Tale of two princes
SAJEEB Wazed Joy was sporting in his 'gol topi' and a very colourful 'panjabi' attending an iftar party. Blending into the celebratory crowd (having the PM's son in their midst), waving his index finger he spouted off that he had huge amounts of scientifically polled data which draws the conclusion of a guaranteed victory for AL in the next national elections. This sounded like the tale of rain dancers performing to usher in downpour in a prolonged severe drought. AL hierarchy are clutching at straws after the local elections whitewash, only to wheel out their 'feel good ambassador' in the shape of big gun Joy. Last notable public appearance he made was when he extolled the virtues of digital Bangladesh. Embellishing his vision, he gave the nation his original and fantastic blue plan and a futuristic vision of BD's digital foray. Since that launch, he has been mostly accompanying dear mum, the PM, on various sojourns abroad on official business. Sitting at the top table alongside world leaders readying for photo opportunities.
His active or passive participation in matters politic has been noticeably rare. National media of all denominations have seen little of him since AL came to power. His conspicuous absence in political meetings or party gathering shows how detached he is from ordinary folk and party workers. He is by all accounts an arm chair politician sitting comfortably thousands of miles away helping out the PM.
Travel five thousand miles, Tareque Rahman has waded in with size ten boots after a significant silence. It's almost astounding to note that a recovering patient who is unable to travel to the country to face charges against him manages to suddenly get a second wind in his sail to talk at various (3) UK BNP functions. No doubt he will talk about conspiracy against him of false cases. It appears that when the kitchen got too hot, two ex-PM's sons became poorly and left the country for treatment abroad. It's a four year treatment stint.
Surrounded by party types, cushioned from any hardship, Tareque Rahman is constantly thinking about the welfare of his poor countrymen. He has come up with some real gems. He sees RMG output increasing from $22 billion to $45 billion, higher levels of income from the technology sector, Dholaikhal area manufacturing high class equipment under government patronage, IT parks for soft and hardware industries, 2nd submarine cable to lower the cost of bandwidth, thus making it widely available to the populace, remittance increasing from $14 to $20 billion in 5 years, Cox's Bazar turning into Silicon Valley, Sundarbans becoming a Safari Park, finding alternative source of water and urbanisation. He reckons the result of all of the above will reduce jobless from 30 million to 10 million, making total workforce in Bangladesh of 80 million. This will also result in bringing down poverty level by 10% from 31%. He did not offer any strategy, master plan, costed out programmes with sources of funds or any blueprints from experts in the respective fields. This sounds like a dream. Serving this up in London, one could reasonably assume that the audience is educated and has reasonable understanding of these matters. There was not even a murmur from the audience questioning this incredible wish list.
Readers, one only needs to refer to Amartya Sen's praising the achievements thus far. This has happened because of the hard work by clever, innovative and able people of BD. Most of the ideas above are deliverable, only when the current political culture changes dramatically. This is a long haul and therefore all plans and strategies need to have serious dose of pragmatism.
If these two young gentlemen are really serious about playing politics, they ought to take a leaf out of Indira Gandhi's grandson, a leader in waiting, Rahul Gandhi. He has been apprenticing for a long time, learning the hard way and travelling the length and breadth of a vast country like India. He's been roughing it out visiting poor people of this diverse land and getting to know first hand the plight of his own poor people. He has been checking out and learning about various poverty alleviation projects not relying solely on written reports and verbal pictures painted by party cadres and assistants. He's determined to know more about the land and its people and the various state run projects. That's the only way of getting closer to the janata and understanding their plight. This also is a way of establishing how to make changes and modernise political structure and entrenched psyche. India could not be happy knowing that despite its being the largest unbroken (since1947) democracy in the world its leaders know it has a very long way to go of a truly democratic country where people come first.
Both Mr. Wazed Joy and Mr. Rahman are blessed with parentage by dint of which they command a substantial following. Taking this as a positive (without going into why and how, rights or wrongs), both of them could propel a change in the political culture in BD. They know well, this violent, destructive, confrontational, sycophantic, chandabaji, non-meritocratic, wealth sapping, religion exploiting politics is neither sustainable nor modern. Any change to this mediocrity entrenched politics will take time. Instead of encouraging old school behaviour, with their support, they could start making a real change. Remembering that where the country is at now is like a giant oil tanker heading rapidly towards a vortex and they are on the bridge of this tanker without power steering! It's going to be hard, arduous and will need steely determination. Do they have it?
The writer is a British entrepreneur of Bangladeshi origin.
E-mail: aban58@ hotmail.com
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