Monday, December 2, 2013

Leaf Through A Few Old Pages On Bangladesh Politics

A charged Bangladesh mainstream politics now finds flowing blood everyday as the politics is delivering deaths daily. Common persons – public transport drivers, day laborers, low salaried employees, and similar “insignificant” citizens – are being burned to death. The acts reaffirm mainstream’s monopolization of violence.
Deaths of children, young and middle aged persons, mainly burned to death, now overwhelm mass psyche today. Dhaka press carries the numbers daily. It’s a mainstream politics that now finds violence as the main form of political struggle! It’s a mainstream political struggle that hurts the common persons, their life and their bread! Liberty, as it appears, is a pipe dream to the commoners now. Should one despise? Should one lament? Future bears the answer.
None claims responsibility of this sort of political action – spraying of petrol on humans and setting them on fire, and similar acts – and the actors are mysteriously cloaked. The common people don’t know the real political actors as they go unexposed. And, the mainstream’s common people-killing-political struggle, a variety of lynching, roars on.
It’s a politics, and the politics is of the mainstream as no contending class is now wrestling political power. The contending classes have been effectively demobilized and depoliticized long ago. Instead, the ruling elites with all its factions are engaged with itself. It’s a scrap within the same segment that dominates the society.
Its acts create controversy within its system and question the system. The controversy ranges from legislative assembly to court of law to administration, and contravenes all limits of humanity as the deaths declare.
One can leaf through a few old pages to have a hunch of today’s mainstream politics.
An article in Aneek, a Bangla monthly from India, said in June 2001: It will not be strange if the caretaker government system [a poll-time arrangement] turns controversial. Factions of the ruling segments are resorting to violence and blaming each other. Another general election will complicate the situation instead of improving it. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh: the perspective of election”)
Another article in the same monthly said in August 2001: Accusation of election rigging shall not cease as efforts for unity of the ruling factions will fail until a force is used. (Sadek Rashid, “Bangladesh election”)
This reality has not changed since the statements were made about 12 years ago. So, Bangladesh people find them in a despicable and savage situation.
The controversy
Controversy with the form of poll-time government is not only alive; it has compounded with fundamental questions coming to the fore. Now, the debate is: whether a non-party caretaker government or an all-party government will preside over the poll-period? Other issues have joined the debate. From both ends, credibility is at stake. Ultimately, it’s the credibility of organs of a ruling machine, and of the factions of the ruling segment.
In the last days of 1990, immediately after the fall of Ershad regime, the controversy on the issue of caretaker form of government was not in the imagination of the mainstream politics although seeds of the controversy were there.
Now, not only the form of poll time government, but also institutions of the state and principles of governance are pulled into the controversy that constantly questions credibility of a number of instruments of the ruling machine, which in turn also questions acceptability of these. It’s not the classes opposed to the mainstream, but the competing factions of the ruling elites that are raising the controversy and questions, and thus eroding acceptability of institutions and organs of the state. A “strange” act!
It’s a political fight. It’s quite natural. One should not expect an overnight resolution of all political questions as the issue is control over resources.
But the form the political fight takes harms the class rule as institutions of the state are being questioned and ignored by none other than the same class interests, which fail to find a common forum and peaceful form instead of resorting to force, an antagonistic approach, and a political practice that ultimately hurts the common people, and thus sows reasons for alienating the common people. It’s a limitation of the ruling elites irrespective of factions.
Politics of the dominating segment imposes the limitation. Inviting and accommodating of and relying on external interference with variance in level and form are a manifestation of this limitation.
Interference
Moving back to another old page again:
An article in Sanskriti, a Bangla monthly from Dhaka, said in September 1991: The Bangladesh ruling elites shall increasingly rely on external masters with the exposure of their incapacities and incompetence and decline in their credibility.
The observation was made more than 20 years ago.
Now, the reliance has increased as has increased the interference. Sometimes, it’s in a crude and vulgar appearance. Sometimes, it goes to the limit of hurting dignity and honor of a people.
But changes are appearing in the broader society that even factions of the dominating segment can’t ignore. Contradictions are bringing in the changes.

