The Reward Explains Everything

From left: Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed, Brig-Gen. Fazlul Bari, Maj-Gen. A.T.M Amin, Lt-Gen. Masud Uddin Chowdhury

Although Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed claimed his 11 January, 2007 unlawful intervention to be something other than a typical coup d’état, the significance of his acts have been too crudely typical. Almost all of the initiatives he took were typical; saving the nation from a nearing ‘civil war’, proposition of all out political reformation, crackdown over corruption etc. Actually there don’t remain a lot more cover-ups that a military ruler can use to defend his outspoken unlawfulness. So the mentioned lollypops were the instruments Gen. Moeen used to form up a façade of his unconstitutional and unlawful regime, suspending the fundamental rights those the people of an independent sovereign state can expect to have.

I’ve heard many people to claim the events of early January 2007 could have triggered a civil war in Bangladesh. It’s highly arguable that whether crying out the imminence of a civil war was really a substantial speculation or was just an excuse to overthrow a uniform government. Such excuses can eventually leave us skeptical because although adversary political activists took the streets no matter whatever ratio they had, no parts of the belligerents were recognized to have ‘military’ wings to drive through a ‘civil war’. At least Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed surely was not a Patton or a Monty to ‘give a chop’ to everything within a night that could have instrumented a countrywide civil war. So probably it was just an excuse to be used to form the public image of the setup that Moeen U. Ahmed with his errand men appeared to have done.

Moeen, however, had to be at good terms with the Indian authority. To mention, his relationship with India has been considerably better than any other military leaders of Bangladesh, becoming the only Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff to be befriended by India's far-right political masterminds.

Now for sake of arguments, I can be looked for to be asked, should Moeen have waited for the civil war getting truly imminent? Well I like to rule out the issue of a civil war, because for a country like Bangladesh which took less than 20 years from her birth to take the track of a consistent democracy, which in fact has had democracy smoothly and praiseworthily running for 16 long years, a civil war just for two conflicting political parties happens to be too fictitious. In fact as a country recognized to have moderate political and religious views, the civil war issue should have been taken as an insult to Bangladesh.

It’s arguable that whether the sudden intervention, or let me say the 1/11 coup d’état can be justified considering the then situation. Some or many people haven’t been disappointed after completely unlawful and unconstitutional sudden intervention of a man and suspension of people’s fundamental rights for indefinite period of time. People haven’t been disappointed at once because they were confused that whether they had lived better in past couple of months in the then atmosphere. Series of street agitations and two party’s being distant everyday turned Bangladeshi politics to severe disarray. Senior leaders of both the parties were set to negotiate and work a solution out but they could give nothing but smiles after they met. So the series of violence and an almost stalemate of Bangladesh, they have been failure of politicians, not politics. But after taking over the state machine what Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed was after has not been just politicians, he was after politics along with all the apparatuses he could have had a control over, legitimately or else.

We often see commentators among us who appear to have allergies of a system other than democracy, especially if it comes as a subject to military takeover of the state machine. Certain class of people now suddenly appear to be looking for rooms to thank Gen. Moeen at for least something he did. After considerably a protracted quest, its told that whatsoever Moeen U. Ahmed once initiated, have come to an end by resuming the democratic process, so he is to be thanked. In fact a military ruler who overthrew a uniform authority which was a party to state’s democratic process, if can be that fortunate ending up by resuming the democratic process, righteously can be considered as something better than just money lending, thus deserves a Novel Peace Prize.

However the Sheikh Hasina government does contain some of Awami League personalities who will like to give these kingpins real hard time.

But the immediate next democratic government of Moeen’s 1/11 rule didn’t act in the way that of a Novel Peace Prize contender should have acted. Ordinances the 1/11 cabinet once passed, the democratic government turned them into laws. Breaching of the constitutions the 1/11 regime frequently did, the democratic government desperately avoids to sue those matters. Not only has this, a cabinet member at the government of Moeen’s ‘resumed’ democracy, stated that Moeen U. Ahmed has been an Abraham Lincoln in the context of Bangladesh. It’s merely unbelievable that how a person under whose command politicians were tortured, university teachers were jailed and tortured, under whose command the fundamental rights of people were suspended, under whose command journalist was beaten half to death for criticizing him, can be compared with Abraham Lincoln. And it appears things won’t remain up to just comparison with great statesmen. Instead of dealing with the allegations, instead of suing for ousting democracy and hundred more criminal offenses at least attributed to have been done, there have been authoritative talks that there can be rewards for. And eventually this reward part, though haven’t taken place yet, explains everything.

*****

This post has also been published in The Weekly Economic Times, 21 June, 2009 issue.

Modesty Nowhere

The following day of Bangladesh’s humiliating defeat to Ireland in ICC T20 World Cup, was my first day at the new campus of North South University. We had no idea about how much time it would take to reach the new campus so we were pretty early from home. On the way while crossing American Embassy, my friend Saikat who I was riding with, and me, for sake of keeping on exuberance of the new campus, made a deal that throughout the time we will avoid any discussion not only on Bangladesh Cricket team but also of T20 World Cup. Both of us rather we found hundreds like us in the campus later who abode by this deal.

