Biswajit's murder: A few are guilty, many are responsible

Seeing Biswajit Das staggering out of a building drenched in blood, disoriented and helpless, was absolutely sickening. The sight of some "brave" and "patriotic" young men brandishing their weapons and poking, battering, hacking away at him was disgusting. The fact that no one could help him -- not the police, not the bystanders, not even the doctors when he finally made it to the Mitford Hospital (through the courage and kindness of a rickshaw puller) -- was incomprehensible.
The crime was deeply unsettling because of several other factors. First, Biswajit was "everyman" -- a decent, poor, hard-working person from a minority community, who lived honestly as a tailor, loved cricket, was devoted to his family, and was not involved in political activities, addictive behaviour or street corner hang-outs.
Second, while a few intrepid and resourceful journalists from The Daily Star and some other papers could find out relevant details within 48 hours of the incident (they identified the perps, investigated their backgrounds, published the pictures, interviewed their families, and so on), the police initially dithered, and some ruling party leaders made distracting noises.
Third, no one lamented his death. As both Mahfuz Anam and Asif Nazrul have pointed out, no parties claimed him as a martyr. There were no processions, seminars, or manab bandhans. There were no Shamsur Rahmans whose poetry could turn Biswajit's bloodied shirt into a national symbol of shame, grief, and outrage.
Fourth, it revealed something much more troubling and sinister about the supposedly "peace loving, tender-hearted, romantic" Bangladeshis in terms of their ability to commit dreadful acts. The last, however, is not unique to Bangladeshis.
In a celebrated experiment carried out in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram, a noted socio-psychologist, revealed that human beings are quite capable of being brutal to others when they do not have to be responsible for their actions. As long as there is an authority figure who tells them that it is all right to proceed (even when they have the freedom not to do so), most people will agree to engage in behaviour that they know is wrong.
Similarly, Philip Zimbardo's famous prison simulations led him to formulate the "Lucifer effect" -- human beings are neither good nor evil, but respond to situational pressures and temptations depending on how that context is perceived, and how one's role is defined. It was clear that as long as one does not have to face personal costs, or be accountable for one's actions, human beings can be easily led to act in ways that violate the principles of reason and morality. All it needs is a slight push, a context and a cover.
Hannah Arendt has referred to the sheer banality of evil. Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust has detailed the utter ordinariness of people who could then embrace hateful sentiments and become complicit in horrific crimes against humanity. Rabbi Joshua Heschel (from whose writings I have derived the title of this essay) had indicated that even otherwise decent people may become responsible for the continuation of hurtful practices (such as racism or anti-Semitism, or women's oppression), because they neither challenged, nor even acknowledged, those realities.
It is noteworthy that human progress depends upon devising those ideals, habits and institutions through which we can contain those baser elements of our nature. Three efforts stand out. Through emphasising the virtues of compassion and mercy that come from faith; principles of the rule of law and justice that come from a legal and penal system; or the values of tolerance and temperance that come from democratic doctrines, human beings have always struggled to contain the problems of our own violence and viciousness that lurk so menacingly, and so treacherously, close to the surface.
What is unique in Bangladesh, however, is that we are steadily marching backward. Our religion is being maligned and manipulated to provoke, at times, inspire, animus and aggression.
Our rule of law is increasingly jeopardised. Between January and November this year, according to statistics compiled by Odhikar, 67 people have been victims of "extra-judicial killings," 69 people tortured by law enforcement agencies, 24 people have disappeared (many at the hands of law enforcers themselves), and 120 individuals, who were merely suspected of crimes, were publicly beaten or lynched to death by citizens who took law into their own hands and dispensed vigilante justice.
Our democratic institutions and ideals become hostages to petty partisan ambitions, and are being systematically devalued. We see this in the hyper-sensitivity to any criticism, the lack of transparency in government, the hierarchical top-down style of party structures with leaders insisting on sycophancy and mindless support, the gradual irrelevance of the Parliament (consistently boycotted by the opposition), and in the relentless demonisation of "the other." We see this in the pervasive corruption that impedes development at home, and sullies our image abroad. We see this most clearly in both parties cultivating their constituencies for agitation and brinkmanship, encouraging confrontational activism, and using a rhetorical style that is full of coded messages about masculinity, resistance and combat, and resonant with threats and ultimatums. Politicians have become performers. Politics has been reduced to street theater (of the absurd). The tamasha of politics (as Rajni Kothari had said about India) has become of the politics of tamasha. The next act always promises to be more sensational than the last.
Our leaders have helped to create a culture of impunity where, ultimately, very little matters. Whether it is 112 women burned to death because of the profit maximising compulsions of some factory owners; whether it is ministers and high officials caught with their greedy hands in various cookie jars; whether it is an innocent young man who has his leg amputated because of the mistakes of law enforcement officials (and is then charged with preposterous crimes); and whether scores of Buddhist monasteries and private residences are razed to the ground. The consequences will be minimal.
Professor Rehman Sobhan has referred to the "criminalisation of politics" as an unholy nexus of politicians and mastans or thugs. Politicians court them, protect them, unleash them like pit bulls against their opponents, and use them as persuasive agents for fund raising purposes. The thugs gain confidence and security. Both have made their Faustian bargains.
But, there is also the politicisation of crime. A crime is no longer a crime. It is merely an event that, at best, has to be manipulated for political advantage or, at worst, compel some damage control. Our leaders with their considerable verbal skills will simply obfuscate, affix blame, slither away. There will be no embarrassment, no contrition, no accountability. Ministers under pressure will be reassigned, criminal cases will be withdrawn, murderers will be quietly released from jail (or, at times, pardoned through Presidential decree), foreign visas will be arranged, and political or legal prices to be paid will only be temporary and slight. There will be fulsome talk of "conspiracies" (the most popular, and abused, word in the Bangladeshi political lexicon), and much chest-thumping bluff and bluster. The ruling parties will use their mastans, at times the instruments of the state, to hound the opposition. The opposition leaders will nurture their own goons and gangs, and prepare to exact revenge. Both sides will keep on stoking the fires of hate and retribution.
This is the environment in which Biswajit's murder became possible, and perhaps inevitable. Between January and November this year, 152 people have been killed in political violence (to be quickly forgotten as collateral damage), thousands have been injured, many hundreds of thousands intimidated, bullied and terrorised. Much of this is carried out by young men, many attending universities, most enjoying their status of social notoriety and political shelter.
Who has facilitated the enabling conditions for this to happen? Who has contributed to the gradual unraveling of the democratic tapestry? Who has helped to subvert the rule of law? Who has served to cause this sneering disdain for ethical values, reasonable political discourse, or social respect? Who has peddled the fears and fantasies, and exploited the social pathologies, that lead impressionable young men to acts of desperation and inhumanity? Who has silenced the "better angels of our nature" and provoked our worst demons, so that they could advance partisan agendas and fulfill their personal lust for power? Who has generated this culture of cynicism, nihilism and despair?
Biswajit's death was symptomatic of the moral vacuum that has been fostered. Ultimately, it is those who created it who must bear responsibility.
In the spirit of Emile Zola's blistering indictment of French society during the Dreyfus affair in France, it is time to say, "J'accuse, J'accuse, J'accuse."

The writer is a Professor of Political Science at Black Hills State University, South Dakota.
E-mail: [email protected]