Dear visitors to my Blog,
I am sorry because I was unable to post my articles here for a little over a year although, in the past year, I have written more articles compared to the previous year. I am now not writing on Bangladesh but on general issues and on American politics as I am these days based in Maryland, USA. My articles are posted regularly in my Facebook . My Facebook id is serajul7@gmail.com. Thanks and a very happy 2016.
Ambassador M. Serajul Islam
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Monday, October 13, 2014
China and emerging politics in Bangladesh and 2 other articles.
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China has become the world's number one economic power. The new status coincided with the 65th year of the founding of Communist China. The news that the US has become the number two economy of the world was disclosed at the Annual World Bank-IMF Meeting in Washington last week. It has been revealed by the International Monetary (IMF), using the purchasing power parity (PPP) that the Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) stands at US$ 17.6 trillion while the US GDP at US$ 17.4 trillion!
Bangladesh must feel extremely good at this news because it has been befriending China since the early seventies when, in economic terms, the country was no better than an ordinary developing country. China scaled to this position, ironically, due to initiatives of US President Nixon and his Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger and their 'Ping-Pong' diplomacy. These brought China back from the cold and sent it on way to becoming a world power with the return of its membership of the UN and with it, the permanent seat in the UN Security Council. In the opening-up that ensued in China under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, it was the US that gave Beijing the opportunities for economic growth with investment and trade facilities. The Chinese leadership grabbed the opportunities to eventually overtake its benefactor to become the world's number one economic power.
During the Bangladesh war of liberation in 1971, China made the Americans happy. It opposed that war and with it, supported Pakistan even when that country carried out genocide in Bangladesh. When Bangladesh was liberated and had applied for UN membership, China opposed it. Of course, China opposed the membership not just to make the Americans happy but also to oppose its adversaries of the time, namely the USSR and the Indians. It also opposed Bangladesh's membership to make Pakistan happy because it was the conduit in the 'ping-pong' diplomacy that set the direction for China to conquer the world.
Bangladesh decided to forget China's role in 1971 soon after the "change of government" on August 15, 1975. Then, Bangladesh ignored China's 'dubious' role in 1971 and instead befriended China whole-heartedly, mainly as a way to deal with the overbearing influence that India had gained in Bangladesh for its role in the country's independence.
Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1976, China has treated Bangladesh as one of its best friends in the region. It helped develop and build the Bangladesh armed forces and also a lot of its economic infrastructure. The quality of China's friendship was such that all subsequent governments, including the 1996-2001 Awami League-led government that should have had deep reservations for China, treated the country as one of Bangladesh's best friends.
Over the years, there has been no looking back for the positive attitude of the people, political parties and governments in Bangladesh for China. In contrast, India, which had done so much for Bangladesh in 1971, never enjoyed anywhere near China's acceptance in Bangladesh among its people. Governments and political parties have also not all been friendly towards India. The Awami League (AL) has been friendly but the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) not that friendly. Among the people, India has always been controversial because of many issues, mainly its unfriendly ways of dealing with water, trade and border-related issues.
The India-Bangladesh relations during 2008-2014 terms of Congress-rule in India and the AL in Bangladesh have been extremely close. Leading to the January 05 election, almost all-important foreign governments, except India, had urged the AL-led government to hold inclusive elections. China, although friendly with all political parties but in public perception closer to the BNP, had stated that the way elections were to be held, Bangladesh sovereignty would be at peril. Many read in that statement made by the Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka a not very subtle hint to the AL-led government not to hold the election without the BNP. Many also believed that China had referred to India as the source of threat to Bangladesh's sovereignty.
Those who had interpreted China's stand before the election to be supportive of the BNP were set for a shock after the AL returned to power through the controversial January 05 election that has led all of Bangladesh's development partners to term the new government weak on legitimacy. China surprisingly made a volte-face. It invited Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to a visit to Beijing and treated her in a manner that dismissed any thought that her government was suffering on legitimacy. A grateful Hasina discussed giving China the green signal to build the hugely costly and strategically critical Sonadia deep-sea port and the go-ahead with the BCIM-EC and, above all, agreed wholeheartedly to accept China's leadership for Asia's march into the world stage. Since the visit, Bangladesh is processing buying of two submarines from China. Trade/defence cooperation, already at their best, has received further impetus from the visit.
These overtures by China should have upset the BNP. Surprisingly, if what transpired at a seminar arranged by the pro-BNP Bangladesh Cultural Academy Foundation to celebrate the 65th Anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) is any indication, the BNP is not unhappy at all . The speakers, who were also from other parties including the communist parties and well-known individuals, besides the BNP, stated at the seminar that 'Bangladesh needs China to maintain its sovereignty.' That was, however, interpreted by the speakers differently from their respective party and individual backgrounds. The BNP supporters interpreted the need of China to protect Bangladesh's sovereignty from India. The communists in the seminar thought the threat was from the United States.
The Chinese CDA did not make any commitment in the context of Bangladesh's politics. He, of course, did not need to because all speakers were so enamoured with China from their respective perspectives that no one was willing to see anything wrong with the way China has handled its policies with Bangladesh. In 1971, it went against Bangladesh's liberation but now finds the AL- led government willing to follow it, without any questions asked, in leading Asia to the world stage. The BNP that was let down very badly by China after the January 05 elections seems to have forgotten this episode believing that it would come to Bangladesh's assistance against India which, in turn, would influence politics of the country.
The BNP leaders, who spoke at the seminar, have not followed recent developments in regional politics correctly. China is in no mood to fight for Bangladesh's sovereignty because it is now wooing the AL-led government for getting a strong footing in the Bay of Bengal through the proposed Sonadia deep seaport and the BCIM-EC projects. These projects are critical for China because Japan, India and the US are now moving to keep China out of this critical geopolitical area 'which overlooks the strategically important sea lanes of the Indian Ocean linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, thus playing a role in securing energy supplies for Beijing'.
Thus while the communists at the seminar had their interests right and those not representing any political party spoke what they felt was right, the BNP speakers had it all wrong. By placating China that will not lift a finger to help Bangladesh have a new election and supporting any US-inspired conspiracy against it, the BNP may have upset the US that has repeatedly asked for new election. India under the Modi government has kept its distance from the AL government and if recent Modi-Obama meeting is any hint, the USA and India may indeed be getting closer on many issues. There is a possibility that the US would be able to encourage India for a new inclusive election in Bangladesh as it had tried and failed with the January 05 one.
The seminar underlined that in regional diplomacy in the context of Bangladesh, China has so far outwitted all Bangladeshi political parties and international stakeholders, including India and the US. Somehow, it just seems the people, political parties and governments of Bangladesh do not have the heart to be critical of China even where they supported Pakistan while it committed genocide against it. It is time for India, in particular, to study China and its diplomacy in Bangladesh and inquire why China is not held responsible in Bangladesh for its actions even when it goes against the interest of the country and often against one or the other of the two mainstream parties. Bangladesh's political parties and also its well-known individuals in public domain do not seem to have that capability.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador.
Former Minister
Suranjit Sengupta has called upon the government to introduce a code of conduct
for ministers. This call in the wake of the explosive nature of what senior
minister of the government Abdul Latif Siddique said in a meeting in New York
that had led to a bounty of taka 5 lakh to be laid on his head by the Hefazat e
Islam. A number of cases have been lodged against him and the Dhaka
Metropolitan Magistrate has called him for a hearing in his court. The Prime
Minister has said that he would be removed both from the cabinet and also
from the party.
Latif Siddique has caused a political sensation at a time when the AL -led government did not need one. On a visit with the Prime Minister on her trip to New York, the minister took the opportunity of a meeting arranged in his honour by the expatriates of his home district Tangail to speak out against the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and one of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj in a manner that would even Islamophbics would not do. He referred to the Prophet like a common person and said his companions were dacoits. He also said that Hajj was a total waste of money and ridiculed it as nonsense. The way he delivered the diatribe was also significant. He gestured and ridiculed Islam in an unbelievable manner.
The diatribe of the minister has caused uproar in the country, particularly among the religious parties. BNP looking for the opportunity for a movement against the government has also joined the religious parties. They have dismissed the assurances given by the Prime Minister as inadequate although if the Prime Minister’s assurances were carried out, he would even lose his membership of parliament. The religious parties and BNP want the minister arrested and given punishment as prescribed by the law. They have given the ruling party till the 15th of October to act as they have demanded and have further added that if their demands were not met, there would be hartal on the 25th. HM Ershad has called the minister a murtad and demanded that he be hanged!
The holidays for the Eid and Durga Puja that intervened went in favour of the government because it helped put a brake on the ground swell of anger at the grassroots against the minister’s statement. Nevertheless, the issue still has serious potentials for public anger going by past occurrences. Poet Daud Haider and Taslima Nasrin have not yet been forgiven for their attempts to humiliate Islam and have not, decades after what they had done, allowed to come back home. Last year, when it was revealed that the some of the youth in the Shahabag Movement had indulged in anti-Islam postings on the Internet, a potentially extremely powerful youth movement that was heralded as the second liberation war of the country to re-establish the spirit of 1971 simply fizzled away within days. For two weeks, Shahabag had become a place of pilgrimage for the people of Dhaka and young and old were all making daily visits to Shahabag in hundreds of thousands. Within days of the public knowledge of the anti-Islam postings, almost all of them abandoned Shahabag underlining the power of Islam to the common folks in the country.
Suranjit Sengupta nevertheless spoke about the code of conduct for ministers out of frustration. He knows very well as does everybody in the country that in the last few years, the ministers of the government have acted as lose cannons under an unwritten approval from the highest level of the government to speak in public almost anything they wanted as long as it was directed at the opposition. In fact, the free license to ministers to “speak as they like” was given by the ruling party as a political strategy to attack/ridicule and humiliate the opposition. He himself has liberally done that as a minister. The strategy has worked fine and the ministers have been to a large extent able to keep the opposition on leash by the constant attacks in public. It has helped the ruling party to create division/confusion and an element of tentativeness in the opposition.
Nevertheless, the strategy always had a danger of boomerang. In giving the ministers the license, the government/ruling party did not consider the possibility that the ministers could use their license for their own personal gains and may not always use this license to only go after the opposition. Thus in the past six years of the AL led government, ministers have embarrassed the government umpteen times by going in public over issues that were their own interpretation of government polices or events and contradicted with those of the government. Ministers have regularly contradicted one another and often ended giving impression to the public that there was an utter lack of coordination in the government and among the ministers.
That was of course only a natural outcome of the system that this government wittingly or unwittingly demolished. In the past, ministers very seldom went public on issues of governance. For matters of governance, every minister/ministry had a Public Relations Officer (PRO) who shielded the minister and his ministry from the media, aware of the dangers of exposure to the media. That system of course had due respect for the media because it always had access of the minister or his ministry’s views on any issue of importance to the public through the PRO. In case of matters of extreme public importance, ministers came before the media to satisfy public concerns. There is still a PRO for every minister/ministry but although his/her job description has not been altered even a bit, he/she now has a desk but no responsibility because the ministers these days play his/her role.
In fact, the ministers have been so much emboldened by their license to speak as they like that they these days do not even bother that in their open ended role in the media, they talk about the government without being designated as its spokesman. In fact, all ministers these days think they are spokesman of the government. It is not just the ministers, even party officials think that they are also part of the government and act as its official spokesman. The Minister of Communications is the example of one who has given himself the power of the government spokesman on all issues. The party joint secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif is a party official who, forgetting he is no part of the government, has taken upon himself of the responsibility of not just the party but of the government’s as well. In the process, he has lumped the party and the government into one.
What Abdul Latif Siddique has done, its absurdity notwithstanding, is nothing unusual. Ministers of this government have said much more outlandish things in public in the past because of their license to “speak as you like”. There has thus always been a pandemonium in governance as a result of the way ministers have spoken in public without any legal authority. No one cared and the media seldom or never spoke against this deterioration of professional standards of governance. Latif Siddique has landed this government in trouble and it could be very serious one because he has decided to speak against Islam. Therefore the code of conduct for ministers that Suranjit Sengupta has talked about only underlines the fact that as a result of the “speak as you like policy”, the government has finally landed itself in a n extremely serious predicament. However a code of conduct is not certainly the cure.