"...Actually he ain’t to be blamed because he didn’t learn to act with modesty; not when it’s a humiliation, and not on earth whiles its celebrations..."

It’s undeniable that there were definite reasons for Bangladeshi cricket fans refusing talks on the team’s humiliating incompetence in T20 World Cup. Bangladesh played two matches where the players will like to put result against India as an important factor to their defence against the anticipated probe over their tournament performance.

Today, one of the selector, I missed his name, was talking to a private FM radio station and was desperately defending the national team. He said the disappointment of the fans was indeed their tendency to get upset with just the result of a certain match. This brilliant selector and sounds-like-a-wise-guy told that Bangladesh cricket fans will have to reform their attitude over performances of their team. I mean this is absolutely ridiculous that a national cricket team selector talks like that rather after ridiculous performances of the team which he appears to have co-selected. He could have talked like that if there were plenty of contrasts between the result and the overall game-play of his team.

In matches against India and Ireland, runs scored by the lower order were respectably 50 and 54, that is what ultimately the score got built on was the lower order’s scuffling with their bats. More importantly, the top order in both the matches collapsed before the 9th overs could be bowled. Two middle order batsmen had excellent ties between them that in both matches they made same scores, respectably 8 and 7. The overall middle-order batting scores are already enough to think of a probe, they were 34 and 35 respectably. Because how important a full-fit and performing middle order is in T20s, I hope all the selectors and players will undisputedly admit.

"...the captain who did bat not more than 23 deliveries and scored not more than 25 runs in the entire international T20 competition, has told the team performances was not as poor as words appear to have been spread on it..." © Getty Images

So it’s not that throughout the games Bangladeshi players saturated with good cricket and tragedies suddenly came. Both the games had their 10th overs of the second innings where everyone was able to say Bangladesh’s not going to make it. So what our players and selectors have to be is a little modest while talking to anybody. The one gets upset, gets upset because that ‘one’ indeed does care. Players beef up the spirits with this ‘care’ so the players will have to be modest when they turn the ‘carers’ upset. Asking for reforms in attitudes is not the way.

Same words are for our mighty captain Mohammad Ashraful, who, covered by Armed Police Battalion personnels, yards away of people’s outrage and fed with assurance that there have been arrangements to keep him away of the mob, has proudly pronounced that point of his stepping down from captaincy doesn’t really arise. Mohammad Ashraful, the captain who did bat not more than 23 deliveries and scored not more than 25 runs in the entire international T20 competition, has told the team performances was not as poor as words are spread on it, rather they have plenty of achievements from this competition. Actually he ain’t to be blamed because he didn’t learn to act with modesty; not when it’s a humiliation, and not on earth whiles its celebrations.

Standing On a Street of Blood

It was inside Principal’s room where formalities were being done of my admission to Dhaka Residential Model College. I don’t know about other colleges, but DRMC had rules for its students to choose compulsory and elective subjects during the admission, I mean at the very beginning. When I was about to name my subjects, my mother was looking at me, to read my face what really I was going to do. My sister along with my mother, often wanted me to have Biology at least as a fourth (elective) subject so that I could at least seat for medical admissions after higher secondary. But I had my memories. I saw my sister to study up to a limit that a human being possibly can and I was never comfortable with studying this much.

Not only for admission, after getting admitted in Dhaka Medical College my sister had to put her studies in one side and rest of her world aside. I told I was never comfortable with this much studies. So for only to avoid studying 18 hours a day, I never even thought about being a doctor in anyways. So in an afternoon of 2003’s fall inside Principal’s room in Residential Model College, when I named my subjects ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Statistics’ instead of ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Biology’, my mother told nothing. But her face left a message that at that moment she gave up her hope of another of her children could be a doctor, and she didn’t look much happy with that.

Being a doctor in anywhere is always thought to be the fulfilment of dreams of the one who became and the people around him. In all over the world medical schools appear to be pretty different from other schools just because it contains its pupils who beside studies receive lessons to get prepared mentally to serve the people with devotion and adoration. We can look over an array of essays with title “aim in life” where confirmedly majority of the essays will hail the dreams of kids those want to be doctors. When parents look forward to have their child in the journey of being a doctor, their sights remain with immense hope and expectations.

Violence in our educational institutions is not new to claim lives of students. In Bangladesh more students have died from internal campus violence than the savageries of various repression-friendly regimes. The freshest claim of this nasty part of our politics has been Abul Kalam Asad Rajib.

Abul Kalam Asad Rajib was in his room in Dhaka Medical College hostel Fazle-Rabbi Hall on the second floor. A group of above twenty people with sticks, cricket-stamps, rods and other melee weapons broke in Rajib’s room. Reportedly Rajib was beaten by the group inside the room until some of the attackers took him and threw him down from the balcony of 2nd floor. After an above 25 feet free-fall on concrete slab on the ground, he was taken care of by another group waiting downstairs. There again Rajib was beaten mercilessly until a crowd converged to the spot. The attackers left the scene with more than 25 casualties including one seriously injured, Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who is a leader and General Secretary of Dhaka Medical College unit of Bangladesh Chhatro League, the student wing of the presently ruling party.

