FM's New Delhi trip: Substance left for PM's visit

A major diplomatic event has just been completed. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni has just returned from her official visit to New Delhi visit (September 8-10). A Joint Statement (JS) issued after the talks indicated that these were held in a cordial and friendly atmosphere where both sides reiterated their desire to move the relations ahead. The FM held official talks with her counterpart, Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. SM Krishna. She paid a courtesy call upon the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who mentioned that India attached the highest importance to its relations with Bangladesh. He hoped that a new chapter of Bangladesh-India relations would be written with the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India soon. Dipu Moni also called on Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. Conspicuously left out was her proposed meeting with Sonia Gandhi according to information made available before her visit.

In the joint statements (JS), the two sides reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral relations. On specifics, the sharing of the Teesta waters was discussed. The Foreign Ministries of the two countries have been mandated to move negotiations forward on this issue. Bangladesh agreed to discuss making Ashuganj a port of call under Article 23 of the Inland Water Trade and Transit Agreement and agreed to let India use this port for a power plant in Tripura. India agreed to facilitate Bangladesh - Nepal and Bangladesh -Bhutan connectivity. Both sides agreed on containerized movement of cargo by train and trail. On other trade related matters, the two sides reviewed the existing situation and agreed to strengthen the existing institutional mechanisms to enhance trade. Bangladesh agreed to discuss use of Chittagong port by India. On power issues, India agreed to provide immediately 100 MW of electricity and to discuss the feasibility of power grid inter connectivity from India to Bangladesh. On border demarcation, both sides expressed intent to resolve unresolved issues. A couple of important decisions were made on border trade. On security, the two sides reiterated their earlier stand not to allow each other's territory to be used by terrorists and to strengthen cooperation on terrorism. The two sides agreed to conclude three agreements on mutual assistance on criminal matters; transfer of sentenced persons; and combating international terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking.

Bangladesh-India relations have been stagnating over the last seven years despite very compelling geopolitical historical relations for both the countries to be close friends. The victory of the Awami League with a massive mandate and the return of the Congress in India to power raised expectations that Bangladesh-India relations would move forward. Unfortunately, in the last eight months that the AL has been in office, relations have not moved anywhere. Instead, the Tipaimukh controversy has injected into the relations a new element of possible discord.

Many expected that traditional close relations between the Awami League and the Congress would be reflected during the Foreign Minister's visit. However, the JS does not reflect that optimism. On Tipaimukh, which is now hovering in the background as a dark cloud, the JS has simply mentioned that Bangladesh side welcomed the reassurance given by India that no steps will be taken to harm Bangladesh. It is true that the Indian Prime Minister had earlier assured Sheikh Hasina on Tipaimukh. That, however, has not set fears in Bangladesh at rest. The parliamentary delegation that visited India on the issue has also not fully rested Bangladesh's apprehensions. The JS will also not lessen people's fears and apprehensions for it does not suggest that Bangladesh's fears were fully conveyed to the Indian side.

On the water issues also the JS has given no cause for optimism. The concession given by Bangladesh to India for use of Ashjuganj port to facilitate building the Palatana power project in Tripura and assurance to allow India to use the same port as a port of call under the IWTTA is substantive concession/assurance. On trade issues where Bangladesh has very good reasons for feeling aggrieved, there is simply an expression of intent with no concrete concessions given. The JS' one positive aspect is India's agreement to facilitate Bangladesh-Nepal and Bangladesh-Bhutan connectivity that Bangladesh has more than reciprocated on the Chittagong port. India's offer for credit line in the railways sector is another positive inclusion in the Joint Declaration. The demarcation of the maritime boundary that is a major unresolved issue of tremendous importance to Bangladesh has been left out. India's requests on connectivity (transit) have also not been reflected in the JS.

There have been many visits in the past by Bangladesh Foreign Ministers to New Delhi. Those visits have failed to move relations forward. This time however, there could be a reason why the JS has not gone in depth on most substantive issues. Our Prime Minister would soon go to New Delhi for discussing our bilateral relations with her counterpart. Hence, the Indians must have left the substantive matters and in depth discussions for the summit level talks between the two countries.

