Leave the Army Alone
Recent unfortunate incidents at Rupganj have raised concerns. The bottom line is that the patriotic armed forces of the country must be above all controversy. If the Rupganj incident is taken as an example, it is clear that they had done nothing without government clearance. The project was a government-approved decision and so the army should not have had to bear the brunt of criticism. Such confrontational incidents go against the interests of the nation. As we see one institution toppling after the other, we cannot help but feel alarm where the armed forces our concern. The government should avoid using the army beyond their "terms of reference", for things like traffic control, dal bhaat projects and so on. This institution cannot be allowed to succumb to intentional or unintentional controversy. The army must be let alone. Maj Gen (Retd) Syed Muhammad Ibrahim, Bir Protik analyses the Rupganj incident for PROBE
by Maj Gen (Retd) Syed Muhammad Ibrahim, Bir Protik
India became independent on 15 August 1947 but only on 15 January 1950 did the first Indian officer (Lt. Gen. K.M. Cariappa) took over as the first Chief of Army Staff. Early in his tenure, Cariappa was told by Prime Minister Nehru to convert the psyche of the Indian Army from being an instrument of power-display of the British colonial government to an instrument of commitment and love towards the common men of sovereign India. This, of course, was a two way process. People had to be told in a language and manner which they understood, about the army's role and the way the people could help the army to play that role. Simultaneously, all ranks of the army, particularly the officers had to master the art and norms of dealing with civilians of all types in a working democracy. General Cariappa accomplished this task very well during his four year long tenure. In deed, India honored Cariappa by appointing him a Field Marshal in April 1986 in consideration of his invaluable contribution to the army in the initial years after independence.
Bangladesh Army was born through blood and sweat, as it inched forward during the 266 days long War of Liberation in 1971. The guns and the bullets whatever few there were in the hands of the freedom fighters, were but an essential asset. However, the greatest strength of the freedom fighters and the most valuable asset the freedom fighters possessed was the love and commitment of the people. The 9 month long war was for the most part, a guerilla war. The freedom fighter-guerillas were like fish in water. True, the generation of active participants of the war is no more in service; thus the legendary bondage between the army and the people seems to have developed fault-lines. I say so because, 39 years after independence of the country, the army suddenly came to a face to face stand off with common men in a part of the country: Rupganj thana in the district of Narayanganj. Let me go a little back in our history.
On 02-03 January 1993, there was trouble between Bangladesh Navy in 'BNS Isa Khan' and the neighboring people of Bandar Tilla in Halishahar in southern part of Chittagong city. Mistakes had been first made by sailors, indeed they were making it for quiet sometime without any effort of correction. Local people reacted but while doing so they also made mistakes. However, the mistake made by both parties equally, on the days of trouble was to encourage rumors and not act on proper information in time. Timely intervention by political leaders of both major parties helped resolve conflict. Two senior officers of the Navy were considered to have fallen short in their ability to command during the crisis, thus they were given early retirement. The public did not have commanders to be punished!
In 2008, army camp in the gymnasium of Dhaka University came under fire from unarmed students and teachers of the university. The turmoil surfaced on a particular afternoon but discontent had been simmering for quite sometime. Parts of Dhaka city were ablaze for two days. Did not any one high up in the command on the armed forces made query about the unfeasibility of maintaining an army camp in the heart of the university?
In 2007 and 2008 during caretaker government, Operation Dal-Bhat created shortage of man power in the border, it created shortage of trust and confidence in the mind of the soldiers about the officers and it created an opportunity for the men to discover the negative loopholes in consumer-commodity business. Finally it left deep scars in the BDR which became gangrenous. Ultimately the worst carnage took place on the 25-26 February 2009. Was it a must to have employed the BDR in the said operation and invite the gangrene? The gangrene was not cured because no medicine was given, on the other hand it spread because outsides provided virus-food to the gangrene. The mutiny at Pilkhana on 25 February took place under the flood light of television cameras and spot light of the government machinery. The highest military command of the country stood deaf and dumb-founded, motionless while 57 bright officers got killed. Media brothers and sisters intended no harm, but harm came without telling them. Early in 2010 an army Sergeant in Baghaichori of the district of Khagrachhari in Chittagong Hill Tracts was assaulted by local hill men. After Pilkhana and after Khagrachhari, army-bashing on the talk-shows became a fashion till somehow the reins were pulled.
