It’s the middle of the night, and news is breaking around the globe as most of Bloomington-Normal sleeps. A mild-mannered professor from Illinois State University is often awake in these quiet hours.

There’s a 12-hour time difference between Bangladesh and Bloomington-Normal, so Dr. Ali Riaz often finds himself monitoring events in his home country deep into the night. The Distinguished Professor in Illinois State’s Department of Politics and Government is a scholar of South Asian politics, especially the political landscape in his native land. 

Last August, an uprising led mostly by students rejecting the government’s turn to full-blown autocracy caused Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to leave the country after 15 years in office. An interim government, led by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, was assembled just days later. 

Among the many tasks facing Yunus was to reform, review, and rewrite the country’s constitution. His choice to lead the effort? A humble professor from Illinois State University.

“It is an honor, but it’s a great responsibility, not only for me, but it is a challenge for the nation,” said Riaz, who left Central Illinois for Bangladesh last October. “This is an opportunity to shape the future of Bangladesh.”

Riaz led the Constitution Reform Commission with members that included judges, lawyers, academics, and activists. The commission met hundreds of stakeholders such as members of the civil society, professional groups, and constitution experts. They delivered recommendations in meetings held in February. Riaz is proud of the work but wishes circumstances were different. Under Hasina’s regime, there were extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, people incarcerated and tortured.

“I wish we didn’t have to come to this because so many lives have been lost, and there are so many traumatic experiences that people have gone through the last 15 years,” Riaz said. “So, am I proud to be in this position? Yes. But at the same time, it is with a heavy heart.”

Before the Constitution Reform Commission’s work was even done, Riaz was given a new assignment. In December, Yunus appointed him to a National Consensus Commission that will ensure the country’s upcoming election is conducted fairly and transparently.

The work has been complicated, and the days long, but Riaz was well-equipped from years of overnight news consumption and a former career as a journalist. Riaz was a broadcast journalist in the Bengali service for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for five years in the late 1990s. Even then, he kept odd hours due to the seven-hour time difference between most of South Asia and London, where he was based. 

“I’ve had to live in three time zones in a sense, because my family was here in the United States,” he said. 

The journalist-turned-scholar still uses skills learned from his journalism career to stay informed. He utilizes WhatsApp, Signal, and Facebook Messenger to stay in contact with Bangladeshis. 

“I’ve been helped by people in Bangladesh who are reporters and civil society members,” Riaz said. “A lot of people have kept me informed about what is going on.”

Riaz came to Illinois State in 2002. After leaving the BBC, he taught in England and at an HBCU in South Carolina. One day, he came across a job posting to teach South Asian politics at Illinois State. “That had been my area of interest, so I applied and got the job,” he said. “I’ve been here 22 years now.” 

Nearly 180 million people live in Bangladesh, making it the eighth most populous country in the world. According to Illinois State’s Office of International Engagement, it is in the University’s top five most common home countries for international students on campus. 

Sohel Rana, M.S. ’21, is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, where he is studying comparative politics and political methodology. He is a native of Bangladesh. He chose to come to Illinois State, despite other offers, for the chance to study under Riaz.

“I followed Professor Riaz’s work for a long time and wanted to work with him,” Rana said. “That influenced my decision to apply to Illinois State in the first place. He is a great scholar, a prolific author, and an amazing person who brings the best out in his students.”

Rana said he hopes that the new constitution will serve as the cornerstone for sustaining democracy in Bangladesh.

“Professor Riaz is a true expert on Bangladesh politics,” Rana said. “His current task of rewriting the constitution is critical to the future of the state, its politics, and to the democracy of Bangladesh.”

Riaz was born and raised in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. His parents were not involved in politics. But his older brothers and some of his sisters were politically active. He also grew up in a house of readers. 

“I was fortunate enough that we had a large library at home, and there were a lot of books that made a serious impact on my understanding of the world,” Riaz said. “Then I became a student activist when I was in the university. The country was under military rule then, and there was a pro-democracy movement that I participated in.

“We don’t become ourselves alone. It is the environment. It is our friends. It is our family. All of those contribute to who we become.”

In addition to his prolific writing on Bangladesh, Riaz is an in-demand speaker and political analyst. He’s been interviewed by CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and leading international publications. He’s spoken at universities, including Brown, Harvard, and Yale. He’s been in high demand lately. 

“It is not unusual,” Riaz said. “I have experienced this kind of situation before with previous political unrest in Bangladesh.” 

Riaz is easy to contact, and he feels a sense of duty to share what he knows of the situation in his home country. 

“In a sense, I have felt that it is my responsibility, because people in Bangladesh have faced unprecedented atrocity, and their voices need to exist to the international community,” Riaz said. “I can do it, and I should do it.”

There are lessons to be learned from Bangladesh, he said.

“If you look at Hasina’s rise to power, it was through a true, free, and fair election. She used the constitutional path, and she used the elections. These are hallmarks of democracy, right?” Riaz said. “But if you look closely at the last 16 years of Bangladesh, what we see is that the rise of an autocrat can be through democratic means. That’s not unique to Bangladesh.

“The lesson of Bangladesh is that democracy needs to be protected every day, and we shouldn’t take it for granted.”