January 10, 1972, was the day the founder of
Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, returned from
his exile abroad to his country after its
liberation. January 10, 2007, is the day after a
three-day “bundh” (blockade) of Dhaka, the
country’s capital, by an opposition led by
Mujib’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and her
Awami League (AL).
Indians of diverse political persuasions
celebrated this day 35 years ago as one of
victory, if for very different reasons. The
religious-communal right, of course, rejoiced
over the breakup of Islamic Pakistan and India’s
role in this. The centrists, while reveling in
India’s performance as a regional power, also
joined the left in seeing the historic event as a
triumph of secularism over the "two-nation
theory." The birth of Bangladesh, they said,
belied the theory that recognized religion as a
basis for national identity and led to the
subcontinent’s bifurcation into India and
Pakistan.
Thoughtful Indians are not celebrating today
the bloody war in the streets of Bangladesh. The
peace movement in India, in particular, has
compelling reasons for serious concern over the
emerging scenarios across the country’s eastern
border. None of the possible results of the
Hasina-led campaign, which she has vowed to carry
forward, would appear an unqualified victory for
the cause of peace and democracy - and one of
them can only be described as a nightmarish
prospect for the people of Bangladesh.
The bundh was a protest against the official
plans to conduct the next general election of
Bangladesh on January 22. The mass of protesters,
including many women, braved batons and rubber
bullets to demand cancellation of the election.
The AL-headed 14-party alliance would boycott any
election without “electoral reforms” in place -
and with President Iajuddin Ahmed as the chief
adviser to the caretaker government.
Everyone outside the rightwing Bangladesh
National Party (BNP), which headed the last
government in Dhaka, and its alliance agrees on
the need for poll reforms. Few question the
allegation, for example, that the voters list is
hopelessly flawed. It is an open secret, too,
that the president has conducted himself so far
as a loyal lieutenant of BNP president and
outgoing prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia.
Complacency about the consequence of the
anti-poll campaign, however, would be hard to
find outside the AL’s camp.
The protests, culminating in a siege of the
presidential palace and leaving scores critically
injured, have produced no result so far. Ahmed
has refused to budge. He claims he has a
constitutional duty to hold the election within
90 days of the caretaker regime, or January 25.
He has pointedly ignored the suggestion of a
presidential reference of the matter to the
Supreme Court, which will help him revise the
voters list and hold a rescheduled election.
Hasina and her alliance have not relented
either. They have vowed to intensify their
agitation. The AL leadership has also warned that
they won’t let the poll boycott lead to a
“walkover” for the BNP camp. They have threatened
to resist if they are not rescheduled. This can
only spell another series of street battles
across the country - and a prolonged role for the
army in the run-up to the election. Deployment of
the army for 20 days before and after an election
is not the kind of news that would reinforce
confidence in Bangladesh’s democracy.
The most probable result of all these, as of
now, is indeed an easy win, if not technically a
“walk-over,” for Begum Zia and her band,
including the notoriously fundamentalist
Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). This outlook brings no
cheer to observers of Begum Zia’s term in office
that has witnessed a phenomenal mushrooming of
terrorist groups and a frightening series of bomb
blasts, especially during 2004-2005. Fear of such
an outcome, according to some Bangladesh
watchers, can lead to a fresh flight of
minorities across the border.
A possible, but not at all probable, result
would be a political miracle that ensures the
participation of the AL-led alliance even at this
late stage, hopefully perhaps under increased
international pressure. The miracle, however,
won’t quite make for a much more inspiring
political prospect. The AL will be going into
polls, in that event, with its own answer to the
JeI. The party with a Mujib legacy of a secular
and left-of-center reputation shocked friends and
foes alike on December 22, 2006, by signing a
memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the
fanatical Khilafat Majlish.
Under the MoU, the AL undertakes, if returned
to power, to empower the “bona fide” clerics to
issue fatwas (edicts). The party also agrees to
pass a law to make any criticism of Islam,
prophet Mohammed and his associates "punishable
crimes." Even more dangerous, under the new
dispensation, anyone not acknowledging Mohammed
as the last prophet shall be declared a
“non-Muslim.” This is evidently directed against
minority sects within Islam that have been the
targets of violent fundamentalists.
Hasina has also compromised her secular image
somewhat by wooing and welcoming into her
alliance former dictator Hossain Mohammad Ershad.
Way back in 1991, she rode to power on the crest
of a popular wave against Ershad, who had staked
a claim to untrammeled power as a saviour of
Islam.
The battle of the Begums, as it has been
described, may not end in a victory for either.
The most frightening of the possibilities is a
defeat of democracy itself. The deployment of the
army against the pre-poll protests can, in that
case, presage a return of Bangladesh to a past of
un-cherished memories.
The people of Bangladesh are justly and
intensely proud of their proven secular and
democratic instincts. They can certainly boast of
quite a few writers and artists who have stood up
against pseudo-religious censors and persecutors.
They can also, and often do, recall their success
in sending the army “back to the barracks” in the
past.
But, like the rash-like growth of rabid
fundamentalism, especially in the rural areas
over the past few years, it is also a fact that
the liberation of Bangladesh led rapidly to a
long period of military rule. After Mujib’s
assassination in 1975, the country slid into an
era of despots (general Ziaul Rahman and Ershad)
that endured until 1991. The history of
Bangladesh does not exactly inspire hopes that it
won’t be repeated.
Husain Haqqani, who served as spokesperson
for both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, has
recently called upon Hasina and Khaleda to learn
from the example of the two former prime
ministers of Pakistan, who have now entered into
a political agreement. As Haqqani himself notes,
however, Benazir and Nawaz have learnt their
lessons only after creating conditions for a
return of military rule to Pakistan.
We really have no reason to expect the two
former prime ministers of Bangladesh to be any
wiser before the event. But Nepal, to cite an
example in the neighborhood, has shown what even
the people of a poor nation can do, despite the
deficiencies of their political parties. South
Asians, aware of their stake in the developments,
will hope that the preference of Bangladesh’s
people for peace and democracy prevails.