Constitutional government does not yield to petulance

ONE can hardly disagree with Syed Abul Maksud when he states in his write-up ('Climb not too high'), published in The Daily Star on Wednesday, February 18, 2015, that democracy in Bangladesh now faces the guillotine. One is not sure, though, that the present crisis is the gravest in their history that the people of this country happen to be going through. No greater conflict, no greater period in fear and uncertainty can beat the darkness we waded through in the course of the War of Liberation forty three years ago.

Syed Abul Maksud is, however, absolutely right in pointing to the bad language which government as well as fourteen-party alliance politicians have been taking recourse to in recent days. An underpinning of democracy is certainly the right of dissent and ensuring that such dissent is not dismissed as being of little or no consequence. Therefore, when as respected an individual as Finance Minister A.M.A. Muhith employs the term 'stupid' to denigrate former prime minister Khaleda Zia, we are surely not amused -- for such attitudes militate against the fundamental norms of social decency and political civility.

Again, one will have hardly any reason to disagree with the writer when he questions the language, obviously of a political nature, that has of late been used by civil servants, police officers and others in their attempts to explain how they mean to handle troublemakers and bring conditions back to normalcy. It is not for the servants of the state to go political even if circumstances around them are provocative enough for them to respond with an outburst of anger or irritation. We as citizens must roundly condemn such expressions of political sentiment by those who serve the state and will likely do so in future.

That said, one wishes Syed Abul Maksud had given us a whole, and wholesome, picture of the realities obtaining in the country. He is perfectly within his rights to inform us that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been turning a deaf ear to all suggestions and entreaties made by civil society and political parties for a dialogue with her detractors. But there is too the crucial question of whether a constitutionally elected government, despite certain reservations regarding the January 5, 2014 election, must really be expected to yield to demands made by a political party unwilling to acknowledge the hostage-like conditions it has pushed the country into. The writer would have made a far more morally acceptable point if he had informed us that for any dialogue to get underway, the first move should be coming from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). To insist that the Awami League (AL) should go for a dialogue without cautioning the BNP that its violence-driven politics precludes any possibility of such a dialogue is a weak and therefore untenable argument.

The writer should have reminded the BNP of the grave damage its agitation has been causing to the economy, to education, indeed to normal life across the country. He in fact echoes the BNP's position -- that the sole responsibility for the impasse is the AL-led government's. It is somewhat like your neighbour asking you to hand over your valuables to a burglar in order to appease him without in any way telling him that he is committing an act of criminality. Syed Abul Maksud refers to government figures coming down hard on members of civil society who, while advocating a dialogue between the government and the agitating politicians, are not equally vocal about the agitation pushing citizens to death. Frankly speaking, has civil society ever come forth with an unambiguous statement asking the BNP and its friends to end their violent agitation and condemning them for the insensitivity they have been demonstrating toward the sufferings of citizens whose only care has been to ensure a normal life for themselves and their families? Sheikh Hasina's attitude, which the writer describes as unbending, is one that whole swathes of people agree with -- because it stands against anarchy and for constitutional politics, because it is a principled stand. The unbending, on the contrary, is to be spotted in the attitude of the BNP chairperson, who has never wavered in her belief that this government must be pushed from office. In the process, people have been roasted to death, many others have been maimed for life and pluralistic politics has quite possibly been damaged beyond repair. These are points missing in the article. 

Let there be no doubt that all citizens of Bangladesh are today gravely concerned about the worsening conditions in the country. All of us are deeply embarrassed that ours is a state which once again is turning into an object of pity in the global community. That foreign diplomats based in Dhaka inform us once again of what our politicians must do in order to arrive at political accommodation is again reflective of our fresh new retreat into the backwaters of contemporary history. To have UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon write to Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia on the need for a dialogue is for all of us an irony. When our soldiers keep the peace in countries traumatised by political conflict and armed insurrection, it is a shame knowing that the very country they come from is today in need of outside intervention that will remind its leaders of what democracy is all about. 

Every citizen of Bangladesh needs and respects democracy. Each one of us would like nothing better than for a new, productive phase of pluralistic governance inaugurated the country. But the first move must come from the BNP chairperson, for she imposed the blockade and the hartals and has expressed no contrition over the resultant violence. One must not expect Sheikh Hasina and her government, or any government constituted in terms of legality, to negotiate under duress. Asking the prime minister to go for a dialogue with the former prime minister, before asking the latter to call a halt to her 'movement for democracy,' is to let citizens in on the thought that violence pays, that in future other politicians can put the country under siege and force governments established by law to quit office and run for life. 

Please remember Gandhi and Chauri Chaura 1922, if you can.

(This write-up is a response to an article by Syed Abul Maksud published in this paper on February 18, 2015)

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Observer.