There is a long-standing belief that politics is merely show business for ugly people.
In Bangladesh, however, it often feels less like theater and more like a rowdy neighbourhood brawl where the script was lost decades ago, replaced entirely by improvised insults.
Somewhere between the parliamentary floor and the election podium, the subtle craft of political satire died a quiet death.
In its place, our public figures have elevated character assassination, personal slurs, and visceral taunts into a primary form of governance.
What was once supposed to be parliamentary wit has devolved into a race to the gutter.
But as the decibel level of political mudslinging reaches a crescendo, an unsettling question emerges: Why is it that when politicians sling insults, it is called "strategy," but when ordinary citizens draw a caricature, it is treated as a crime against the state?
Political ribbing in Bangladesh was not always so coarse. In the immediate post-independence era, parliament and news archives recorded sharp, often humorous exchanges between legendary stalwarts.
Figures like Tajuddin Ahmad or Mawlana Bhashani were known to drop razor-sharp, sardonic observations that targeted policy and ideology rather than lineage or physical appearance.
Archival media reports from the 1970s and 1980s capture a period where politicians could trade barbed banter during the morning session and still share a cup of cha in the lounge by afternoon.
The decent masks fell off entirely during the nineties with the dawn of the "battling begums" era.
As Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia traded turns at the helm, political rhetoric abandoned all subtlety.
The banter was no longer about fiscal policy or foreign affairs; it became deeply personal, bitter, and relentlessly petty.
Public rallies were reduced to arenas for scoring body blows -- mocking accents, personal wardrobe choices, family tragedies, and physical health.
Senior leaders quickly took cues from the top, realizing that a cheap, vulgar jab at an opponent yielded a louder roar from the rally crowd than a fifty-page manifesto ever could.
This toxic legacy set the standard for the generations that followed. Subtlety was out; public humiliation was in.
When verbal darts require an air ambulance
If anyone doubted that verbal vitriol could manifest as physical trauma, the recent pre-election spectacle between National Citizen Party (NCP) chief coordinator Nasiruddin Patwary and veteran BNP leader Mirza Abbas put those doubts to rest.
What began as standard electoral sparring in the high-stakes Dhaka-8 constituency rapidly degenerated into a public slugfest of toxic barbs, character assassination, and viral online taunts.
Patwary launched relentless, personal verbal missiles aimed at the senior leader, while egg-throwing incidents, street clashes, and retaliatory defamation lawsuits flooded the headlines.
The relentless barrage of insults, combined with the pressure of the campaign, took an unprecedented physical and psychological toll. In a turn of events that felt like a tragicomic climax to a dark political satire, the veteran BNP leader suffered a severe medical collapse mid-campaign.
Following brain surgery in Dhaka, Mirza Abbas had to be rushed via air ambulance to Singapore for emergency care.
When political banter reaches a point where it literally sends an opponent into a neuro-ICU halfway across the continent, it ceases to be "colour" or "flavour". It becomes a health hazard.
The audience's dilemma
Philosophically, the phenomenon raises a mirror to Bangladeshi society. Why do our politicians consistently take things too far?
The short answer lies in the dynamic between the performer and the crowd.
In a classic Roman sense, our political rallies function like the Colosseum.
The audience pretends to long for dignified statesmen who discuss inflation, institutional reform, and educational infrastructure.
Yet, the moment a politician steps up to the microphone and delivers a well-timed, vicious slur against their rival, the crowd erupts in cheers.
Clips of these low blows are clipped into 15-second TikTok videos, amplified with dramatic background music, and shared millions of times across Facebook.
We suffer from a national case of political schadenfreude. We claim to despise the lack of decorum, yet we reward the most toxic speakers with the highest engagement.
Politicians, who are fundamentally creatures of incentive, simply give the public what gets the loudest applause.
When policy bores the audience and insults electrify them, the politician will always choose the insult.
A subcontinental disease with global symptoms
Bangladesh is hardly alone in this descent into political vulgarity. Across our borders, regional neighbours demonstrate the exact same malaise:
- India: The home of the world's largest democracy has seen its political lexicon erode into televised shouting matches. Prominent leaders routinely trade insults calling rivals "traitors," "termites," or "foreign puppets." Indian news channels host prime-time debates that resemble cage matches, where screaming over an opponent is mistaken for intellectual victory.
- Pakistan: National Assembly sessions in Islamabad regularly devolve into chaotic shouting matches where ministers trade personal insults, question each other's religious credentials, and resort to crude physical gestures on national television.
- The Western Experience: Even the older democracies of the West are not immune. The rise of Trumpian politics in the United States normalized calling political opponents "crooked," "low IQ," or "vermin," replacing policy debates with primary-school nickname slinging. In the UK, Prime Minister’s Questions frequently resembles a boarding school cafeteria during a food fight.
The consequence in every single one of these nations is identical: The total erosion of public trust in state institutions, deep societal polarization, and a political environment so hostile that reasonable, capable minds refuse to enter public service.
The great double standard
The most sinister aspect of Bangladesh's political insult culture is not its coarseness, but its hypocrisy.
While politicians operate with complete impunity - slinging slander from stages and TV talk shows - ordinary citizens and artists who attempt true satire face the full, crushing weight of the state machine.
During the reign of the Awami League government, the state demonstrated a terrifying zero-tolerance policy toward actual humor.
Under the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA), cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore was jailed and tortured simply for drawing caricatures that mocked the ruling elite’s handling of the pandemic.
Dissident writer Mushtaq Ahmed was thrown into high-security confinement for his critical social media posts, ultimately dying behind bars under suspicious circumstances.
This reveals a deeply broken dynamic: The state mechanism cannot stomach constructive satire, artistic parody, or citizen feedback.
Yet, the politicians running the state feel entitled to unleash unrestricted, crude verbal assault on each other.
When a society outlaws witty satire from its poets and cartoonists, humour does not disappear; it curdles. It mutates from artistic expression into the raw, unrefined malice of political mudslinging.
Restoring the punchline
Politics will always have room for sharp wit.
Some of the greatest political moments in world history involved brilliant, razor-sharp banter that exposed a rival’s hypocrisy without ever resorting to vulgarity.
When a society allows its politicians to replace substance with slurs, it forfeits its right to good governance.
Bangladeshi politics does not need fewer jokes; it needs better ones.
More importantly, it needs leaders who understand the difference between a witty parliamentary jab and a toxic verbal assault.
Until we as an audience stop rewarding the bullies at the podium, our political stage will remain a circus - and the joke, unfortunately, will continue to be on us.
Wafiur Rahman looks after the business desk at Dhaka Tribune.