Now
The last few weeks have found articles in Dhaka dailies and online news daily, at least three in number, discussing US role in Bangladesh politics. Tone of these discussions was critical. A few observations and comments were not soft. To some readers, a few of the comments may sound caustic. These came out from mainstream pens.
The articles, in Bangla, discussed working of lobby in US political system, and media, and the style of influencing and manipulating in the system. At least one of the articles discussed, in brief, the working of committees and sub-committees of the US Congress. At least two of the articles discussed a recent hearing on Bangladesh in a sub-committee. There are information, and a tone of criticism in these articles.
At least one of the articles pointed out a Congress member, who recently visited Bangladesh, and identified him as a lobbyist. The tone was not soft.
At least one article mentioned, with not a sweet tone, the US ambassador in Dhaka. A responsible discussant belonging to a mainstream political party made satirical comment, in a panel discussion/dialogue sponsored by an international news outlet, with a foreign diplomat. In the mainstream, this was unimaginable only a few months ago. It’s not a regular experience in this region also.
One report in a Bangla online daily mentioned the ambassador was trying for a long time to have audience with the prime minister. This, a long wait to have the PM’s audience by the ambassador, if factual, is a new development in Bangladesh political scene.
In the mainstream, this tone was absent in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, a critical tone is being heard. All political visitors, mediators or lobbyists, now don’t have an easy ride in Bangladesh. Lobby, committee, etc., and their functioning are now discussed. The information is reaching a section of readers, a part of the people.
Marketing of everything political is not now an easy job in Bangladesh society. Shall this diminish? Or, shall it spread more? The information already presented by a section of the mainstream will reach wider Bangladesh society as conflicting interests will widen its spread. This carries impact.
Further exposure by a part of the mainstream will not be an act of astonishment. Circumstance in future may push a part of the mainstream to expose names of lobbyists, contracts, the amount of money involved, techniques of manipulation with information and presentation of facts, propaganda style. The exposure, if it happens, can be cited as a gift from the mainstream to the political forces outside the mainstream.
This is part of political education of people that helps people understand everything is not black and white and all are not holy souls and many deals are driven by petty interests and many personalities and pronouncements are not as sacred as they appear and the sound they make. Elites like to ignore this process. An exercise with elitist politico-historical “blindness”!
Not a cycle
This controversy and conflict shall continue as the contradictions within the dominating sphere still go unresolved. These are getting intensified, and the intensification is manifested in the form and style of political struggle the competing ruling interests/factions carry on. There are, no doubt, causes, material, which not only keep these unresolved, but also escalate these.
But the factional fight among the elites shall not move in a cyclic form, election-boycott-election or violence-temporary tranquility-violence, as changes entering the scene with further developments in the society will push for new equation between the dominating interests. A politically aware people, a people mobilized politically, a people with its own leadership shall shatter silence of death and change the entire political scene soaked with blood of common persons.

