Emergency - an analysis
THERE is one fundamental difference between the present caretaker government and the Ershad regime. Ershad knew he did not have the people's support. He looked for political roots, organizing heterogeneous elements willing to collaborate, even patronised a pliant opposition after fortifying power. As a popular move he downsized the districts to subdivisions, created upazillas and had elections. That some people still remember him, and he is a countable political force, is due to his people friendly activities in spite of the convictions and allegations. How will the nation remember the caretaker government? Lately some have fine-tuned a political phrase, 'army backed government' to earn respectability. It has however two dangerous connotations: that the army is not normally loyal and obedient to the constitutional and elected governments and do not 'back' them; more dangerous is the implied meaning that army can make and break any government any time they wish to. The Armed Forces are a national institution and must not offer free ride or bailout to anybody from a political jinx. They are professionally obliged to carry out all legal orders of the government. No doubt, the land forces are the dominant of the three services. The army is more visible because they operate on land. The high seas and the open sky are the operational zones of the two sister services. Moreover, the ships and aircrafts are exorbitantly expensive for a poor country like Bangladesh that restrains the development of the sister forces to the desired level. Land, air or sea - the forces are an organic whole of the national defense establishment. They share everything - from victory in a combat to sorrow in a disaster. We should avoid the divisive coinage of army only out of avoidable ignorance that may help the enemies of the state. The people did not mandate the caretaker government beyond ninety days because of the danger of abusing the agenda of an impartial election. Ninety days is enough for an election under available impartial administration unless one wants to import impartial people from abroad. The caretaker is not a government; it is purely a temporary arrangement with minimum functional ability of day-to-day administration. The army did a commendable job, but the country did not need to be under emergency to prepare the voter list and national ID cards. It is something when you leave the house to a caretaker with mandate of none. Bangladesh called them caretakers and advisers strictly to confine them to their job of conducting an impartial election within ninety days. The nation needs to know how they have prolonged their stay for such an unprecedented duration! If it were an elected government prolonging their life of five years in the same proportion, somebody could rule Bangladesh for more than forty years. Many generations meanwhile would have perished. Hardly any dictator or emperor ever ruled for that long in the annals of history. When prices of the essentials were increasing beyond the purchasing power of the people only the anti-people establishment could say they have nothing to do with the market forces. The political and anti corruption drive to justify the two years existence initially looked attractive in spite of the legal vacuum. What happened next? Between minus two to endless plusses, parties forming grand alliances, we had continuous magic shows staged and counter staged at the cost of suffering of the people. In the Spanish bullfight, bulls invariably suffer and die. In the fight against corruption and political reforms, the wild bulls and the matadors are hail and hearty to the peril of the people. The prices of essentials had doubled beyond the capacity of the poor. The only dilapidated plastic sheet under which a family slept on the fringe of rail tracks and roadways were destroyed because it was on a square yards of land that did not belong to the homeless destitute. We call Bangladesh a republic anchoring the ownership of the landmass to the citizens. Alas, the citizens have no right to live and die under a torn plastic sheet hanged over the entire family with no other place to go. I am no communist; nevertheless, one cannot afford to be inhuman. Leave alone Karl Marx, we should learn lessons from Bill Gates, the living legend of market economy and a philanthropist. If I could, I would have requested Bill Gates to salvage Bangladesh with his organizational brilliance. In spite of success or failure in personal life, a government has the responsibility to feed the poor, shelter them, and treat them when they are sick. Even an animal needs a burrow as shelter in nature or a barn if surrendered to the human needs. The caretaker government could not do very much for the alleviation of the poor and helpless. They demolished the shanties causing suffering to the most vulnerable. There is a meeting point between Karl Marx and Bill Gates, which the caretakers ignored. They promised corruption free society and political reforms to justify their rule for two long years; used all institutions of the state under emergency. No human right, no politics, and no vote for two long years - the prices of the essentials made the life of the people miserable. What did the people get in return? The emergency rule is the reason for all the mishap. They had caged both the elected prime ministers for many months on corruption charges, arrested many political bigwigs and business tycoons. Now they are providing the ex-prime ministers with the highest security and protocol as if they are already prime ministers. If only it was a laughable episode, the political melodrama enacted during last two years could break the most prosaic character into thunderous laughter. The rulers must apologize to those who suffered in jail during last two years without trial. If people have to vote for old politicians with all kinds of allegations, they must have an answer why they could not do so two years back. Who has stolen their right to vote? It has created a cerebral political disorder that may cloud our future off and on. I am less worried about the event of the last two years than the bad inference created for the days to come. Dr. Fakruddin Ahmed is a high achiever in his life. Two years of absolute rule of the country without the mandate of the people is more than one can hope for even if one is overtly ambitious. He must find a way out now to regularize the events of last two years to stop the hemorrhage: a gaping wound to the constitution that he opened he cannot leave without healing. The author is a freelancer.
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