Mahfuz Alam

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Mahfuz Alam (Bengali: মাহফুজ আলম) also known as Mahfuz Abdullah, is a Bangladeshi student activist and a coordinator of the liaison committee of Anti-discrimination Students Movement which led the Student–People's uprising.^[2] He currently holds the position of the Adviser^[3][4] and Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government of Bangladesh.^[5][6][7]

He was born in 1995 in Ichapur village, located in the Ramganj Upazila of Lakshmipur district. He completed his SSC (Dakhil) from Gallak Darussunnat Alim Madrasa in Chandpur, and later passed his HSC (Alim) from Tamirul Millat Kamil Madrasa.^[8]

In the academic year 2015-16, he was a student in the Department of Law at the University of Dhaka.^[9]

He was the coordinator of the liaison committee of Anti-Discrimination Student Movement.^[10]He was appointed as a special assistant to the chief adviser of the interim government with the status of a secretary on 28 August.

On 25 September 2024, while speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative on the sidelines of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, Muhammad Yunus, Chief Advisor to Bangladesh's interim government, referred to Mahfuz as "the brain" of the Student-People's uprising, which culminated in the fall of Sheikh Hasina's administration.^[11][12]

Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, an editor of the Indian newspaper The Economic Times, alleged that Alam is a former member of the Islamist fundamentalist organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir.^[13] Alam later refuted the claim in a Facebook post.^[14]

On 16th December 2024, Mahfuz Alam showed Indian states of Tripura, Assam, and West Bengal a part of Bangladesh in an image shared in his Facebook post, while declaring the need for "a new geography and system".^[15][16][17] Alam also claimed that the cultures of Northeast India and Bangladesh have been suppressed by "Hindu extremists" and "anti-Bengal attitude" of the upper-caste Hindus.^[17] He wrote ^[18]:

"We cannot achieve liberation through Bangladesh through insect-eating East Pakistan without the full development of the civilization and culture of the region from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, which is actually different from that of North India - regardless of the Muslim Hindus, and the restoration of the townships from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. The question of the liberation of civilization and culture is related to the question of human liberation."

He referred to birth of Bengal (East Pakistan) in 1947 due to "anti-Banglaism of Hindu fundamentalists". He refers to 1975 Bangladesh coup when Mujib was assasinated^[19]:

"India has adopted a program of containment and ghettoize. In 1947, the country of Bengal was born from the anti-Banglaism of Hindu fundamentalists and elites. That country had to be overthrown as a state through a people's war against the Pakistani hyenas. Again, '75 and '24 had to happen to keep the birthmark of this country free from India's dependence and India's domination. The gap between the two events is fifty years. But, nothing really changed. We are trapped by geography and settlement."

He called for a new geography of Bangladesh, accompanied by a map.^[20]

"So we say, new geography and settlement will be needed. A fragmented land, a birthmark is not done by the state, it takes the civilizational aspirations and transformation and cultural hegemony of the land and the state. Otherwise, the speeches and slogans of '71 and '24 will remain just shouting in the mix."

• Nahid Islam
• Asif Mahmud