BNP must act smarter

Back in September, when I suggested BNP raises in parliament various deals the government was signing with multinationals, Rumi bhai made this observation:

In BD context what’s going to happen if this is discussed in parliament? Some partisan ill informed MPs will deliver a ‘metho boktreeta’ blasting the other side for all the crimes it did in last 300 years. Nobody will listen to the other. There will be absolutely no substance based discussion on the issue on question, the minister in charge will read out the govt version. And there will be a party line vote to ratify the govt decision, whatever illogical the decision may be.

BNP returned to parliament a few weeks ago.  Since then, the discussions in parliament seems to have borne out Rumi bhai’s bleak prediction.  Government MPs tend to use every opportunity to call BNP’s founder a murderer and worse.  Opposition MPs either reply with similarly inane words, or walk out. 

Does it need to be this way? 

I argued in BDnews24 on 15 Feb that BNP’s partisan agenda can still be compatible with public interest. 

Read more…

19 Comments

jyoti, March 3rd 2010 | Posted in BNP, Politics

Student Politics: Lets stop this nuisance

Our students are dying in throngs. They are either killing each other or being killed by law enforcement agencies. Recent spate of killings in different educational institutes in neither a new thing nor new dimension in violent bloody history of student politics in Bangladesh. I have seen worse in early 90s and late 80s.
These students who are dying now are unfortunate. They are unfortunate because of many factors, one being their life being terminated prematurely and because are even not dying for any great reason and definitely they are being forgotten by all. Well, except the parents and the family. They are more unfortunate because our society our nation and our state have shown, again and again that, these lives are not valued. It is so easy to kill a student, the way you want. Hack him to death, slaughter him, shot him to death or chop him to death. Nothing will happen to the killer. Anybody in Bangladesh can go by killing a student. There will be no justice to these killings. In history of Bangladesh, not a single student violence death was tried and justice was served to the killers.
A dead student is a big business and political capital for those dealing with student politics in Bangladesh. Immediately after a student murder, it becomes so easy to occupy an institute or a dorm. The opposition students are all hiding out of campus with murder case lodged against them. So the campus comes under one party rule. Tenders become piece of cake, with competition vanishing and monopoly in the business, –extortion rates go up.

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5 Comments

rumi, February 14th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Politics

Student Politics

patron client relationship: a mutually obligatory arrangement between an individual who has authority, social status, wealth, or some other personal resource (the patron) and another person who benefits from his or her support or influence (the client).

Whether its student politics, or association politics in government offices, ours is a society that is based on patron-client relationship every where. The goal of the individual is to gain the social status and authority leveraging which he can benefit financially. So its an economic decision for certain group to use the student party politics to gain that position of authority. Typically it makes sense to be with the party in power. It happened in 98 and it happened in 2005. Different parties were in power then. If we can not address this fundamental issue in the society where such authority does not translate into financial gain, little will change.

Ban student politics? Sure. But banning would mean that the labels from the student organizations will disappear but the same people will remain in different capacity or perhaps in different labels trying to gain that social status. They will be continued to be patron-ed by various power blocks in the country. That would, however, on a symbolical level protect some reputation for the parties. But the real problem does not go away. Would there be real leadership in fundamentally tackling this monster?

4 Comments

Asif, February 14th 2010 | Posted in Politics

The Home Minister game

Match the quotes with the ministers. Bonus points if you can tell the circumstance of the quote.

1. আল্লাহর মাল আল্লাহ নিয়ে গেছেন ।
2. We are looking for শত্রুs.
3. We have got a new dimension. We have found a Hindu জঙ্গি ।
4. সন্ত্রাসী যে-ই হোক, বিশ হাত মাটির তল থেকা, প্রয়োজনে পানির নিচ থেকে তাদের ধরে আনা হবে ।
5. সারা দেশে যা হচ্ছে তা ওদের নিজেদের গন্ডগোল্, ওরা নিজেরা নিজেদের মারছে ।
6. জঙ্গিs should be caught, nothing matter who is Bangla, who is English brother.
7. পুলিশের জানাজা পড়ি, সন্ত্রাসীদের জানাজা তো পড়ি না ।

8. ‘এসব বিচ্ছিন্ন ঘটনা। এটা কোনো ব্যাপার না। এমনটি ঘটতেই পারে। তবে আমরা কী পদক্ষেপ নিচ্ছি সেটিই বড় বিষয়।’

a. Altaf Hossain Chowdhury.
b. Lufuzzaman Babur.
c. Mohammed Nasim.
d. Sahara Khatun.

——

This is not a fun game.  Each of these statements were made by the person entrusted with maintaining law and order, the very first task of a government, after some tragic incidence for which each of them should have taken moral responsibility. 

Last April I called for Sahara Khatun to show moral responsiblity.  Today I ask the Prime Minister to show leadership and fire the Home Minister.