He should ask himself why. He has taken the liberty to speak on an embarrassing truth of this government but he does not have the authority to speak on such an issue. The problem apart, his call for a code of conduct has established that the ministers of this government, supposed to be public leaders, do not know how to conduct themselves in public. Surely no party government anywhere would allow one of its own to go public to try to establish such a shame about itself.
In fact, the proper answer to Suranjit Sen’s concern is a very simple one. It is not in a code of conduct for the ministers that are already prescribed by law. The government must return to the existing laws and conventions. It must without delay designate the minister/s to be the official spokesman of the government and stop all others from making statements like they too have the right to do so. Simultaneously, the right of ministers to speak in public on issues of governance as they like must be restricted only to their ministerial responsibilities where also they should be required to speak through their PROs unless the issues are of extreme public concern.
The writer is a retired Ambassador and his email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com
The writer is a retied career Ambassador. His email id is HYPERLINK "mailto:ambserajulislam@gmail.com" ambserajulislam@gmail.com -
· 
Posted: 13 Oct, 2014
|
China and emerging politics in Bangladesh
M. Serajul Islam
China has become the world's number one economic power. The new status coincided with the 65th year of the founding of Communist China. The news that the US has become the number two economy of the world was disclosed at the Annual World Bank-IMF Meeting in Washington last week. It has been revealed by the International Monetary (IMF), using the purchasing power parity (PPP) that the Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) stands at US$ 17.6 trillion while the US GDP at US$ 17.4 trillion!
Bangladesh must feel extremely good at this news because it has been befriending China since the early seventies when, in economic terms, the country was no better than an ordinary developing country. China scaled to this position, ironically, due to initiatives of US President Nixon and his Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger and their 'Ping-Pong' diplomacy. These brought China back from the cold and sent it on way to becoming a world power with the return of its membership of the UN and with it, the permanent seat in the UN Security Council. In the opening-up that ensued in China under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, it was the US that gave Beijing the opportunities for economic growth with investment and trade facilities. The Chinese leadership grabbed the opportunities to eventually overtake its benefactor to become the world's number one economic power.
During the Bangladesh war of liberation in 1971, China made the Americans happy. It opposed that war and with it, supported Pakistan even when that country carried out genocide in Bangladesh. When Bangladesh was liberated and had applied for UN membership, China opposed it. Of course, China opposed the membership not just to make the Americans happy but also to oppose its adversaries of the time, namely the USSR and the Indians. It also opposed Bangladesh's membership to make Pakistan happy because it was the conduit in the 'ping-pong' diplomacy that set the direction for China to conquer the world.
Bangladesh decided to forget China's role in 1971 soon after the "change of government" on August 15, 1975. Then, Bangladesh ignored China's 'dubious' role in 1971 and instead befriended China whole-heartedly, mainly as a way to deal with the overbearing influence that India had gained in Bangladesh for its role in the country's independence.
Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1976, China has treated Bangladesh as one of its best friends in the region. It helped develop and build the Bangladesh armed forces and also a lot of its economic infrastructure. The quality of China's friendship was such that all subsequent governments, including the 1996-2001 Awami League-led government that should have had deep reservations for China, treated the country as one of Bangladesh's best friends.
Over the years, there has been no looking back for the positive attitude of the people, political parties and governments in Bangladesh for China. In contrast, India, which had done so much for Bangladesh in 1971, never enjoyed anywhere near China's acceptance in Bangladesh among its people. Governments and political parties have also not all been friendly towards India. The Awami League (AL) has been friendly but the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) not that friendly. Among the people, India has always been controversial because of many issues, mainly its unfriendly ways of dealing with water, trade and border-related issues.
The India-Bangladesh relations during 2008-2014 terms of Congress-rule in India and the AL in Bangladesh have been extremely close. Leading to the January 05 election, almost all-important foreign governments, except India, had urged the AL-led government to hold inclusive elections. China, although friendly with all political parties but in public perception closer to the BNP, had stated that the way elections were to be held, Bangladesh sovereignty would be at peril. Many read in that statement made by the Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka a not very subtle hint to the AL-led government not to hold the election without the BNP. Many also believed that China had referred to India as the source of threat to Bangladesh's sovereignty.
Those who had interpreted China's stand before the election to be supportive of the BNP were set for a shock after the AL returned to power through the controversial January 05 election that has led all of Bangladesh's development partners to term the new government weak on legitimacy. China surprisingly made a volte-face. It invited Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to a visit to Beijing and treated her in a manner that dismissed any thought that her government was suffering on legitimacy. A grateful Hasina discussed giving China the green signal to build the hugely costly and strategically critical Sonadia deep-sea port and the go-ahead with the BCIM-EC and, above all, agreed wholeheartedly to accept China's leadership for Asia's march into the world stage. Since the visit, Bangladesh is processing buying of two submarines from China. Trade/defence cooperation, already at their best, has received further impetus from the visit.
These overtures by China should have upset the BNP. Surprisingly, if what transpired at a seminar arranged by the pro-BNP Bangladesh Cultural Academy Foundation to celebrate the 65th Anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) is any indication, the BNP is not unhappy at all . The speakers, who were also from other parties including the communist parties and well-known individuals, besides the BNP, stated at the seminar that 'Bangladesh needs China to maintain its sovereignty.' That was, however, interpreted by the speakers differently from their respective party and individual backgrounds. The BNP supporters interpreted the need of China to protect Bangladesh's sovereignty from India. The communists in the seminar thought the threat was from the United States.
The Chinese CDA did not make any commitment in the context of Bangladesh's politics. He, of course, did not need to because all speakers were so enamoured with China from their respective perspectives that no one was willing to see anything wrong with the way China has handled its policies with Bangladesh. In 1971, it went against Bangladesh's liberation but now finds the AL- led government willing to follow it, without any questions asked, in leading Asia to the world stage. The BNP that was let down very badly by China after the January 05 elections seems to have forgotten this episode believing that it would come to Bangladesh's assistance against India which, in turn, would influence politics of the country.
The BNP leaders, who spoke at the seminar, have not followed recent developments in regional politics correctly. China is in no mood to fight for Bangladesh's sovereignty because it is now wooing the AL-led government for getting a strong footing in the Bay of Bengal through the proposed Sonadia deep seaport and the BCIM-EC projects. These projects are critical for China because Japan, India and the US are now moving to keep China out of this critical geopolitical area 'which overlooks the strategically important sea lanes of the Indian Ocean linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, thus playing a role in securing energy supplies for Beijing'.
Thus while the communists at the seminar had their interests right and those not representing any political party spoke what they felt was right, the BNP speakers had it all wrong. By placating China that will not lift a finger to help Bangladesh have a new election and supporting any US-inspired conspiracy against it, the BNP may have upset the US that has repeatedly asked for new election. India under the Modi government has kept its distance from the AL government and if recent Modi-Obama meeting is any hint, the USA and India may indeed be getting closer on many issues. There is a possibility that the US would be able to encourage India for a new inclusive election in Bangladesh as it had tried and failed with the January 05 one.
The seminar underlined that in regional diplomacy in the context of Bangladesh, China has so far outwitted all Bangladeshi political parties and international stakeholders, including India and the US. Somehow, it just seems the people, political parties and governments of Bangladesh do not have the heart to be critical of China even where they supported Pakistan while it committed genocide against it. It is time for India, in particular, to study China and its diplomacy in Bangladesh and inquire why China is not held responsible in Bangladesh for its actions even when it goes against the interest of the country and often against one or the other of the two mainstream parties. Bangladesh's political parties and also its well-known individuals in public domain do not seem to have that capability.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador.
Print Edition
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Code of conduct for ministers
Latif Siddique has caused a political sensation at a time when the AL -led government did not need one. On a visit with the Prime Minister on her trip to New York, the minister took the opportunity of a meeting arranged in his honour by the expatriates of his home district Tangail to speak out against the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and one of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj in a manner that would even Islamophbics would not do. He referred to the Prophet like a common person and said his companions were dacoits. He also said that Hajj was a total waste of money and ridiculed it as nonsense. The way he delivered the diatribe was also significant. He gestured and ridiculed Islam in an unbelievable manner.
The diatribe of the minister has caused uproar in the country, particularly among the religious parties. BNP looking for the opportunity for a movement against the government has also joined the religious parties. They have dismissed the assurances given by the Prime Minister as inadequate although if the Prime Minister’s assurances were carried out, he would even lose his membership of parliament. The religious parties and BNP want the minister arrested and given punishment as prescribed by the law. They have given the ruling party till the 15th of October to act as they have demanded and have further added that if their demands were not met, there would be hartal on the 25th. HM Ershad has called the minister a murtad and demanded that he be hanged!
The holidays for the Eid and Durga Puja that intervened went in favour of the government because it helped put a brake on the ground swell of anger at the grassroots against the minister’s statement. Nevertheless, the issue still has serious potentials for public anger going by past occurrences. Poet Daud Haider and Taslima Nasrin have not yet been forgiven for their attempts to humiliate Islam and have not, decades after what they had done, allowed to come back home. Last year, when it was revealed that the some of the youth in the Shahabag Movement had indulged in anti-Islam postings on the Internet, a potentially extremely powerful youth movement that was heralded as the second liberation war of the country to re-establish the spirit of 1971 simply fizzled away within days. For two weeks, Shahabag had become a place of pilgrimage for the people of Dhaka and young and old were all making daily visits to Shahabag in hundreds of thousands. Within days of the public knowledge of the anti-Islam postings, almost all of them abandoned Shahabag underlining the power of Islam to the common folks in the country.
Suranjit Sengupta nevertheless spoke about the code of conduct for ministers out of frustration. He knows very well as does everybody in the country that in the last few years, the ministers of the government have acted as lose cannons under an unwritten approval from the highest level of the government to speak in public almost anything they wanted as long as it was directed at the opposition. In fact, the free license to ministers to “speak as they like” was given by the ruling party as a political strategy to attack/ridicule and humiliate the opposition. He himself has liberally done that as a minister. The strategy has worked fine and the ministers have been to a large extent able to keep the opposition on leash by the constant attacks in public. It has helped the ruling party to create division/confusion and an element of tentativeness in the opposition.
Nevertheless, the strategy always had a danger of boomerang. In giving the ministers the license, the government/ruling party did not consider the possibility that the ministers could use their license for their own personal gains and may not always use this license to only go after the opposition. Thus in the past six years of the AL led government, ministers have embarrassed the government umpteen times by going in public over issues that were their own interpretation of government polices or events and contradicted with those of the government. Ministers have regularly contradicted one another and often ended giving impression to the public that there was an utter lack of coordination in the government and among the ministers.
That was of course only a natural outcome of the system that this government wittingly or unwittingly demolished. In the past, ministers very seldom went public on issues of governance. For matters of governance, every minister/ministry had a Public Relations Officer (PRO) who shielded the minister and his ministry from the media, aware of the dangers of exposure to the media. That system of course had due respect for the media because it always had access of the minister or his ministry’s views on any issue of importance to the public through the PRO. In case of matters of extreme public importance, ministers came before the media to satisfy public concerns. There is still a PRO for every minister/ministry but although his/her job description has not been altered even a bit, he/she now has a desk but no responsibility because the ministers these days play his/her role.
In fact, the ministers have been so much emboldened by their license to speak as they like that they these days do not even bother that in their open ended role in the media, they talk about the government without being designated as its spokesman. In fact, all ministers these days think they are spokesman of the government. It is not just the ministers, even party officials think that they are also part of the government and act as its official spokesman. The Minister of Communications is the example of one who has given himself the power of the government spokesman on all issues. The party joint secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif is a party official who, forgetting he is no part of the government, has taken upon himself of the responsibility of not just the party but of the government’s as well. In the process, he has lumped the party and the government into one.
What Abdul Latif Siddique has done, its absurdity notwithstanding, is nothing unusual. Ministers of this government have said much more outlandish things in public in the past because of their license to “speak as you like”. There has thus always been a pandemonium in governance as a result of the way ministers have spoken in public without any legal authority. No one cared and the media seldom or never spoke against this deterioration of professional standards of governance. Latif Siddique has landed this government in trouble and it could be very serious one because he has decided to speak against Islam. Therefore the code of conduct for ministers that Suranjit Sengupta has talked about only underlines the fact that as a result of the “speak as you like policy”, the government has finally landed itself in a n extremely serious predicament. However a code of conduct is not certainly the cure.
