Bangladesh and the Ershad factor
Former President of Bangladesh, Lt Gen (Retd) H.M. Ershad, has been sentenced to 10 years RI on a charge of keeping arms without licences in his place of official residence. Looking pale, Ershad protested the verdict to the assembled reporters and said he would appeal to the Supreme Court. In the meantime Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), opted to overturn the Presidential system instituted by her late husband and former President, Gen (Retd) Ziaur Rahman, and go for a Parliamentary form of Government as was being demanded by the main Opposition party, the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, Hasina Wajed. To non-discerning public both these are unconnected facts, given the circumstances both are very much inter-linked.
In the month of August 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was deposed in a coup led by relatively junior officers. The prime movers behind the coup were Colonels Farooq Rahman and Rashid, they were mainly motivated by the insult to Major Shariful Haq (nicknamed Dalim) by Sheikh Mujib’s nephew on the occasion of Dalim’s marriage. When Dalim protested to Sheikh Mujib, he was dismissed from service. Earlier another capable officer, Col Ziauddin had gone off on a tangent on a Marxist-Leninist type of revolution based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Col Farooq Rahman’s cavalry regiment fanned out in Dhaka and despite being without tank ammunition overthrew the Government, killing Mujib and most members of his family in their residence in the posh Dhaka suburb of Dhanmondi. The rebel Colonels brought in Khandkhar Mushtaque Ahmad of the AL as the new President, declaring Bangladesh to be an Islamic Republic and thus ran afoul of India immediately. Maj Gen Shafiullah, the COAS, was retired and Maj Gen Ziaur Rehman, the CGS, was elevated to COAS. Maj Gen Khaled Musharraf became the new CGS.
While the Colonels ran things from behind the scenes, the Army rank and file simmered. As the lower ranks are apt to do, the cavalry regiment’s JCOs and NCOs maintained an attitude that was insulting to the rest, things coming to a head in November when an infantry officer riding a motorbike was stopped and manhandled by an Armour JCO. Younger officers decided that enough was enough and started to move to Dhaka from all over the country with their sub-units to resolve the issue. With the blessings of India, and with the help of the two local Brigade Commanders, Cols Shafaat Jamil and Huda, Khaled Mosharraf revolted, deposing Khandkhar Mushtaque and sending the Colonels, their families and associates on an aircraft to Bangkok. Khaled Mosharraf then made two mistakes, he put his nominal superior, the COAS, then Major General Ziaur Rahman, under house arrest and put him under guard of men from Zia’s own battalion. A general Sepoy revolt led by retired Col Taher of the socialist JSD who had lost a leg in 1971 had been brewing for some time and matters came to a head. After three days of incarceration Zia was freed by his guards who installed him as Chief Martial Law Administrator, in the process, a number of innocents were killed due to personal animosity and vendetta thereof. One of Gen Zia’s more controversial acts was to send the one-legged Col Taher to the gallows.
Gen Zia of Bangladesh was one of the most honest men ever to grace the leadership of any Third World country. He was incapable of personal corruption and went to great lengths to keep it that way. This great quality and comparison thereof was the undoing of his eventual successor and handpicked appointee for COAS, then Brigadier Ershad. Ershad had been senior to Zia in the Pakistan Army by a number of years but Zia had got ante date seniority. In that turmoil, Zia turned to him instinctively because Ershad, despite his flamboyance and peccadilloes, was incapable of disloyalty. With the Army hierarchy secure, if not the rest of the rank and file, Gen Zia turned to politics. In any poverty-stricken country, honesty is a bankable asset, in a country fed with endemic corruption it was invaluable. Oddly enough Zia’s own ministers were exceedingly corrupt, Zia stood out as an oddity.