The above notwithstanding, the Foreign Minister must have brought with her information and experience that could be immensely important for the forthcoming Summit talks between the two country that have not been reflected in the JS. These could now go to the preparation of the Summit talks. Going by past experience, Bangladesh-India relations cannot achieve a paradigm shift so long as it is left to bureaucrats and once in a while to the Foreign Ministers and only on very rare occasions to the highest level. It is time to reverse the pyramid to send a political signal from the top to the bureaucrats and ministers to improve relations. Neither side so far has shown this political will. The stakes are too high and too important to allow bureaucrats to spin a web around these relations and keep it stagnant. It is time to break that web for the future of hundreds of millions of people in the two countries.

India is the bigger neighbour. It has the more compelling reasons to hold out the hand of friendship. It needs to show the world that it is a responsible power by treating its neighbours fairly so that it in return wins the respect of the major powers to be in their company. It has great security concerns arising from internal terrorist threats. India's civil nuclear deal with US under which India will have many nuclear power installations in the future should add significantly to its security concerns. Bangladesh can be the soft underbelly in these security concerns for which it is in India's interest that it should see a stable Bangladesh. That will depend to a large extent on how India shares the waters of the common rivers and resolves the other outstanding bilateral issues.

For India, showing the political will can be easy and it is a matter of surprise that it has not done so thus far. Instead it has conducted relations with Bangladesh on the strictest principle of reciprocity where sometimes India has demanded more of Bangladesh than it has been willing to give. On trade, for example, India gave Bangladesh duty free access for 8 million garments but later imposed countervailing duty to protect domestic producers. Such examples are galore.

It may not be easy for Bangladesh to demonstrate political will because of the dynamics of domestic politics. Unlike India, where the political parties are united on foreign affairs, in Bangladesh the party in power and the opposition are not so and when it comes to relations with India, they oppose each other as fiercely as they do on domestic issues. Nevertheless, without unity on relations with India between the ruling party and the opposition, we will not be able to show the political will to motivate India to resolve the outstanding problems. As Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina must make great efforts to bring the people behind her so that she can negotiate with India on behalf of the nation and just not her party when she undertakes her New Delhi trip. Her massive majority should encourage her to unite the nation just as her father had done in 1971. Dipu Moni could have started the process by talking with the opposition before going to New Delhi. That would have enhanced her position much more than she could have imagined.

Published in The Daily Star, September 12, 2009

Whose footpath is it anyway?

A leading English daily that brings into public focus news and pictures of anomalies and sufferings about Dhaka city life has recently carried a picture where the footpath has been totally taken over by materials for private construction. The picture carried a question to Dhaka’s Mayor on who owns the footpath. A picture carried in The Independent recently showed cars parked at a “No Parking” zone, a very common sight on Dhaka’s overcrowded streets. When I moved to my apartment in Gulshan, I used to take pride in the fact that I could wake up in the morning seeing the sun rise without the hustle and bustle of cars and rickshaws that are the bane of residential life in most streets of Dhaka’s residential areas as the building east of my apartment was single storied.

I guess God Almighty must have disliked my silent pride and thought of teaching me a lesson. The owner of the single storied building decided to build a multi storied apartment on his plot. In the last three months, I have been waking up every morning to most horrendous noise machines can make and they continue late into the evening. There is no respite and the machines can be heard even on Fridays that should be a point that the labour organisations should note; that our workers do not have a weekly holiday or humane working hours! When I was returning home around mid-day on a Friday recently driving my car, I found workers from this site who have already taken over part of the road as theirs by dumping construction materials, straightening rods right in the centre of the road! I could not take that, got out of my car and asked the workers to take over the neighbourhood so we could pack and leave!

A few years ago, when I was Ambassador in Japan, a neighbour knocked at my door one morning. As I opened the door to meet him, he looked apologetic and made the traditional Japanese bow. He then explained that he would be re-constructing his house and that he had the legal permission to do so. I was curiously looking at him, trying to understand why then had he come to me. He set my curiosity to rest by explaining that as the construction would take a few months, he had come to personally seek my forgiveness for the discomfort that this would cause to me and my family!

