In politics, timing is rarely accidental. In journalism, it is often revealing. Aleya Sheikh’s sudden emergence as a prolific commentator on Bangladesh’s internal politics—almost entirely after Sheikh Hasina’s fall and almost exclusively through a single outlet—raises questions that deserve scrutiny, not silence.

Let’s begin with what is publicly known. Aleya Sheikh describes herself as a journalist specializing in environment and community affairs in Asia. It is a respectable beat. Environmental reporting requires rigor, patience, and local knowledge. Community affairs demand trust-building and fieldwork. Yet her recent output is neither environmental nor community-based. It is intensely political. Narrowly so. And strikingly aligned with the public narrative of one individual: Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

That divergence alone is not a crime. Journalists evolve. Beats change. But credibility depends on transparency and proportionality. When a writer pivots sharply from environmental issues to high-stakes political polemics—without prior record, institutional backing, or methodological disclosure—the burden of proof shifts. Readers are entitled to ask: Why now? Why this subject? And why this framing?

The “why now” question is unavoidable. Aleya Sheikh’s political writing appears after Sheikh Hasina’s fall, not before. She was absent during the years when authoritarian excesses, enforced disappearances, media suppression, and electoral controversies were most acute. Silence then. Volume now. That asymmetry matters. Journalism is not only about what one writes, but also about what one chooses not to write—and when.

Equally revealing is the “where.” With rare exception, Aleya Sheikh publishes in Eurasia Review. No diversity of platforms. No competing editorial cultures. No cross-examination from outlets with different ideological priors. Eurasia Review is an open-access platform that publishes a wide range of perspectives, but it is also heavily reliant on contributor-driven narratives. That makes it fertile ground for advocacy disguised as analysis.

This concentration would be less concerning if her work showed intellectual variety. It does not. The villains are consistent. The heroes, too. Student movements critical of the Awami League are portrayed as reckless or infiltrated. Islamist actors are framed almost exclusively as existential threats. Interim governance structures are depicted as inherently illegitimate. And hovering in the background—sometimes quoted, sometimes paraphrased, sometimes defended—is Sajeeb Wazed Joy.

This brings us to the most uncomfortable question: authorship versus agency.

No serious critique should allege ghostwriting as a fact without evidence. But journalism allows, and indeed requires, the examination of narrative function. Aleya Sheikh’s writing often performs the same strategic task Joy’s public interventions aim to achieve: delegitimizing post-Hasina political actors while recentering the Awami League’s moral authority through grievance and fear.

The language overlaps. The framing overlaps. The priorities overlap. Even the silences overlap. That does not prove coordination—but it does suggest alignment so tight that the distinction between independent analysis and message servicing becomes blurred.

More troubling is the mismatch between stated expertise and demonstrated method. Aleya Sheikh’s political essays rely heavily on secondary claims, selective quotations, and generalized assertions. There is little original reporting. No field interviews. No methodological transparency. Bangladesh’s complex political ecosystem—military, judiciary, student bodies, Islamist factions, civil society—is flattened into a morality play.

This is not environmental journalism’s empiricism. It is advocacy prose.

Good opinion writing, even when partisan, grapples with counterarguments. It acknowledges uncertainty. It risks being wrong. Aleya Sheikh’s work rarely does. Alternative explanations are dismissed as conspiratorial or dangerous. Structural critiques of the Awami League era are minimized or deferred. The result is not analysis but insulation.

Why does this matter?

Because post-authoritarian societies are fragile. They need debate, not doctrinal recycling. When journalism becomes a proxy battlefield for displaced elites, it corrodes trust. It teaches readers that commentary is merely politics by other means. And it hands ammunition to those who argue—often cynically—that all media is propaganda anyway.

There is also a reputational cost. When a writer with a background in environment and community affairs becomes primarily known for political hit pieces aligned with a single political actor, she risks hollowing out her own credibility. Expertise is not a costume one puts on when convenient. It is earned, sustained, and tested over time.

None of this is to argue that Sajeeb Wazed Joy has no right to make his case. He does. Nor is it to deny Aleya Sheikh the right to write political opinion. She does. The issue is opacity. When narratives converge too neatly, platforms narrow too sharply, and timing aligns too conveniently with political exile, skepticism is not malice. It is civic hygiene.

Bangladesh does not need ventriloquism. It needs pluralism. It needs writers who challenge all sides, including those they might privately sympathize with. And it needs readers who are willing to ask not only what is being said, but for whom—and why.

Aleya Sheikh may yet prove herself a serious political analyst. But that will require stepping outside the echo chamber, diversifying platforms, engaging adversarial facts, and disentangling her voice from the unmistakable rhythm of someone else’s agenda.

Until then, her work should be read carefully—not as neutral diagnosis, but as a case study in how post-power politics seeks new pens when old microphones fall silent.

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