Noted number of the injured students at hospital has named a doctor called Bidyut Barua, who is another Chhatro League leader of the campus, an ex general secretary of the unit and appears to have led a faction of DMCH Chhatro League which is rival of the one Abul Kalam Asad Rajib led. Most of the injured students have stated attackers contained a few DMC Chhatro League activists, and a large number of outsiders led by some Chhatro Union (Bangladesh Student Union) activists. Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who could have served us in health services or in politics or in anywhere in coming years, has succumbed his injuries, has been declared dead by the doctors of Community Military Hospital at Dhaka Cantonment at 6:30PM local time.

One of my recent posts was written about the student politics. A question was thrown through the post that whether a ban is appropriate and my post outlined a trail that ends in answer ‘no to ban and yes to reformation’. Many of the readers have been people close to me and I wasn’t out of touch when they came up with unending criticism of my views. Many of the readers directly said a ‘yes’ to permanent ban over student politics. Very few had a voice over the reformation but what exactly hasn’t been seen in them was optimism. They ain’t sure about a reformation that can make student politics work is in fact possible.

Abul Kalam Asad Rajib

What Bangladesh Chhatro League have been doing after the present government took oath, is not indeed any individual characteristic of Chhatro League as an organization. It has been a custom that student wings of a ruling party will act like what Chhatro League has been doing since last January, what Chhatro Dal has done in January 2002 and what Chhatro League did in May 1996.

My saying ‘no’ to banning student politics, was some sort of saying ‘yes’ to the path of progressive advancement of our national politics. To back this ‘no’ to the ban, there have been a lot of arguments which I had to get involved in with those who support a ban. But today it appears that my being stubborn with a ‘no to ban’ gives me a feeling of standing upon a street perplexedly, the street which is full of blood, bled by those who attacked, bled by those who were attacked.

Abul Kalam Asad will never know that what he succumbed was not his wounds given by his rivals. He has succumbed the wounds that are stigmatizing our politics every day. Abul Kalam Asad will never know that the prominence of notoriety that he had in his campus, didn’t require him to battle for it, he easily grabbed it from the characteristic of our politics. The failure is ours that we have ourselves ruled by politics with such a type, which creates leaders of characteristics who died and the media finds nothing to add at end of their obituaries that could make us say “Ahare…” after reading it.

South Asia Under Fire

It appears that the nuclear deal between India and United States has been followed by numerous violent events in adjacent countries of India. Pakistan has seen a fresh phase of anarchies that includes a tremendous escalation of terrorism in both frontier and deep inside the territory. Terrorist organizations those had their actions mostly based in frontier regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are being seen tending to converge deep inside Pakistani, specially the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Series escalation of terrorism those are spreading furiously in urban Pakistan has also become the most concerning to date.

Violence in Pakistan that is only in Pakistan still could be considered as internal matters of a country. But observing commotions in other South Asian countries have urged the observers to note it that this might be something bigger than internal matters of a single state. Series of unexpected incidents in both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is leading South Asia to be an endangered region. The carnage took place in Bangladesh’s border guard headquarters that left an almost hundred slain military officers, has been a major notification in South Asia that peace is at a vulnerable position. The whole matter around Pilkhana has been immensely fishy where the government of Bangladesh has been found to be more conservative that they should have been. Initially the senior members of the government tried to create a political division over the matter by blaming their political rival for the carnage. An unexpected and fruitless political blame-game was triggered that was leaving a lot of cloud for the investigators. So far the governmental bodies cannot be kept out of suspicion because a many questions still remain unanswered. The federal investigating committee has been largely politicized by putting government ministers and ruling party leaders to lead the committee. Keeping the fact in mind that the perpetrators caused an irreparable damage to the defence apparatus of the country, the perpetrators appear to receive a number of advantages for bewildering decisions of the government. Hence the biggest attack to the date on Bangladeshi defence apparatus has been made.

Events taking place in Bangladesh those chronically have followed the medieval carnage at Pilkhana, could be a part of the efforts where the overall peace of South Asia is being bullied. An army officer was found stabbed to death in a Dhaka hotel in the same week of the carnage. Three other army officers were killed in an event which appears to be a helicopter crash, including a two-star General. Another two-star general and a single-star general were killed in Pilkhana. Series of hits on the people who are deeply associated with the national security structure of Bangladesh are not at all scattered incidents. Initially Bangladesh security analysts told the border guards carnage could be a retaliation of an incident of 2001 where a wave of Indian raiders were valiantly pushed away by Bangladesh border guards, leaving a death toll of 21 Indian soldiers, 3 Bangladeshi soldiers and hundred more casualties.

Another incident in this second Friday of March 2009 has escalated the security tensions of Bangladesh up to a concerning height. A fire outbreak in the biggest shopping mall of Bangladesh, the Bashundhara City can appear as a powerful hit over Bangladesh economy. The economy of Bangladesh already has become a victim of global economical shrinking and massive curtailment at global job market. Still no formula has been found out that the Bashundhara incident indeed has been a hit, but our intelligence apparatus has to work it out. There has to be found that whether this has been part of the effort which is gradually breaching the peace of South Asia, after the powerful alliance of two malicious giants of world diplomacy. We have to learn if this has been a part of the process that has been initiated in order to bring changes in the map of South Asia. If all the mishaps taking place in recent times are all related, these will no more be considered as attacks on certain sectors rather than it will be considered as attack on the sovereignty and independence of Bangladesh.