The Japanese neighbour’s apology notwithstanding, there was no discomfort at all and had he not come to me, I would not even have known that there was a construction going on next door. In fact, during my stay in Japan, a multi-storied building was built on the same road on which I lived and that too was constructed with minimum dislocation or disadvantage to anyone. The reasons are worth noting because Tokyo is as congested a city as Dhaka and many of the city’s roads are narrower than in our city. Whenever there is a construction anywhere in the city, and there are just too many of these going on all the time, the builders are not allowed to use any part of city’s area for any purpose related to the construction. The builders are also required under the law to ensure that the neighbours are not subjected to any disadvantage because of their work. This they do by netting the area so that not even a small piece of construction material falls outside the construction site.
As for the horrendous noise of the machines that wakes me from sleep every day, only an uncivilised city can allow such machines to be used in any place where human beings live. To say that these machines cause noise pollution would be an understatement of huge proportion; the noise these machines make would wake up a person in a split second even if he is having a Rip Van Winkle type of sleep. The authorities who allow such machines inside city limits allow broad daylight murder!
Our city authorities allow such violations to take place as if these are in the fitness of things. The authorities would, I am sure raise their eyebrows if I would go to them and complain about the noises of the machines that wake me up every morning. The Mayor’s office I am sure must have just shrug aside with irritation the picture and the question on the footpath that appeared in the English daily. The traffic authorities who recently gave us their stunt they codenamed “operation clean street” must have simply looked at the picture in The Independent about parking where there is a “no parking” sign and must have said to themselves what is the big deal! On our part, we, as citizens, are the ones who are blocking footpaths with construction materials. We are the ones parking our cars illegally at “no parking” zones and making those horrendous noises by using machines that civilised people should not be using.

There is really nothing extraordinary in what the Japanese are doing in Tokyo. In fact, what they are doing is the only logical and legal thing to do; that they cannot make someone else suffer for their benefit. We can do the same in Dhaka only if we act as citizen should in any civilised city in the world. My neighbour next door who is making my morning sleep hell can very well use a muffler in his machines and stop making the horrendous noise. He can very well keep his construction materials inside his premise if he just wanted to do so. The same thing goes for the culprit who encroached on the footpath with building materials shown in the front page of the leading English daily with the caption for the Mayor. The driver who parked in the “no parking “zone is in clear violation of the law and the traffic police who was on duty at the time the picture was taken should be suspended for failure to do his duty. In fact, a major problem of Dhaka’s incorrigible traffic is caused by illegal parking in which many of us contribute like there is no law or law enforcer in our city!

Yet we are doing nothing. Those in charge to see these violations of the law are complacent about it that only encourages more and more people to commit these violations. The sad part about these violations that is gradually turning Dhaka into an unliveable city is the fact it would cost no one anything to do what the Japanese are doing in Tokyo. It is just a matter of mindset; that a citizen should not act in a manner that adversely affects the quality of life of a fellow citizen. Our citizens keep their construction materials on the footpath because they do not care how adversely it affects fellow citizens. If he cared, he could have easily kept the materials in the site where the construction is taking place. The same goes for the other violations as well; in fact for the many more that are committed every day about which we do nothing.

It will be futile to call the Mayor or any of the other authorities concerned for redress. When it comes to taking action, they all prefer to go into deep slumber. But this cannot go on for long because very soon, Dhaka’s sanity could break in the seams. It is time that we, the citizens, rise from our self-imposed amnesia towards Dhaka city life and take responsibility. If any of us is building a house, let him or her first ensure that the construction will not affect neighbours or if it does, let him/her minimise the effect instead of not caring at all as he/she does at present. Let us as citizens do the same in our other civic activities for these too will not cost us money. The only investment we would need to bring sanity into Dhaka life is a change in our mindset that we will not do anything as citizens for personal benefit that would harm fellow citizens.

Government rejects BGMEA "demand"

As we can see visible signs of the Hatirjheel project take shape, I cannot help feeling how much of an eyesore the BGMEA building located inside the project is becoming with every passing day. If the building stands when the project is eventually completed, it will literally be a pain in the neck of the project. Dhaka's environmentalists have been demanding restoration of the canals and wetlands that have been grabbed since 1971 that now submerges Dhaka every time there is a heavy downpour because the water's natural flow to the rivers around Dhaka have been taken away by private individuals and enterprises like the BGMEA.

It was therefore with some curiosity that I followed the press conference of the BGMEA President where he "demanded" Tk 300 crores from the government as incentive package to provide eid bonuses and wages to the workers in the RMG sector. He took the plea that the world economic meltdown has affected the RMG sector badly where more than 100 enterprises have closed down and a good part of the rest is suffering from lack of business. In the press conference, the BGMEA high officials were quite forceful about the points they made. They "demanded" that the government should pay the amount by September 7th failing which the consequences would fall upon the government. The BGMEA president did not leave much to imagination what could happen if the wages and bonuses were not paid to the workers.