Ambition in the form of a bloody coup attempt in Chittagong by a few officers loyal to a COAS aspirant and former Zia confidante, Maj Gen Manzoor, tragically cut short Gen Zia’s life in May 1981. There is grave doubt whether Manzoor actually ordered the hit in a Henry-Becket type of fit or that these officers decided on the more-loyal-than-the-king course by themselves. In any event, Manzoor on being informed about Zia’s assassination, went the whole hog in full revolt and proclaimed so over Chittagong radio. Ershad was the COAS and the COAS’ writ along with the revulsion at Zia’s death prevailed, Manzoor was captured and killed without the benefit of a trial. Three of Manzoor’s Brigade Commanders and his senior Divisional Staff officers were among the 11 found guilty and hung. Gen Zia’s Vice President, Justice Sattar, took over as President and the BNP won the subsequent elections. By this time Gen Ershad had started to enjoy the trappings of power, when the politicians made belated moves to ease him out in March 1982, he imposed Martial Law. Thereafter, he went the Gen Zia-route, forming a party but not joining it till he had fought and won a Presidential election a few years later amid charges of fraud and rigging. Late Gen Zia’s BNP lost a number of its stalwarts to his party and did not take part in any elections, Begum Khaleda Zia remaining inflexible to any issue except the ouster of Gen Ershad. The AL lost the electorate’s support because of its cosy relationship with India.
During his nine-year rule, Gen Ershad remained a contradiction of sorts. Stories about rampant corruption and his personal flamboyant lifestyle swirled around him, being fact more than fiction, more opportunists joined the elite that had made money during Gen Zia’s time and now became his coterie. A mistress or two appeared here and there. His wife and her family became the subject of further controversy amid sordid tales of patronage and wheeling dealing. In Third World countries this story has been replayed many many times, in time certain unscrupulous members of the bureaucracy became rabid camp followers and added to the general excess. Two of Ershad’s close military aides became Intelligence Chiefs, National Security Intelligence (NSI) and Director General Forces Intelligence. Both were exceedingly corrupt but Maj Gen Ashraf, DG NSI took the cake, he gave his son-in-law a Mercedes Benz 450 SEL as a marriage gift. Comparing late Zia’s personal honesty this was too much for the stomach of the discerning urban population. Finally, the bane of all Bangladeshi leaders, the student community buried their differences and got into the act. An urban revolt led by student cadres was started, as the BNP and AL saw a glimmer of hope, they put their political strength behind the protest. The cities of Bangladesh were paralysed, Ershad had no option but to call the Army in. Supremely confident at the outset, he soon realized his folly, he was already too late. A situation had arisen where many lives would be lost if the Army opened fire to restore order. As history has shown, student blood is volatile, once spilled regimes have crumbled in its wake. The hierarchy of the Army spelt out the options, if he ordered action, there would be bloodshed, there was doubt that the rank and file would continue to obey orders further leading to possible breakdown of military authority and civil war. Faced with this Hobson’s choice, particularly the possible collapse of his beloved military machine, Ershad elected to resign and a Caretaker Government headed by the Chief Justice of the Bangladesh Supreme Court as President was formed. Elections were conducted by the Caretaker Government, the BNP won a sweeping victory based on late Gen Zia’s personal honesty and integrity combined with the electorate’s perception of AL’s cosiness to India.
There was one significant political aberration in all this hoopla. Despite being in jail Gen Ershad won all the five seats that he contested in his home district of Rangpur, all his opponents lost their respective security deposits. In all his Jatiyo Party (JP) won 35 seats in contrast to BNP’s 138, AL’s 90 and JI’s 16, not an unreasonable showing given that all the JP winners fought their elections from jail without being allowed to campaign. This acted as a severe jolt to Khaleda Zia and Hasina Wajed, a profound warning shot that Gen Ershad remained a potent political force to contend with.
