Opinion Forty years on

One would,given that Bangladesh has had general elections on a regular basis since 1991,be satisfied that all is well with democracy,indeed with the country. The facts,though,are disappointing.

For one thing,the parliamentary democracy that Bangladesh has worked in over two decades has been undermined by the propensity of the major political parties to stay away from parliament if they lose the general elections. Of course,the Awami League and the BNP,in opposition,have both justified their boycott of the Jatiyo Sangsad (the Bengali term for parliament) by coming up with myriad allegations against the ruling party. But that has done little to convince the electorate that such boycotts have in any way strengthened pluralistic governance in the country. Now,the two political parties remain miles away from each other. Neither Sheikh Hasina nor Khaleda Zia is willing to concede ground on any issue of relevance for Bangladeshis. The two political leaders have an aversion to each other that has prevented them from interacting even at the social level.

Bangladesh is also caught in a struggle with the past. The Awami League government,having initiated the process of a trial of the war criminals of 1971 — the local Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan army — now faces an uphill task in getting the special tribunal moving. Though there is little question among Bangladeshis on the need for such a trial,it is the modus operandi that has raised questions,especially abroad. The pressure the government is under can be gauged from the fact that it has shifted from its earlier position of trying the collaborators on charges of genocide to those of crimes against humanity. There is also the worry that the defendants in the trial,once it gets under way,will argue that the whole process is misplaced because the principal accused — the officers of the Pakistan army —were eventually allowed to go back to Pakistan from PoW camps in India in the early 1970s through the tripartite deal reached by India,Pakistan and Bangladesh.

A critical issue that Bangladeshis are grappling with now relates to the restoration of the secular character of the country’s constitution. The constitution was pushed into a right-wing slide following the murder of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975. The secular principle of the constitution was replaced by the Zia regime through the insertion of the Islamic “Bismillah”,a move formalised by the fifth amendment to the constitution. Later,General Hussein Muhammad Ershad,the country’s second military ruler,decreed Islam as Bangladesh’s state religion. In recent times,the high court has shot down both amendments as ultra vires of the constitution,a judgment which encouraged the ruling Awami League in its belief that Bangladesh could now go back to the constitution as it was originally adopted in 1972. However,as a way of appeasing right-wing sentiments,the government has been reassuring critics that it will not tamper with the Bismillah factor and the position of Islam as the religion of the state. Predictably,it has run into criticism from secular quarters who have traditionally supported the Awami League.

In this 40th year of freedom,the government remains busy dealing with the fallout from its collision with Muhammad Yunus,founder of Grameen Bank. The return of tens of thousands of migrant workers from troubled Libya and other countries is also creating new problems for the resource-strapped nation. As if these were not enough,the opposition BNP threatens,at every available opportunity,to launch a movement aimed at toppling the government.

Forty years after March 1971,democracy remains a tentative affair for Bangladesh. And governance,the form of it,gives rise to some fundamental questions about the future of politics in the country.

The writer is editor (current affairs) of ‘The Daily Star’,Dhaka,express@expressindia.com