The times were out of joint
AS I write this review, the referendum on Scottish independence has ended and the decision of the people revealed. The world has witnessed the functioning of a mature democracy. Moudud Ahmed, in Bangladesh: Emergency and the Aftermath 2007-2008, has essentially described the working of a flawed, indeed, immature, democracy that is Bangladesh, although, after an existence as a sovereign independent state for 43 years, it can hardly be counted as a fledgling country. Ahmed, a former minister, deputy prime minister, prime minister, and vice president of Bangladesh at various times, under different regimes, both democratic and non-democratic, in the process of describing his ordeal during incarceration in the incipient days of the Emergency rule from 2007 to 2008, actually illustrates the infantile state of democracy prevailing in the country. Although some of the contents of the book, written while the author was imprisoned, will likely raise the hackles of some, they are not even remotely cataclysmic revelations. Being a book heavily leaning towards political matters, it contains contentious matters and observations, but it is also generous with political truisms, which, unfortunately for the nation, are usually paid only lip service in this country.
Ahmed lays out both one of those truisms and the underlying theme of the book in the introductory chapter (“On Remand”): “State is politics and politics is state. There cannot be a state without politics. Attempt to de-politicize a society is sheer madness and an anti-thesis to science of politics. The strength of a state lies in the political leadership and its institutions; to destroy those is to destroy the state itself.” And that is precisely what, in his opinion (which, minus the hyperbole about equating politicians with the survival of the state, carries a lot of truth), the regime of 2007-08 had embarked on by trying to paint black the entire community of politicians, and acting to practically eliminate them from engaging in their vocation. He states in the Preface, “The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the tenure of an illegal government and what motivated it to disrupt the progress of Bangladesh….”
The Preface contains a summary of his scathing attack throughout the book on the Emergency regime: “…before the country could take any solid roots to democracy, a coterie of generals led by the Chief of Army Staff forced the President of the Republic to proclaim Emergency in the country on 11 January 2007 and Bangladesh again, in violation of the Constitution, moved from democracy to an authoritarian rule….” Ahmed turns even more caustic: “There was no government as such, other than a combination of few individuals, civil and military, who committed the greatest crime against a nation aspiring to be prosperous within a short period of time….” He tones down as he brings up a nefarious coterie strongly suspected to have been working behind the imposition of the Emergency and all the negatives for the country that followed from it: “During this unelected regime good governance disappeared and those who always advocated the high ideals of good governance went silent. On the contrary, some multinational agencies, foreign embassies and a section of civil society took the position in favour of the Emergency and thereby encouraged the disruption of democratic process.”
While Ahmed indulges in a lot of carping (not without foundation) against the Emergency and its backers, the top brass of the army ((in Chapter 1, “Promulgation of Emergency and the Interim Regime”), he briefly discusses an aberration of liberal pluralist democracy that was incorporated (later repealed) in the Bangladesh Constitution: non-party caretaker government. Certainly, the 2007-08 edition contained a good number of inept buffoons, but the earlier versions were mercifully of a short duration because many of their members, too, were nothing more than glorified rubber stamps. In the extended edition, the real power behind the Emergency, the military, used them to front its agenda (including the denigration of the politicians in general). Ahmed believes that the Proclamation of Emergency should have been revoked or withdrawn once the conditions for which it was invoked had improved. He contends that the country had returned to normalcy within two weeks of its proclamation and, hence, it should have been revoked at that time.
Instead, the Emergency period was continued and “a well-orchestrated, organized mass propaganda was launched against the politicians…trying to establish that every politician was a thief and the politicians had done nothing for the country excepting making money for themselves” (Chapter 2, “Drive Against the Politicians”). The author then states the primary and immediate reason for the unelected military-backed interim government to have done so: “The bad name widely carried by the last BNP government primarily surrounding the office of the Prime Minister and the party office at Hawabhaban provided a strong excuse to whip up the campaign against the politicians as a class.” He follows with a political wisdom that, sadly, is found lacking in the political culture of Bangladesh: “Corruption cannot be removed or changed to any significant degree unless the system of governance itself is changed and monitored regularly by an accountable institution.”