One may well ask, given what we have read in the newspapers plastered all over the world, how come Ershad remains so popular? The answer is that Ershad is a practicing populist and sources his strength from the Great Silent Majority in the rural areas, the urban region of Bangladesh is always historically against the Central Government in Dhaka. In the rural areas a lot of development effort took place during Ershad’s nine years in power, during times of crisis he was a pillar of strength, organising and managing the relief effort directly and deftly. In a nation beset frequently by natural disasters this acts as a popularity boost. While going in for privatisation, denationalisation and deregulation early in his tenure, he did create a market economy of sorts. By decentralising Government to the Gramsarkar (village Government) level, he brought the effectiveness of the Administration down two steps from the District to the Thana level, providing for the basic essentials of human requirement including legal and financial matters. Gen Ershad was very personable, having been a sportsman he easily managed a common approach to the masses in sharp contrast to his Presidential trappings. He was very loyal to his friends, exceedingly forgiving to his enemies, he modelled his politics to an extent on the Machiavellian style of Pakistan’s President Zia, whom he deeply respected. Ershad was Pakistan’s friend without any reservations, any Pakistani who met him came across with that feeling. In his 8 years he built Bangladesh Armed Forces into a relatively formidable force, particularly the Army which he took beyond six infantry divisions and then some, this despite Bangladesh’s abject poverty, touching the mass chord where the need for freedom from Indian tutelage became more important than hunger and deprivation.
Ershad failed to come to terms with Begum Khaleda Zia after Gen Zia’s death. Late Gen Zia died an impoverished man, owning no house or any bank balance worth the name. To save money on his entertainment allowance, he had given up smoking. Ershad ensured that Begum Khaleda Zia was gifted by the State the house Zia had stayed in from the rank of Brigadier as CGS, then COAS and then President. An outright grant of Bangladeshi Taka 1.00 million was immediately given to the widow, she was also permitted servants, vehicles, etc at State expense. His two sons’ education has been done at State expense as well as a regular Honour Guard at his residence. During Zia’s lifetime Khaleda was kept by Zia strictly out of the public eye, free from those restrictions and with the surfacing of her own ambitions she opted for the political confrontation route, mainly at the urging of close aides whose own personal overtures of loyalty had been ignored by Gen Ershad, their machinations turned Begum Zia into a woman scorned.
There is a strong streak of ingratitude among South Asians, in Bangladesh it tends to stand out even more. As a rule, Bangladeshis are extremely emotional, being more literate they are also capable of debating an issue to death. Because of their penchant to question, they are normally skeptical of any favour. Like all human beings they are susceptible to flattery and do not take well to logic and reason. Their officials can be more officious than normal, unfortunately their loyalty as a genuine friend is sometimes suspect. They can be vicious in their enmity, they would not mind harming the integrity of their own country to satisfy a personal vendetta. When it was clear that Ershad was on his way out, his Cabinet Secretary, reportedly his most senior and loyal civil servant, tore up his official photograph and led the other civil servants in refusing to work in a better-late-than-never exercise. For nine long years they had fawned over him and trotted out reams of flattery, when he was tottering they turned on him with all the venom at their command. Some people with genuinely nationalistic feelings hated Ershad for being a corrupt dictator and that was justifiable, betrayal by those who had lived off his largesse is more difficult to swallow. The humiliation that he is facing now is directed towards one purpose, breaking his spirit, that it may well do, it may well make him a martyr of sorts.
Ershad’s personality was tailor-made for a country prone to natural disasters, the people affected by the cyclone ravaged areas remember him with great feeling.
Bangladesh’s Presidential system has thus become an anachronism for the two major parties, in a direct vote Ershad could well become the President again. To forestall this the Bangladesh Government is going the persecution-route, a series of criminal charges are being preferred on Ershad, the object being two-fold, to dissuade him and then to disqualify any potential Presidential candidacy. The sudden change of heart in Begum Khaleda Zia’s stance from the Presidential to the Parliamentary System is not altruism but pragmatism, Ershad could well hamstrung Parliament at his discretion if elected President. The name of the game now is to keep Ershad out by any means.
Ershad has made his point and in the greater interest of his nation he should go into self-imposed exile. Despite one’s own personal feelings for the man, as a leader of an impoverished country he had no business reaching into the public till. Balancing his performance relative to Bangladesh’s progress against the known corruption factor, one comes to the conclusion that one cannot come to terms with such shortcomings in any public figure aspiring to become the leader of any country. Poor countries cannot afford poor leaders, they can ill-afford corrupt ones. However the man has served his country well whatever the circumstances and is a popular figure among the masses, least the country can do is to give him a fair trial on tangible issues instead of frivolous and laughable proforma charges that carry no convincing weight or argument.
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