He should ask himself why. He has taken the liberty to speak on an embarrassing truth of this government but he does not have the authority to speak on such an issue. The problem apart, his call for a code of conduct has established that the ministers of this government, supposed to be public leaders, do not know how to conduct themselves in public. Surely no party government anywhere would allow one of its own to go public to try to establish such a shame about itself.
In fact, the proper answer to Suranjit Sen’s concern is a very simple one. It is not in a code of conduct for the ministers that are already prescribed by law. The government must return to the existing laws and conventions. It must without delay designate the minister/s to be the official spokesman of the government and stop all others from making statements like they too have the right to do so. Simultaneously, the right of ministers to speak in public on issues of governance as they like must be restricted only to their ministerial responsibilities where also they should be required to speak through their PROs unless the issues are of extreme public concern.
The writer is a retired Ambassador and his email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Islam again under attack in the
international domain
 |
M. Serajul Islam
|
The case of Latif Siddiqui and
earlier Taslima Nasrin and before that of Salman Rushdie; the invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of war on terror and the current turmoil in
Iraq/Syria with the emergence of ISIS/ISIL may not be unrelated. All these
could very well be conscious multi-faceted efforts by the West to demean and
destroy Islam.
Salman Rushdie’s case was the first of West’s strategy to encourage Muslims to attack Islam in works of literature or in speeches. He had won the Booker’s Prize for his outstanding book Midnight’s Children and many thought he was on course to becoming a Noble Laureate in Literature. He upset all the predictions by writing the Satanic Verses in which he, for reasons he alone could explain, chose to hurt the sentiments of the billion plus Muslims of the world leading to a fatwa for his head by Iran. The 2.8 million-dollar bounty on his head made him hide in fear. Whether or not Iran had the ability of carrying out the threat was never tested because not even a stone was thrown at him. Nevertheless, the international media, largely biased against Islam, pitched the Rushdie case as a case of Islam’s intolerance. And although Rushdie has not won the Noble Prize, he won much more international attention than a Noble Prize would not have brought him courtesy the forces against Islam.
Taslima Nasrin, whose literary value is zero compared to Salman Rushdie nevertheless reached the same lofty heights of international attention with her book Lajja attacking Islam. The forces against Islam picked her up when a nondescript Islamic group in Bangladesh placed a price on her head and she was banished from the country. She instantly became the darling of the West, courted admiringly wherever she went. The West never questioned her credibility as a writer or the background of the nondescript group that put the price on her head. It just used her because she had humiliated Islam. Perhaps, there is a similar reason behind the Latif Siddiqui diatribe against Islam and the holy Prophet. Perhaps, he too has similar pretensions. Perhaps, the international forces working against Islam have encouraged him to fight the war against Islam from within.
Since his diatribe, anti-Islam postings on the Internet have become extensive that suggest that international forces that are coordinating these efforts are using the social media and Internet to destroy Islam that was not available when Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin were attacking Islam. That there are powerful international anti-Islam forces in the social media/Internet was evident when unbelievable diatribes against Islam were posted at the time of the Shahabag movement last year. These forces that had seemingly gone into hibernation in the face of public wrath in Bangladesh when the Shahabag anti-Islam postings became public knowledge have now re-emerged following the diatribe of Latif Siddiqui. Postings are flooding in the social media backing Latif Siddiqui for his “courage” and the anti-Islam Muslims are now liberally quoting the Koran to depict it as a book that patronises cruelty and barbarity.
The anti-Islam Muslims are working, wittingly or otherwise, as part of the intellectual framework provided to the West to destroy Islam by Professor Samuel Huntington in his infamous book named The Clash of Civilizations. In the book, the Professor argued that there are seven civilizations coexisting at present and that notwithstanding, the world is destined to see a clash between the West and Islam. He therefore urged the West to prepare itself for the inevitable clash. Professor Huntington’s urging had a sense of urgency because he felt that Islam’s moral and ethical strength made it a strong challenger and unless the West prepared itself adequately and effectively for that inevitable clash, it would lose to Islam.
Professor Huntington argued his case based on many gross misrepresentations about Islam and the peoples of the Orient. Edward Said, a Palestinian Professor of Columbia, led the intellectual efforts to undermine Professor Samuel Huntington’s thesis to humiliate Islam. His book “Orientalism” practically destroyed the premises of Professor Huntington’s book. In his subsequent writings and lectures, Edward Said nailed the ill intents of the Professor against Islam convincingly. Nevertheless, the West took Professor Huntington’s warnings against Islam seriously and the efforts to use Muslims like Salman Rusdie and others have been a part of a multi- faceted strategy to destroy Islam from within, by a conscious effort of using Muslims to demean their own religion.
The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have been the part of the multi-faceted strategy to destroy Islam with physical force. Thus in invading Afghanistan in 2001, the US went into denial that the very terrorists they went to fight there namely Al Qaeda led by Osama ben Laden were earlier established there by US intelligence to help the Mujahedeen fight the Soviets, a point only recently stressed by none other than Hillary Clinton. Likewise, the US invaded Iraq two years later on false pretexts that the country had WMD in denial of the fact that it had allowed the evil regime its best years when it was fighting Iran and did not bother when in 1983, the regime had killed thousands of Kurds using chemical weapons because it was fighting another Muslim state, Iran. The US invaded Iraq only when Saddam Hussein was no more willing to fight Iran and had meanwhile armed his regime enough to become a threat to Israel, US’ protégé in the region.
The US and West’s intentions in invading Afghanistan and Iraq may have prima facae failed. Afghanistan may likely to fall into the hands of the Taliban once the US withdraws its combat troops from there by end of December. Iraq is now under threat from ISIS/ISIL. Thus between Iraq and Afghanistan, trillions of US dollars and thousands of lives of West’s men/women in uniform may seem to have gone down the drain. Nevertheless, despite such setbacks, the West’s multifaceted strategy to destroy Islam has succeeded because in both the countries, Muslims are fighting and killing Muslims and weakening Islam as a result of the US led invasion of the West. The rise of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq has also come very useful in the multi faceted strategy against Islam. The West is using its barbarity and cruelty against fellow Muslims and the beheading of the westerners to depict Islam as a cruel and barbaric regime demean Islam further. In reality though, the ISIS/ is the direct outcome of the West’s US led invasion. Before the invasion, Iraq had an evil dictator but no terrorists.
These facts and the phobia that US and western media have been spinning of imminent attacks on US and western soil by ISIS/ISIL have led to deep suspicions that ISIS/ISIL is the creation of western intelligence establishments like Al Qaeda and Osama Ben Laden as part of the West’s many faceted strategy to destroy Islam. The suspicions are gaining strength because the ISIS/ISIL in reality is busy fighting fellow Muslims and threatening or being threatened by the royal regimes in the Middle East. Thus the rise of ISIS/ISIL, the flood of anti-Islam postings on Internet, anti-Muslim actions of writers and politicians could all be very well a part of the West multi-faceted strategy of preparedness for the clash of civilization as predicted by Professor Huntington.
Salman Rushdie’s case was the first of West’s strategy to encourage Muslims to attack Islam in works of literature or in speeches. He had won the Booker’s Prize for his outstanding book Midnight’s Children and many thought he was on course to becoming a Noble Laureate in Literature. He upset all the predictions by writing the Satanic Verses in which he, for reasons he alone could explain, chose to hurt the sentiments of the billion plus Muslims of the world leading to a fatwa for his head by Iran. The 2.8 million-dollar bounty on his head made him hide in fear. Whether or not Iran had the ability of carrying out the threat was never tested because not even a stone was thrown at him. Nevertheless, the international media, largely biased against Islam, pitched the Rushdie case as a case of Islam’s intolerance. And although Rushdie has not won the Noble Prize, he won much more international attention than a Noble Prize would not have brought him courtesy the forces against Islam.
Taslima Nasrin, whose literary value is zero compared to Salman Rushdie nevertheless reached the same lofty heights of international attention with her book Lajja attacking Islam. The forces against Islam picked her up when a nondescript Islamic group in Bangladesh placed a price on her head and she was banished from the country. She instantly became the darling of the West, courted admiringly wherever she went. The West never questioned her credibility as a writer or the background of the nondescript group that put the price on her head. It just used her because she had humiliated Islam. Perhaps, there is a similar reason behind the Latif Siddiqui diatribe against Islam and the holy Prophet. Perhaps, he too has similar pretensions. Perhaps, the international forces working against Islam have encouraged him to fight the war against Islam from within.
Since his diatribe, anti-Islam postings on the Internet have become extensive that suggest that international forces that are coordinating these efforts are using the social media and Internet to destroy Islam that was not available when Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasrin were attacking Islam. That there are powerful international anti-Islam forces in the social media/Internet was evident when unbelievable diatribes against Islam were posted at the time of the Shahabag movement last year. These forces that had seemingly gone into hibernation in the face of public wrath in Bangladesh when the Shahabag anti-Islam postings became public knowledge have now re-emerged following the diatribe of Latif Siddiqui. Postings are flooding in the social media backing Latif Siddiqui for his “courage” and the anti-Islam Muslims are now liberally quoting the Koran to depict it as a book that patronises cruelty and barbarity.
The anti-Islam Muslims are working, wittingly or otherwise, as part of the intellectual framework provided to the West to destroy Islam by Professor Samuel Huntington in his infamous book named The Clash of Civilizations. In the book, the Professor argued that there are seven civilizations coexisting at present and that notwithstanding, the world is destined to see a clash between the West and Islam. He therefore urged the West to prepare itself for the inevitable clash. Professor Huntington’s urging had a sense of urgency because he felt that Islam’s moral and ethical strength made it a strong challenger and unless the West prepared itself adequately and effectively for that inevitable clash, it would lose to Islam.
Professor Huntington argued his case based on many gross misrepresentations about Islam and the peoples of the Orient. Edward Said, a Palestinian Professor of Columbia, led the intellectual efforts to undermine Professor Samuel Huntington’s thesis to humiliate Islam. His book “Orientalism” practically destroyed the premises of Professor Huntington’s book. In his subsequent writings and lectures, Edward Said nailed the ill intents of the Professor against Islam convincingly. Nevertheless, the West took Professor Huntington’s warnings against Islam seriously and the efforts to use Muslims like Salman Rusdie and others have been a part of a multi- faceted strategy to destroy Islam from within, by a conscious effort of using Muslims to demean their own religion.
The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have been the part of the multi-faceted strategy to destroy Islam with physical force. Thus in invading Afghanistan in 2001, the US went into denial that the very terrorists they went to fight there namely Al Qaeda led by Osama ben Laden were earlier established there by US intelligence to help the Mujahedeen fight the Soviets, a point only recently stressed by none other than Hillary Clinton. Likewise, the US invaded Iraq two years later on false pretexts that the country had WMD in denial of the fact that it had allowed the evil regime its best years when it was fighting Iran and did not bother when in 1983, the regime had killed thousands of Kurds using chemical weapons because it was fighting another Muslim state, Iran. The US invaded Iraq only when Saddam Hussein was no more willing to fight Iran and had meanwhile armed his regime enough to become a threat to Israel, US’ protégé in the region.
The US and West’s intentions in invading Afghanistan and Iraq may have prima facae failed. Afghanistan may likely to fall into the hands of the Taliban once the US withdraws its combat troops from there by end of December. Iraq is now under threat from ISIS/ISIL. Thus between Iraq and Afghanistan, trillions of US dollars and thousands of lives of West’s men/women in uniform may seem to have gone down the drain. Nevertheless, despite such setbacks, the West’s multifaceted strategy to destroy Islam has succeeded because in both the countries, Muslims are fighting and killing Muslims and weakening Islam as a result of the US led invasion of the West. The rise of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq has also come very useful in the multi faceted strategy against Islam. The West is using its barbarity and cruelty against fellow Muslims and the beheading of the westerners to depict Islam as a cruel and barbaric regime demean Islam further. In reality though, the ISIS/ is the direct outcome of the West’s US led invasion. Before the invasion, Iraq had an evil dictator but no terrorists.
