On the other hand, the recent arrest of the leader of the largest political party in the country and the government's reluctance in allowing resumption of political activities have brought about a confusing situation. Added to these events is the recent debate on the state of the economy, that prompted the advisor for finance to state the obvious, that budget deficit, unless checked, would increase interest rate, adversely affecting investment and the economy.

The debate as to whether the monetary policy was dictated by the IMF and the World Bank is irrelevant. The main question that should be asked is whether the monetary policy recently announced would help generate more employment and income. MCCI thinks that the contractionary monetary policy would slow down the growth of investment and employment. Centre for Policy Dialogue does not think much of the government's intention of increasing the price of gas, electricity and other utilities, to stem further deficit in the energy sector.

The government, to retain public support and by extension its legitimacy to rule, has to bring down the prices of essentials. While it is understood that budget deficit cannot continue indefinitely without adverse effects on the economy, one of which will be inflationary pressure, it should also be recognized that the current inflation is not demand-push inflation but cost-push inflation. Arguments that prices have to be increased because of increase in the price of fuel and other utilities internationally do not take into consideration the subsidy given by the developed countries (e. g .Common Agricultural Policy of EU).

Due to the absence of classical free market economy, where price is determined by unhindered demand and supply of goods, governmental intervention is necessary. In the absence of a consumer protection act, Bangladeshis are faced with the extreme avarice of a group of dishonest businessmen, which is still making abnormal profit and supplying substandard goods, which, in most civilized societies, would have landed the supplier behind bars.

Somehow, Bangladeshis have a higher threshold of tolerance for corruption and dishonesty. This phenomenon can be explained by the people's grudging acceptance of dishonest behaviour, routinely adopted by many politicians and bureaucrats, as the only way to do business with the authorities. In the case of politicians, corruption also became a necessity for recovering the money that many of them reportedly had invested to get nominations for elections. In the process of the recovery of this investment, some of the politicians lost their moral values and amassed a huge amount of money and property, totally forgetting Ralph Waldo Emerson's advice that "the highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the state is directed at securing the greatest good of the greatest number."

If the January 22 "fixed" elections were allowed to have taken place in the teeth of the opposition of the political parties and the general public then civil war would have been a distinct possibility. To save the country from impending doom, the January 11 emergency rule had to come.

The interim government that followed the resignation of the caretaker government of President Iajuddin Ahmed has reconstituted the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Election Commission, and the Public Service Commission, and is trying to bring about some semblance of accountability in the administration. These are undoubtedly welcome steps. But one is not sanguine that the ills afflicting the country would end with the holding of an election at the end of next year and the handing over of the reins of the government to the elected representatives of the people.

In the absence of an attractive alternative, one tends to advocate the merits of an elected government that would produce deliberative democracy in which "participants are substantively equal in that the existing distribution of power and resources does not shape their chances to contribution to deliberation." One political theorist writes: "Justice requires that individuals have political equality, that is, equal resources to influence decisions regarding collective properties of society."

But in countries like Bangladesh the quantity of deliberations in the Parliament (the lack of quorum quite often seen in the Jatiyo Sangsad along with Article 70 of the Constitution are to be noted) may not be able to match the quality of deliberations necessary to produce distilled judgment for the good of the people. It has been argued that legitimacy of decisions requires equal availability of political influence. Any decision taken on the basis of brute majority, on the basis of differential wealth, on the basis of muscle power, would not stand the test of moral standard, and of time.

Political egalitarianism may sometimes lack epistemic value and, therefore, may not be good for the society in the long run. This strand of thought does not support authoritarianism which occasionally may have epistemic value, sometimes mistakenly interpreted as communitarian value having precedence over individual rights. But then, such a system is impregnated with the possibility of dictatorial decisions being handed out, for example in Stalinist regimes, without political egalitarianism, defined as "equal political influence to mean specifically the insulation of political influence from differential wealth or social rank."

It could be argued that such theoretical discussions would be like an abstract painting exhibited before a people uninitiated in the art of painting. But as globalization has brought the cosmos and the Big Bang theories to our television screens, it would be self-defeating to blame our colonial past and metropolitan-periphery relationship for our failings, and for remaining insulated from the fast track of development that could mark the 21st century as belonging to Asia.

If India and China continue to progress at the pace they are doing, then the Western world could be confronted for the first time, since the ascendancy of the Ottoman Empire, by the spectre of the East overtaking the West in global leadership. In such a competitive world, in which we are already at a disadvantage, it is imperative that Bangladesh be transformed into a knowledge-based society. Political discords with their origins in history, pursued with a fixed mindset, should be set aside to be tackled with wisdom without barring the path of economic development of the country.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.