The background, from today’s Prothom Alo:

‘মনে হচ্ছে, ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে একজন ছাত্রকে হত্যা করা খুব স্বাভাবিক ঘটনা। আমরা নিরীহ মানুষ। কার বিরুদ্ধে অভিযোগ করব? কার কাছে বিচার চাইব? ওপরওয়ালা আছেন। তিনি সব দেখবেন।’
ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ছাত্র আবু বকর সিদ্দিকের মৃত্যু নিয়ে স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীর বক্তব্যের পর এই প্রতিক্রিয়া তাঁর ভাই মুদি দোকানদার আব্বাস আলীর। তিনি গতকাল শুক্রবার প্রথম আলোকে আরও বলেন, ‘আজ যদি প্রধানমন্ত্রীর ছেলে মারা যেত, তাহলে কি মাননীয় স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী এমন কথা বলতেন?’
গত বৃহস্পতিবার আইন মন্ত্রণালয়ে অনুষ্ঠিত তিন মন্ত্রণালয়ের সমন্বয় বৈঠকের পর স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী সাহারা খাতুন সাংবাদিকদের বলেছিলেন, ‘এসব বিচ্ছিন্ন ঘটনা। এটা কোনো ব্যাপার না। এমনটি ঘটতেই পারে। তবে আমরা কী পদক্ষেপ নিচ্ছি সেটিই বড় বিষয়।’

3 Comments

jyoti, February 6th 2010 | Posted in Crisis Management, News and events, Politics, Society

A dissenting view on Supreme Court Verdict on 5th Amendment

Nations Supreme court just dismissed two leave-to-appeal petitions against the high court verdict declaring certain portions of fifth amendment  illegal. While supporting views are available in powerful media, no clear analysis is available to discuss the potential negative side of the verdict. As this verdict deals with constitution and extremely political nature of the verdict, it is very important to discuss the pros as well as cons of the verdict and potential implication of such verdict as a precedence for future  judicial actions. When judiciary decides to take on such a contentious political matter, it is expected that they would subject the verdict to public scrutiny rather than using ‘contempt of court’ protection. In the following post, published in “In The Middle of Nowhere”, tacitaerno dissects the supreme court’s rejection to allow an appeal process and analyzes justice Khairul Haq’s original verdict.

***********************************

Supreme Court Decides the fate of the Fifth Amendment

In 2005, a High Court bench led by Justice Khairul Huq declared the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh illegal. The full judgment is available at Unheard Voice. It is a fascinating read. Justice Khairul Huq’s portion is slightly longer than Justice A. T. M. Fazle Kabir’s. Page 336-337 contains the reasons that the Fifth Amendment was found to be invalid.

This case is worth thinking about, because it does not deal with legal technicality, or arcane judicial procedure. This case is about the design, the blueprint if you will, of the State of Bangladesh. It is also about whether we, the people of Bangladesh, tell our government what to do, or whether they turn around and tell us what to do. Who gets the last word, the people or the government?

The Constitution of Bangladesh is the supreme law of Bangladesh. The First Parliament of independent Bangladesh, as elected representatives of a sovereign people, approved it. This constitution is a written contract between us, the people of Bangladesh, and the government, whom we allow the exercise of state power on our behalf. This contract is binding upon all organs of this government: the parliament, the president, the Supreme Court and all lower courts, the military, the police, and our local representatives, all must abide by it….

Read More in In The Middle of Nowhere…

12 Comments

rumi, February 5th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Judiciary, Politics

One good man

7am, 28 January 2005. The local news is on TV, the foreign ones in Financial Times, and Daily Star from home. The last one has a cover story reading:

Kibria, 4 AL men killed in grenade attacks

I sit there for a while, my tea getting cold. I think about calling my parents, but decide against it — it’s middle of the night there, why wake them up. Why wake them up to the fact that the country was sleepwalking to a disaster?

Or did they need waking up at all? A few months earlier, I received SMS messages from friends and family: Dhaka is hot again, murder attempts on Hasina, we’re safe, don’t worry. For much of the following years, I’d receive more such messages: bomb attacks etc, but we’re safe, don’t worry. Things got so bad that in October 2006, when someone rang my cellphone and started: Have you heard the news? Dr Yunus… my first thought was the sentence would end in … has been assassinated.

Seemingly, Bangladesh has turned the corner since, since we haven’t had assassinations and grenade attacks for a while.

But have we really turned the corner? Five years later, the Kibria case is still unsolved. And for three of these five years, Bangladesh has been ruled by non-BNP governments (at the very least, local BNP men are implicated in the assassination, and there is a belief that BNP high ups were involved). Forget Kibria, three months on, we still don’t know who tried to kill Fazl-e-Noor Tapash.

Have we really turned the corner? Perhaps not.

Even as we mourn him, and demand justice, we should also celebrate SAMS Kibria’s life and achievements. We need more people like him in Bangladesh, particularly in politics.

(More at Mukti)

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jyoti, February 5th 2010 | Posted in Economy, History, News and events, Our Heroes, Politics

The coup that dared not speak its name

Thirty five years ago today, Bangladesh’s first experiment with democracy came to an end through the imposition of one party rule.  It took 16 years, several assassinations, coups, countercoups, and popular uprisings before  the second democratic experiment started.  That experiment came to an abrupt halt on 11 January 2007.  Fortunately, this time round, unrepresentative rule didn’t last long.  Today marks the first anniversary of the 7th representative parliament.    