These facts and the phobia that US and western media have been spinning of imminent attacks on US and western soil by ISIS/ISIL have led to deep suspicions that ISIS/ISIL is the creation of western intelligence establishments like Al Qaeda and Osama Ben Laden as part of the West’s many faceted strategy to destroy Islam. The suspicions are gaining strength because the ISIS/ISIL in reality is busy fighting fellow Muslims and threatening or being threatened by the royal regimes in the Middle East. Thus the rise of ISIS/ISIL, the flood of anti-Islam postings on Internet, anti-Muslim actions of writers and politicians could all be very well a part of the West multi-faceted strategy of preparedness for the clash of civilization as predicted by Professor Huntington.
The writer is a retied career Ambassador. His email id is HYPERLINK "mailto:ambserajulislam@gmail.com" ambserajulislam@gmail.com -
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Education sector on edge of precipice
Education sector on
edge of precipice
|
M. Serajul Islam
|
The Education Minister and the Vice Chancellor
of Dhaka University were pitched in a media battle this week over results of admission
tests for the 2014-15 first year Honours in a manner that is unbelievable. The
issue is the mismatch in the performance of students in SSC/HSC examinations
and DU admission tests. Sixty-six% of GPA-5 holders in the SSC and HSC
Examinations (students with 80% and more marks, “star” students of the earlier
days) failed to pass the admission tests. In English Department admission test,
only 2 passed! And lest we have forgotten, these are students whose brilliance
had been certified by the Prime Minister and the Education Minister to
underline the high quality of students and the education system up to the HSC
level for which they took great credit.
The Education Minister, instead of explaining how so few could have passed the DU admission tests where the same students had passed with such brilliant results in their SSC/HSC examinations, blamed the Dhaka University for deliberately failing the students with its unrealistic, made to fail, admission tests. He thought it fit to go to the media to blame the Dhaka University authorities. The Dhaka University Vice Chancellor, instead of going behind the media to discuss the problem, also chose the media to answer the allegations. He challenged the Education Minister by stressing that the students failed because they were not good enough. The nation was forced to watch their fight, astounded and dumb founded because the two between them humiliated the Prime Minister in public.
The Education Minister has a lot of good will going in his favour among the public. In the cabinets the country has had in the last few years, Ministers have involved themselves in all sorts of antics that have added very little to their credibility but have embarrassed the government beyond tolerable limits. Nevertheless it has been extremely surprising that none of the Ministers have been called to explain for their embarrassing conduct. In that backdrop, the Education Minister has come across as a serious, committed and above all, honest person whose integrity has not been questioned in any forum.
His good work with trying to set the education sector on a better footing has been acknowledged, particularly in getting textbooks to the students in time. He has also done visibly good work with the orderly holding of the major examinations up to the HSC level with issues of improving curriculums in the schools and colleges and improving the gender issues in these levels of education in the country. Nevertheless, his efforts in dealing with corruption in the education sector, particularly with leakages of question papers, commercialization of admission in the public sector schools and colleges and the impunity of the student wing of the ruling party in the educational institutions were palpable failures. Nevertheless, he has not been held responsible for these ills on a personal level, as people have seen these as a part of the deterioration of politics and influence of politics in the educational sector.
Nevertheless, the people’s good feelings for him started to change with the way he went to the media with the HSC results. Except for the very few people in the ruling party and in his own Ministry, the rest of the country saw that he led a political campaign with the last HSC results, using the numbers to establish that the education sector is having the best years in the country’s history and tied it to the successful AL leadership of the government and society. The Minister’s loud claims were shot down not by the BNP or the Jamat but by almost everybody across the political divide. Experts in education, without any political affiliations, have come in the media to tell the Minister that he was using inflated and manipulated numbers to give a wrong picture of the country’s education sector where in reality the sector was slumping into the abyss.
The Prime Minister unfortunately put her good name into the debate and blamed that those criticising the Minister for the “brilliant” HSC results were jealous of the great progress in the education sector. Unfortunately for her and the Education Minister, the DU entry examinations and the pathetic pass numbers more than established the widespread concerns that credible, non-political individuals have expressed and continue to express about the falling standard in education. Nevertheless, in the way the DU authorities acted, all is of course neither fair nor well. Serious questions are being raised on how the pass percentages in the DU entry examinations could drop so low in the span of a year. Last year, these pass percentages in DU entry examinations were not as absurd as this year.
Therefore many tend to believe something wrong in the way the DU authorities have conducted their entry examinations. The minister has accused the system as faulty, one designed to fail the students. The DU VC dismissed the accusation and defended the DU system as most modern. The positions are extremes and made little sense to the public. Clearly, there is no way both can be right in their contradictory positions. If the DU is correct in its stand on the issue of the entry examinations, then where would its English Department for instance get the students to keep the department from closing?
The Minister, unfortunately for his public image, has no doubt played politics with the HSC examinations. Nevertheless, he has a point with the faulty entry examinations. No one will buy the DU argument that politics notwithstanding, the ability of students who have passed the HSC examinations this year has fallen so abysmally low that so few would be able to enter Dhaka University. This position simply cannot be accepted as true. Dr. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury has hinted at where the problem lies. He said that the problem is embedded in the fact that students these days neglect classroom teaching and “more inclined towards attending coaching centres to learn the technique of obtaining better marks in the exams and answer sheets are evaluated liberally.”
Dr. Chowdhury has also stated that students do not receive quality education from primary to tertiary levels. Thus thanks to the coaching centres, these students learn the techniques to pass SSC and HSC level examinations in record numbers with many with “brilliant results”. That answers the “brilliant” results at this year’s HSC examination that started the public debate over the education sector. Dr. Chowdhury has thus exposed unequivocally why the HSC results were brilliant and why the DU entry examinations taken by these “brilliant” students were pathetically the opposite. The problem is the SSC/HSC Examinations that these students passed and many with brilliant results do not in any way prepare them for the DU admission tests! That such a ridiculous and unbelievable mismatch exists is what the experts were trying to point out.
That brings to question why were the DU authorities sitting till this literally the 11th hour to hit the students on their heads? The Education Minister may have played politics with the numbers but he has a point that the entry examinations by the DU, unless altered, would ruin the future of the students. Nevertheless he made another serious faux pas while underlining a point that the public would like to accept. He has threatened that unless DU authorities are responsible, the government would have to change the laws. Is the Minister trying to tell that DU admissions would henceforth be decided politically!
Both sides are playing with the future of students who have been caught in the middle of politics. DU authorities cannot simply take the lofty pedestal and wash off its hands by saying their entry systems is “modern” and leave the students in the lurch. It must find a way to take the students to fill the seats it has for admission to deal with the present situation. However, it and the Education Ministry must sit down together with the other stakeholders with what Dr. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury has flagged and come out with a long-term solution. This should be for the government a more important agenda than any of its others issues at hand because education is the backbone of the country and politics, dirty politics, has pushed it to the edge of the precipice.
The writer is a career Ambassador. His email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com -
The Education Minister, instead of explaining how so few could have passed the DU admission tests where the same students had passed with such brilliant results in their SSC/HSC examinations, blamed the Dhaka University for deliberately failing the students with its unrealistic, made to fail, admission tests. He thought it fit to go to the media to blame the Dhaka University authorities. The Dhaka University Vice Chancellor, instead of going behind the media to discuss the problem, also chose the media to answer the allegations. He challenged the Education Minister by stressing that the students failed because they were not good enough. The nation was forced to watch their fight, astounded and dumb founded because the two between them humiliated the Prime Minister in public.
The Education Minister has a lot of good will going in his favour among the public. In the cabinets the country has had in the last few years, Ministers have involved themselves in all sorts of antics that have added very little to their credibility but have embarrassed the government beyond tolerable limits. Nevertheless it has been extremely surprising that none of the Ministers have been called to explain for their embarrassing conduct. In that backdrop, the Education Minister has come across as a serious, committed and above all, honest person whose integrity has not been questioned in any forum.
His good work with trying to set the education sector on a better footing has been acknowledged, particularly in getting textbooks to the students in time. He has also done visibly good work with the orderly holding of the major examinations up to the HSC level with issues of improving curriculums in the schools and colleges and improving the gender issues in these levels of education in the country. Nevertheless, his efforts in dealing with corruption in the education sector, particularly with leakages of question papers, commercialization of admission in the public sector schools and colleges and the impunity of the student wing of the ruling party in the educational institutions were palpable failures. Nevertheless, he has not been held responsible for these ills on a personal level, as people have seen these as a part of the deterioration of politics and influence of politics in the educational sector.
Nevertheless, the people’s good feelings for him started to change with the way he went to the media with the HSC results. Except for the very few people in the ruling party and in his own Ministry, the rest of the country saw that he led a political campaign with the last HSC results, using the numbers to establish that the education sector is having the best years in the country’s history and tied it to the successful AL leadership of the government and society. The Minister’s loud claims were shot down not by the BNP or the Jamat but by almost everybody across the political divide. Experts in education, without any political affiliations, have come in the media to tell the Minister that he was using inflated and manipulated numbers to give a wrong picture of the country’s education sector where in reality the sector was slumping into the abyss.
The Prime Minister unfortunately put her good name into the debate and blamed that those criticising the Minister for the “brilliant” HSC results were jealous of the great progress in the education sector. Unfortunately for her and the Education Minister, the DU entry examinations and the pathetic pass numbers more than established the widespread concerns that credible, non-political individuals have expressed and continue to express about the falling standard in education. Nevertheless, in the way the DU authorities acted, all is of course neither fair nor well. Serious questions are being raised on how the pass percentages in the DU entry examinations could drop so low in the span of a year. Last year, these pass percentages in DU entry examinations were not as absurd as this year.
Therefore many tend to believe something wrong in the way the DU authorities have conducted their entry examinations. The minister has accused the system as faulty, one designed to fail the students. The DU VC dismissed the accusation and defended the DU system as most modern. The positions are extremes and made little sense to the public. Clearly, there is no way both can be right in their contradictory positions. If the DU is correct in its stand on the issue of the entry examinations, then where would its English Department for instance get the students to keep the department from closing?
The Minister, unfortunately for his public image, has no doubt played politics with the HSC examinations. Nevertheless, he has a point with the faulty entry examinations. No one will buy the DU argument that politics notwithstanding, the ability of students who have passed the HSC examinations this year has fallen so abysmally low that so few would be able to enter Dhaka University. This position simply cannot be accepted as true. Dr. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury has hinted at where the problem lies. He said that the problem is embedded in the fact that students these days neglect classroom teaching and “more inclined towards attending coaching centres to learn the technique of obtaining better marks in the exams and answer sheets are evaluated liberally.”
Dr. Chowdhury has also stated that students do not receive quality education from primary to tertiary levels. Thus thanks to the coaching centres, these students learn the techniques to pass SSC and HSC level examinations in record numbers with many with “brilliant results”. That answers the “brilliant” results at this year’s HSC examination that started the public debate over the education sector. Dr. Chowdhury has thus exposed unequivocally why the HSC results were brilliant and why the DU entry examinations taken by these “brilliant” students were pathetically the opposite. The problem is the SSC/HSC Examinations that these students passed and many with brilliant results do not in any way prepare them for the DU admission tests! That such a ridiculous and unbelievable mismatch exists is what the experts were trying to point out.
That brings to question why were the DU authorities sitting till this literally the 11th hour to hit the students on their heads? The Education Minister may have played politics with the numbers but he has a point that the entry examinations by the DU, unless altered, would ruin the future of the students. Nevertheless he made another serious faux pas while underlining a point that the public would like to accept. He has threatened that unless DU authorities are responsible, the government would have to change the laws. Is the Minister trying to tell that DU admissions would henceforth be decided politically!
Both sides are playing with the future of students who have been caught in the middle of politics. DU authorities cannot simply take the lofty pedestal and wash off its hands by saying their entry systems is “modern” and leave the students in the lurch. It must find a way to take the students to fill the seats it has for admission to deal with the present situation. However, it and the Education Ministry must sit down together with the other stakeholders with what Dr. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury has flagged and come out with a long-term solution. This should be for the government a more important agenda than any of its others issues at hand because education is the backbone of the country and politics, dirty politics, has pushed it to the edge of the precipice.
