ONCE upon a time, the conventional wisdom went, the Bangladeshi polity and society were divided largely along bi-polar BNP-AL lines. Today, however, perhaps unsurprisingly, given that we are now in more or less uncharted political waters, the fault-lines that divide the polity and society are very different.

Such is the singularity of the current dispensation that the nation finds itself governed under that it has taken some time for coherent and complete points of view on the matter to form. However, now that roughly three weeks have passed, the differing responses to the events of January 11 are beginning to take shape and can be boiled down to a handful of principal positions.

The first position is that the elections scheduled for January

22 should not have been derailed. This is the position of hard-core four-party alliance supporters and, perhaps, those who consider themselves hard-core democrats. Whether there exist any who fall into the latter category without falling into the former, I don't know, as I have yet to speak to one, but for argument's sake, let's assume that they exist.

The argument that democracy must be left to run its course, however, is largely specious, and pre-supposes that we are speaking about elections that are free and fair. There is no merit to elections that are neither free nor fair, especially if they would put in power leaders whose nondemocratic predilections are beyond doubt.

Given the fact that the election of January 22 would have been a travesty and would have installed an authoritarian leadership with no respect for democracy or demo-

cratic principles, the argument that the nation would have been better served had the election gone ahead is a non-starter.

The second position is that what happened on January 11 was a good thing but that we should have thereafter moved swiftly towards free and fair elections. This argument operates from the point of view that the main ingredient to building a workable democracy is good elections, and that if people are empowered to vote their consciences, then, incrementally, at least, things will eventually improve.

Adherents to this point of view might also be skeptical of the notion either that sweeping and thorough-going (and constitutionally questionable) reform is the best way to bring about meaningful and lasting change, or of the notion that an unelected government is the appropriate entity to institute such reform, or both.

Then there are those who believe that the nation today faces a grand opportunity to correct the dysfunctions in our democracy and that we should take this chance to institute the fixes necessary to make our democracy more functional.

The differences between the second and third positions outlined above are largely ideological, but also have to do with practical calculations as to what the current interim government is capable of delivering and what the dangers are of an extended nondemocratic interregnum.

I do not propose to get into the competing ideologies at stake in the argument, and indeed, would like to put forth the proposition that we look at the question in terms of practicality and pragmatism, rather than ideology, per se.

That is, I believe that this debate should be conducted on the plane of the concrete rather than the

abstract. I recognize that this is, in itself, an ideological position, nevertheless, I believe that a hardheaded look at the reality on the ground is a far more useful way of determining the acceptability of the political situation at any given time.

In other words, I believe that the most useful yard-stick by which to judge the current administration is not by what it might do or what it has been empowered to do, and whether this is acceptable or unacceptable in abstract terms, but on what it actually does in concrete terms.

I do not doubt that there is a grave risk that comes with any non-elected administration, and I am sympathetic to the argument that it is almost always a mistake to grant any non-elected entity virtually unlimited power. But the more pertinent inquiry, to my mind, is not what the administration might do in the future with its sweeping powers so much as what it is doing with them in the present.

It is thus that I look at some of the actions that have been taken by the current administration over the past three weeks with a concerned eye.

To my mind, the now much-publicized drives to evict slumdwellers and to clear the pavements of unlicensed hawkers are not encouraging signs. Nor am I

impressed by blanket arrests and round-ups that ensnare all kinds of low-level operatives but leave the big fish untouched. Nor is the current administration's lack of transparency with respect to how decisions are formulated and where the balance of power truly lies something that can quietly be accepted given the questionable nature of some of the policies that have been implemented.

The current administration cannot locate its legitimacy in a mandate from the people. It cannot locate its legitimacy in ideological coherence. The constitutionality of its legitimacy, is, frankly, open to question (it would be not be a bad idea if this issue were addressed directly by the government at some point as its constitutional underpinnings could, perhaps, be established: they just haven't been yet).

The sole legitimacy for the current administration lies in its deeds. Its sole legitimacy lies in the manner in which it exercises the power that currently is in its hands. And it is for this reason that it is imperative that the administration act in a manner that is consonant with public opinion and expectation and that its actions and policies be above question or controversy.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.