Writing With a Broken Heart : This Time The ‘Politics’

একজন বাংলাদেশী, যে তার দেশকে ভালোবাসে, যে তার দেশের সেনানীদের বিশ্বের সর্বশ্রেষ্ঠজ্ঞান করে, যে দেশকে আক্রান্ত হতে দেখলে নিজেদের ভেতর মতাদর্শের বিভাজনকে গৌণ মনে করে, দেশের সবাইকে ঐক্যবদ্ধ হতে দেখবার জন্য ছটফট করে, তার মন ভেঙ্গে দেয়ার জন্যে পিলখানার ঘটনাটি যথেষ্ট ছিল। স্বাধীন বাংলাদেশে দেশের সেনাবাহিনীর উপর এত বড় আঘাত আর হয়নি। ঘটনাটি যেদিন ঘটে সেদিন কেউই বুঝে উঠতে পারেননি যে আসলে কি হয়েছে কিংবা এই অবস্থায় কি মনোভাব প্রদর্শন করা প্রয়োজন। যখন পিলখানার ভেতরে ও আশেপাশে পাওয়া যেতে থাকল দেশের গর্বের সন্তানদের ক্ষতবিক্ষত দেহ, তখন আর কারওরই বুঝতে বাকি থাকেনি যে এ কোন বিদ্রোহ, অসন্তোষ ও ক্ষোভের ফল হতে পারেনা। এ দেশের নিরাপত্তা বুহ্যের উপর এক আচমকা ও নৃশংস আঘাত, যা বাংলাদেশের শত্রুরা ঘটিয়েছে। বাংলাদেশের ক্ষতি হলে যাদের লাভ হয়, বাংলাদেশ এগিয়ে গেলে যাদের ক্ষতি হয়, তারাই এই কান্ড ঘটিয়েছে। এই ঘটনার ধারক বাহক যারা, তারা এই দেশের কেউ হতে পারে না, খোঁজ নিলে জানা যাবে কাগজে কলমে তারা হয়তো এদেশেরই মানুষ, কিংবা নয়, কিন্ত তারা বাংলাদেশের ঘৃণ্যতম শত্রু। এখন পর্যন্ত দৃশ্যমান ঘটনাগুলো পিলখানার ভেতর ঘটলেও ধারণা করা কঠিন নয় যে পরিকল্পনা ছিল দেশের আরও ক্ষতি করার। দেশের সেনাবাহিনীতে চূড়ান্ত ক্ষোভের সঞ্চার করে সেখান থেকে প্রতিক্রিয়া আসতে পারে এমনটা আশা করা স্বাভাবিক, এমনটা ঘটতেই পারত। সেক্ষেত্রে দেশকে ইতমধ্যেই যে পরিমাণ দূর্বল করা হয়েছে, দেশ তার থেকে আরও অনেক বেশি দূর্বল হয়ে পড়ত। পরম করুণাময়ের কাছে অশেষ কৃতজ্ঞতা জ্ঞাপন করছি যে তা অবশেষে ঘটেনি। আবেগ ও ক্ষোভের বশে তাৎক্ষণাৎ প্রতিক্রিয়া প্রদর্শনের চেয়ে ধৈর্য্য ও দক্ষতার সাথে পরিস্থিতি সামাল দেয়াকেই আমাদের সশস্ত্র বাহিনী সঠিক মনে করেছে। এতে সেনাবাহিনীর প্রতি দেশের মানুষের শ্রদ্ধা বেড়েছে, সেনাবাহিনীর অধিনায়কদের প্রতি শ্রদ্ধা ও আস্থা বেড়েছে। আমরা আশা করি নিয়মতান্ত্রিক ভাবে ধাপে ধাপে এগিয়ে আমাদের সেনাবাহিনী দেশের উপর এই নৃশংস আক্রমনের নেপথ্য খুঁজে বের করবেন, এই ঘটনার দায়ীদের বিচারের সামনে উপস্থিত করবেন ও দেশের শত্রুদের নিধন করবেন।