The press conference of the BGMEA and what came out of it naturally has scared the daylight out from the RMG workers. They work their heart out for their employers and look forward to the Eid festivals as bright spots in their otherwise dismal lives. They therefore brought out a procession to protest the stand of the BGMEA and sought government assurance that their wages and eid bonuses would be paid on time. The Finance Minister later rejected the BGMEA "demand" as unacceptable. The Finance Minister was also critical that the BGMEA had sought compensation for power and gas crisis stating that "such a demand from them ahead of Eid is not a good sign."
The RMG sector has been the success story of Bangladesh's economic development. From a scratch, the sector now exports materials worth in excess of US 10 billion a year to the developed countries, including USA. In building up this sector, the private sector has led the thrust, very much on its own, and today, they compete with the leading exporters of RMG in the world market as a force to reckon with. A few years ago, when the US ended the quota for Bangladesh RMG exports, it was apprehended by many inside Bangladesh and abroad that the RMG sector would collapse. It did not happen; instead the sector became more competitive and expanded its exports to the USA and markets in Europe.

In recent times though, the RMG sector has seen subjected to turmoil in which many RMG factories have been razed to the ground. Various opinions have been expressed for such turmoil in the sector, including external hand to destroy it because of its success. These opinions apart, the RMG sector has, in recent times, suffered from labour discontent that has not been inspired by external agents. Even if the contention that the turmoil in the sector is inspired by external agents is true, it is equally true that the conditions in which the RMG workers are employed are fertile grounds for such turmoil even without external encouragement. The minimum wage that a RMG worker receives is Taka 1300. In discussions that have been conducted in talk shows on private TV channels on this issue, there has been significant resistance from RMG owners to enhance this minimum pay.

While the RMG workers toiled, the sector has gone from one level of success to another. Even at this juncture when there is a scare in business around the world, the RMG sector has not performed at all badly. The BGMEA President has stated that 40 per cent of 1500 garment factories would not be able to pay workers before Eid because of 15 to 20 per cent cut in first two months of exports this year. Against this, the Export Promotion Bureau has provided statistics that suggest to the contrary. In FY 2008-09 Bangladesh exported woven products worth $5.9 billion, which surpassed the export target, set by the sector, by 4.13 per cent and 14.54 per cent more compared with that for 2007-08. Bangladesh exported knitwear worth $6.4 billion in FY 2008-09, which fell, short of its target by 2.35 per cent, but compared with the preceding year, it was 16.21 per cent more. These figures thus belie the grim picture given by the BGMEA.

The Finance Minister was therefore quite right in rejecting the BGMEA demand as "unacceptable." There are of course a lot of other things unacceptable here. First, there is no doubt the BGMEA was trying to get a share of the Taka 500 crore incentive package the government has announced to counter recession hit sectors. Its health however is, going by the EPB statistics, too good to even consider this sector as a candidate for a share of the Taka 500 crore incentive package. Second, the manner in which the BGMEA put forth its "demand" was also audacious. It left the government literally days to meet tits demand and threatened to hold the government responsible for the consequences if the "demand" was not met and the workers went on a rampage. This was tantamount to an attempt to blackmail.

The rejection of the "demand "of the BGMEA by the government, nevertheless, leaves a very important national issue unresolved. There is still no assurance whether the workers would receive their legitimate benefits before the Eid. BGMEA's reaction to the Finance Minister’s rejection is still awaited. Meantime, a fundamental question must be asked of the BGMEA. Why it is that whenever they have a shortfall in their business orders from overseas, the poor workers are the first to be asked to bear the consequences and that too with what are their fundamental rights, namely their salary and their job security?

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was attending a seminar arranged for a project a business chamber is arranging abroad for packaging Bangladesh's business. The sponsors offered a package for the trip that included among other things, price of travel by air. A gentleman sitting next to me made a few comments on the package but did not forget to mention that in his case, as he would be travelling Business Class, he would pay the extra amount knowing the package offered by the sponsors included travel by economy class. The gentleman is a RMG exporter! I would be interested to know how much of personal sacrifices the RMG owners make in their life style when they move to take away even the basics from their workers when their business go down.