The writer is a career Ambassador. His email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com -
Hurting Religious Sentiments
| Posted : 05 Oct, 2014 00:00:00 | AA-A+ |  |
Hurting religious sentiments and political consequences
M. Serajul Islam
A good number of ministers of this government are like
loose cannons. They are serious embarrassment and danger to it in the manner
they speak to the media. This has been flagged many times and over a long
period of time. The government has never paid any heed to these concerns. The
reason for the government's lack of concern about such ministers is that they
speak as they like in public as part of, what seems to be, a deliberate political
strategy to attack, humiliate and ridicule the opposition. They are doing a
good job of it, attacking and ridiculing the opposition 24/7. In fact,
bashing/ridiculing the two major opposition parties is a daily routine of a
number of ministers of this government.
No serious government can expect to do itself - let alone the country - much good by such a policy of free license to the ministers who speak to the media all the time to attack and humiliate the opposition. The danger of boomerang of such a policy has always been there. In fact, if research were done on the ministers' opposition bashing/ridiculing and its impact on the ruling party, it would show that instead of affecting the opposition adversely in public view, the ministers concerned have instead contributed to the falling popularity of their party. It would further show that their mindless and senseless ranting has harmed their party much more than the opposition.
Finally, at a time when it is under pressure at home and abroad on the issue of legitimacy because of the January 05 elections, a minister has landed the present government in a deep political black hole. Senior Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui in a meeting organised for him by the New York association of his home district Tangail, said that the followers of the Prophet of Islam were "dacoits". He laughed and ridiculed at Hajj, calling it a huge wastage. His body language in the speech was ridiculous. The video of his address that went viral on the Internet shows him uttering the obscenities in a manner that leaves no one in doubt that he relished his Islam-bashing. That a minister of a government of an overwhelmingly Muslim-majority country would utter such obscenities at Islam is something that no one could have imagined even in the worst of nightmares.
No Muslim anywhere in the world utters the name of the holy Prophet without saying "peace be upon him". This Minister, with the deliberate intent to hurt the Muslims, referred to Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) simply by his name. He thus chose two of the most sensitive and delicate aspects of the great religion of Islam, namely its Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) and Hajj, one of the five pillars of the religion, to ridicule Islam and hurt its followers. The minister attacked Islam to incite its followers in the meanest, basest and utterly indecent way possible.
Quite naturally, the minister's speech, its contents and the manner in which he gave it reached Dhaka via the social media almost as soon as he had left the venue of the meeting. And equally naturally, the reaction has been as expected. The Islamic parties called him a "murtad" and demanded his banishment from the cabinet. They also asked for his apology, arrest and punishment under the law. Former President HM Ershad of Jatiya Party in a public meeting went the farthest, demanding that the minister be hanged. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that has already threatened a movement against the government to force it to hold new elections and looking for issues to encourage the public to stand behind it has received the minister's unbelievable speech as a heaven-sent opportunity. It has given the government time until October 15 to take all appropriate actions under the law against the minister that included his sacking and incarceration. The religious parties have threatened that unless the minister is seriously and severely punished, they would call hartal on October 25 and continue with their movement until the government punishes the minister to satisfy their demands.
Readers would recollect that in the 1970s, poet Daud Haider was banished from the country for ridiculing Islam and now lives in Germany. Taslima Nasrin faced a similar fate for her book that ridiculed Islam. In this case, the offender is a minister. Millions have seen the video of his speech and found his offence more serious than those of Daud Haider and Taslima Nasrin. The offence has international connotation. It will deeply upset the Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. It will also seriously embarrass the Prime Minister with the West because in her recent trip to New York she has taken the line that Bangladesh is facing Islamic terrorism for which the western world must support her government that is fighting such terrorism. The minister's action has placed that stand of the Prime Minister into doubt because the minister's speech will be construed in the West as the greatest provocation to help the Islamic fundamentalists.
The government has thus been handed a political problem of humungous proportions that would need extremely deft handling for it to come out of it unscathed. It is not an issue that the ruling party would be able to handle with action by security forces or by ridiculing the opposition, as it is in the habit of doing in recent times. At a press conference on Friday, Prime Minister stated that a process under the provisions of the country's Constitution was underway to remove the minister concerned from the cabinet as well as the ruling party, Awami League. The moot question now is: would that meet or fall short of the demands from different quarters for his arrest and the punishments under the law? The issue is explosive and has, as many Awami Leaguers have openly admitted, the potential to trigger opposition movement for fresh elections and resolution of many other issues in the public domain. The impending Eid may be only reason for the ruling party to take some comfort. Nevertheless, the period after Eid will be critical because this issue will not go away unless resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui may feel surprised that his party is gearing to take such severe actions against him because he has said or done things far worse before. Many other ministers have also acted the same way and got away without even an eyebrow being raised by the Prime Minister or by the party leaders. This Minister has fallen in trouble this time because it is Islam that he chose to offend. This underlines Islam's undeniable force in the politics of Bangladesh. Hence the AL may have to think twice in just sacking this minister from the cabinet and the party and leaving his case there. These actions may not be enough. And for the long-term future of the party, the AL already on the back foot on Islam because of its earlier strong support to the Shahbag bloggers some of whom were considered by the religious parties as being blatantly anti-Islamic, cannot afford to be seen soft on this minister.
This brings to the organisers of the minister's meeting. The top leaders of the North American Awami League were present in the event. None of the organisers or those present protested the unbelievable diatribe of the minister against Islam. These organisers are now faced with a double jeopardy. They have become party without protest to something that could land the AL in deep political trouble. More importantly, they gave the minister the forum to ridicule Islam and its Prophet that only a group of Islam-haters of the worst type imaginable, would. They should keep in mind that there is a digital imprint of this unbelievably anti-Islam meeting. The Minister could plead insanity or, as one organiser has said, he was "not natural" and perhaps will get away with his crime. What about them?
No serious government can expect to do itself - let alone the country - much good by such a policy of free license to the ministers who speak to the media all the time to attack and humiliate the opposition. The danger of boomerang of such a policy has always been there. In fact, if research were done on the ministers' opposition bashing/ridiculing and its impact on the ruling party, it would show that instead of affecting the opposition adversely in public view, the ministers concerned have instead contributed to the falling popularity of their party. It would further show that their mindless and senseless ranting has harmed their party much more than the opposition.
Finally, at a time when it is under pressure at home and abroad on the issue of legitimacy because of the January 05 elections, a minister has landed the present government in a deep political black hole. Senior Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui in a meeting organised for him by the New York association of his home district Tangail, said that the followers of the Prophet of Islam were "dacoits". He laughed and ridiculed at Hajj, calling it a huge wastage. His body language in the speech was ridiculous. The video of his address that went viral on the Internet shows him uttering the obscenities in a manner that leaves no one in doubt that he relished his Islam-bashing. That a minister of a government of an overwhelmingly Muslim-majority country would utter such obscenities at Islam is something that no one could have imagined even in the worst of nightmares.
No Muslim anywhere in the world utters the name of the holy Prophet without saying "peace be upon him". This Minister, with the deliberate intent to hurt the Muslims, referred to Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) simply by his name. He thus chose two of the most sensitive and delicate aspects of the great religion of Islam, namely its Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) and Hajj, one of the five pillars of the religion, to ridicule Islam and hurt its followers. The minister attacked Islam to incite its followers in the meanest, basest and utterly indecent way possible.
Quite naturally, the minister's speech, its contents and the manner in which he gave it reached Dhaka via the social media almost as soon as he had left the venue of the meeting. And equally naturally, the reaction has been as expected. The Islamic parties called him a "murtad" and demanded his banishment from the cabinet. They also asked for his apology, arrest and punishment under the law. Former President HM Ershad of Jatiya Party in a public meeting went the farthest, demanding that the minister be hanged. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that has already threatened a movement against the government to force it to hold new elections and looking for issues to encourage the public to stand behind it has received the minister's unbelievable speech as a heaven-sent opportunity. It has given the government time until October 15 to take all appropriate actions under the law against the minister that included his sacking and incarceration. The religious parties have threatened that unless the minister is seriously and severely punished, they would call hartal on October 25 and continue with their movement until the government punishes the minister to satisfy their demands.
Readers would recollect that in the 1970s, poet Daud Haider was banished from the country for ridiculing Islam and now lives in Germany. Taslima Nasrin faced a similar fate for her book that ridiculed Islam. In this case, the offender is a minister. Millions have seen the video of his speech and found his offence more serious than those of Daud Haider and Taslima Nasrin. The offence has international connotation. It will deeply upset the Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. It will also seriously embarrass the Prime Minister with the West because in her recent trip to New York she has taken the line that Bangladesh is facing Islamic terrorism for which the western world must support her government that is fighting such terrorism. The minister's action has placed that stand of the Prime Minister into doubt because the minister's speech will be construed in the West as the greatest provocation to help the Islamic fundamentalists.
The government has thus been handed a political problem of humungous proportions that would need extremely deft handling for it to come out of it unscathed. It is not an issue that the ruling party would be able to handle with action by security forces or by ridiculing the opposition, as it is in the habit of doing in recent times. At a press conference on Friday, Prime Minister stated that a process under the provisions of the country's Constitution was underway to remove the minister concerned from the cabinet as well as the ruling party, Awami League. The moot question now is: would that meet or fall short of the demands from different quarters for his arrest and the punishments under the law? The issue is explosive and has, as many Awami Leaguers have openly admitted, the potential to trigger opposition movement for fresh elections and resolution of many other issues in the public domain. The impending Eid may be only reason for the ruling party to take some comfort. Nevertheless, the period after Eid will be critical because this issue will not go away unless resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Minister Abdul Latif Siddiqui may feel surprised that his party is gearing to take such severe actions against him because he has said or done things far worse before. Many other ministers have also acted the same way and got away without even an eyebrow being raised by the Prime Minister or by the party leaders. This Minister has fallen in trouble this time because it is Islam that he chose to offend. This underlines Islam's undeniable force in the politics of Bangladesh. Hence the AL may have to think twice in just sacking this minister from the cabinet and the party and leaving his case there. These actions may not be enough. And for the long-term future of the party, the AL already on the back foot on Islam because of its earlier strong support to the Shahbag bloggers some of whom were considered by the religious parties as being blatantly anti-Islamic, cannot afford to be seen soft on this minister.
This brings to the organisers of the minister's meeting. The top leaders of the North American Awami League were present in the event. None of the organisers or those present protested the unbelievable diatribe of the minister against Islam. These organisers are now faced with a double jeopardy. They have become party without protest to something that could land the AL in deep political trouble. More importantly, they gave the minister the forum to ridicule Islam and its Prophet that only a group of Islam-haters of the worst type imaginable, would. They should keep in mind that there is a digital imprint of this unbelievably anti-Islam meeting. The Minister could plead insanity or, as one organiser has said, he was "not natural" and perhaps will get away with his crime. What about them?
The writer is a retired career diplomat and Ambassador. ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Modi-Hasina Meeting: An anti climax
Modi-Hasina meeting: An anticlimax
Print Edition
Saturday, 04 October 2014
Author /
Source: M. Serajul Islam
The meeting between Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi on
the sidelines of the 69th UNGA in New York was an anti-climax in the backdrop
of the hype that was created in the Bangladesh media over it. Foreign Minister
AH Mahmood Ali’s briefing to the media following his official visit to New
Delhi early in September and meeting with Narendra Modi was one of the main
reasons for the media hype in Bangladesh over the Sheikh Hasina-Narendra Modi
meeting.
One line in this media hype was that the Indian Prime
Minister would assure Sheikh Hasina that India and China are on the same page
regarding support for Bangladesh. The media in Bangladesh also took a story
floated in the Indian media that RAW had unearthed a Jamat-ISI plan to
assassinate Sheikh Hasina and that Narendra Modi would bring Sheikh Hasina
up-to-date on the plan to assure her and her government of New Delhi’s full
support against the plot. The media further speculated that Narendra Modi would
also bring Washington on board against the plot to encourage the United States
to support the AL Government for sake of saving secularism and fighting Islamic
fundamentalism in Bangladesh.