আমাদের দেশে রাজনীতির সাথে জড়িত ব্যাক্তিবর্গ দেশের স্বার্থকে পাশ কাটিয়ে যখন একান্তই নিজ রাজনৈতিক উদ্দেশ্যকে সামনে রেখে নানা পদক্ষেপ গ্রহণ করেন, তখন তাকে আমরা বলি রাজনীতির নোংরা খেলা, কিংবা ডার্টি গেম। পিলখানায় সার সার পড়ে থাকা অফিসারদের মৃতদেহ গুলো দেখে মনে ভেঙ্গে গিয়েছিল। কিন্তু তারপরও সংশ্লিষ্ট সবার বিশেষ করে সশস্ত্র বাহিনীর অশ্রুসজল অথচ ধীরস্থির অবস্থান দেখে একটু একটু করে মনোবল ফিরে পাচ্ছিলাম। এই বোধটা জাগ্রত হতে শুরু করেছিল যে ঠিক সময় আমরা ঠিকই একতা ও মনোবল ফিরে পাই। কিন্তু এই প্রক্রিয়ায় বাধ সাধছে দেশের রাজনীতি। আজ সংসদ অধিবেশনে জনপ্রতিনিধিদের বক্তব্যদানের ধরণ দেখে নিরাশ না হয়ে উপায় ছিলনা। আমি পুরো অধিবেশনটির সম্প্রচার দেখিনি। কিন্তু একদেড় ঘন্টা যাই দেখেছি, তাতে পারষ্পরিক দোষারোপ ছাড়া কিছুই ছিলনা। বিশেষ করে এই ক্রন্দনরত হৃদয়ে সবচেয়ে শক্তিশালী আঘাতটা বোধ হয় করলেন আমাদের স্বয়ং প্রধানমন্ত্রী। শুনেছি ওয়াশিংটন পোস্ট, টেলিগ্রাফ, গার্ডিয়ান নাকি গত কয়েকদিনের ঘটনায় মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রীর ভূমিকার ভূয়সী প্রশংসা করেছে। পরম করুণাময়ের কাছে প্রার্থনা করি ঐ পত্রিকার সংবাদদাতারা যেন সংসদে প্রধানমন্ত্রীর আজকের ভাষণটির ব্যাপারে জানতে না পারেন। কারণ আজকের ভাষণ খুবই নগ্ন সাক্ষ্য বহন করে যে আমাদের রাজনীতি তার গতানুগতিক আচরণ থেকে বেরুতে পারে নাই, পারে তো নাইই বরং এই সংকটের সময়ও তার কুৎসিত দিক বেরিয়ে এল। মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রীর বক্তব্য থেকে আমরা জানতে পারলাম বিরোধী দলীয় নেত্রী বেগম খালেদা জিয়া নাকি পরোক্ষ ভাবে ঐ অফিসারদের হত্যাকান্ডে জড়িত ছিলেন। সাংগঠনিক ভাবে বিরোধী দল অর্থাৎ বিএনপি নাকি এই নির্মম হত্যাকান্ডে মদদ জুগিয়েচছে। শুধু তাই নয়, হত্যাকারীদের পালিয়ে যেতে সাহায্য করেছে এই বিএনপিই। গোয়েন্দা মারফত প্রধানমন্ত্রী নিশ্চিত হয়েছেন যে ঘটনার আগের দুরাত বেগম জিয়া তাঁর বাসায় ছিলেননা, এবং আমাদের মাননীন প্রধানমন্ত্রী সন্দেহ প্রকাশ করেছেন যে সেই দুরাত বেগম জিয়া অফিসারদের হত্যা করার ষড়যন্ত্রে ব্যায় করে থাকতে পারেন। প্রধানমন্ত্রী সংসদের কোন প্রমাণ প্রদর্শন না করলেও বলেছেন বিরোধী দলের এগুলো অস্বীকার করার কোন উপায় নাই। এই প্রত্যেকটি কথা প্রধানমন্ত্রী আজ সংসদ অধিবেশন চলাকালীন সময়ে দ্ব্যার্থ কন্ঠে বলে গেলেন।

মাননীয় প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা যিনি বাংলাদেশের ইতিহাসে নির্বাচনে সবচেয়ে বড় বিজয় নিয়ে ক্ষমতায় আরোহণ করেছেন, এই পরিস্থিতে সংসদের দাঁড়িয়ে তাঁর এই বক্তব্যদানের কি উদ্দেশ্য থাকতে পারে? উদ্দেশ্য আপাতদৃষ্টিতে একটাই হতে পারে যে এধরণের সরাসরি অভিযোগের একটি কড়া জবাব দেয়ার জন্য বিএনপি ছটফট করতে থাকবে। বিএনপির এর জবাবে হয়তো এরকমই সারশূণ্য একটি বক্তব্য দিবে, কে জানে বিএনপির বক্তব্য এর চেয়েও সারশূণ্য হতে পারে। তার জবাবে রাজনৈতিক প্রতিপক্ষ আওয়ামী লীগ আরেকটি কড়া জবাব দিবে। এই নিয়ে পরষ্পরকে দোষারোপের প্রক্রিয়া চলতে থাকবে। আর এর মাঝে বিভ্রান্ত হবে দেশের সব মানুষ। শুনেছি স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীকে প্রধান করে নাকি তদন্ত কমিটি গঠন করা হয়েছে। স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী যত বড় রাজনীতিকই হোননা কেন, তিনি দেশের ক্যাবিনেটের মেম্বার। সেই ক্যাবিনেটের নেতা হলেন স্বয়ং প্রধানমন্ত্রী। তদন্তর কোন কুলকিনারা কেউ জেনে উঠবার আগেই প্রধানমন্ত্রীর কাছ থেকে যদি এসব কথা শুনতে হয়, তবে সেই প্রধানমন্ত্রীর অধস্তন স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীর নেতৃত্বে সম্পাদিত তদন্তের ফলাফল কি হবে, তা কি আমরা আগে থেকে ধারণা করতে পারিনা?