There is a moral issue here. We all know as I mentioned that the country owes a lot to the RMG sector for its success. They employ a large number of people of whom a significant number are women. They thus contribute to employment generation as well as women empowerment. They also do this by first making themselves very rich. The moral question is how much of this they share with those who make them rich. The Taka 1300 as minimum wage is more than a mere figure; they should reflect this amount against the price line in the market and then rest in peace if they can.
The RMG sector is vital to our economy and therefore the government must find a way out of the issue of wages and bonuses of the workers. Going by the EPB statistics, there is no doubt the majority of the 1500 units is capable of paying this bonus and must pay. An immediate statement on this should come out from the government to avoid the threat the BGMEA has cleverly apprehended. The government could consider some relief for the sick units as a temporary measure for paying the Eid bonuses because the BGMEA's threat has already created the favourable ground for disturbances that the external agents must have already noted. After the dust settles, the government has the responsibility of sitting down with the BGMEA and point out where the latter has gone off the rails in the "demand" it has made from the government. The Finance Minister must be credited for dealing with this "demand "of the BGMEA correctly but he must also know that BGMEA has placed him and the government on a spot. By standing on Hatirjheel, the BGMEA will not have many supporters eventually and by making the workers easy target for their alleged misfortune as they have done in this case, they will lose much more.

LDP loses by a landslide on agenda of change

As expected, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost the Japanese elections and as expected very badly. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 308 seats in a parliament's lower house of 480 seats and sent the LDP into the Opposition, ending its stranglehold on power since 1956, which they had briefly lost for eleventh months in 1993. The LDP won 119 seats against the 302 it had in the last parliament.

The figures of the DJP victory and LDP's defeats are dramatic, a “revolution” according to the DJP leader and the next Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. But analysts seeking answers to this turn of events in Japan's politics are finding it easy to explain the LDP's defeat. Since the departure of Koizumi, the way his successors led the LDP and Government created voters' disillusionment with the ruling party. The three Prime Ministers, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso, who led Japan after Koizumi departed in 2006, failed to match Koizumi's charisma and popularity and by contrast, gave the LDP a very poor image indeed. The emergence of Taro Aso as Prime Minister and leader of the LDP was something that the party did not need with its popularity ebbing fast. Aso is well known in Japanese politics for his non-serious approach to politics and his preference for wining and dining. He made things worse for himself and his party by making frequent gaffes in public to which his colleagues also added with one senior Minister appearing at a press conference while on a foreign trip, drunk.

With the noose tightening round his neck and the party during electioneering, Aso advised poor unemployed Japanese who are the victims of Japan's worst tryst with unemployment in modern times, not to marry. Whatever his intentions were, the advice fell flat on voters and dissuaded them further to move away from the LDP. The economic crunch added to fill the quota of LDP's misfortunes because by the time election date was announced last month, Japanese voters were yearning for a change.

Indeed, the citizens of Tokyo gave both the LDP and the nation the clear indication of how serious they were for the change. They voted in the Tokyo municipal elections against the LDP that lost its majority in the Tokyo Assembly for the first time in history to the DJP. In that election, the DJP won 54 seats against LDP's 38 seats, thus setting for the nation's voters the direction for the Lower House elections. The pre-election scenario created the environment where predicting that the DJP would win handsomely easy, almost a foregone conclusion.

The seeds of this defeat were however sown much earlier, during the tenure of Junichiro Koizumi. As leader of the LDP, he led the party in his own style that was in sharp contrast to how his predecessors led the party. Koizumi broke the factions in the party that did almost everything, from management of conflicts to naming the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. During his term, he took all the major decisions. His charisma and personality allowed him to dominate not just in the party but also in the nation. Unfortunately, he did not groom his successor and he destroyed the old party structure without putting into place a new order. Although the factions that were dormant while he was in power returned with his exit, they failed to dominate and manage party politics as they did before. This was quite visible in the way LDP led the government after his departure, unsure about major policy decisions that did not fail to attract and frustrate the nation. The fact that three prime ministers came one after another since Koizumi left in 2006 in the backdrop of major policy debacles hinted early enough that LDP was on its way out.

Voters' disillusionment with the LDP was thus the major factor for the DJP's win. The winner ensured that this victory would be by a big margin by appealing to the ordinary people for votes. In a time of economic crunch, the worst for decades, the DJP promised the voters to make governance focus more on consumers instead of big businesses that the LDP favoured. Among other promises the DJP made, the one not to raise consumption tax for the next four years was most appealing. The party also promised to lower fuel tax and corporate tax for small businesses. The DJP also promised to expand on the welfare state despite rising costs in view of Japan's aging population. The DJP assured voters that it would be able to meet the costs for its promises by budgetary controls and reducing the size of the bureaucracy. In other words, the DJP promised to be a pro-people government if elected and the people of Japan believed them and that too, overwhelmingly.