Rupganj is a 'thana' in the district of Narayanganj, astride river Sitalakhya. Upazilla Headquarters is located at Murapara on the Eastern bank of the river. Crow-fly distance from Dhaka cantonment to the upazilla headquarters is about 11 kilometers due east. There is a major road on the eastern side of Dhaka city called Progoti Sarani. From the American Embassy (located on the Progoti Sarani) in Baridhara diplomatic zone, Murapara is about 8 kilometers due east. The land on the eastern side of Dhaka city and on the western side of Sitalakhya, is low lying.
Basundhara Residential Area now lying in north-east corner of Dhaka city is very well known and pieces of land are very costly there. The creators of Basundhara were excellent entrepreneurs. It has added more than seventy thousand apartments to Dhaka city, it has provided space for a very large convention center, an internationally reputed hospital and international quality school. It has also shown the way how to fill-up low lying lands and create residential areas. To the businessman in real estate or housing sector, it has shown the path of making money. As a result, north-east of Dhaka city, east of Dhaka city, south of Dhaka city and south-east of Dhaka city has seen blossoming of numerous housing companies or real estate companies. Some companies are big while most are small. Few only have sufficient land to organize a housing area. All of them have they ability to influence news paper reading and TV watching members of the public. Government organization called RAJUK has created Purbachal 10 km. north-east of Uttara Model Town and 6 km. north-west of Murapara.
There are two ways of developing an area for housing. If the land or area is low lying then it has to be filled up by sand or earth; where as, if the land or area is high ground then it has to be leveled. Purbachal is a mixer of high ground and low lying ground. Private sector housing companies found the low lying areas around Dhaka a heaven, because profit margin is better. The authorities of the army housing scheme or society seems to have followed the foot steps of Purbachal and Basundhara, if not other real estate companies operating in the same area. They did not passively realize that putting your step on the mark of your predecessor's foot is also difficult; modification is needed. Fighting a war needs courage, intelligence and reasonable resources. Conducting in the business of buying and selling land requires intelligence, patience and the decision to be semi-truthful. Readers of Bangladeshi newspapers between 24 and 26 October and the viewers of Bangladeshi TV channels can make their own interpretation. Listeners of BBC Bangla Service have heard the Brigadier General In charge of the Army Housing Society (AHS) Project and myself together between 6:30 and 7:30 am on Tuesday 26 October.
From the good old days of British Army, residential areas were developed, within or in the outskirts of major cities like Delhi or Karachi, only for defense personnel. The tradition was followed by the Indian Army and Pakistan Army with minor modifications to suit changing times. Bangladesh Army also followed the same legacy and style. There are four (Banani, Mohakhali, Baridhara and Mirpur) Defense Officers Housing Societies in Dhaka city; and one in Chittagong city next to the cantonment. Such land belonging to the Ministry of Defense and spare-able for housing societies has become scarce now. But the necessity of creating accommodation for retired army officers remains as strong as it was one or two or three decades ago. Only as an example, about four hundred plus retired army or navy or air force officers were given plots in the DOHS Mohakhali. Another one hundred plus officers were given one plot per four officers. Five hundred plots or five hundred buildings are now sheltering more than four thousand families.
Junior Commissioned Officers (JCO) of the armed forces also deserve attention in respect of giving them accommodation in retired life. By the time they go on retirement, they are close to 50 years of age or little more. Those who lose land and homestead due to river erosion, remain particularly worried about post-retirement life. Their savings are not enough to enable them for buying land in prime locations of major cities. In 39 years of independent Bangladesh this matter drew attention, but not enough concrete effort towards mitigating the problem. In this column also I am not delving into the problem any more.
To meet the unavoidable requirement of housing for armed forces officers without any land being available in the Ministry of Defense, many alternatives were thought of. The best was possibly chosen. AHS was organized in the style of a limited company but limited companies are not run in a military manner; they are run according to the Companies Act 1994. Only law does not make a company walk or run; men make the difference. The task that AHS took upon itself was cumbersome, and in the context of land selling / land buying culture, tricky. To drive this point home and to conclude that the trouble at Rupganj was unavoidable, I am quoting couple of sentences from page 101 and 102 of the book 'Bangladesh: Reflections on the water' by James J. Novak.