দেশের উপর এত বড় একটা আঘাত এল। তাতেও যদি আমরা শিক্ষিত না হই, তাতেও যদি আমরা গতানুগতিকের একটুও বাইরে কিছু করতে বা ভাবতে না পারি, তবে কি সামনে এগুনো সম্ভব? ২০০৭ সালের শুরু থেকে যখন ঢালাও ভাবে দেশের রাজনীতিকদের উপর আক্রমণ আসছিল, তখন রাজনীতির পক্ষে কথা বলে বলে আমরা মুখের ফেনা তুলেছি। তখন রাজনীতিকে কেউ গালমন্দ করলে সেই গালমন্দ নিজের গায়ে নিয়েছি এবং তার উপযুক্ত জবাব দিতে চেয়েছি। দুবছর পর আজ দেশের উপর এত বড় আঘাত হানা হল। এই সংকটের মুহুর্তে যদি দেখি ঐক্যের পথে, এগুনোর পথে বাধা হয়ে দাড়াচ্ছে সেই রাজনীতি, তবে এর উপর মানুষের শ্রদ্ধা থাকা কি সম্ভব? এর উপর মানুষ কেন আস্থা রাখবে? যখন কেউ বলেছে রাজনীতিবিদরাই দেশের এই হাল করেছেন, তখন তার জবাব দিয়েছি এই বলে যে দেশের প্রতিটি মানুষই রাজনীতিবিদ, রাজনীতিকে গালি দিলে নিজেকেও গালি দেয়া হয়। তো আমরা এ কোন রাজনীতির পক্ষে কথা বলেছিলাম? এতকিছুর পরও মানসিকতার বদল হয় না কেন? দায়িত্মবান পদের থেকে দায়িত্মহীন বক্তব্য দানের অবসান কবে হবে?

Student Politics : Ban or Reformation?

It was a party at Bury Saint Edmunds (Suffolk, England) attended by some Bangladeshi professionals with their families. Though it was only a week passed after the election, politics was not popular among the words circulated. But at one moment someone raised the point of student politics and almost certainly most of the guests consented that there should be a ban over the student politics in Bangladesh.

Like these Bangladeshi professionals living abroad and having conscious eyes over the politics back in homeland, most of the educated people of Bangladesh are seen to be very keen about a ban on the national student politics.

Ban over the student politics will be a solution like ejecting eyes in order to cure an optical disease.

This sort of procedure I believe the previous regime felt most comfortable to apply; something like suspending democracy as politics have gone wrong, jailing politicians arbitrarily as some of them have gone violent, in order to save the nation you know. But a cordial ‘thank you’ to the almighty and may be to the previous regime kingpins that they haven’t thought of anything like banning student politics by state legislation or something. But the sense, or the thought which have helped them best to create their initial moral ground, I feel is most enthusiastic to look forward for a law that’ll ban student politics. The issue which I have discussed here, is, the craze of power of our politicians, completely imprudent ‘getting to power’ policies of the parties and exploitation of the situation of some apolitical individuals (from inside or abroad), gave birth of the 1/11 government. And the role of the politicians here has been most vital, which have gradually convinced Bangladeshi people that peace and progressiveness are to appear as elusive in Bangladeshi politics. From this of the attitudes of seeing the politics as a nun looks at a whore, many of our educated countrymen think that banning student politics must be a prerequisite of peace.

The history of Bangladesh shows us patterns of politics to evolve where many of the most loved politicians have had their ‘entity of politician’ to be born in universities and colleges, places those are considered as conscience of the whole nation. No other part of the society thinks and acts in the way that the students of a country do. There are many problems identified and many questions asked only by the student society of a nation. Today in Bangladesh we can talk about sidelining the culture of student politics, because we have become so reticent to recall our past and history where we have many of our political crisis pursued, dealt and replied progressively by the society of students. It’s the society of students which is able to react and to send tremendously effective shockwaves to all and all sectors of the system immediately after discovering stressful glimpse of commons. Now some apolitical individuals, whose courage of ignoring the national interest is the result of our indefinite reticence and our imprudent politics, took over the government ousting democracy which got prominence in name of 1/11. The birth of the 1/11 government has already been a political disaster for Bangladesh. Closing down the door of politics for students will be a closure for many youths with devotion, patriotism and brilliance. It will appear as nothing but self-contradiction if we look for better politicians by banning student politics; will appear as invitation for 1/11 kind of disaster to once again suspend democracy.

However there is no argument over the fact that events often take place in Bangladesh for people to get sore on student politics. The present government which is outcome of however an election have taken office accompanied by hope and expectations of better politics and better practice of democracy. Keeping the debate aside whether any physical cause of such hope ever existed, expectations have been deeply buried by activities of respective wings of ruling party. Behavior of the government, the Election Commission as well as the ruling party at Upazila polls have been in such way that the unpleasant fact is about to come out; there was nothing in the idea and deeds of the 1/11 regime that could buy us a culture of better democratic practices. In fact it can be stated about the 1/11 regime that a government which itself appears amid an evil expulsion of democracy can never be a subject to deliver better practices of democracy. The takeover of the newly elected government has been visibly followed by incidents of political violence and culture of muscling which most unfortunately had major roles for student wing of the ruling party.