The media hype ended on an anti-climactic note with a meeting that lasted for only 15 minutes. The meeting was thus not long enough for the Indian Prime Minister to discuss the issues upon which the media had speculated leading to the meeting. The short duration planned for the meeting no doubt hinted clearly that the Indians did not have in mind any intention to discuss serious issues in Bangladesh-India relations, speculations in the Bangladesh media notwithstanding. The issue of duration apart, the note taker for the meeting was an official from the Indian side with none from Bangladesh side that was both surprising and unusual.
The bland outcome of the meeting was reflected in the fact that the news of the meeting failed to get coverage as a major news item in the Bangladesh media the following day belying the media hype over it leading to the meeting. The Bangladesh Foreign Secretary who briefed the media after the meeting said Narendra Modi informed Sheikh Hasina about his government’s seriousness about the Teesta and LBA deals and “searching for ways to resolve the deals”. According to him, Sheikh Hasina raised the BCIM-EC corridor and removal of problems related to regional connectivity to which Narendra Modi responded positively. The Foreign Secretary repeated the spin that the Foreign Minister had given upon his return from New Delhi; that Narendra Modi had told him that Bangabandhu founded Bangladesh and his daughter saved the country.
This important part of the Foreign Secretary’s briefing however did not figure in the briefing of the Indian MEA spokesman on the meeting. The Spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said that Narendra Modi informed Sheikh Hasina that the bill for ratification of the LBA is with the parliamentary standing committee where it is under process. He added that since new members have been included in the parliamentary committee, they would need time to examine the bill. The Spokesman said that on the Teesta deal, Narendra Modi told Sheikh Hasina that water is a sensitive issue and that Teesta deal is moving towards a resolution taking the sensitivity into account. Narendra Modi added that water is flowing to Bangladesh on the Teesta even without the deal. The Indian Spokesman emphasised that Narendra Modi assured Sheikh Hasina about India’s goodwill for Bangladesh.
The briefings by the two sides and other reports that have come in the media left both the ruling Awami League and the BNP unsure whether to be happy or unhappy with the meeting’s outcome. The Awami Leaguers and their supporters were expecting that Narendra Modi would use the meeting to send the message that his government would stand behind the AL led government, if not exactly the way the Congress had, to a large extent that way. That did not come out of the meeting. The BNP had expected Narendra Modi would raise issues, particularly on Bangladesh’s overtures towards China, that would give the impression that his government would move away in a major manner from supporting the AL led government compared to the Congress Government.
Nevertheless, the BNP has felt happy that Narendra Modi mentioned about continuing relations with Bangladesh instead of mentioning the AL led government. It has also taken heart from the fact that the media speculations that Narendra Modi would offer all out cooperation to the Hasina Government to protect it from the alleged ISI-Jamat plot has turned out to be just a media hype. The AL can feel happy that Narendra Modi did not raise any issue that would have hinted that it is unhappy with anything that the Hasina Government is doing for instance its overtures towards China that media has speculated has made New Delhi uncomfortable. It can feel confident that the Indian Government under Narendra Modi would not change course in the way the Congress Government had conducted bilateral relations.
The take of the two parties apart, the Sheikh Hasina-Narendra Modi meeting had very little for the people of Bangladesh. Narendra Modi did not acknowledge the fact the Teesta and LBA are negotiated deals for which Bangladesh has given India what it needed most from Bangladesh, a guarantee of its security concerns. As a part of that security commitment, the AL led government handed to Indian security top ULFA terrorists immediately after coming to power in January 2008 that have helped India break the backbone of the dangerous ULFA secessionist movement. Bangladesh also gave India land transit on trial basis that allowed Tripura to build the 700 MW gas fired Palatana Power station. Narendra Modi showed no regret for India’s failure on the commitments and instead merely reiterated his government’s intentions to deliver the deals without any time frame. In fact, reading between the lines of the MEA Spokesman’s briefing, both deals are now uncertain.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister did not flag for her counterpart that in the last two years of the Congress Government, New Delhi had many times conveyed to the Bangladesh Government that the deals would be delivered “soon” or round the corner. Therefore she should have informed that the Indian Prime Minister that if the two deals are not delivered without any further delay, it would affect the forward movement of Bangladesh-India relations. Unfortunately such is the present importance of New Delhi in Bangladesh unbelievably partisan politics that the AL led government is afraid to press New Delhi for what it owes Bangladesh lest it upsets it. The opposition is also afraid to point this out lest it ends annoying India.
Thus India is in no hurry and also under no pressure in conducting its relations with Bangladesh. Nevertheless, when India failed to deliver the two deals in September 2011 during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka, the international media had called that failure a betrayal.
Therefore India should deliver the deals for its own good name and Narendra Modi more so because of his already stated foreign policy priority of developing friendly relations with SAARC countries. Narendra Modi-Sheikh Hasina meeting in New York has not set any new directions in bilateral relations. It has also not answered whether the BJP Government would discontinue the blatant Indian interference in Bangladesh in favour of one major party against the other. So far the expectations of the people of Bangladesh are concerned, the meeting has been a setback.
The writer is a retired career diplomat. The views expressed above are his
very own and not necessarily shared
by this paper.
His email id is :
ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Saturday, 04 October 2014
Author /
Source: M. Serajul Islam
The meeting between Sheikh Hasina and Narendra Modi on
the sidelines of the 69th UNGA in New York was an anti-climax in the backdrop
of the hype that was created in the Bangladesh media over it. Foreign Minister
AH Mahmood Ali’s briefing to the media following his official visit to New
Delhi early in September and meeting with Narendra Modi was one of the main
reasons for the media hype in Bangladesh over the Sheikh Hasina-Narendra Modi
meeting.
One line in this media hype was that the Indian Prime
Minister would assure Sheikh Hasina that India and China are on the same page
regarding support for Bangladesh. The media in Bangladesh also took a story
floated in the Indian media that RAW had unearthed a Jamat-ISI plan to
assassinate Sheikh Hasina and that Narendra Modi would bring Sheikh Hasina
up-to-date on the plan to assure her and her government of New Delhi’s full
support against the plot. The media further speculated that Narendra Modi would
also bring Washington on board against the plot to encourage the United States
to support the AL Government for sake of saving secularism and fighting Islamic
fundamentalism in Bangladesh.
The media hype ended on an anti-climactic note with a meeting that lasted for only 15 minutes. The meeting was thus not long enough for the Indian Prime Minister to discuss the issues upon which the media had speculated leading to the meeting. The short duration planned for the meeting no doubt hinted clearly that the Indians did not have in mind any intention to discuss serious issues in Bangladesh-India relations, speculations in the Bangladesh media notwithstanding. The issue of duration apart, the note taker for the meeting was an official from the Indian side with none from Bangladesh side that was both surprising and unusual.
The bland outcome of the meeting was reflected in the fact that the news of the meeting failed to get coverage as a major news item in the Bangladesh media the following day belying the media hype over it leading to the meeting. The Bangladesh Foreign Secretary who briefed the media after the meeting said Narendra Modi informed Sheikh Hasina about his government’s seriousness about the Teesta and LBA deals and “searching for ways to resolve the deals”. According to him, Sheikh Hasina raised the BCIM-EC corridor and removal of problems related to regional connectivity to which Narendra Modi responded positively. The Foreign Secretary repeated the spin that the Foreign Minister had given upon his return from New Delhi; that Narendra Modi had told him that Bangabandhu founded Bangladesh and his daughter saved the country.
This important part of the Foreign Secretary’s briefing however did not figure in the briefing of the Indian MEA spokesman on the meeting. The Spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said that Narendra Modi informed Sheikh Hasina that the bill for ratification of the LBA is with the parliamentary standing committee where it is under process. He added that since new members have been included in the parliamentary committee, they would need time to examine the bill. The Spokesman said that on the Teesta deal, Narendra Modi told Sheikh Hasina that water is a sensitive issue and that Teesta deal is moving towards a resolution taking the sensitivity into account. Narendra Modi added that water is flowing to Bangladesh on the Teesta even without the deal. The Indian Spokesman emphasised that Narendra Modi assured Sheikh Hasina about India’s goodwill for Bangladesh.
The briefings by the two sides and other reports that have come in the media left both the ruling Awami League and the BNP unsure whether to be happy or unhappy with the meeting’s outcome. The Awami Leaguers and their supporters were expecting that Narendra Modi would use the meeting to send the message that his government would stand behind the AL led government, if not exactly the way the Congress had, to a large extent that way. That did not come out of the meeting. The BNP had expected Narendra Modi would raise issues, particularly on Bangladesh’s overtures towards China, that would give the impression that his government would move away in a major manner from supporting the AL led government compared to the Congress Government.
Nevertheless, the BNP has felt happy that Narendra Modi mentioned about continuing relations with Bangladesh instead of mentioning the AL led government. It has also taken heart from the fact that the media speculations that Narendra Modi would offer all out cooperation to the Hasina Government to protect it from the alleged ISI-Jamat plot has turned out to be just a media hype. The AL can feel happy that Narendra Modi did not raise any issue that would have hinted that it is unhappy with anything that the Hasina Government is doing for instance its overtures towards China that media has speculated has made New Delhi uncomfortable. It can feel confident that the Indian Government under Narendra Modi would not change course in the way the Congress Government had conducted bilateral relations.
The take of the two parties apart, the Sheikh Hasina-Narendra Modi meeting had very little for the people of Bangladesh. Narendra Modi did not acknowledge the fact the Teesta and LBA are negotiated deals for which Bangladesh has given India what it needed most from Bangladesh, a guarantee of its security concerns. As a part of that security commitment, the AL led government handed to Indian security top ULFA terrorists immediately after coming to power in January 2008 that have helped India break the backbone of the dangerous ULFA secessionist movement. Bangladesh also gave India land transit on trial basis that allowed Tripura to build the 700 MW gas fired Palatana Power station. Narendra Modi showed no regret for India’s failure on the commitments and instead merely reiterated his government’s intentions to deliver the deals without any time frame. In fact, reading between the lines of the MEA Spokesman’s briefing, both deals are now uncertain.
The Bangladesh Prime Minister did not flag for her counterpart that in the last two years of the Congress Government, New Delhi had many times conveyed to the Bangladesh Government that the deals would be delivered “soon” or round the corner. Therefore she should have informed that the Indian Prime Minister that if the two deals are not delivered without any further delay, it would affect the forward movement of Bangladesh-India relations. Unfortunately such is the present importance of New Delhi in Bangladesh unbelievably partisan politics that the AL led government is afraid to press New Delhi for what it owes Bangladesh lest it upsets it. The opposition is also afraid to point this out lest it ends annoying India.
Thus India is in no hurry and also under no pressure in conducting its relations with Bangladesh. Nevertheless, when India failed to deliver the two deals in September 2011 during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Dhaka, the international media had called that failure a betrayal.
Therefore India should deliver the deals for its own good name and Narendra Modi more so because of his already stated foreign policy priority of developing friendly relations with SAARC countries. Narendra Modi-Sheikh Hasina meeting in New York has not set any new directions in bilateral relations. It has also not answered whether the BJP Government would discontinue the blatant Indian interference in Bangladesh in favour of one major party against the other. So far the expectations of the people of Bangladesh are concerned, the meeting has been a setback.
The writer is a retired career diplomat. The views expressed above are his
very own and not necessarily shared
by this paper.
His email id is :
ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Sunday, September 28, 2014
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Posted : 28 Sep, 2014 00:00:00
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AA-A+
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Indo-Bangla relations - an analysis
M. Serajul Islam
The Awami League (AL)-led government is in a spin mode with a flurry of foreign affairs initiatives. The Prime Minister took two major visits to Japan and China and then the Japanese Prime Minister came to Dhaka.
In this spin mode, the country that should have figured on top of the list for many reasons, namely India, has not been in the picture in a major way. It was India that had encouraged the AL-led government to go ahead and hold the January 05 elections without the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and 32 others of the country's 45 registered political parties that returned it to power. When 154 members of parliament (MPs) were elected without a vote and less than 10 per cent voters elected the rest, India had stood behind the AL-led government to try and give the elections legitimacy where many countries and international organisations had stated the elections were not democratic and the country would need fresh elections. Yet, since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Narendra Modi took power in May, the two countries have exchanged visits at only the foreign ministerial level. Meanwhile, Narendra Modi has visited Bhutan and Nepal. He met the Pakistan Prime Minister and the Sri Lankan President in his inauguration ceremony that Sheikh Hasina did not attend as she was then on a visit to Japan.
