DHLR Public Lecture on Constituent Assembly Debates held at Dhaka University

Last December, Prothoma published Songbidhan Bitorko 1972: Gonoporishoder Rastrobhabna, authored by Professor Dr. Nazrul Islam (also known as Asif Nazrul). On the same title, Dhaka Law Review (DHLR) organised a public lecture on 7 February 2023 at the Faculty of Law, University of Dhaka, where the author himself spoke on different aspects of the book.

The lecture was inaugurated by Professor Dr. Sumaiya Khair who described the said book as not a journalistic work rather a work containing serious research. Author Asif Nazrul began his speech by expressing his despair at the unavailability of online materials on Constituent Assembly debates of Bangladesh whereas the Indian and even the 1956 Pakistani Constituent Assembly debates are available online. To him, the 1972 Constituent Assembly was the most authoritative body consisting of cabinet members from the Mujibnagar government, freedom fighters and those who were directly involved in the struggle for liberation. As he described, most of the members of the Assembly were from ruling Awami League, former leaders of the 1971 liberation movement, and only two were from the opposition 'and the independent constituency – Suranjit Sengupta and Manabendra Narayan Larma. Other major political parties outside the Assembly were – Mawlana Bhasani led National Awami Party (NAP) and Communist Party. He pointed out the lack of representation from other political parties in the Constituent Assembly debates.

Consultation for drafting a constitution was even inadequate. There was also absence of any scope for informed opinion of the public and there is serious insufficiency of public opinion in the formation of our Constitution. A debate came upon whether the Assembly had the mandate to draft the Constitution as it was elected under the Legal framework Order (LFO) of 1970, which was enacted by the then Pakistan government. Mawlana Bhashani was a critique of this Assembly and suggested a fresh election by which an Assembly with people's mandate will be the legitimate authority to draft a constitution. According to the author, a mitigation plan by consulting with other major political parties while drafting the Constitution could have been adopted by the then major political party in the Assembly.

He also discussed the functionality of the Assembly as a parliament. In the absence of a Parliament during the making of the Constitution, almost 203 laws were enacted via the Presidential Order and without effective participation of the people's representatives. This resulted in several problems, i.e., aggressive nationalisation of corporations while certain institutions started to weaken due to corruption. There has also been an absence of enough manpower and incentives to run those institutions in a newly born state.

On the questions of "secularism" and "non-communalism", Asif Nazrul opined that as the freedom of religion is categorically mentioned in the Constitution, adopting secularism as one of the fundamental principles sparks unnecessary debates which was in fact absent during the debates.

To some extents, Constituent Assembly members were foresighted and visionary that they had debated about the excessive executive power of the Prime Minister, balance of power between the Prime Minister, President and Cabinet members, a form of caretaker government during election time, proportional representation in the legislature, the two-house parliamentary system, etc., which, according to Asif Nazrul, are still relevant in the country to discuss and decide on.

Around 90% of the changes brought by the assembly were regarding language and other technical matters. One of the remarkable changes was allowing individual ownership in production and manufacturing. Tajuddin Ahmed wonderfully debated that mere flowery words in the Constitution will not be sufficient, rather free and fair elections must be held and only the "true representatives of the people" can uphold the spirit of this Constitution.

At the end, there was an interactive question answer session between the author and the students, followed by the delivery of concluding remarks by Professor Dr. Shahnaz Huda. 

Event covered by Tasmim Jahan Neeha and Julian Rafah, both being the law students at the University of Dhaka.