I consider the newly elected and formed government to not be fully prepared to take and work on the control they have got. The house is still to get its pace and the cabinet too does not look or seem structurally compact. There was a major task to work on at the very initial stage that is the Upazila polls where the present government has seen overwhelming failure and hopefully they will admit it. Considering failures as part of everything and considering statements of Tanjim Ahmed Sohel as attempt to cover-up as a governmental spokesperson often does, the complete stability in the national politics is yet to come; eventually still the focus is not over the issue of student politics. But the issue is too important and requires effective attention of our statespersons.

A group of people who like us to call them as the “progressive civil society” or “shushil shomaj” and who outlines longer and scholarly foreseeing plans for better Bangladesh judging things only those they see in or around Dhaka, has very different views about the student politics. Some of them have missed some appointments or seminars because some Dhaka University or Titumir College students have gone rowdy and created a mess on the streets. So they want student politics banned forever. This is just an example and I am not going to generalize the whole thing just based on it. The point which plays here is, the only proposition that “shushil shomaj” could deliver about student politics is campuses should be kept clear of politics. In this kind of demand, there is disrespect for politics; disrespect for our history thereby there remains disrespect for us. We can easily imagine what the scenario could be if student politics is banned indiscreetly in all campuses. A generation of students will be under construction which will concern nothing other than their self interests, which will have a dilapidated view on politics of Bangladesh and will contain no respect for our statespersons. Keeping the debate of respect worthiness of our politicians aside, the closure of student politics will trigger an unhealthy process of depoliticizing of our youths. The process will give birth of a large apolitical population who will just learn to take part in criticism rather than delivering constructive ideas. There will be a lot of people which we already have a handful of, to put more than perfect slangs behind failures and misappropriation by people in politics. But there will be none to have enthusiasm to get into what they call “dirty” and to cleanse it. We already have plenty of critics. But we need people to get to work more than we need people to do criticism. And for meeting such need or at least to help such people come forward, there should be a very effective reformation over our national student politics.

Bangladesh has seen number of political crisis and there were politicians and experts with brilliance to help us overcome the deadlocks. Student politics should be taken as a concern by them and should be pushed through reformations. As an overview of Bangladeshi student politics does not tell us it is in good shape, strategists of all political parties are to be unleashed to explore rooms to reform it. The major challenge for such reformations will be campus violence those often erupts based on illegitimate interests inside campuses those shouldn’t concern the students ethically. There take place hasty and violent political moves by student wings those come up as annoyance for general students. Reformers of student politics will get in touch with many of these problems those obstruct it to move onwards progressively. There will be seen problems and these will have to be resolved. But no room should be given to the proposition that a ban will work over the student politics. We have a certain sector of politics having troubles. Now if banning that certain sector is one of options rather than thinking about fixing it up, then there is no point of having politicians to deal with tricky situations, in fact there remains no point in our expectation of better democratic practices to move onward progressively in politics.

So “no” to ban, “yes” to reorganization and reformation.

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This post has also been published here in Weekly Economic Times.

The One Who’s Made Us Proud

Zahirul Haque Biplob “Bipu”, a simple youngster from Tikatuli, Dhaka, who went to Korea for better living in 1997, has been an immensely positive and honorable introduction of Bangladesh to the Koreans. Watch the video and get the story.

Bipu in Bangladeshi media was introduced by BTV’s popular show Ittadi. So sincere thanks and cheers go to Hanif Sanket too for his extraordinary virtue of promoting off-beat and untold geniuses.

The Untargeted Chief of All Devils

This post has also been published in Weekly Economic Times

In all of the political discussions, the question that inevitably is asked to the political analysts of strategists is, what improvements in politics have been done as result of what happened in 11 January, 2007. None of the people who ask this question try to realize that there has been done nothing to make our politicians feel that they need to be more serious and more ardent to commit better things to the people. Everyone feels comfortable to misunderstand the 1/11 event something like the whole classroom has been kept under detention as many of the students became rowdy. The 1/11 was nothing like that and whoever came forward to punish the classroom did not have prosperous agendas to commit so. Thus it will be our own faults if we think the politics of Bangladesh have received enough lessons to deliver all the divines henceforth.

It is quite amazing to hear we are having the population more than the superpower Russian Federation does have. It’s amazing to be the 7th on the list whereas Russia is 9th, UK is 22nd and Canada, France, Italy, Germany all are below our rank. And beside the amazement it is out utmost failure of noticing and our imprudence that this population has made ourselves a bowl which never fills. It is the increasing population of Bangladesh which has presented us the fate where may be we won’t see the day when our empty bowls of demands will be pouring. A tremendously tight count of resources with a population increasing without any controlled and positively expected rate, are on the way to take us to a valley where all of the formulas of prosperity will se failures to bail us out of the disaster. The disaster is up ahead. And the disaster is simple to explain. It’s just a situation where we got an immense count of population but not even a fraction of necessary resources and nobody delivering words to provide us with them. It’s so simple like a family having all ways of incomes crucially closed, a family with numbers of members to feed, a family with no friends or relatives ready to borrow or charity or something, a family having no definite way other than to be on streets begging to be fed.

