Arrogance, whims and vengeance

It is sad and extremely painful to write that after four and a half years of rule by Sheikh Hasina's government, one is forced to conclude that it is a government mainly  run on arrogance, whims and vengeance and that it has missed a historic opportunity to bring about a "politics of change"  and transform Bangladesh and its politics through  its huge parliamentary majority, something that the Awami League had promised people  it would do if voted to power.
Well, people voted it to power, but the AL did not keep its promise. Instead of "Politics of Change" it reinforced  "old politics" with arrogance, whims and vengeance.
Nothing exemplifies these three traits more than the  arrogant manner in which the  Padma Bridge loan was cancelled, the  whimsical way in which the caretaker government system was abolished and the vengeful manner in which Prof. Yunus has been treated for the last four and half years and  the way Grameen Bank(GB)  is being proposed to be dismantled.
As we have repeatedly written, only one man stood between the World Bank (WB)  loan and the Padma bridge. At the end,  it was supreme arrogance that made Sheikh Hasina side with that "one man" ( in spite of pleading by most of her cabinet colleagues and senior leaders)  in total disregard of a "public good" that would have directly benefited millions of people, given  additional GDP growth and impacted positively on the overall economy. Arrogance overtook everything, including and ironically, self interest.
The chest-thumping and crowd churning talk of "self-financing" is a cheap play on national pride and can be termed as the biggest defrauding of public sentiment after the Share Market and Hall Mark scams. As our Finance Minister very well knows, the only "real" measure of  public wealth is  "opportunity cost". Of course, Bangladesh with nearly 40 billion dollar annual income from just RMG and remittance can "self-finance"  not one but several Padma Bridges. But should it, given the need for resources in many crucial fields like rural infrastructure, roads, railways, waterways, telecommunication, energy, industrialisation? These are but just a few areas where an absence of crucial funding is holding growth back.  Only the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand can say that we did not need those billions of dollars of nearly zero-interest money.
As for national pride, far more insult, humiliation and bad name for the country resulted from the loan fiasco than can ever be gained from "self-financing", which is a bad financial decision to say the least. Some day this government will be held accountable for such neglect and downright "dishonouring" of the public interest.  And for what? To save one man?
It took our  PM to order her parliamentary party to abolish the caretaker system and it was delivered within about two weeks. Such a fundamental constitutional amendment passed with no questions asked? Something that was literally pushed down the throat of the people with nearly three years of street agitation and  debilitating hartals from 1994 to 1996,  was changed by the "whim" of the leader. There was no debate, no discussion and no questions asked.  The "sovereign" had asked and the pliant House delivered.
The foolish opposition by its stubborn, unthinking, nonsensical and self-defeating  boycott made the task that much more easier.
Nothing illustrates better the vengeful nature of the PM and the government she leads than the way Prof. Yunus has been treated for the last four and a half years  and by the plans being floated to dismantle Grameen Bank (GB). Ironically, both the present Finance Minister and the Governor of Bangladesh Bank, who must play pivotal roles in this process,  know GB well. Deep  within their hearts they must know that what they are doing is unjustified, unjust and downright wrong. Yet they are part of the destruction of the most famous body created by this "much maligned" country, an institution that was given the highest honour the present world can possibly give ---the Nobel Prize.
It is public knowledge that  the Finance Minister  is angry with Prof. Yunus. But anger cannot be the basis of action  against an institution that brought unmatched glory and honour for our people at the global level. As for the Governor, that just an extension of service can muffle  his conscience is very hard to believe.  Both  are honourable men. But their failure to raise their voices at such a crucial moment reserves history's judgement on them which, in my view, will be harsh.
The simple question that has not been answered is: WHY is GB being so mutilated? What is the need for changing the way GB functions? Have its directors, shareholders or its beneficiaries complained? Who has diagnosed, and on what evidence, that GB needs to be reformed? Just for the sake of argument, if we accept that since Prof. Yunus had crossed the mandatory retirement age specified for a bank's Managing Director, the government had some "justification" (though we do not accept it to be cause enough)  to remove him.
But what is the reason for such a destructive move against the bank that has served the needs of 8 million poor, 95 per cent of whom are women, and being eulogised the world over? The present Commission (in our view not even remotely qualified to judge and opine on such a unique and globally emulated institution) has not found anything of any substance to call for such a drastic step as to suggest breaking GB down into 19 components. GB's own board (the real and legal decision makers), its shareholders (the real and legal owners of the bank) and its beneficiaries ( 8 million women of our villages) have had no say in this matter.  They were never asked because the government knew they would oppose it.  If this is not vengeance, what is?
We conclude by repeating that we have lost the fund for Padma Bridge out of arrogance. We lost the caretaker government on a whim.  But there is still time to move away from the vengeful act of decimating GB.
There is no denying the fact that the government, enjoying a two-thirds majority (four-fifths along with its allies) can do practically anything, however unjustified and self-defeating. Many such governments in different parts of the world undertook many unjustifiable, anti-people, anti-democratic, anti-freedom actions in the past.  These governments, in the arrogance of their electoral might, thought very little of the simmering discontent all around and critical voices that tried to warn them against adopting  policies and projects that severely went against the public interest. These governments generally fall prey to what is commonly called "The curse of Two Thirds majority".
Whatever face-saving whitewash is painted on the ruling party's debacle at the recent city corporation elections, the fact should not be lost on the AL that there is tremendous public discontent against it at the voters' level. Dismantling of GB, with its 8 million direct beneficiaries, each with at least 5 direct and indirect dependent family members,  will add to that discontent. Ignoring their feelings, and feelings of those near and dear to them does not make for sound electoral politics at this juncture of events.
We are quite certain that our plea and our warning will have very little impact on the action of the leader of our government. We still write in the faint hope that some sober mind at some level of the higher echelons of power, driven not by a sense of justice or fair play but purely by self interest,  may be motivated to make a last minute attempt to move away from the precipice. We also write  simply to put on record that there were warnings and some voices that cried out against such a anti-national move.