The third anniversary of 1/11 got overshadowed by the Prime Minister’s trip to India.  Fortunately, regular UV pariticipant Tacit has written a series for Mukti, looking back at the coup that dared not speak its name (to borrow the Economist’s words).

Read more…

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UV_Admin, January 25th 2010 | Posted in Awami League, BNP, Business, Democracy, Election, Extra Judicial Killing, History, army brutality, reform, torture

Need a united front at home…

The number of comments in Jyoti’s India related blog post is astounding. This says how contentious the issue of our relationship with India. This post  will not focus on the relationship itself, rather the intention of this post is how our nation is doing and should do in the domestic front in India related matter.

Looking at the op-eds, TV talk shows, blog posts, sadly one thing becomes clear that the nation again is divided in two groups, one group sees all good in what India does and the other group can’t believe India can do anything but harming Bangladesh. And more sadly this division grossly matches, with some rare exceptions, the fault line that divides nation into Awami league and BNP supporters. What has become very predictable is that a BNP supporter will see nothing but conspiracy to occupy and ruin Bangladesh in any dealing with India. This mindset is so prevalent and strong that even the chairperson of BNP can’t resist deviating from written speech and make stupid comments like “The country has been sold to India…etc.” . It will be almost impossible to find a BNP supporter who is willing to take a positive attitude about Awami League’s dealings with India. However, in BNP perspective, the mistrust is more on an unholy alliance of India-Awami League to harm BNP than India herself harming Bangladesh. Hence while BNP leadership are comfortable in dealing with India, but not at all with an India- Awami League government treaty.

 

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50 Comments

rumi, January 19th 2010 | Posted in Bangladesh, India, Politics

Making sense of the polls

I’ve found it odd that it has taken such a long time for opinion polls to become common in a politics-crazy country like Bangladesh. We frequently here pundits of all types bloviate about ‘people believe XYZ’. But without reliable opinion polls, how do we know what the people really think?

Now we have the country’s two major nespapers publish two opinion polls to mark the third Awami League government’s first year in office. Prothom Alo’s poll was done by ORG-Quest Research — a Bangladeshi firm, Daily Star’s was done by the multinational Nielsen.

As far as I can tell, the polls are done in a manner consistent with international survey practices and statistical techniques. Nielsen’s sample of 3050 is twice as large as a typical US Gallup poll (keeping in mind that US population is double that of Bangladesh’s, and is a lot more diverse culturally/ethnically/geographically). ORG-Quest’s sample of 1,500 is internationally comparable. People can debate Prothom Alo / Daily Star’s editorial stance, or question the truthfulness of their reports, but these polls seem to be genuine.

Both polls find that the government has maintained landslide-proportioned popularity. Over three-fifths (since these polls have margins of error, I think it is better to quote these numbers in fraction than decimal) of the people believe the country is heading in the right direction. Since the Grand Alliance’s vote share was less than three-fifths in the Dec 2008 election, it must mean that even some people who didn’t vote for the government think it’s doing a reasonable job.

The ORG-Quest poll specifically asks people to show their voting intention if an election is held today. Nearly three-fifths support the Grand Alliance, while the opposition Four Party Alliance has support of less than a third. Even if the tenth ‘undecideds’ break for the opposition, an election in late December would have seen the government re-elected with perhaps a bigger margin than what it already has!

If the enormity of the implication is not clear, pause here for a while to let it sink in.

The detailed results and charts are available through the links above. Over the fold, I provide some observations/ramblings on the results.

(More at Mukti)

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jyoti, January 18th 2010 | Posted in Awami League, BNP, Politics, Polls

Phantom menace, or a new hope?

There is a lot of noise about the court case re: 5th Amendment.   Senior politicians from both parties, various legal experts, non-legal experts in TV talk shows, and other sundry pundits who write columns (and blogs) have been expressing their opinions freely.  Some people (including the Law Minister) are saying the court’s verdict means: we are on our way to the 1972 constitution, secularism will return, religion-based politics will become illegal, and oh, Zia’s government was illegal.  Others are saying this verdict means: Bismillah will be erased from the constitution and Islam will be gone from the country, we will have a constitutional crisis, and/or we will return to Bakshal-style fascism. 

As with many other things, I think our media is doing an atrocious job of reporting the facts.  In fact, the reporting is so hazy that a fellow blogger with an astute political antenna said to me that he couldn’t make much sense of it at all. 

I don’t have any more expertise in constitutional law than my friend, and so it may well be like a blind leading another.  Over the fold is what I think the verdict means: military coups are illegal, but fears of Bakshal returning or claims that religion-based politics will be automatically banned are ill-founded. 

We shall very much appreciate anyone with background in consitutional law clarifying the situation for us.

(For some inexplicable reason, the ending of this post got lost in the cyberspace yesterday.  My apologies.  A new ending is now written.  JR, 7.05am BDT, 9 Jan)

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8 Comments

jyoti, January 8th 2010 | Posted in Awami League, BNP, Democracy, History, Judiciary, Politics, political islam, reform
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