In foreign affairs, the DJP promised to make Japan less dependent on USA and make extra efforts to improve relations with her Asian neighbours. The US air force base in Okinawa that the islanders want relocated could come up immediately for renegotiation. The DJP, that opposed the Iraq war, also has reservations on presence of 50,000 US troops in Japan. The White House, however, issued a statement that it hopes that the strong US-Japan alliance and the close partnership between our two countries will flourish under the leadership of the next government.

The LDP's historic defeat has introduced some positive elements in Japan's politics. Parliamentary democracy works best when there is a strong opposition, something that was lacking in Japan. Henceforth Japan will be a two party democracy where the LDP will bring into the opposition their 54 years experience in governance. The new parliament will also see 158 newcomers, the largest new faces ever elected in any of Japan's previous elections. Of these, 54 are women, mostly from the DPJ, which is also a new record. Best of all, Japan will have a new Prime Minister riding the wave of a massive victory that should give him the confidence that was lacking in the last three LDP Ministers. Yukio Hatoyama, grandson of former Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama, and coming from a family called “Japan's Kennedy family” may not have experience in governance but has enough in politics to lead Japan at this critical juncture when its economy is in the most serious crunch for many decades.

The excellent Bangladesh-Japan relation where Japan is our most important development partner has been nurtured by LDP leadership led by Prime Minister Kakeui Tanaka that was deeply touched by our sacrifices and success in the war of liberation. Over the years, legendary LDP leaders like Kayakawa, helped build a relationship where we owe to Japan a great deal for the development of our economic and human resources infrastructure. The DJP's views on Bangladesh or countries such as ours are yet unknown but there is no reason why the new government would not follow and build upon what it has inherited from the LDP Government. On our part, we would need to make our best efforts to establish early contacts with the new political leadership. Our Foreign Ministry and Mission in Tokyo will now have to carry the extra burden where arrangement of high level visits from our side at the level of the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister should be pursued in all earnestness.

We have benefited tremendously from Japan's economic assistance. We have, however, failed in an area where Japan could be even more useful to us. We have badly failed in targeting and getting Japanese investment. We have all it takes to attract Japanese investment; excellent location as the bridge between South and Southeast Asia; a very large population for supply of both labour and market incentives, etc. Our failure has been in our investment regime that we have boasted as most attractive but one that has fallen far short of Japanese expectations. Let a new era of Bangladesh-Japan begin with the DJP in power where our main focus would be to make Japanese investment a prime focus of our relations.

Published in The Daily Star, September 5, 2009

Is Biman worth salvaging?

Every Bangladeshi with experience of flying Biman has critical experience to talk about. My own bad experience with Biman was in the 1980s when I was flying in Biman on its Dhaka-London route. When the food was served, I found in my tray very visible dirt in one corner. I called a Biman staff on board who saw the dirt and instantly told me that the fault was of the ground staff! With Biman always on the red, I have also found from personal experience most flights fully booked when I have sought to take a Biman flight. On board, invariably always, there were a significant number of seats empty! Again, almost always in Biman's Business Class, a large number of the seats were always occupied by Biman's staff flying complimentary. Biman's staff has always looked upon our national airline as "their" airlines and has misused it for themselves thus never allowing it in its nearly 40 years long existence to be a viable airline.

The sad personal experiences with Biman have led many of us to stop flying Biman. We did so because we could not take chances with Biman's regular habit of going haywire with its flight schedules. Despite all these, we have always wished well for Biman because we wanted Biman to be our image builder in the outside world, like some major airlines in our region for their countries.

Our patience, I guess, will now finally end for what happened the other day in Heathrow that has disgraced Bangladesh before the world. Bangladesh Biman flight to London and back to Dhaka was held up for 10 hours at Heathrow not for any technical problems but because all its five toilets were jammed by the passengers who had misused it grossly. Biman's Director Engineering explained that the toilet problem was overcome in two hours and then because of Heathrow's ban of night flights, there was an additional delay of eight hours. Together with this news, there was another equally bad one that came from the United Nations. A day before the "toilet embarrassment ", UN advised its staff not to fly Biman because of safety concerns and flight delays.