I remember that the population was a prime issue of social and technical studies when we were at school. For a country like Bangladesh, population has always been the prime concern. As far as we are not to maintain the luxury of beating superpowers like Russia, United Kingdom or France having the population of 159 millions of people, we are also not to afford to overlook this vital concern of ours which can turn all of our earnings in coming days into useless. We don’t have a definite food plan to deal with what the population will be ten or twenty years later. We don’t have a definite power plan to provide with electricity and fuel to what the population will be ten or twenty years later. And all these things which we are ought to do in coming days will have to be done by who we will be voting for a week later. But did you see manifestos of them? Did you find what are they thinking about the increasing population in any of their manifestos? One of the party heads has dedicated the manifesto to all those will cast vote for the first time. But there is no definite declaration of what to be done to ensure their effort to keep on their lineages hundreds of years later. On of the party heads has promised to his constituency voters that rice and lentils as regular meals will be made free for all. A proverb goes in North-eastern Europe, the only way to get cheese and to not pay is raiding rat holes; rat holes are only place from where free foods used to come. So there is commitment of delivering foods from rat holes but there is no commitment on how to deal with some more millions of people who will be added in coming years.

The absence of population issue in the political manifestos has been noticed crudely. Some of the political analysts and strategists have mentioned the manifestos as advertisement leaflets of the parties to have the people casting their votes for the particular parties. As the population issue is quite old to do marketing jobs with, most of the manifestos have dropped it out. This is disappointing. There is no permanent result at the end of a shortcut. Every developments, every prosperities, every agenda have to be implemented in an ongoing process with immense patience. And politicians of a country are to be set on those ongoing processes. And their so vicious overlook of a so important issue like the increasing population will urge the people of Bangladesh to reconsider their choice of handing over the ruling-sceptre of the nation.

Toward The Election with a Biased Media

It’s not necessary to have the political history of hundreds of years to contain political events of multiple dimensions. Bangladesh in her history of not a lot more than 37 years has seen quite a lot of kinds of elections; elections under military rule, elections under democratic governments, election under constitutionally explicable caretaker governments etc. But this time Bangladesh is going to experience such a situation were we are to vote under authority of such a government, which is neither a direct military rule, nor a constitutional caretaker government.

This has completely been a newer way of rupture to the constitution, made of some party-loving people like to do reunion kind of thing at Tommy Mia’s Gulshan kitchen or something. The situation is virtually different from what it has been seen before. The present authority which has an outspoken renown as the “1/11 government”, is going to handover the power to another government, which they say to be elected by public polls. Or by the other kind of saying, or it makes sense if we say what really will be going on in fact, the handover will be done to a group of people who are not really disappointed with the rupture of the constitution. In fact we have these interested groups who have expressed their will to “ratify” all the constitution-breaches. And things obviously look like the stage and all other surroundings have been set to have that group of illicitly interested people winning the upcoming election.

I was really stunned to hear Munni Saha of ATN Bangla saying Akbar Hussain was called “Ekbar Hussain (এক বার হোসেন)” in Comilla because he used to go to Comilla not very often. Many politicians in many of the localities are called in different sorts of names and some of them are pretty abusive. But this does not mean a nation-wide television channel will have their reporters hailing those names. Sedgefield (Durham, UK) politician Jonathan Cockburn in 2005 has several times given names to Tony Blair and other Labour Party seniors. Cockburn had pretty large number of supporters at Sedgefield. But we definitely would have to think about the neutrality and sense of decency of Sky News if one of their reporters would call Blair a wacko while reviewing pre-election air in Durham; so we’ve done and all of Bangladeshi should do, everybody awaited for a fair election should take the concern of whether ATN Bangla with their fellow comrades in the front line are neutral or just working with the target of bailing a party as winner out of the election, a party which has leaders of it expressing their impudence for getting to the power, saying “we will ratify everything every violators in this government did with anybody”.

Many of Awami League leaders have been tremendously upset about having their rivals and Jamaat-e-Islami running together. Well, actually they don’t think about there can be someone looking back to their track they have left behind. The photo given here is for the evaluation of those who have shown their immense patience by reading this of my posts down to this bottom of it.

Where To Hide Our Faces?

What place the almighty will grant us to keep our faces so that nobody other than a Bangladeshi can see those. There were a lot of allegations. There were a lot of rumors of thousands of millions of dollars smuggled here and there. There were a lot of rumors of earning millions of taka out of electric posts made of local wood god knows how those could leave opportunities of earning this much amount. These were pushed to courts and judges at gunpoint or out of gunpoint nobody found any of them evident yet. Nobody in Bangladesh, or out of Bangladesh never saw materials or evidences of these allegations directly or indirectly or anyways. None of anything was seen by people. But what finally came to everybody’s eyes are tormented face of him, his broken vertebral column and different part of the body covered with clean bandages. The following short movie has been re-posted from blog of Jingo. The movie is named We Won’t Forgo The Inhuman Torture on Tareq Rahman, made by something called Jingo Interactives.