Right down to the wire, why?

This may sound like a misquote in the high-strung politics of Bangladesh today. Worldly- wise Somerset Maugham said: "You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency."
Not only do our political parties don't know what is in their best interest, they even fail to understand what is expedient for them.
Even by the expediency, i.e. self-interest, criterion the ruling AL seems to have failed itself. Was the March 12 BNP's day or Mahajot government's? The AL ruthlessly suppressed BNP's "Dhaka Cholo" with a spate of preemptive strikes. These led to shutting out of all modes of transportation, arrests and parading of pantomimes, if you like. The General Secretary Mahanagar Awami League asked AL youth fronts to assist the police which, from the look of things, was brandishing sticks and staves.
This is a clear case of state power being used to suppress dissent in anticipation of but not owing to actual demonstration of violence on the part of the opposition.
In the process, people and the economy were held ransom to the self-created vagaries of politics.
One could say, though, the AL was giving the BNP the taste of its own medicine applied to the AL while in the opposition the last time over.
One wrong cannot be righted by another wrong; only wrongs will multiply as though in a never-ending blood feud running through a tribal culture.
The AL needs to take stock of the fallout of its bulldozing dissent for that way an anti-incumbency factor gets an add-on from an under-doggish image of BNP. The victimhood card is a potent weapon handed by the AL to the BNP largely through misjudged steps. This is political ammunition given on a platter to a political party that is fraught with leadership conflict at the mid-level, let alone the party's disappointing record of parliamentary boycotts and betrayal of its constituencies.
This is doubly ironical for the ruling party when it is credited with some good work with its debit side eating into whatever achievements it has on its score card.
It is stating the obvious that the AL alliance government's March 14 programme was directed at making a show of its strength on the back of BNP's March 12 grand rally. It may have been politic for the AL to have staged a show.
Nevertheless, the point is: why rallies and counter-rallies two years ahead of national poll? No one in the right frame of mind is looking to such toasty event just yet when serious governance and economic, infrastructure and regional problems cry out for urgent attention.
Equally, if not more, important is the pending agenda of working out a formula for an interim non-party arrangement to hold the next general election. When the AL says the time is not yet ripe for taking up a discussion on caretaker issue it is actually playing into the hands of BNP. Any further delay in thrashing out the caretaker arrangement will push the BNP more into intensely confrontational posturing.
The one-liner to emerge from BNP's March 12 rally is a 90-day ultimatum given to the government to finalise restoration of caretaker system, or else … -- the usual BNP stuff.
A 90-day ultimatum in reverse also hangs on the BNP. Nine days are left of the BNP's continuing parliamentary boycott for the party to join parliament or lose its seats. Suranjit Sengupta quipped about the BNP's ultimatum saying: "Why 90 days, only 90 seconds are required to wrap up a deal."
Only a fortnight ago political rhetoric was underlaid with a certain exchange of conciliatory words between BNP and AL at the informal level. This coincided, like it or not, courted that it was, with a growing international pressure on both sides to iron out their differences on the basis of available formulae apart from the opening provided in the SC verdict on caretaker system.
With 40 years of national independence, two decades of parliamentary democracy, and strides made in socio-economic sectors against stunning odds, can we fail to roll back the head-long plunge into the dark tunnel?
To end with Tk.2 vs Tk.2,000 anecdote, here is an antidote to mindless anger and violence in politics.
A rickshaw puller was given Tk.2 at the end of a trip by a gentleman (must be at least 3 decades ago). The rickshawallah asked for Tk.2 more. The gentleman got angry but the rickshaw puller persisted with his demand. A scuffle ensued in which the gentleman (?) landed a punch on the nose of the rickshaw puller, causing bleeding.
Thereupon, other rickshaw pullers milled around the victim and in a body they went to the police. The cop led the crowd into the gentleman's office. Result: he had to settle for Tk.2,000 to recompense the injured rickshawallah.
A small time story with a big time lesson, that.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail: [email protected]