Writers and scholars call for urgent restoration of governance as Bangladesh's premier cultural institution grapples with bureaucratic control and fading autonomy.
The Bangla Academy, founded to nurture the Bengali language and literature, has gone 26 years without a governing council election, raising urgent questions about democracy, autonomy, and transparency in Bangladesh's most prestigious cultural institution.
Over the years, bureaucratic influence, delays in book fair management, allegations of political favouritism in publications and awards, and administrative gridlock have transformed the Academy into what critics describe as a bureaucratic extension of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
As Director-General Mohammad Azam "thinks about the date," the nation's literary community waits anxiously for action--and for the return of democracy to an academy created to protect the freedom of words.
Under the Bangla Academy Act (2013), the Executive Council--the Academy's top policymaking body--must be elected every three years. The last election was held in 1999.
Eight terms have passed without a vote. The 19-member council should include seven elected representatives: three fellows and four general members. Instead, only 12 nominated members, mostly appointed by the government, now make all key decisions, sidelining the very writers the Academy was founded to represent.
"This vacuum has crippled the institution's democratic spirit," said several fellows. "Policies and reports are approved without any elected oversight."
Eminent academician Professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, a participant in the last election, said, "The Bangla Academy began as a democratic institution. Successive governments destroyed that character. Employees can elect their leaders, yet fellows are denied the same right because the government fears independent opinions. Institutions like this have been systematically weakened."
In 2023, fiction writer Zakir Talukder returned his Bangla Academy Literary Award, citing "two decades of arbitrary rule." "Without elections, the Academy has lost credibility and moral standing," he said.
Former Director-General Muhammad Nurul Huda noted that guidelines for elections were drafted in 2021, but implementation stalled due to lack of coordination and political will.
Professor Azam, appointed after the July 2024 civic uprising, told The Daily Observer, "We are prioritising the election issue. It may not happen this year but perhaps after February 2025. We are considering the date." His cautious optimism has failed to satisfy many in the literary community, who see it as another postponement.
A 19-member reform committee, formed by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in July 2024 under writer-researcher Fayzul Latif Chowdhury, is reviewing the Academy's structure.
