The caretaker government, a year on
The arrival of a new government, at least in our part of the world, is generally a dramatic affair. When you add to that the little sub-plots, all of which keep coming in at fairly regular intervals, you have the very spice of excitement coming into life.
The recent departure of four advisers, only days before the first anniversary of the government they were part of, epitomised that excitement. And do not forget that before them there was their colleague who walked away over the artefacts affair. And if you go further back in time, there is the riveting tale of the four illustrious men, all advisers, who turned their backs on a government, led by no less an individual than Bangladesh's president, all because they thought its moral base was fast eroding.
Having said that, it now becomes somewhat necessary to recapitulate all that has happened, or could have happened, on the watch of the Fakhruddin Ahmed caretaker administration. Begin with the truth that this government has had the solid support of the nation's military, which has been its mainstay. There is, too, the matter of the state of emergency, a detail that has extended the government's period in office to one that does not look about to end any time soon.
Only an election, already promised, followed by a transfer of power to the representatives of the people, will cause that day to dawn. Speaking of elections, the caretaker government has gone a whole lot beyond its responsibility of organising and supervising free and transparent elections to a new Parliament. It is in that extended area of activity that you must search for clues to how the government has performed.
Take the Anti-Corruption Commission, a pretty much toothless body before Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury came along. Today, it is something of a symbol of hope, for millions of Bengalis have been enthused by the crusade the ACC has undertaken in dealing with the corrupt and evil men whose stranglehold on society, till January 10 last year, had been total.
To be sure, the ACC has made mistakes, has stumbled along the way. Overall, though, it has introduced a new dimension into societal life. Men and women, those whose reputations have not quite been above board, remain in fear of it. That is a good thing, for it enables the un-empowered and, therefore, weak to speak up for their cause after a long, long time.
And then there is the Election Commission. The good thing is that it is no more the cabal it used to be under men who almost turned the idea of pluralism into a joke. In this past one year, the EC has often been accused of slowness, of lethargy in doing its job. And where inviting a faction of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is the question, it has shown that it, too, is not above slipping up.
The bigger picture, though, is one of the present team at the Election Commission remaining focused on the goal, that of leading the country into a foolproof general election come December, or perhaps earlier than that.
The Public Service Commission gives you reason to hope that meritocracy will once again be the underpinning on which future civil servants will arise to add substance to administration. And through effecting a separation of the judiciary from the executive branch of government, the caretakers have done what earlier elected administrations could have done but did not.
No, this question of people coming by justice has not been fully answered by that move toward freeing the lower judiciary of its ancient fetters. But a beginning has been made. Someday, sooner rather than later, governments in this country will realise that they cannot tamper with the courts and expect to stay in office.
Good deeds apart, there are issues that the caretaker government has not quite transformed into tangibles. The price of rice, of other items of daily consumption, has kept the nation in a sour mood, and quite naturally too. It did not help that an adviser spoke flippantly of the inevitability of price rises, but then, he is gone now.
Between now and the elections, therefore, a miracle ought to descend on the market, enough to enable the poor and the middle classes to survive till the next dawn, and the next and the next. A happily fed populace is a government's strongest bulwark against adversity.
The ruckus over the university affair remains a scar on the soul. An application of cooling balm is called for. The closure of several jute mills, an act once described by a now departed adviser as gangrene on the economy that had to be done away with, was a statement ill-considered. And hardly anyone was enthused by all this talk of a Truth Commission, given that it threatened to undermine the nation's new-found faith in the rule of law.
The commission might yet come to be, might yet let felons go free. It ought not to. But what surely needs a firm place in this country is an independent human rights commission that will add some very real meat to democratic governance in Bangladesh.
But are we not asking for too much here? Obviously, one should not expect that the detritus of the past so many years will be cleared away by an administration that is unelected and that has as its fundamental responsibility the holding of credible elections. Yet, it is the mandate that the caretaker government has taken upon itself, by slow degrees, that leads you into asking that it do more.
Have all the trials relating to the corruption of the mighty and fallen be undertaken in all openness in order to convince people that a new dawn is possible. Go after the war criminals, for they have defiled anew the purity of our history.
No, this government is not the end. It is not perfect, for the world we inhabit is a flawed one. But it is one, which gives hope to millions across this country. It is one chance, provided it does not lose its way, for this nation to redeem some of the fundamental promises it once made to itself.
This administration can cut a path through the dense woods, strew that path with stones and bricks and mortar for people to walk on in the times to be. It cannot fail, not in its second year, for the year which lies beyond this second year should, by any term of logic, belong to a new, enlightened, elected dispensation made possible by an administration that began as a caretaker, released a little stream of reforms and made it possible for you to rekindle your respect for politics.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
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