Yes, it's a polemical book, a collection of essays and columns, many written for the media and now bound together to form a very insightful book. As is obvious from the title, the author isn't dying from admiration for the liberal shushil class. They are at the forefront of all "revolutionary statements" but when the push comes to the shove, they are found short and often missing. Manosh is not surprised but more than a a trifle pissed off that these liberals are so full of talk and pious homilies but are not there when history is happening.

I was at the book launch event organized by the UPL where my task was to kick off the author's responses by asking him what his book was all about. I wasn't passing my own comments and this note tries to repeat the same though there is so much to agree and disagree with.

However, I did make a point or two chiding him once or twice for his high expectation from the liberals but in the end we both agreed that history of the liberals as a change agent may have gone on a very longish vacation. Or maybe- as I feel- they were so late for office, they never went in when the bells of history gonged. And maybe it was inevitable given the global history of this class.

The Shahbagh phenomenon

A key significant of the book is the Shahbagh movement because it's full of signatures as it rushed through history claiming and then being undermined. Manosh had once been a regular contributor to the media and saw the Shahbagh events unfold close to hand. Most would not doubt that the few events in Bangladesh occurred where the shushils united in a way they never did before and quite honestly, never did after.

So it's not just significant but in many ways a defining moment. Here it was, history in the making, as all stood up and cheered the flag, the "amma" and the values of 1971 and perhaps the constitution too.

The state felt the pressure of this new cluster which saw their star shine over Bangladesh. It's a moment many could be proud off and yet within a few days, it crumbled in the face of the counter pressure mounted by a group roughly defined as "religious fundamentalists" and widely described as upholders of anti-liberal values by those whose gathering was dispersed.

Shahbagh went on a retreat but when the challenge was thrown at the state by the crowd that came visiting to Dhaka from their rural seminaries, the state/government waited for a few days without reacting. And then one fine night, the boys in uniform took over and the madrasah revolution flopped just as much the liberal uprising did.

The only winner was the ruling party, who had played with both or the state as the book title asserts. It did hang the war criminals as Shahbagh had demanded. And even though the Shapla chattor boys were being supported by the Opposition group who were hoping that they would never leave and this would lead to the end of the regime and let them into power, it didn't happen. Instead the state to be symbolic turned the challengers into allies of sorts and in the end status quo held its way...

But they did just as the liberals and the Left did, unable to sustain pressure or stand up for their history about to be made. In the end, the state party came out triumphant, looking strong and ready to play a more complex game of political chess which neither the Left nor the Right, not to mention the middle, could cope with.

What happened to you guys?

After making this narrative in the book, Manosh asks with exasperated fingers in his columns, "What happened to you guys, "I had asked him at the book session, , "what were you expecting? "Manosh had spelled it out very articulately including their flaws in an objective manner rarely done.

Perhaps his answer lies in the book title but it's a larger wider phenomenon and for those who wish to stand up and be counted and never does, it perhaps can't be fully elaborated on media pages. But the frustration is real and Manosh truly has asked a very tough question to the liberal crowd. "Who are you guys?"

I couldn't recommend a book on contemporary class, politics and value structure analysis more than this because Manosh uses one incident as a trigger and then goes on to explore many other aspects of the issue. It's a marvelous display of intellect with an academic training to produce a profile of the jousting classes, all hoping to control the state and battling for the same prize.

A great read.