Bangladesh And The Army
As Bangladesh lurched from crisis to anarchy during the final days of 2006, one held one’s breath. With the two major political parties locked in a no-holds barred “winner-take-all” confrontation, the population was wary of the Army’s moving into the vacuum, its involvement in governance being always a catch-22 solution. A tiger (given that the East Bengal Regiment are known as “Tigers” that is no pun) does not become a man-eater unless it has tasted human blood. As everyone and his uncle knows, it is always very difficult for the Army to disengage once it gets involved in running the affairs of the country. Even with the sincerest of intentions, the trappings of power is a heady aphrosydiac, personal ambition can find any number of reasons for remaining in power!
Bangladesh, Democracy In Crisis
Completing their 5-year term in late Oct 2006, Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) duly handed over power to a Caretaker Regime. In a strategic mistake, the Awami League (AL)-led opposition did not agree to Retired Chief Justice K M Hassan, the man who (according to the Constitution) was to be the Head of the Caretaker Regime, as being “partial” to BNP. A man of great integrity and known impartiality, Justice Hassan himself refused the office, leaving the doors open for the President Iajuddin Ahmed (who is very partial to BNP) to double as Chief Advisor. With the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Zakaria clearly BNP-partisan, there was no way that the AL-led 14 party alliance was going to accept this “double whammy”. The resultant 60 days of street unrest, resolved only when the President agreed to send Zakaria on leave beyond the election date and announcement of results thereof. Four of the Advisors resigned rather than not being able to fulfil their responsibilities to the citizens of Bangladesh under the Constitution. Subsequently another three resigned, refusing to be rubber stamps of the President, dozens of honourable men and women also denied to be Advisor-posts on the same grounds. With both sides taking up intractable positions, foreign govts and international institutions applied enormous pressure on both sides to compromise before events spun out of control.
Electoral Process In Bangladesh
It is very difficult in the third world to hold free and fair elections, the result is always contested by the loser. This has both political and economic repercussions for the State. Every regime in power uses its incumbency to tilt the elections in its favour, the normal modus operandi pre-elections is to put its own supporters to run the Local Administration and the Election Commission, making it that much easier to try any number of manipulations in rigging the elections. For influencing the outcome of the vote there is nothing more potent in third world countries than using police functionaries at the street level. An honest election is only possible if supervised by a genuinely neutral administration looking after governance and affairs of the State for the period leading to elections as well as transition of authority to whoever is the winner. One of the better innovations to the Bangladesh Constitution was the institution of the Caretaker Cabinet (called Advisors to the President) to oversee General Elections. The formula agreed by all parties was that the last retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would be the Chief Advisor.
Tripartite Trade Talks
The three nation South Asia tripartite talks in Dhaka on January 15 will be long on rhetoric but terribly short on substance. More than Pakistan and Bangladesh, it is India that needs to augment her trade within the sub-continent to give a choice of economic amelioration to her teeming millions. Pakistan and Bangladesh do get residual benefits but not on the same scale as our large neighbour. While Prime Minister Hasina Wajed’s excellent initiative to get us talking on such lines must be appreciated it must also be clearly understood by all concerned that there are two major inhibiting factors that will govern the future of trade and commerce in the South Asian sub-continent, viz (1) the core problem of Kashmir and (2) the fear that India’s industry may overwhelm that of its neighbours because sustained protection over the years and economy of scale because of numbers makes its products much more competitive.
History is witness to the fact that not only was the South Asian sub-continent the crossroads of commerce but its raw material and products provided for the shifting of the focus of industry to the western world. Strange as it may seem now, Bengal, which encompasses modern Bangladesh and India’s west Bengal, was once the granary of the sub-continent and for many East Asian countries. The Sultan of Istanbul would get the hull of his warships made in the islands of Hatiya and Sandwip. The commerce was so frequent that piracy flourished in the Bay of Bengal as Dutch and Portuguese pirates joined in with locals to make the islands of the coast as safe havens from where to operate. Piracy was only less frequent in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of what is now Pakistan and that only because of the strength of the Arab naval forces in the area. To the exclusion of the rest of South Asia, the historical silk-route passed through territories now comprising Pakistan. As everyone knows crime only flourishes off lucrative targets and there was no more lucrative target than the trade and commerce off the coast of the South Asian sub-continent and in the mountainous areas of the North. This situation has now been totally reversed, from a net outflow of goods and produce there is almost a one-way inflow of goods and produce. Because we were mercilessly exploited by the British, who denuded us systematically of our resources (and our skills), for the past fifty years after independence the countries of South Asia have been playing catch-up with the rest of the world. Because of a myriad number of reasons we got left behind in the throes of the Asian miracle. Now with the Tiger economics becoming pussycat, it may not have been a bad thing after all. The unfortunate fact remains that the peoples of South Asia need to cooperate to better their economic conditions very much as other regions have done or else we will be left so far behind the civilized countries might as well put a “CHINA WALL” around us to contain the anarchy that will ensue and become the order of the day. Already we are showing signs of that savagery in refusing to live as amiable communities.