"… Bangladesh's middle and upper classes are rife with vicious rumors and are staggering under the weight of fear and insecurity that paralyzes thought and creates hysteria unknown in the West or modern Japan. This undercurrent discourages experimentation, creates skepticism about new courses of action, and plays into the culture's traditional value system, which is based on shunning those who seek wealth or disrupt societal values rooted in rule of elders, as in the villages. Even more, it kindles a corrosive suspicion of other people's motives, a suspicion that runs deep within those who lead the country. … Such attitudes discourage entrepreneurial activities and make success something to hide behind false humility. … Such corrosives hate also is expressed in litigation, where land-lords sue one another over petty slights or worse, fabricate criminal charges and bribe judges or even opposing lawyers. …". To make the readers understand what he wrote thus far, James Novak quoted a devilishly cruel description of the Bengali character given by an English historian by the name of Macaulay (sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century); it reads: "What the horns are to the buffalo, what the sting is to the bee, what beauty according to the Greek song is to women, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery are the weapons, offensive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. …" .
Major General Ibrahim hates the statement of historian Macaulay but if there was any space where Macaulay could be accommodated, it was and is, in the vicious business of land buying and land selling. So quite naturally and totally unknowingly, bosses and executives of the AHS walked into the vicious arena in Rupganj. By courtesy of TV channels, daily newspapers and internet, whatever has become public knowledge about the AHS and problem with them in Rupganj indicates that the plan was over- ambitious and was being implemented in a military fashion. Area being anticipated to be purchased was too large. Seniors of the AHS antagonized others in the same business, they passed military style orders to pure civilian officials and they scared those who used to earn a good living by doing the middle-men's job in the business of land buying and land selling. Hostility towards the AHS ran across political boundaries. Rumors flew faster than imagination and could not be checked—particularly on 23 October. Given the circumstances including the rumors, the explosion of popular anger and instigated-violence at 'Tanmashari army camp' on the morning of 23 October 2010 was due.
The AHS was a project approved by the government, the deployment of soldiers was a known phenomena but the management of the project was not in proven hands. Efforts to avoid the explosion were made, but only at the eleventh hour. Efforts could not over power the conspirators. The project was not supported by adequate intelligence-cover. One of the final and finer comments is that man-management within the army is a direct command function, while managing men not in uniform by military commanders is a catalytic function.
The involvement of officers and men in uniform in paddy fields and play field of schools has been questioned not by us, the retired community, but by the larger civil society. I have no ready-made answer to all the queries of all the people, and I have full appreciation of the sensitivity of the situation being faced by the armed forces, nay the army. Lives of soldiers were saved, loss of civilian life was minimal. The army-command deserve and need our good-wishes.
Given the burden of service anywhere in the country and abroad, a military officer is bound not to find time and secure environment to invest in land. We want to discourage military officers from getting bogged down into land-related litigations. Therefore, the necessity of creating housing facilities for the retired community is beyond question. The AHS can go on, of course, under a different style of management, in Rupganj or better locations. The Government of the popular leader Sheikh Hasina will hopefully continue to support the AHS. With government blessings, RAJUK and Ministry of Public Works can offer a helping hand. 'Land Developers Association' and REHAB can offer business collaboration on mutually beneficial terms. The area proposed to be purchased can be reduced in size for the present and enlarged incrementally. Giving priority to serving officers of the armed forces, not army only, a modest beginning can be made.
Damage whatever had to be, to the honor, sentiments and image of the army, individually or collectively has been done. The explosion has injured the self respect of the junior, the expectations of the mid level and the confidence of the elders in the army. What has it done to the retired officers? They are saddened, I for one when called upon to comment in the media, I am left bewildered; how do I honor the ego and emotion of my former profession and my current environment? What is not welcome is politicization of the incidence. There are only two major political parties in the country; they can divide anything in the country between the two. We urge upon them not to lay political hands on the armed forces. The gains if any on the part of either will be very temporary. On the contrary the two major political parties can contribute towards restructuring the relationship between the armed forces and the public in the area of the explosion, as well as across the country.
The role of the military in a democratic environment has to be understood for the second time and fresh. The higher echelons of command and administration within the defense-world may give a thought to redefining two items, namely: (firstly:) parameters of civil military relations in Bangladesh and (secondly:) ways of executing welfare-projects of the armed forces. Being the founder chairman of a registered political party which profess 'Kallyan' meaning welfare, I can only pray for the best for everyone as I close the pen, seven minutes after sunset on the 26th October 2010. The army needs to be left alone.
__._,_.___
