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KALEIDOSCOPE

Saving institutions

They have made these fundamental institutions of state and democracy so subservient to their whims and caprices that they have forgotten that those were once most venerated institutions and to hallow those, the people had spilled their blood.

Syed Fatiahul Alim
At a dialogue the other day noted intellectuals blamed the failure of democracy in Bangladesh on general disrespect of noliticians
towards the judiciary, the election commission and parliament. There is no gainsaying the diagnosis of what is ailing the country's politics made by the social and political thinkers, lawmakers, jurists and economists.
However, the political parties in question are never short of rhetoric about democracy, people's right to voting, freedom of speech and so on. But remember those are mere rhetoric and make the stuff of their public speeches. But when it comes to applying them in practice, well, business is business. It is like what the proverbial preacher told his disciples: "Follow what I say, but not me."
The lack of the courage of one's conviction is understandable. Capitulation and turning political somersaults is no stranger to our political history and culture. We have been witness to such political antics whenever a military dictator usurped state power. Not only politicians, but some among our intellectuals also could not prove themselves immune to the temptations of power and pelf they would distribute with abandon.
But the politicians' disrespect for these institutions that the intellectuals have identified to be the root cause of their failure to deliver is a not any new development in the Bangladesh society. In fact, the social and political thinkers and researchers are only pointing at the symptom, but not the cause of the ailment. For one has to bear in mind that politicians are members of this society. If they are at fault, then the section of society they represent has also to bear some responsibil-
ity for it. The politicians' attitude must be reflective of a collective attitude of this section towards the democratic and state institutions in question.
But this social category is also the most privileged among all other classes of society and rules the country through its representatives. The politicians within the fold of the two major political parties, one of which is now in power, while the other in the opposition speak for this section of society. Even the beneficiaries of the military regimes that usurped state power during these four decades of Bangladesh's existence fall under the category of this social category.
That is why we see in these dominant political parties so many military and civil bureaucrats who worked with the then military regimes. Ironically,
aberrant attitude of these parties to the institutions in question.
Before the emergence of Bangladesh, the section of the civil bureaucrats who worked under the Pakistani military government were often discriminated against in terms of the power and privilege they enjoyed in comparison to their Western non-Bengali counterparts. The new business people, the professional community and other disgruntled sections of society disillusioned with the Muslim League made a common cause with one another and were looking for a platform that promised to fight for their cause against the centre. And since they knew that as a small privileged section of society, it would not be possible to realise its aspirations, it expressed its grievances in popular terms so that it might be able to draw the mass people
during the democratic movements launched against the military dictators, it is the same political parties that were at the forefront.
The man in the street often wonders why the champions of democracy in the leadership of these parties forget the past so conveniently when they take those civil and military bureaucrats who served the military dictators and persecuted their leaders and workers during the pro-democracy movements in the past. In fact, there is nothing out of the ordinary here, because they tire also members of the same political class these major political parties represent.
The genesis of this social class and its political arms in the shape of these parties hold the clue to the apparently
of the eastern wing of Pakistan in the struggle against the centre.
Naturally, it was the Awami League and its leadership on which they betted their luck. Why it was Awami League and not any other party? That is because the Muslim League of the eastern wing of Pakistan was tied unconditionally to the central government in the Western part of Pakistan. It served the military government even at the expense of the interest of their Bengali speaking fellow travellers knowing fully well that this section of Bengali society was being deprived of their due and discriminated against by the central government.
The other populist parties including the one under Moulana Bhasani, named National Awami Party (NAP)
was not trusted by this newly emerging social glass since these parties proved to be too much left leaning. And as indicated in the foregoing, this social class was successful through its political propaganda to pass itself as championing the cause of social and political emancipation of all other social classes of the then east Pakistan with the slogan of Bengali nationalism.
The rest is history. After Bangladesh came into existence, the social class that supported Awami League in the struggle against Pakistan claimed its pound of flesh. And being a newly emerged class, their greed knew no bound.
This limitless greed proved to be the nemesis of the new social class and the politics that served it. In course of time, it broke up among competing and antagonistic factions. As these new aspirants for the resources of the nation were at each others throat, the military, too, at an opportune moment staked its claim to state power. So, began the era of the civil-military bureaucrats in politics of power.
They used the state and its constitutional institutions at will without any respect for their sanctity to suit their narrow end. And this has been going on for long at the hands of both the civil and military governments. They have made these fundamental institutions of state and democracy so subservient to their whims and caprices that they have forgotten that those were once most venerated institutions and to hallow those, the people had spilled their blood.
To save those people's institutions from desecration, the people will have to rise up against the social class and its politics that is usurping those institutions. Otherwise, there is hardly any possibility that the realisation would dawn on the dominant social class and its politics on its own to change their attitude towards the constitutional institutions.
The writer Is Editor, Science & Life, The Dally Star.