A Bangladesh Politics Rundown

Hastily drawn tact in a fluid situation was charming onlookers of Bangladesh politics for the last few days. It was sharply overshadowed by a seeming drama, but essentially an imperative that exposed limit of the Bangladesh political elites and showed innovative political initiative by a section of the business elites.
Swift swings
H M Ershad, a former president, was overwhelming citizens and political observers. His were always, one can say, “dynamic” moves, never static, as he was always canceling his last announcements, which can be expressed in the following way: “Cancel My Last Announcement”. A counter observation may be: uncertain tact in uncertain situation, not dynamic. Another observation may be: ever bargaining with all in an ever changing political stage as the stage is revolving, which is a reflection of uncertainty in many areas of politics, telling “something” in economy.
The former president led political party, Jatiya Party, joined the Bangladesh poll-time government and joining the coming national election; then he announced decision to leave it and asked his ministers to tender resignation. Press reports said: a number of the ministers obliged while the rest were waiting. Then, he announced boycotting of the coming national election, and said that was his last stand, he would change no more. Then, he expressed his preference to commit suicide than to turn a betrayer to the nation by joining the coming general election. Then, he said: the press reports on suicide did not reflect his exact announcement as he expressed no such preference of committing suicide. The press did not respond.
In between the announcements and cancellations of the announcements and vows, the party was going through changes within its factions, with its splintered part, and with ally turned deliverer of curse turned possible ally.
The swift changes, the announcements and the moves and counter moves, the run, the parley, the hackles can appear bemusing and amusing to someone, but the issues were not lighter than serious.
A country’s governance, a ruling machine’s future, stability of a country with a population of about 160 million, nurturing of an important source of labor and a few types of important products to the metropolis of the world system were involved with the incidents and its future course. There were other issues of geostrategic importance.
Even, as a market, Bangladesh is not negligibly small. Involvement of or observations expressed or suggestions made by other countries including India, China, Canada, Australia, the UK and USA, and by organizations including the EU and UN, discussions in the European Parliament and in Washington DC, the UN secretary general’s letters to the two main leaders of the country and sending of his emissary to Dhaka, and Dhaka visit by important diplomats from New Delhi and Washington signify the country’s importance.
But it was perplexing if one tried to compare the importance expressed by other countries/interests and the political leaders’ announcements that were swiftly swinging balance of political array and sending equations to uncertainty. The fact is: It was a show of a section of ruling elites representing, to put it vaguely, important interests.
How, then, it plans to secure its interests? The question is important not only to the section, but to all other sections as one will affect others, and the governance.
It’s not only a governance of 160 million, but also a governance of the source of labor, cheaper product, and issues of other importance as geopolitical rivalry is knocking at the door and there is scope of playing other cards by section or sections of the ruling elites. Egypt is showing it. A few other African countries are also playing the cards. At least one Middle Eastern country has recently made a similar move.
Railway tracks
The Dhaka press was carrying reports of derailment of railway engines, etc. throughout the week. On some days, more than one such incident was occurring in different parts of the country. The incidents were disorganizing railway communication daily. There was no official announcement by concerned authority on the incidents: whether accident or a planned act. Any of the two carries serious legal implication.
A comparison between these incidents of derailment and the August Movement during the subcontinent’s colonial era will help grasp the magnitude of the current railway-incidents. Had the risings in Midnapur [Medinipur] and other places, at the near-end of the British colonial rule, such experience? Was it during the 1969-Mass Upsurge in erstwhile East Pakistan (Bangladesh)? The 1969-Upsurge was wider and deeper.
Are these acts of subversion? Or, are these parts of political struggle? Has the political struggle gone to the level of hitting railway tracks? Answer to each of the questions has serious implication. The implication is for status quo, a property relation. Are the acts intended against status quo? The answer may provide a picture of a “strange” political equation as, to capital, trade is important, and trade needs railway.
Ignition
Acts of ignition were many during the period. The victims are common people, mainly poor, members of the working class. A press report said a mother was finding no way to take home dead body of her son from hospital as she had no money. Her son was a petrol bomb victim and died in the hospital. Another report said a weeping widow at a hospital was asking people around about the future of her child daughters as she lost her husband, a working person turned victim of petrol bomb.
Shall not these incidents react in broader society? Any of possible answers, nay or yes, have meaning in society and politics, and the incidents, the tact by any of the quarters, will be interpreted in broader society, the masses of people. One can recollect M K Gandhi’s step after an act of mob action on a police outpost. His was a matured act.
People in different parts of the country have already started raising voices against these acts of ignition. How shall the acts be accepted in mass psyche? Should not a politician take this aspect into consideration? Or, is it a “game” of someone played by another one?
An initiative
Entrepreneurs, especially the garments manufacturers, have made demand to end the on-going political impasse. In a rally in Dhaka, they issued an ultimatum and have stated the intention of mobilizing workers to protest the current situation.
It, the mobilization, the plan to mobilize workers, was a political act that the entrepreneurs usually don’t prefer to initiate. It was not a show. It was their imperative. Their interest demands this.
Then, don’t the mainstream political parties care for the manufacturers’ interest? If they care, do their political acts stand hostile to the manufacturers’ interest? Garments manufacturing is a leading sector in the economy. Then, what’s the relationship between the manufacturers and the political parties? Isn’t it a strange reality?
Also strange is, owners, as they announced, were planning to organize workers to defend the sector. Only weeks ago, the workers, in their way, were engaged in economic struggle. That was raising demands to the owners. It’s also a “strange” relationship: workers will be led to political act against a political situation created by the mainstream political parties, which are supposed to uphold interest of the owners, and the workers will be led, as announced, by owners! One should not smile or laugh at the mainstream politics. Politics of the dominating elites is “difficult” to perceive! It’s a Bangladesh political reality.
Soul of the poor
The period has once again exposed souls of ordinary citizens.
In a Bangladesh village, a group of ordinary persons collectively provided food to passengers of a train that was derailed. The passengers were stranded for hours. A farmer, Abdur Rashid Gazi, and his wife, Rashida Begum, of Shahtali village, Chandpur took the initiative, and other villagers came forward.

A reality
Don’t these present a part of Bangladesh socio-political reality? The acts, the utterances, the political characters, the representation, the level of political maturity, the concerns, the perception leading to the form of political struggle – ignite and derail, the deals, the contingent ally, the relations, show a part of the reality. Here, opportunism sometimes takes satiric face and satirical characters play key role. Here, shameless face appears stubborn and hurting people is interpreted as duty. Here, the weaker part of society – working people and women – is victim of ruthless political approach. How shall the reality be coined? How shall the opposing pulls or pushes within the reality be resolved? Is there a possibility within a decadent reality? 
This piece first appeared in New Age, Dhaka in its December 10, 2013 issue