Any death is tragic. But when a journalist leaves behind an open letter before taking his own life, it becomes more of a political statement than just a personal tragedy.

The apparent suicide of Bibhuranjan Sarkar, preceded by his published note, forces us to confront the unsettling meaning of his final words.

In the opening lines of his letter, Bibhuranjan said: “For this long time, I have written in favor of truth, in favor of people, and in favor of the country. But today, when I look at my own life, I feel that it is not easy to live by writing the truth.”

The fact however is that the record of Bibhuranjan’s own journalism complicates his self-portrait. For at least the last decade, his writing was not the voice of the disenfranchised but a steady chorus in favor of the Awami League, of Sheikh Hasina, of a system many now recognize as completely authoritarian.

He did not challenge state violence or the erosion of democracy. He reinforced it. To call such work “truth” is in fact a delusion.

Bibhuranjan was devoted to what can only be described as the Awami faith, an ideological religion that allowed him to mistake loyalty for integrity. If blind belief can convince some that cows fly in the sky, it convinced him that sycophancy was truth-telling.

But if he was so loyal, why did his life unravel? Not because he was persecuted for truth, but because he failed at patronage.

Unlike many party loyalists who have cashed in through violence, or sheer opportunism, Bibhuranjan could not translate his devotion into money, recognition, or status. His skills as a communicator were meager, and his ideological zeal provided no marketable reward.

The most damning evidence of this failure comes from his own suicide note: “During Sheikh Hasina's rule, many people have taken many opportunities in various identities. At one point, forgetting my shame, I also applied for help at Sheikh Hasina's court but got no results.”

“Many journalists have received plots. I applied twice and was not successful. Many people have supposedly changed their fate by writing books about Bangabandhu and Sheikh Hasina. Yet, for the two books published by Agami Prokashani, I have not received two taka in royalty.”

This merely qualified as a testimony of a truth-teller silenced by oppression. It was more of a lament of a supplicant turned away from the table of spoils.

His despair reveals less about the dangers of honesty than about the cruelty of a system that rewards only the most useful loyalists and discards the rest.

A sycophantic profession

In Bangladesh, writing sycophantic books about the ruling party is indeed a business model.

Millions of takas can be made by persuading government departments and libraries to purchase thousands of copies of unreadable propaganda. Many have mastered this craft. Bibhuranjan Sarkar, however, was not among them.

He seemed to believe that simply writing a book was enough, without the hustling and networking that actually secure such rewards.

Likewise, plots of land and professional advancement require cultivating leaders, staying active in journalist associations, and playing the insider’s game. Sarkar appeared to think his columns for bdnews.com sufficed.

That was probably not moral integrity; it was professional incompetence.

He tried to portray his financial struggles as the price of “telling the truth.” But the connection between truth and salary in Bangladeshi journalism is tenuous at best.

Yes, some have been persecuted for their courage. Yet the profession as a whole is poorly paid, and still, many have carved out respectable livelihoods through talent, initiative, and hard work.

Bibhuranjan, instead, resented that his department head earned twice his salary, without acknowledging the obvious: a journalist who spent a decade writing in praise of Sheikh Hasina and still could not rise to an editorial position had failed not for his courage, but for his lack of ability.

Too many senior journalists mistake partisan hackery for professional merit.

The deeper truth is that his life unraveled after August 5. As he admitted himself: “But now, even when I send articles to some newspapers and ask them to print them, I get no results. My writing is no longer ‘eaten’ by readers in that way.”

The blunt fact is no one was reading him anymore. His columns had lost whatever market they once had, and with that, his income dried up.

Yet in his suicide note, Bibhuranjan leveled an accusation that deserves attention: “The Chief Adviser has talked about criticizing with an open mind. But his press department is not open-minded. Media executives are always in a state of panic. When will a phone call come about some news or writing? The article or news has to be removed!”

This is a startling charge to appear in a journalist’s last words. The press secretary has repeatedly insisted that he and his team have never called a newsroom to remove content, and no journalist has publicly contradicted him.

Apart from one case involving the Information Adviser and a new outlet, such claims are unheard of. The press secretary would do well to clarify the matter again, if only to prevent Bibhuranjan’s words from becoming ammunition for rumor.

A failed life

His note also included a personal grievance: that his daughter had failed her thesis examination due to political bias.

If true, this is serious–punishing students for their parents’ political affiliations is indefensible. The charge warrants investigation, for it speaks to the wider rot of partisanship corroding even academic life.

Perhaps the most revealing passage in Bibhuranjan’s letter was his defense of a notorious article by Mazharul Islam Babla.

He asked, incredulously, what was objectionable about Babla’s claim that Sheikh Hasina had been flown to Delhi by the army in a military helicopter, or that July’s uprising was not simply a matter of police bullets but also the work of “militants” acting with precision. “Where is the false information here?” he demanded.

That question answers itself. To insist, even in a suicide note, that the July uprising was a militant conspiracy is not journalism–it is propaganda of the crudest kind.

It shows how thoroughly Sarkar had internalized the Awami League’s authoritarian narrative, even in death. His tragedy was not that he told the truth and was punished for it, but that he told lies and was abandoned by the very system he served.

It is possible, even likely, that had the Awami League remained in power, Bibhuranjan would have survived. With enough persistence, he might have eventually attracted Hasina’s favor and secured the patronage he long craved. But history moved otherwise.

Today, many Awami loyalists find themselves in similar peril. Some have lost their avenues of corruption; others, more innocently, have lost their legitimate livelihoods.

This is not a future to welcome. A nation where livelihoods rise and fall with political identity is a nation trapped in permanent civil strife. Reconciliation must be more than a slogan.

It requires accountability: those who committed crimes and enabled authoritarianism must reckon with their past, not as martyrs, but as citizens who bear responsibility for what they wrought.

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Hasan Al Mahmud is a writer and researcher