So, another Eid is approaching
We have seen over the last many years a mad rush of people making beelines to rail or bus stations or to river ports for their journey home to celebrate Eid with their near and dear ones. The number of transports available was far short of the requirement. This forced the people to find entry to the transports even through windows, as the doors were too crowded to find a passage to their designated places -- sometimes only to find an unauthorised occupant.
When asked why they undertook such a hazardous journey, some replied that they dared to undertake this odyssey to be beside their kith and kin and also to get relief from the horrendously difficult and suffocating urban life. Statistics available reveal that a majority of those who undertake such a sojourn are from the economically disadvantaged segment of our society. Most of them are itinerants who live in shanties and slums without their families.
When away, these people save a part of their meagre income to send home to feed a few hungry kith who are unaware of the living conditions of their benefactors. These benefactors barely live a life, they rather let their life go the way their job steers them to. They range from factory workers to load-carriers in kitchens markets, rickshaw pullers to beggars. There are some fortunate ones who have jobs of dignity of sorts and have a respectable address in the city.
Boys and girls living in dormitories of colleges and universities also head home despite the hassle of an utterly uncomfortable journey. Nowhere in the world can one witness such a spectacle. Has it been fated on them by the Almighty or it is a social problem of our making?
I should think it is very much a man-made problem, and I am not inclined to let these people feel that this is "fait accompli." It is the advantaged few who have encouraged the suffering many to blame fate for the deprivation by conspiring to deny them a living that would enable them to stay at home with their kith and kin.
I think it is about time we abandon the age-old practice of emotional blackmail, lest it turns into an explosive situation, however temporary. Instances of intolerance are many because of the indifferent attitude of the employers to the basics of employment, which are regular payment of wages, medical support, and rest, recreation and welfare during non-working days. Work culture in the private sector is more about exacting and extracting than about providing means of emancipation and empowerment.
The workers are used as tools for enhancing production, ignoring vital factors like food, health, and rest. Entrepreneurial tyranny has caused dangerous revolutionary fervour that threatens production, causing immense problems for the state to keep the economy vibrant. So the state, the entrepreneurs, and the employees should engage themselves to focus on a work culture that will not coerce either party, and bring about a level of tolerance which inhibits the possibilities of explosion and helps the wheels of production to run unimpeded.
Before this problem blows up, we must evolve a set of rules that will help create a healthy work environment where everybody can join hands to form a cohesive force to give fillip to our economy. Once the economy gets vibrant, it will open a gateway to more job opportunities, better financial commitments and a healthy work culture. We have examples of China and a few a countries of the Indo-Chinese peninsula that have taken their economy to such heights that they could ensure a quantum jump in the quality of life of their people.
Asean countries are also meeting the same challenges with a considerable measure of success. We in Bangladesh have to put our act together more vigorously to translate our pre-liberation objectives of economic emancipation and empowerment, equitable distribution of wealth, and a quality of life that will remove the perceptible divide in our society. Initiatives needed in this direction are many and multifarious.
Decentralisation of administration, devolution of authority, participatory planning and management at all levels of national life, economic discipline, commitment of the leadership, and endurance of the people are the factors that will help us ride through the tough and turbulent road to success.
All said and done, the fact is that Eid will come and go as it has in the past, albeit with added difficulties if we do not awaken ourselves to the harsh reality that between pleasures and pangs, the balance rudely tips in favour of pangs, even though the toiling people deserve a better deal.
Is the political leadership set to take the onerous task of helping the "many" of our society to really enjoy Eid with their kith and kin, which is their aspiration and our commitment? Let us do the soul searching, because the premise has been identified and the recipe is not quite unknown.
Comments