Dear Moderator,
The attached article is for possible publication in your esteemed website.
With kind regards.
Md. Anwarul Kabir
Assistant Professor & Research Coordinator
Department of Computer Science
American International University-Bangladesh
Kemal Ataturk Avenue
Banani, Dhaka
Dhaka 1213
Bangladesh
9890415, 8815386 Fax 00 88 02 8813233
url: http://www.aiub.edu
alternative email: kabiranwar@yahoo.com
On national charter for consensus
Md. Anwarul Kabir
The latest nationwide speech of the Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhrudding Ahmed has emphasised on drawing out a charter for national consensus through political dialogue. Although there is prevailing confusion about the outcome of the ongoing dialogue in the context of possible absence of two major political parties, discourse of the proposed national charter gets special attention to the academic arena.
The question arises about the objectivity of such a national charter. No doubt, for transforming sick and turmoil political arena of the country into a healthy and stable one, consensus on different issues among the political parties is a must. The people of the country want to see a qualitative change in politics in line with true democratic ethos. For this, present corrupt political culture must be changed. Here the term 'corrupt political culture' does not point at only the financial corruption. Rather in this case ideological corruption should consider first. In fact ideological corruption is the root of all sorts of corruption including financial one. Unfortunately, most of the major political parties of the country are now suffering from the ideological corruption.
The erosion of ideology in political parties has not been occurred in a day. In fact, if we shed light on the history, it would reveal that such ideological erosion, indeed, has begun since the installation of undemocratic authoritarian regime at the power centre after the brutal killing of Bagabandhu. If we objectively analyse the political history of the country then it will witness that the political party, BNP originated in the cantonment under the captainship of the authoritarian ruler is indeed devoid of any ideological discourse. Its founder, military turned politician late president General Ziaur Rahman formed this party while he was in power centre and the only objective to form this platform was to legalise his tenure and hence to stay in power. So, he did not hesitate to include the politicians of different ideologies, starting from ultra-right to ultra left-segments of our political domain in this platform. Irony is that being a valiant freedom fighter, just to fulfil his political ambition, Zia showed little respect to the spirit of our liberation. In fact, it was Zia, who divided the nation into pro-liberation and anti-liberation groups by legalising communal politics in Bangladesh for his own political interest. He shrewdly translated his infamous utterance "I will make politics difficult for the politicians" into reality by dividing the nation into pro and anti liberation groups. By distorting our secular constitution grew out of the spirit of our war of liberation Zia re-established the communal politics in the independent Bangladesh. Perhaps, this was the worst ideological corruption of Zia and the people of the land are still suffering from this distortion of the constitution. Though president Zia was himself financially corruption free but evidences suggest that massive financial corruption at the state level was initiated during his regime. Besides, massive election engineering and transforming the parliament into dysfunctional one stalled the democracy process during his regime.
After the death of president Zia, his successor President Sattar did not get enough time to show his credibility in politics as within a short time he was ousted from the power through army coup led by president General Ershad. The authoritarian leader General Ershad followed the footstep of his predecessor authoritarian and by introducing Islam as a state language distorted the our original constitution further. Besides, the Ershad era institutionalised financial corruption at the state level.
However, after the fall of autocrat regime of General Ershad in 1990 through long massive movements, the people of the country looked forward to having a significant change in political arena of the country. But it was never happened. During the period of the first phase of Khaleda Zia's regime the ethos of parliamentary democracy were largely ignored. Even the major political party AL during that period failed to act as a responsible opposition party in the framework of parliamentary democracy. Initial refusal of election result, calling of frequent ineffective hartals, and frequent boycotts of the parliament alienated AL from the common people at that period. Besides, it also failed to uphold its secular ideological flag rightly. In this context, AL's undeclared treaty with the fundamentalist group Jamat–i-Islam before 1996 election can be cited.
1996-2000, Hasina's era, though was relatively better in terms of many pro-people aspects (e.g. selection of non-partisan neutral president, maintaining low prices of essentials, water treaty with India, peace treaty of Chittagong Hill Tracts) but the dominance of the muscleman and financial corruption was also highly traced during her period. Although AL at that time tried to uphold some ethos of the parliamentary democracy, for instances initiation of the question session for the prime minister, holding of regular meetings of different parliamentary sub-committee in decision making processes, due to total non-cooperation of the major opposition party BNP the parliament could not be transformed into an effective institution. During this time, BNP followed the footstep of AL when the latter was in opposition and frequently boycotted parliamentary sessions and called for series of hartals creating public harassment.
Endless financial corruption and total ideological collapse have portrayed the last BNP-led coalition government as the worst one. With the spin of time, however, there was a popular belief that BNP's leadership was no more in the hand of Khaleda Zia. Especially, at the advent of the 2001 election, the shifting of leadership from the older generation of BNP towards younger generation had been marked. Especially, after the Election 2001, the young group (also known as Young Turk) of the BNP led by Khaleda's son Tarique Zia based in Haowa Bhaban, virtually led the party in all aspects. Unfortunately, the members of this young group have no political ideology other than their own vested interest to loot the public money using the state influence in all ways. This young group centred at Howa Bhaban, in fact, installed a parallel government during Khaleda's regime. Perhaps the dangerous ethical corruption of the alliance government was nurturing extremist groups with a view to utilising them against their political opponents. Politicisation of public institutions like public service commission, election commission, police department, judiciary system, secretariats was objectively and purposefully done in this period. Even after the transition of power to the caretaker government headed by Professor Iazuddin Ahmed, the Haowa Bhaban controlled the administration with a plea of election engineering. However, AL as a major opposition political party failed to carry out its responsibilities in this period also. AL failed to fight for the people in the contemporary contexts. As for example, during that period, AL could successfully organise the people to fulfil their popular demands -- tackling electricity crisis, water crisis, price hikes, monga. On contrary, from the beginning of the formation of the alliance government, the only agenda that had been adopted by Hasina's AL was just to topple the government by any means. Perhaps AL's major ethical corruption was erupted during the period of Professor Iazuddin's caretaker government when it signed a treaty with Khelafat Majlis , a fundamental group with a view to forming a grand electoral alliance against BNP led alliance.
On top of these, the ideological bankruptcy of both AL and BNP was high-lightened when both of them wanted to fetch former president Ershad under the banner of their respective alliances. Besides, the use of black money and muscleman and trades in nominating candidates for the election were marked as common features for all of the major parties.
The essence of the above account may identify some negative attributes of our political domain as stated below: a) ideological corruption b) rise of communal politics c) financial corruption d) intolerance among the political parties e) use of muscleman and black money in the electoral process and election engineering f) undermining parliamentary ethos and making the parliament dysfunctional g) nurturing extremism and political hooligans h) politicisation of public institutions i) calling for frequent ineffective hartals.
However, the people of the country really want to get rid of the above stated curses in our political arena because at the end of the day, politics controls all the spheres of the life. For this, the political parties must reach a consensus. But the point is whether this present government has any moral or legal right to initiate any national charter for consensus. Especially, as the constitutional footings of this government is now questionable then this effort of the government in future will face a legal debate. Moreover, for chalking out such an important charter, the presence of the detained apex leaders of the major two parties is a must. But is the government ready for it? Will it free these leaders on parole for facilitating them to attend the dialogue process for the greater interest of the country? However, the best thing is to leave this issue for the next parliament. Any command or pre-designed charter for national consensus will not be acceptable, at least, to the people of this country.
Md. Anwarul Kabir is an educationalist, teaches computer science at AIUB and is a freelance writer. He can be reached at kabir@aiub.edu
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