Ending with a whimper

Are the holes too big? Photo: Munir Uz Zaman/ Drik News

AFTER 20 months of arduous journey along a tricky path, the anti-corruption drive of the caretaker government seems to have run into serious trouble. The pain the CTG went through and the time and energy they expended in catching the big fry and bringing them to trial have apparently failed to yield the desired result. The big fry are escaping from the net, one after another, before the catchers could even know how and when the knots came loose.
Lt. Gen. (Retd) Hasan Mashud Choudhury, chairman of ACC, is known to be a man of high integrity. I admire him for his simplicity and straight-forwardness. He worked very hard. He moved from city to city, telling people to develop social antipathy against corruption. After twenty months of relentless effort he must be frustrated now to see the same people waiting at the jail gates to garland their dear godfathers coming out from jail.
Gen. Choudhury certainly looked puzzled when he was talking the other day with a television crew about the latest position of his anti-corruption drive. I have full sympathy for him. He has been doing his job with courage and sincerity, and I am sure he will continue to do so as long as he is in this post.
To me, he and his colleagues haven't done a bad job. If not anything else, they were at least able to send a message that nobody is above the law, never mind that the law in a third world country like ours cannot or does not always take its own course.
As an ordinary citizen, let me in my small capacity try to assess what went wrong with the anti-corruption drive. Firstly, a caretaker government should not have taken this anti-corruption drive, and that also on such a massive scale, as its main agenda. Its main agenda should have been to reconstitute the Election Commission, which it did, de-politicise the administration, maintain law and order, assist the EC in the preparation of a correct voter list with photos (not ID) in the shortest possible time, reform electoral laws, and create a congenial atmosphere for holding a free, fair and credible election in a peaceful manner.
Secondly, targeting only politicians and a few businessmen -- and that also mainly of the two major political parties, Awami League and BNP -- for their misdeeds and mischief over the last 10 years was wrong. Why not the business community, government officials, professionals, intellectuals and so on -- and also why not the offenders in the regimes of Ershad, Ziaur Rahman, and even Sheikh Mujib?
It is not that corruption began with Sheikh Hasina in power in 1996. It had its origin long before that. In fact, corruption became institutional from the day General Zia said that money was no problem, and kept the vaults of the nationalised banks open for those who showed express loyalty to him and his party.
But it is true that never before had corruption, loot, violence and abuse of state power taken place on such a massive scale as was seen during the period (2001-2006) of BNP-Jamaat rule under the leadership of Begum Khaleda Zia.
Given the time-frame and resources available with ACC, or for that matter with the CTG, it would have been only fair and rational had the operation "clean ship," if I may call it so, begun with a limited number of high profile corrupt suspects of recent times, picked up from all sectors -- political, social, intellectual, civil, business -- and allowed to go through due process of law.
The caretaker government along with some vested quarters, including some members of our so called civil society, by their acts, deeds and deliberations tried to make us believe that the politicians were all corrupt and were the cause of all the problems of the country. That was not fair.
Frankly speaking, the anti-corruption drive of the CTG looked more a battle against politicians than a battle against corruption. At one stage, it looked as if, in the name of freeing the country from the stigma of corruption, they were actually freeing the country from the existing politicians of the two major parties to facilitate entry of those who cannot win election by popular votes.
I am not trying to say that the politicians of these two parties are not corrupt. Most of them are. But then, who is not? Can we name any profession or class of our society which is not corrupt? Corruption has been so widespread and deep rooted in this country that there are only a few people left whom corruption has not touched in one way or other.
How would you classify a professor of a university when he gives first class to 52 of his students on considerations other than merit? How would you classify an educationist when he, sitting on the chair of a constitutional institution like the Public Service Commission, illegally helps candidates of a particular party in passing the test? How would you classify a judge, the ultimate custodian of citizen's fundamental human rights, fair play and justice, when he has to face trial for alleged corruption?
The charges of corruption brought against some of them were so insignificant, in some cases ridiculous, that people started doubting the very purpose of the operation. Arresting Barrister Moudud Ahmed, a former vice president and law minister of the country, for keeping wine illegally in his house, Barrister Nazmul Huda, several times MP and minister of the country, for stealing a mobile phone, or Sheikh Hasina, a former prime minister, the daughter of Bangabandu and chief of Awami League, for extorting money from someone who himself denied having any allegation against her, was not only ridiculous but also utterly senseless and irresponsible on the part of the government.
Indeed, so extensive have the mis-steps of the anti-corruption drive been that they give rise to the suspicion that the operation might never really have been meant for eradicating corruption from the society, but was all a part of the blue-print to restore the lost image of a particular political party to make a balance with the other for the coming election.
But whether such a suspicion is founded or unfounded, and regardless of the sincerity of the motives of the ACC chief and his staff, there can be little doubt that the anti-corruption drive that began with a bang now appears to be set to end with a whimper.

Husain Imam is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.