for survival — every project justified not by need but by network. The press regained space but lost freedom; parliament returned but not purpose.
The 1990s promised renewal with the restoration of parliamentary democracy, yet the rhetoric of change quickly succumbed to old habits. Party manifestos revived the same words — jonogon, unnayan, gonotontro — but stripped them of meaning. Each side accused the other of ‘destroying democracy,’ while both perpetuated the same winner-takes-all mindset. The language of national unity devolved into the vocabulary of vengeance. Parliament became an arena of walkouts, not deliberation; politics turned into perpetual protest, not performance. By that time pre-selected businessmen accounted for nearly 70 per cent of the parliamentarian, whose business was limited to their own business interests.
After three decades of such circular politics, the question naturally arises: why should anyone oppose a referendum on the July Charter — or on the creation of two chambers, upper and lower, if jonogon, the people themselves, are the ultimate trustees and architects of the nation’s governance?
The age of cosmetic politics
WITH the arrival of the new millennium, political communication became increasingly performative. The advent of television, 24-hour talk shows, and social media amplified every gesture and slogan. Speeches were crafted not for conviction but for consumption. Unnayan was no longer a philosophy of development, but a marketing brand stamped on billboards and bridges. Jonogon became a crowd, a prop for televised rallies. Khomota was flaunted through motorcades, entourages and partisan administration. Gonotontro was reduced to a periodic ritual of elections whose outcomes were decided long before ballots were cast.
Bangladesh’s democracy has come to resemble a theatre state — vibrant in display but hollow in substance. The same words that once inspired and united a nation are now met with weary cynicism. Citizens have learned to read between the lines, decoding every promise through a lens of distrust. The overuse of once-sacred words has bred emotional fatigue and turned ideals into platitudes — a national inoculation against belief in the realisation of political promises.
Words can regain meaning if matched by moral action. To reclaim jonogon, leaders must listen before they speak and restore people’s voice in governance. To restore unnayan, they must measure progress by welfare, not by wealth. To honour gonotontro, they must protect dissent, not punish it. And to dignify khomota, they must remember that power without humility corrodes both the ruler and the ruled.
Bangladesh’s political class must rediscover the moral architecture of its vocabulary. When politicians weaponize language for propaganda, they destroy the very bridge that connects them to the people. The revival of integrity in politics begins with linguistic honesty — bringing truth by its name and corruption by its cost.
True unnayan cannot thrive in a climate of fear and cronyism. Real gonotontro demands tolerance for dissent, not applause for conformity. Jonogon cannot be empowered if their voice is heard only at election time. And khomota becomes tyranny when it forgets accountability. Bangladesh stands at a threshold where mere slogans can no longer sustain legitimacy. The nation now demands a new political language — one born of humility, empathy and service.
Dr Abdullah A Dewan, former physicist and nuclear engineer at Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, is professor emeritus of economics, Eastern Michigan University (USA). Humayun Kabir is a Former senior official of the United Nations at New York.