Biman's Director Engineering explained to BBC that its flight could not take off from Heathrow because "passengers threw bottles, cups, tissue papers and female sanitary napkins into all five toilets of the Biman aircraft ...This solid material blocked the toilets and there was a jumble in the pneumatic toilet suction system. It was a passenger-created problem. There was no mechanical fault." The Director's explanation given to BBC and thus publicised widely abroad puts Biman in the clear but only so far as its well know habit of passing the buck. These toilets were not blocked suddenly but must have happened over a period of time, apparently when it flew from Dhaka to London. What was the staff doing when the passengers were merrily flooding the toilet with the items mentioned by the Director BBC? From our experience we have seen on flights of other airlines, airhostesses, on long flights, going in and out of toilets, keeping the toilets running. There were also a lot of other things that the Biman staff could have done to avoid the embarrassing situation. If they had frequently checked the toilets, they could have seen what was coming and advised the passengers accordingly.

Biman's Managing Director, when contacted over the twin issues of the "toilet embarrassment" and the UN directive said that he was not aware of the latter. He however admitted that Biman was having problem managing its flight schedule but hoped this would be overcome once the new aircrafts ordered by Biman became available. He did not, however, say when these aircrafts would be available but by earlier reports that have come in new papers, these aircrafts are not expected to join Biman's present old and battered aircrafts sometime soon.

Biman's horrendous flight schedule record is a well known fact. It is a baggage that Biman picked up in earlier times as a trade mark when it opened flight connections without caring to relate it to the fleet available to it. Hence what the UN has underscored was something that is a well known fact about Biman. In fact, unless one has compelling reasons to fly Biman, one with some knowledge of our national airlines avoids it anyway. The UN's ban will add to the bad publicity that Biman has earned over the years for its lack of dependability. The sad thing about Biman's current predicament is that pulling it out of the doldrums has always been talked about but very little real efforts has been made to straighten things that has slipped from bad to worse.

In recent times, in addition to the failures to deal with its old fleet of aircrafts that has been one of the main reasons for the problem of keeping behind schedules, Biman has been in public focus for failure of its authorities to pay salaries to its staff. Biman has also faced string of corruption allegations. In the past, Biman had also been captive to associations in the organisation. Government interference had also made Biman employ a very high number of staff compared to the fleet it had and the business it was doing. In fact, ever since it was established as the national carrier for just not doing good business but to enhance Bangladesh's image abroad, it has been doing just the reverse; it has failed miserably in business and has damaged our national image instead of being our agent to enhance this image.

Bangladesh is a nation of 150 million with seven million of them living overseas. It is situated in a passage way of world airlines traffic. Thus there are all the reasons one can imagine for Bangladesh to have a national airline and to succeed with it. Sadly, in the nearly 40 years we have given to Biman the space, the encouragement and the indulgence, Biman has failed us badly. The episode at Heathrow and the UN directive should be taken seriously for some serious soul searching whether we would want to continue to give Biman more space, encouragement and indulgence. It is time to decide upon Biman's future. We cannot feel comfortable as a nation if we do not have a national carrier given the fact that we are a very big nation in terms of population. At the same time, we cannot likewise imagine continuing to have a national airlines creating a dubious record of failing to fly because all its toilets have been jammed. We cannot also let an airlines do business without dealing with the reasons that led the UN to ban Biman. The twin issues here are important for the government to take into consideration in dealing with the future of Biman.

The Managing Director and Director Operations of Biman have not been able to assure at all what Biman intends to do in future except passing the blame. The problem with the toilets is just a manifestation of an illness that Biman has been left with all these years without treating the causes. It had the luxury all along to be a losing concern because the country could not be without a national airline and was never expected, by government indulgence, to become competitive which is ridiculous given the amount of money needed to run an airlines and the intense competition in this business internationally.

There is also more bad news for those like us who genuinely want Biman to establish itself as a national carrier. One reason why Biman has become a white elephant is because the airlines, under government indulgence, had more staff than it could pay for. During the Caretaker government, 1800 people were retired from Biman for making the organisation viable. Many of these employees are now returning to Biman under court directives. Also, the employees' associations inside Biman that had extended to 12 at its height and has been one reason for corruption and unprofessional activities inside Biman but were banned during the Caretaker government are also returning. Added to these is the little known fact that Biman's status has been questioned by the Federal Aviation Authority of the US and the International Civil Aviation Organisation who are unhappy with the way it is being run. These two organisations have the power to ground Biman unless it can satisfy them. Biman is currently negotiating its status with them.

Biman is in difficult waters. Unfortunately, our good wishes for its future notwithstanding, it does not look like Biman is flying in the right direction and its "toilet embarrassment" and UN ban may be hints of a much graver illness in our national carrier.

Published in The Independent, September 4, 2009

Is parliamentary democracy working in Bangladesh?

