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KALEIDOSCOPE

Allow democracy some space

Syed Fattahul Alim
OSTENSIBLY, to avert any kind of law and order situation and for the sake of public security, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) is learnt to have
clamped Section 144 on any public gathering within the city on January 29 (Sunday). What was the threat to law and order?
The government made no secret of the fact that it was the previously called mass procession by the BNP and its partners in the four-party alliance that was the source of its perceived threat to law and order.
Interestingly, the main opposition, which has all through been claiming that its programme would be a peaceful one, made the announcement about three weeks back from a meeting in Chittagong. In fact, the opposition has been holding similar programmes over the last few months. And the government had allowed those programmes to take place without creating any hindrance.
Then what has happened now to strike fear in the administration that the programme scheduled to be held on Sunday might create law and order situation or disrupt public security?
What will the man in the street make of this behaviour of the government? Is the government guided only by fear and apprehension to deny a political party its constitutionally granted democratic rights to assemble, meet and voice protest or raise demands?
The government cannot justify its action even with the argument of "threat to law and order," if we take into account that the ruling Awami League (AL), in a hurriedly called meeting of its city unit last Thursday (January 26), had announced its own meeting to be held on the same date (January 29) in front of its central office in Bangabandhu Avenue. And the central leaders of Awami League who spoke at that meeting had unabashedly declared that the aim of their meeting was to counter BNP's programme on that day.
And the rest was simple arithmetic. Given the history of any confrontation
between these two major political parties, DMP had no other choice but to prohibit the opposition's, and, if you like, also along with it, the AL's programme, of Sunday. In case Awami League remained stubborn about holding its programme and BNP about its own, a bloody clash would be inevitable.
So, the question naturally arises about the basis of the government's fear of BNP's programme and its potential for disrupting law and order. Had the opposition been allowed to carry out its previously announced programme without obstacle, would there be any cause for such apprehension, in the first place?
In that case, is not the ruling party, or the government for that matter, itself to blame for the situation leading to the DMP's order restricting the opposition's programme? Does the ruling AL think that the common people lack the commonsense not to understand its self-contradictory stance?
Some leaders of AL in their Thursday's meeting were on record to have vainly announced that they wouldn't any more allow further space to the opposition or that they wouldn't leave the ground free for it (opposition) to operate. Add to these,
the government ministers' fulmina-tions against the opposition party with words like "we will not tolerate" and so on.
Why should a democratically elected government be prompted by only threat perceptions? Since they are in power, all the law enforcement and security agencies of the state are under their command. Those agencies' job it is to inform the government from time to time of any plot or threat from the extremists or any other kind of destabilising force to create chaos in the public life.
In addition to police and intelligence agencies, the government, unlike any military one, has its party connections down to the grassroots level to know about the exact situation on the ground.
Once the government leaders begin to see only threat to peace and stability in every meeting or demonstration by its opponent political party or any other cross-section of the population, then it is bad news for the government. It harks back to the military regimes of the past, who saw similar threat to the security of the public or the state in every meeting or programme by students, or politicians. And people still remember how they would come down with vengeance on any such meeting or gathering using various repressive measures including Section 144, curfew, etc.
The military governments behaved in that way because they were always haunted by the fear of public wrath against them as they had come to power illegally against the will of the people.
But why should a government elected to office with a huge popular mandate be so fearful of the opposition's programme of public meetings or processions? Has it then lost its faith in the very public who had voted it to power?
The government, by slapping Section 144 on Dhaka and four other major cities, namely, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Sylhet as well as Pabna and Sirajganj, has not just foiled its adversary's, the BNP's, programme. It has at the same time caused irreparable harm to democracy.
The political stand-off between the two parties will remain as long as they continue this game of throwing a spanner in each other's work.
The cat-and-mouse game must stop. The government must allow democracy some space to function.
The writer is Editor Science@Llfe, The Dally Star. E-mail: sfalim.ds@gmail.com