For Bangladesh decentralisation is the answer
BARELY hundred days are left for the parliament election; the sheen of the CTG is fading as a reminder of its imminent departure. It is a defining moment: how would it like to be judged. The sword of emergency is dangling on our heads. Suggesting the right course when the authority goes wrong is dangerous in an environment of suspended democracy. Yet the country belongs to the people, in the spirit of '71 cowardice must not be cultivated in the face of fear or danger. We are on a cross road, the controversies might endanger the stability of Bangladesh. Nothing substantial has been done to clean politics and decentralise the administration. People voted thrice under the British, as they had three-tier governments, central, provincial and district governments. There is one vote now in five years for a single, central government. If people of erstwhile East Pakistan could be trusted with trade and commerce, industries, law and order, border affairs, land management, just about everything of the middle government, the government in Dhaka must trust the people of Rajshahi or any other division with responsibilities of the middle government. It is deprivation of this right that had broken Pakistan and made democracy unstable in Bangladesh. From the management of a primary school to improvement of a village road need sanction from Dhaka; democracy Dhaka style not only has no connection with the people, it is fundamentally anti-people. If a head office of a bank covering the entire Bangladesh with hundreds of branches decides to serve all clients from one window in Dhaka it will be sheer madness and total chaos. One government in Dhaka cannot take all the responsibilities of 150 million people. It is not fair to say there are not good people in politics; it is bad management that is retarding both politics and the politicians. Democracy is not the culprit nor must it be said that all politicians are suspects; the real flaw is in the unitary form of government. How many times can Bangladesh slip into the dark hole of uncertainty? What is frightening is that people are loosing confidence in politics and the parties mistrust one another, which produced the CTG and its extended life. Some elites think we are unfit for democracy and speak loudly against it. Such comments can come only from those with colonial mindset, who might have been physically freed but do not understand freedom from slavery. They are like the slaves who cried for the loss of masters after Abraham Lincoln freed them from slavery. In the style of the great Mogul Emperor Akbar and his 'Nava Ratnas' (nine jewels), the legacy continues that all wisdom is near the hub of the ruler. The imperial arrogance blurts that only 'bangals' (unfortunately an abuse in Bengali culture) meaning illiterate and uncultured brutes live in the villages. Living in the rural area of Europe and America symbolizes aristocracy and respect. Farmers are the most powerful and respected people in America. Cowboys, their jeans and wild looks have captured the fashion world. Sadly in our case, a fully urbanite young lady once asked me how 'dhan gach' (paddy plant) looks like, to prove her ignorance. When 'zamindari' (feudalism) was abolished from East Pakistan in 1954 most of the landlords and their families moved to urban areas for a living. It suddenly created a void in the rural leadership. It was the beginning of the absentee leadership that harmed the representative character of democracy, where leaders no longer lived with the voters. Almost none of the elected members of parliament live with the people in their constituencies. The vacuum can only be met if we have three-tier government and residency enforced on the governments below the central one. Education, communication, expanding economic activities and media have created a fair amount of leadership material in the rural areas. Only tons of money needed to buy election could not be accumulated in the rural areas, as no such cheap source exists outside Dhaka. Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus empowered many 'collateral-less' poor; it is time to empower rural Bangladesh to break away from the shackles of absentee leadership. Foreign policy does not noticeably convert into daily morsel for an average citizen; national defence is least understood till the threat develops. Let all such affairs be remotely managed by the central government; responsibility of immediate needs of the people must be off the back of the government in Dhaka. It is ridiculous to even conceive, much less practice, unelected bureaucratic administration in divisions and districts between elected government in Dhaka and the moribund upajilla council. The people should be allowed to have their day-to-day needs met by elected governments in divisions and upajillas. Health, education, trade, commerce, industry, law and order, border affairs, electricity, water, communication etc. must be with divisional governments in Rajshahi, Khulna, Barishal, Dhaka, Sylhet and Chittagong- as is done in other democracies. Responsibilities of the districts should be divided between divisional and Upajilla council. It would be best to name upajilla as Jilla council, empowering them as fully functional county government to meet the needs of the people from nearest to home. It would be the real decentralisation and democratisation of Bangladesh. Birth and death, marriage and divorce, immunization and family planning, primary education, irrigation, seeds and insecticides and fertilizers, local roads, any other important activities like bazaars and traditional arbitration to resolve local disputes should be looked after by the Union council to maintain the tradition of social justice. Earlier the diagnosis is completed, better it will be for stabilising politics in Bangladesh. Everything has a nebulous beginning; without a start we shall never learn to perfect. The governments even in the most advanced democracies are never perfect. There will be people of the governments above and below in the three-tier system for corrective measures. The watchdog institutions like intelligence agencies, commissions, Ombudsman, opposition parties, judiciary are there to guard the interest of the people. My association tells me, the press and media is the real bulldog of the people. Lastly, people will opine every four to five years over their governments- either to retain or fire it. Communism had much charisma for hungry minds but eventually came round to tell humanity that democracy has no real alternative. Delaying the treatment is to prolong the suffering. Let us jettison the fault of the constitution to salvage democracy through three tier governments for the welfare all. The question is who is going to tie the bell to the cat. Ershad's upajilla council continues despite all kinds of abuses hurled at him. He could not complete the job of decentralisation as he had his own agenda, which forced him to make compromises. A doctor opens the womb to save the distressed mother and the child. At this crucial time of our nation surgery has no real alternative to save the people and democracy. The caretakers have failed to deliver and time is ticking away. The three-layer elected government should be approved by the people through a referendum to set the controversies at rest.
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