Thus it was in New York on the sidelines of the 48th UN General Assembly session that Sheikh Haisna met the Indian Prime Minister Modi for the first time. To recall, Sheikh Hasina began her official foreign visits with a visit to New Delhi upon assuming power in January 2009. India had then honoured that visit by upgrading it from an official one, in supersession of protocol, to a state visit, reserved exclusively for a head of state and not a head of government. Since the BJP took office, the developments in Bangladesh-India relations, therefore, do not show the warmth that had existed in these relations under the Congress-led government in India.
Before he left for his New Delhi visit, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali had stated in the media that he would in his discussions with Indian leaders seek assurances that Bangladesh would not be subjected to any attacks from across the border intended for a regime change. He was no doubt spinning on a newspaper report that the Indian intelligence RAW had unearthed an ISI-inspired Jamaat-led move was underway to destabilize the AL government.
The two issues on which Bangladesh should not just have demanded New Delhi for immediate action, namely the highly overdue Teesta and the LBA (Land Boundary Agreement) deals, figured passively in the Bangladesh Foreign Minister's discussions in New Delhi. He came back with Indian commitment to deliver both the deals, commitments that New Delhi has reiterated many times in the past without any forward movement. The Indians did not give him any time-frame and he did not also demand one. In fact, in both the Indian Foreign Minister's visit to Dhaka and her counterpart's visit to New Delhi, no new grounds were covered. And the million-dollar question whether New Delhi under Narendra Modi would give the AL-led government the same support as under the Congress still remains unanswered keeping not just the AL government tense but also everyone else in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, the AL-led government's foreign policy initiatives since the January 05 elections undertaken primarily to remove the uncertainty arising out of the controversial January 05 elections and the departure of the Congress government in New Delhi have instead added to the uncertainty. One major initiative was Sheikh Hasina's visit to China that was very successful in the context of bilateral relations. However, it was not for strengthening bilateral relations that she undertook the visit. Its real intention was "to woo China to snub the West" that has refused to withdraw its reservation on the January 05 elections and give the AL-government legitimacy. In trying to achieve that objective, the visit has achieved results that have caused concerns in New Delhi and also in Washington and Tokyo.
The China visit has further strengthened Bangladesh's defence cooperation with Beijing. It is now in the process of acquiring two submarines from Beijing that New Delhi fear will allow China to move into the Bay of Bengal. To these, the BCIM-EC and the Sonadia deep seaport initiatives discussed during the visit would also, if realized, allow China a strong foothold in an extremely important geopolitical location too close to the fragile Indian northeast where a number of secessionist movements are still active for India's comfort. To these strategic issues, the visit would also strengthen the already strong trade relations where India, despite its strong support for Bangladesh and proximity, finds its trade figure with Bangladesh half of China's. Last year, Bangladesh-China trade was worth US$ 10 billion and Bangladesh-India half of that, both weighed heavily against Bangladesh.
To these outcomes/realities, Sheikh Hasina's pledge during that visit to be an 'active partner' in a 'China-led' century has added further to New Delhi's uneasiness. It appears that the new developments in Bangladesh-China relations would cause anxieties in New Delhi was not anticipated by the Bangladesh foreign policy managers in the flurry of foreign policy initiatives taken by them since the January 05 elections to gain legitimacy and to attack the West. Therefore, with the active support of those in Indian intelligence who had planned the Bangladesh policy under the Congress government, it is now using the story floated about Jamaat-led ISI-backed story to destabilize the AL-led government to bring New Delhi under the BJP on the same page as the Congress government on Bangladesh.
When the story to destabilize the AL-led government first hit the media, it was the US that had been named as the brain behind the plot, a story that the US Embassy in Dhaka had trashed. The story has now re-emerged where the name of the US has been replaced by ISI-Jamaat. In the rehashed story, it is now being said that Narendra Modi would bring Sheikh Hasina up to date on the plot. He would also offer Sheikh Hasina the same support as the Congress government to fight Islamic fundamentalism and save secularism. As if Narendra Modi supporting AL-led government for sake of secularism is not incredible enough, the rehashed story is also suggesting that Narendra Modi would ask the US government to do the same when he meets President Obama in Washington.
The twisted/rehashed original conspiracy theory has too many loopholes for serious consideration. It is again bringing into play the Jamaat/Islamic fundamentalist phobia for public consumption that has outlived its usefulness and acceptability.
This new story has been developed in denial of the new realities, particularly those related to Bangladesh's overtures to China and Indian sensitivity. During the last term, when Sheikh Hasina was in Beijing and ready to sign a number of deals, her team had kept New Delhi informed on these deals so that there would not be any misapprehensions in New Delhi. Added to this, the twisted conspiracy theory involving ISI-Jamaat has also been developed in denial of Narendra Modi's need to make the US happy for his and India's interests and US-Japan interests in Bangladesh where all three - India, the USA and Japan - are on the same page where China is the common enemy.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador. His email id is ambserajulislam@gmail.com
Purchase
of Chinese submarines and its implications
 |
M. Serajul Islam
|
The Prime Minister’s
International Affairs Adviser Dr. Gauhar Rizvi said recently in a seminar that
the Chinese CDA in Dhaka also attended and addressed that China and India are
on the same page as far as Bangladesh is concerned. He used the developing
initiative of Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC) to
emphasize his view. The Chinese CDA expressed that his country hoped that the
four countries would be able to sign a framework agreement for BCIM by the end
of the year or early next year.
The seminar was organized by the Centre for East Asia Foundation, a Dhaka think tank, that also addressed in addition to the BCIM-EC, the Maritime Silk Route. The Seminar was also attended and addressed by the Myanmar Ambassador. However, from newspaper reports, it was not clear whether the fourth country in the BCIM-EC initiative, namely India, was present in the Seminar. If India was absent in the Seminar, than the optimism of the Prime Minister’s Adviser could be misplaced. This matter notwithstanding, the Adviser’s optimism could also be misplaced for other important reasons as well.
China has suddenly found rich pastures in Bangladesh for its economic/strategic interests at a time when it is India that has invested much more time, energy and even a US 1 billion soft loan to befriend Bangladesh for furthering its own strategic and economic interests. India had been the most trusted friend of the AL government in its 2009-2013 tenure. It was primarily India’s backing that allowed the Awami League Government to hold the controversial January 5 election and return to power. Nevertheless, China that had opposed the country’s liberation war has been a substantially bigger beneficiary in trading with Bangladesh than India. Bangladesh-China trade last year was US$ 10.3 billion as against US$ 5 in Bangladesh-India bilateral trade, both heavily weighed against Bangladesh.
In this new term, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has undertaken a well-publicized visit to China after an equally well-publicized visit to Japan. In the last term, her first overseas visit was zealously guarded for India. On her trip to China in early June, she moved Bangladesh deeper into the Chinese lap by promising to buy more arms. A number of economic cooperation agreements were also signed; including one related to the major infrastructure project, the Padma Bridge. The proposal for the proposed deep seaport in Sonadia was also discussed. That proposal has already attracted significant attention in New Delhi as part of China’s desire to rope Bangladesh in an anti-India “string of pearl” plan, a pearl of deep-seaports built by China extending from Pakistan through Sri Lanka to Bangladesh. The concept has caused considerable concern in New Delhi together with Bangladesh’s over-enthusiasm to become an “active partner” in a “China led” century.
Bangladesh-China overtures have taken another new dimension from New Delhi’s perspective with the recent news that Bangladesh is going to purchase two submarines from China worth US$ 203 million dollars and the deal is awaiting clearance at the Bangladesh Finance Ministry. Reports have also stated that the Government has purchased land in the island of Kutubdia for building a submarine base. A senior Indian naval officer has stated that the decision of Bangladesh to acquire offensive naval armament together with “the on-going strife in the country is a matter of concern” for New Delhi. He also stated that “ Chinese submarines are sneaking into Indian territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal region” and that the Indian navy is not prepared for any conflict due to inadequate infrastructure.
The submarine purchase therefore does not hint that New Delhi, Beijing and Dhaka are on same page as the Prime Minister’s Adviser has stated with conviction. In fact, BCIM-EC and the proposed Sonadia seaport where China will help build and finance it if it goes ahead, have enough potential to take India away from the same page where Bangladesh and China undoubtedly are at the moment. The proposed submarine purchase is going to take India further from that page with the AL led government trying hard to “woo China to snub the West.” China is of course only too glad to be doing great business in Bangladesh where the AL led government, in its eagerness to strike the West, has wittingly or otherwise allowed China concessions that are of great strategic value to it as well as economic.
The AL Government has thus been too warm in its relations with China after the January 5 elections for New Delhi’s comfort. Therefore, if India was absent in the seminar on BCIM-EC in Dhaka, it must have been to flag that concern. In fact, ever since the BCIM-EC initiative has been discussed publicly, New Delhi has not matched the enthusiasm of Dhaka and Beijing over it. The reasons for such lack of enthusiasm are many but the most important one is that the situation in India’s northeast is still fragile. There are a number of active secessionist movements going on there where the Chinese had fiddled in the past with Bangladesh by its side. In fact, even in the latest discussions between the Bangladesh Border Guards and the Indian BSF, the Indians have expressed concern over sanctuaries of Indian secessionists in Bangladesh.
Further, If BCIM-EC corridor and the Sonadia deep seaport eventually emerge as successful endeavours, it will give China dominant presence in a strategic geopolitical location “ which overlooks the strategically important sea lanes of the Indian Ocean linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, thus playing a role in securing energy supplies for Beijing”. Therefore there is no reason to believe that India would feel comfortable with China gaining such a dominant position in the Bay of Bengal, courtesy Bangladesh. In fact, such a prospect would also sound alarm bells in Washington and Tokyo as well.
There is also the new phase of Washington-New Delhi relations that is emerging. Narendra Modi would need the United States for India’s presence in the international scene much more than the Congress led Indian government. The two countries are getting closer and Narendra Modi and Barak Obama are scheduled to meet in Washington next week. The new phase of Washington-New Delhi relations is expected to bring back the strategic partnership between the two countries that was announced in 2011 by President Obama but had subsequently gone into the cold storage as relations soured between the two countries over many issues of which Bangladesh was one. That Washington-New Delhi strategic relation had the intention to contain China in South, Southeast Asia and Pacific at the core.
To add to the above, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Dhaka early this month. It was an unusual visit because there has never been a return visit between the two countries at the level of the Prime Minister and that too so soon after Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Tokyo. Shinzo Abe came to Dhaka after Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China. In Dhaka, Shinzo Abe’s main interest was Japan’s Bay of Bengal initiative where China is no part, an initiative that is still being developed. Japan has committed nearly US$ 6 billion in aid over the next 5 years. Shinzo Abe therefore came to Dhaka to ensure that Bangladesh to think twice over the Sonadia deep seaport project and taper its enthusiasm on the BCIM-EC as both projects would give China, its arch rival, a strong foothold in a key strategic area and accept its Bay of Bengal initiative as the better alternative.
Therefore, there is little reason for India to be on the same page with China on Bangladesh where China is currently ruling the roost with India watching apprehensively. In fact, there are many reasons to the contrary. It appears that Bangladesh has entered into a foreign affairs quagmire from where it would require diplomatic skills of the rare kind to get China and India interested in the same book, let alone the same page on Bangladesh.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador. His email id ambserajulislam@gmail.com
The seminar was organized by the Centre for East Asia Foundation, a Dhaka think tank, that also addressed in addition to the BCIM-EC, the Maritime Silk Route. The Seminar was also attended and addressed by the Myanmar Ambassador. However, from newspaper reports, it was not clear whether the fourth country in the BCIM-EC initiative, namely India, was present in the Seminar. If India was absent in the Seminar, than the optimism of the Prime Minister’s Adviser could be misplaced. This matter notwithstanding, the Adviser’s optimism could also be misplaced for other important reasons as well.