Still on the topic of political culture, Ahmed could have pertinently mentioned that its currently abominable state has been a prime cause for the introduction of the caretaker system in the first place. He does fleetingly mention some of the manifestations of this culture: mutual intolerance of opposing viewpoints by the country's two major political parties, for one, but, another aspect, that of mutual distrust of each other's intentions by the two necessitated the constitutional emergence of the caretaker system. Ahmed, in an effort to justify his contention for a caretaker administration of specified short duration, states that the June 1996 and October 2001 elections were “acclaimed to have been free and fair.” The question that springs to mind is, by who? Certainly, the winners and the election observers, in general. However, lest anyone forgets, in each of those cases, as well as in the December 2008 elections, the losing coalitions made it a point of crying foul, complaining that the elections had, in fact, been rigged. Right there is another instance of the abhorrent political culture that shows little signs of improving in the near future. And, for this situation to have come to pass, the politicians have to shoulder their share of the blame to a significant extent.
Ahmed does make an attempt to portray the politicians in less than a Sir Galahad image, but it is perfunctory, and qualified so as to minimize any thought of large-scale condemnation (Chapter 4, “The Role of the Anti-Corruption Commission: Basic Rights Violations”). He takes the case of the last BNP-led government to make his point: “…certain persons close to the office of the Prime Minister…indulged in corruption…. Most of them were not politicians in the traditional sense. They were basically businessmen who somehow procured nominations and won the elections with black money to enter into politics to earn a seat of social respectability and make further money by flourishing their own business or men who were close to powerful leaders of the government under whose patronization they made their wealth.” He, however, acknowledges that, “…there would always be corruption in politics” (Chapter 11, “End of the Interim Regime”). Nonetheless, and this point could either indicate hard realism or a matter for debate, “…people are very conscious in making a distinction between the politicians who sacrifice and those who work for their personal gains and between the politicians who practice corruption in their own constituencies. They do not believe that the national politicians they like are corrupt.” At least, with these statements, the author breaks away from the carte blanche on honesty that he seems to have conferred on most politicians almost throughout the book.
Ahmed, however, never strays too far from his theme of bashing the Emergency and its architects and administrators. He does take time out to discuss at some length a topic that he has practiced for a long time: law and its implementation (Chapter 3, “Corruption Laws”, and Chapter 4). While he has been a vigorous critic of General Ershad and his regime in various parts of the book, he has mentioned, in a footnote, the obvious point that many would cogently make: that Moudud Ahmed was first a minister, then prime minister, and then vice president of the country in the very Ershad regime that he has taken to task. Back to the author's views on the Emergency government and its manifold failures. The judiciary was vitiated during this time, and, in his opinion, Chief Justice Ruhul Amin only succeeded in “degrading the authority and image of the Supreme Court” (Chapter 7, “Judiciary”). Furthermore, “It was not only the Chief Justice but all the judges of the Appellate Division of this period would go down in history as to have played a role in establishing regressive examples of justice for a nation which used to be at one time proud of its judiciary.”
The economy suffered its worst-ever decline during the first year of the interim government (Chapter 8, “Economy”). In the author's trenchant words, “…the regime had turned the “emerging tiger” into a mouse in a year's time.” On another important issue, he concludes that the “record of human rights violation of the interim regime was unprecedented” (Chapter 9, “Civil Order and Violation of Human Rights”). He also asserts that the image of the army was tarnished by General Moeen U Ahmed and his cohorts (Chapter 10, “The Image of the Army and the Role of Moeen U Ahmed”). In a rather disarming statement he admits that, “The military took the full advantage of the mistakes committed by the politicians of both the major alliances and the public support it enjoyed at the initial months after the Emergency was proclaimed. General Moeen, however, could not become an effective supreme leader…partly because of his dubious personal character….” Being a veteran politician, Ahmed does not fail to comment on real and imagined political give-and-takes. He believes that the “dream of returning to power made her (Sheikh Hasina) accept the terms of understanding which included a safe exit for General Moeen (Chapter 12, “Military Understanding with Sheikh Hasina”).
Moudud Ahmed avails of the opportunity to take another swipe at the 2007-08 regime. He thus sums up its tenure: “So under an unelected regime backed by guns when any military leader or their civilian cohorts men talk of democracy, rule of law, separation of judiciary or human rights keeping the nation under a lid of Emergency with voices of people throttled, freedom of press gagged, independence of judiciary defaced and repressions conducted with impunity, such loud words have never borne any credibility. The military leaders use these words as clichés to gain time to survive for as long as they can.” And ends with this parting shot: “Neither the interim regime could punish any corrupt politician nor they could bring reforms in the political culture of the country nor they could improve the economy.”
Shahid Alam, critic, actor and former diplomat, is an educationist
Comments