The politics of death, and the death of politics
Piash Karim passed away on October 13. He was an engaging and effective teacher who has left a legion of grateful students as his legacy, a distinguished academic who had made lively presentations and published well-received articles in national and international platforms, and an honest individual who tried to remain faithful to his intellectual commitments and moral imperatives.
But it was not his scholarship or pedagogy or personal charm that brought him to the national limelight. He found his métier, and used it with skill and resourcefulness, as a television commentator. In this he excelled. He was always civil, composed and thoughtful in his deliberations and contributions, and brought a new level of gravitas and analytical sophistication, as well as a personal style (crisp, low-key, substantive), to a medium that typically encourages hyperbolic excess and shallow chest-thumping.
We should all mourn the premature passing of an enlightened, articulate and complex man who was not afraid to speak truth to power, or even admit his own mistakes and political turns that he may have taken in his life. We should all mourn the fact that his many students will no longer have the opportunity to be inspired by him, or that his family, friends and admirers will be denied his warmth, wit and wisdom. But today, more than anything else, we should all mourn the sordid politics and the agenda-driven posturing that shrouds his dead body.
The first shot across the bow came from the initial obituary published in most of the newspapers. It made a pointed reference to his father who was supposedly a member of the infamous Peace Committees that had allegedly collaborated with the Pakistani military regime during the War of Liberation in 1971. Why was it necessary to share this information? What relevance did it have in terms of our judgments and perspectives on Piash himself? What responsibility does Piash have for the political perspectives of his father? Did he ever, publicly, embrace, defend or promote them? Is this the new journalism now that permits the maligning of recently dead people with references to the sins and mistakes of parents who had died earlier?
From that inauspicious beginning, the discussion became morbid and turned into a dance of the macabre. There is no doubt that, from his own personal perspective, Piash had often found fault with the current government, and his criticisms were prickly and persistent. One can disagree with him. I myself did, on many occasions. But, it was a principled position. He was not a politician seeking personal power, or currying political favour. He was an intellectual who also had political convictions. He said these things because he felt he had to, even when it was inconvenient, controversial or personally dangerous. It would have been easier to head for the tall grass (as many of us do). But, intellectual courage and integrity prevented him from doing so. Piash kept the faith.
Does it not expose the deep insecurities, if not the bankruptcy, of the AL leadership that it sought to devalue him so immediately after his death and with such sneering impatience? Couldn't they wait for his body to be buried before beginning the onslaught? (The proposition that since he had opposed the War Crimes Trials, and Jamaat had opposed the War Crimes Trials, ergo, he must be a Jamaati, is not an argument, it merely demonstrates ad hominem malice. By this logic Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International must also be Jamaati, or since Noam Chomsky and al-Qaeda both criticise US policies, Chomsky must be an al-Qaeda stooge). Moreover, did they have to deny him some respect and honour that many feel he had richly deserved? Why was a few hours in the Shahid Minar considered to be so threatening? In trying to demean him, did they not, inadvertently, weave for him the mantle of political martyrdom?
The BNP too perhaps overplayed its hand. In seeking to lay exclusive claim on him as one of its own, it reduced him from the public intellectual he was, into a party hack that he was not. The politicisation of the issue was swift and rabid, and suggested BNP's own insincere opportunism. Instead of the soft touch of a sensitive mourner, some people approached this with all the subtlety and refinement of a cage wrestler. Instead of celebrating Piash's many considerable achievements and virtues, it tried to play him up as something more illustrious and more heroic, and thus made him vulnerable to criticism and debate. Instead of providing sufficient space to allow those who may have disagreed with his politics, but respected his many personal and professional qualities, to participate in the grieving process, it became increasingly apparent that this was turning into a partisan show.
Then there was the surreal brinkmanship inherent in the Shahed Minar issue (“Gun fight at OK Corral”?). While the refusal to provide him with the symbolic honour was based on an obvious lack of graciousness and charity, the pressing of the issue from the other side (claiming a right that he did not really have) was, at best, naïve, at worst, cynical. After all, the most generous tribute to Piash would come not from where his body was placed or buried, but from the number of people who would come and grieve for him. Scoring political points over his dead body was unseemly, and the gamesmanship it provoked reflected the moral poverty that exists in the country.
So this is what politics has come down to in Bangladesh today -- petty bickering over a dead body. Politics is no longer a site of contestation for different ideas, ideologies, policies, parties, and leaders. It no longer involves presenting alternative visions for the country. It no longer entails public service, seeking the general welfare, and inculcating democratic habits and attitudes. It is no longer related to upholding humanistic values, or the pursuit of justice, or respect for the rule of law, or tolerance for dissent, or the preservation of human rights and civil liberties, or concerns about public decency, national identity and social equity.
Politics has now degenerated into silly and simplistic attack-mongering (apparently, no patriotic Bangladeshi lives in Bangladesh anymore -- one is either a Pakistani Razakar conspiring to usher in religious extremism in the country, or an Indian dalal paving the way for Hindu hegemony). It is only an arena for Mafioso families contending for control over claimed jurisdictions. It has become, as Matthew Arnold had described, merely a “darkling plain … Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night” for some temporary gain and material advantage.
Politics is no more a call to the “better angels of our nature” as Lincoln had suggested after the Civil War, but an appeal to the worst demons of our social rot. This is not politics. As many grieve over Piash's death, we should also lament the gross trivialisation and the eventual asphyxiation of politics in Bangladesh today. One is already dead, the other lies gasping for breath. May both rest in peace!
The writer is at Black Hills State University.
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