China has suddenly found rich pastures in Bangladesh for its economic/strategic interests at a time when it is India that has invested much more time, energy and even a US 1 billion soft loan to befriend Bangladesh for furthering its own strategic and economic interests. India had been the most trusted friend of the AL government in its 2009-2013 tenure. It was primarily India’s backing that allowed the Awami League Government to hold the controversial January 5 election and return to power. Nevertheless, China that had opposed the country’s liberation war has been a substantially bigger beneficiary in trading with Bangladesh than India. Bangladesh-China trade last year was US$ 10.3 billion as against US$ 5 in Bangladesh-India bilateral trade, both heavily weighed against Bangladesh.
In this new term, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has undertaken a well-publicized visit to China after an equally well-publicized visit to Japan. In the last term, her first overseas visit was zealously guarded for India. On her trip to China in early June, she moved Bangladesh deeper into the Chinese lap by promising to buy more arms. A number of economic cooperation agreements were also signed; including one related to the major infrastructure project, the Padma Bridge. The proposal for the proposed deep seaport in Sonadia was also discussed. That proposal has already attracted significant attention in New Delhi as part of China’s desire to rope Bangladesh in an anti-India “string of pearl” plan, a pearl of deep-seaports built by China extending from Pakistan through Sri Lanka to Bangladesh. The concept has caused considerable concern in New Delhi together with Bangladesh’s over-enthusiasm to become an “active partner” in a “China led” century.
Bangladesh-China overtures have taken another new dimension from New Delhi’s perspective with the recent news that Bangladesh is going to purchase two submarines from China worth US$ 203 million dollars and the deal is awaiting clearance at the Bangladesh Finance Ministry. Reports have also stated that the Government has purchased land in the island of Kutubdia for building a submarine base. A senior Indian naval officer has stated that the decision of Bangladesh to acquire offensive naval armament together with “the on-going strife in the country is a matter of concern” for New Delhi. He also stated that “ Chinese submarines are sneaking into Indian territorial waters in the Bay of Bengal region” and that the Indian navy is not prepared for any conflict due to inadequate infrastructure.
The submarine purchase therefore does not hint that New Delhi, Beijing and Dhaka are on same page as the Prime Minister’s Adviser has stated with conviction. In fact, BCIM-EC and the proposed Sonadia seaport where China will help build and finance it if it goes ahead, have enough potential to take India away from the same page where Bangladesh and China undoubtedly are at the moment. The proposed submarine purchase is going to take India further from that page with the AL led government trying hard to “woo China to snub the West.” China is of course only too glad to be doing great business in Bangladesh where the AL led government, in its eagerness to strike the West, has wittingly or otherwise allowed China concessions that are of great strategic value to it as well as economic.
The AL Government has thus been too warm in its relations with China after the January 5 elections for New Delhi’s comfort. Therefore, if India was absent in the seminar on BCIM-EC in Dhaka, it must have been to flag that concern. In fact, ever since the BCIM-EC initiative has been discussed publicly, New Delhi has not matched the enthusiasm of Dhaka and Beijing over it. The reasons for such lack of enthusiasm are many but the most important one is that the situation in India’s northeast is still fragile. There are a number of active secessionist movements going on there where the Chinese had fiddled in the past with Bangladesh by its side. In fact, even in the latest discussions between the Bangladesh Border Guards and the Indian BSF, the Indians have expressed concern over sanctuaries of Indian secessionists in Bangladesh.
Further, If BCIM-EC corridor and the Sonadia deep seaport eventually emerge as successful endeavours, it will give China dominant presence in a strategic geopolitical location “ which overlooks the strategically important sea lanes of the Indian Ocean linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, thus playing a role in securing energy supplies for Beijing”. Therefore there is no reason to believe that India would feel comfortable with China gaining such a dominant position in the Bay of Bengal, courtesy Bangladesh. In fact, such a prospect would also sound alarm bells in Washington and Tokyo as well.
There is also the new phase of Washington-New Delhi relations that is emerging. Narendra Modi would need the United States for India’s presence in the international scene much more than the Congress led Indian government. The two countries are getting closer and Narendra Modi and Barak Obama are scheduled to meet in Washington next week. The new phase of Washington-New Delhi relations is expected to bring back the strategic partnership between the two countries that was announced in 2011 by President Obama but had subsequently gone into the cold storage as relations soured between the two countries over many issues of which Bangladesh was one. That Washington-New Delhi strategic relation had the intention to contain China in South, Southeast Asia and Pacific at the core.
To add to the above, the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Dhaka early this month. It was an unusual visit because there has never been a return visit between the two countries at the level of the Prime Minister and that too so soon after Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Tokyo. Shinzo Abe came to Dhaka after Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China. In Dhaka, Shinzo Abe’s main interest was Japan’s Bay of Bengal initiative where China is no part, an initiative that is still being developed. Japan has committed nearly US$ 6 billion in aid over the next 5 years. Shinzo Abe therefore came to Dhaka to ensure that Bangladesh to think twice over the Sonadia deep seaport project and taper its enthusiasm on the BCIM-EC as both projects would give China, its arch rival, a strong foothold in a key strategic area and accept its Bay of Bengal initiative as the better alternative.
Therefore, there is little reason for India to be on the same page with China on Bangladesh where China is currently ruling the roost with India watching apprehensively. In fact, there are many reasons to the contrary. It appears that Bangladesh has entered into a foreign affairs quagmire from where it would require diplomatic skills of the rare kind to get China and India interested in the same book, let alone the same page on Bangladesh.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador. His email id ambserajulislam@gmail.com
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Saturday, 27 September 2014
Author / Source: M. Serajul Islam
Imran H Sarkar can very well be the hero in Robert
Browning’s immortal poem, “ The Patriot”. Little more than a year ago, he was
the hero who had held even the president, the prime minister, the ministers and
the rest of Bangladesh in awe, all waiting to hear what he had to say and all
eager to oblige his wishes and desires. He had the power to mesmerize the
parliament to adopt new laws when the old ones were unable to hang the one he
and his followers wanted to go to the gallows.
He was allowed
to hold traffic from moving through one of Dhaka’s major intersection where two
major hospitals are located so that he and his comrades could hold their public
meetings. Incredible as it may now seem, he was the government and the elected
one was just too anxious and pleased to play second fiddle to what he and his
comrades desired. The country’s intellectuals, identifying themselves as the
secular forces, announced to the nation that Sarkar and his comrades were the
mythical phoenix that had risen from the ashes to lead Bangladesh to a new
level where the spirit of 1971 in its pristine glory would prevail.
That was a
lofty goal but these intellectuals were not daunted and on the nation’s behalf,
placed upon his and his comrades the task of rebuilding a new Bangladesh.
The media was aggressive in support of the Gonojagoron
Mancha (GM). A few private TV channels laid camp at Shahabag and covered live
the rise of the phoenix. They spread the news that it was a nation’s duty to
pay homage to the heroes of Shahabag and declared that those who did not do the
pilgrimage were the anti liberation forces! It was arithmetic pure and simple
and for days, a dazed nation watched the rise of phoenix, many convinced that a
second liberation had started in Bangladesh. The frenzy was unbelievable. No one questioned or was allowed to question about the
identities of the youth and their objectives.
No one questioned or was allowed to question why the GM who were angered by a decision of the ICT that allowed a war criminal to escape the gallows were not expressing their anger at the ICT that failed them and the AL led government that built up hopes through its ministers and political leaders that the alleged war criminals would be hanged.
The media went into denial over the presence of well-known AL cultural activists round the clock in the Mancha who were old enough to be fathers and grand fathers of the Shahabag activists. That media’s state of denial allowed these pro AL cultural activists to turn a potentially anti-government movement into pro-government and anti BNP/Jamat one. The media was in denial even when the link between the AL led government and the GM was palpably evident.
The media, instead of exposing this palpable link,
kept on harping that the GM would rise as the proverbial Phoenix from the ashes
and dared the doubters to the contrary as anti-liberation forces. When Islam
entered into the equation, the outpouring of support for the GM fell
substantially. The government, aware that the GM was of immense value to its
politics to contain the BNP/Jamat demand for elections under the caretaker
government, however did not allow the GM to fall apart.
It came behind the GM’s demand to hang Qader Mollah directly, giving Imran H Sarkar and his comrades VVIP hospitality to keep the GM alive. The GM with the media in tandem created the hype in which the government hanged Qader Mollah. The hype was surreal but it helped create the necessary political conditions the government needed in its strategy to hold the January 5 elections the way it did and returned to power. The GM’s role in the AL’s return has been a major one by any estimation.
The GM nevertheless had touched a large number of the
people where it mattered most, their pride in the war of liberation and the
need to punish those who collaborated with the Pakistani army in its genocide.
Thus, they were sad and disappointed to see that the ruling party losing its
interest in the trials of the war criminals with the conviction it had before
the elections. It was even worse for them to see the government distancing
itself from the GM. In fact, when the Mancha expressed its disappointment with
the snail’s pace in the trials, it received stern warnings from the
government.
In frustration, Imran H Sarkar and his associates
blamed the ruling party of a deal with Jamat. In turn, the ruling blamed Imran
H Sarkar and his associates of accepting money from Jamat and misappropriating
huge sums from funds raised by the GM. The ruling party used its power to split
the GM into 3 factions pushing Imran H Sarkar faction to oppose it. Thus when
the Supreme Court commuted Jamat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee’s death sentence
into life imprisonment without parole; only the Imran H Sarker faction opposed
the verdict. The GM that had brought hundreds of thousands of people to the
Mancha over the ICT’s failure to hang Qader Mollah succeeded in bringing only a
few hundred to Shahabag to protest the reprieve given to Delwar Hossain
Sayedee.
The pro-government faction also descended on Shahabag
with fewer supporters with even a smaller third faction whose intentions were
not clear also descending upon Shahabag. The police that had assisted the
Mancha before the January 5 elections in every conceivable way like the Mancha
employed them beat and chased the Imran H Sarkar faction from rallying at
Shahabag.
The turnabout in the fate of the mainstream GM led by
Imran H Sarkar has literally been a 180 turn about. What made the turnabout
ironic is the fact that the ruling party and the self-acclaimed pro-liberation
and secular forces that had backed the GM absolutely to pressure and force the
government/parliament to change the laws to hang Qader Mollah did nothing when
the mainstream GM led by Imran H Sarker went to Shahabag to protest the
reprieve given to Delwar Hossain Sayedee.
Compared to Qader Mollah, Delwar
Sayedee is a more serious alleged war criminal but the Supreme Court turned
aside the ICT verdict to hang him.
Therefore, the forces that supported the protest in the QM case, in particular the self-acclaimed secular/pro-liberation war forces, should have come more strongly behind the protest of Imran H Sarkar led GM against Sayedee’s reprieve. They did not and watched silently as the police beat and attempted to force it out of Shahabag.
Therefore, the forces that supported the protest in the QM case, in particular the self-acclaimed secular/pro-liberation war forces, should have come more strongly behind the protest of Imran H Sarkar led GM against Sayedee’s reprieve. They did not and watched silently as the police beat and attempted to force it out of Shahabag.
Rashed Khan Menon hit bull’s eye in exposing the
reason behind this irony. He said that the GM has outlived its usefulness and
hence there was no reason for it to continue. In retrospect, politics has in
fact been the main reason for the emergence of GM and its popularity. It served
the ruling party’s objective to deal with the BNP/Jamat’s movement for
elections under the caretaker government. The people were taken for a ride with
emotional issues such as pro-liberation and spirit of 1971 issues. And now, a
widely held public perception is that the ruling party is negotiating with
Jamat to bring it out of its alliance with BNP, weaken the latter and perhaps
go for a mid term elections and overcome its legitimacy issue that has been
dogging it since the January 5 elections.
Imran H Sarker’s days and those of his comrades as
heroes are certainly over like that of Robert Browning’s patriot. No one is
seriously blaming the ruling party for its treatment of the erstwhile heroes
because no one expected politics to be anything but the pursuit of gaining and
retaining political power by any means.
The GM is no longer of any value to the ruling party
in the power game.
Nevertheless, the nation expected the secular and
pro-liberation forces to stand by these patriots that has not been the case
that has exposed something sinister; that they too have been in league with the
ruling party in using, rather misusing, the Projonmo. The mythical Phoenix has
thus been defeated by politics and with it, also the nation’s dream that the
Projonmo would take Bangladesh to new
heights.
heights.
The writer is a retired career diplomat. His email id is : ambserajulislam@gmail.com
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