Published in The Daily Independent, August 29, 2009

BNP's General Secretary Khandker Delwar Hossain, himself not a Member of Parliament, has hinted that his party may continue to stay away from the Parliament when it meets for the next session. His hint is not unexpected; nor is anyone expecting any better news from him. He has used the same line that the opposition has been using as a reason for not attending the parliament since we established parliamentary democracy in 1991 after the fall of Ershad's decade long dictatorship, that the party in power has not created the conditions necessary for the opposition to attend the parliament.

Both the mainstream parties that have, while in the opposition, made this excuse for staying out of Parliament. But neither bothered to create the environment they have demanded, while in power.

In the last two terms, the BNP and the AL have introduced the issue of front row sitting as an additional excuse to stay out of the parliament. During the last BNP government, the AL abstained from attending the Parliament because they demanded and did not get what they considered was a fair number of front seats in the parliament. This time, the AL has used the same principle used on it by the BNP to deny the latter the number of seats they have demanded. The "sovereign parliament" thus remains deadlocked on an issue that can only be described as trivial.
The people are both frustrated and disappointed by the way the AL and the BNP have used trivial excuses to stay out of the parliament. The excuses they make while in the opposition and the total indifference they show to these excuses while in power raise serious doubt whether parliamentary democracy can work in Bangladesh. They have failed to acknowledge that in a parliamentary system of government, the presence of the opposition in parliament is fundamental to the system.
The number of seats that the officially designated opposition has in the parliament does not make its role any less important in the context of parliamentary democracy. The party in power needs the opposition to make parliament sovereign and ensure parliamentary democracy. The absence of an opposition is in fact incomprehensible in a parliamentary democracy.

In this instance, the reason that is keeping the BNP out of the current parliament and the one that had kept the AL out in the last parliament rejects the principles upon which a parliamentary democracy is established.
Denying seats to the Opposition in the front row or giving it on basis of seats won in the elections demonstrates a mindset in both the BNP and the AL of denying the opposition an important role in the affairs of the parliament. In other words, the two parties have demonstrated, while in power, a preference for humiliating the opposition, thus refusing to accept the fact that in a parliamentary democracy, an opposition has almost as important a role to play as the party in power.
In the context of both the BNP and the AL, the issue of seating arrangement that now holds the Parliament hostage as it had held in the BNP's term of office is difficult to comprehend.

In 2001, the BNP had won the elections with two-thirds majority and acceding to the AL's request for a few additional seats in the front row should have been accepted in good grace. This time the AL has won with a greater majority than the BNP and denying the BNP the extra seats on the plea that the latter did the same is not even common sense for this has provided the BNP an excuse to stay out of parliament. In looking deeper into the psychology of the two parties with regards to the seat issue, one can reasonably conclude that neither believes seriously in the role of an opposition in a parliamentary democracy.
The spirit of democracy in general and parliamentary democracy in particular rests on compromise that the two mainstream parties have sadly failed to demonstrate. As a consequence, our parliament has failed to emerge as a symbol of authority; of sovereignty.

The parliamentary committees that are the arms of the parliament for exercising that sovereignty have also failed to emerge as powerful institutions. The functions of these committees are given a great deal of media coverage but in the absence of a functional and vibrant parliament, the work of the parliamentary committees does not have the necessary clout to make the executive branch pay much attention to their work.

The two mainstream parties have thus between them made the parliament a lame duck institution instead of a sovereign one. In the present term, the AL government has introduced some new elements in executive governance that further undermines the role and effectiveness of the parliament. In at least one Ministry, it has placed an Adviser with full rank of a Minister with a Member of Parliament playing second fiddle to him as a state Minister. It has included seven Advisers who are virtually super ministers in a Cabinet where the overwhelming majority of the members are first timers with little or no experience and even less confidence.

In effect, the nature of politics of the two mainstream parties have ensured that although we have re-introduced parliamentary democracy following the fall of Ershad, our Prime Ministers have preferred to exercise executive power like him, without the need of the opposition. There is a further element here that does not help a parliamentary system establish itself in Bangladesh. When people vote for either of the two mainstream parties, they in fact vote for either Sheikh Hasina or Khaleda Zia just like voters vote in a presidential system of government. Thus when either party wins, its leader assumes power and influence that are hardly conducive to a parliamentary system where a Prime Minister in theory is supposed to be "the first among equals.

The leader of the party that wins not just exercises power like a President; she behaves like one too. The absence of opposition helps her to do so while an ever-compliant President ensures nothing to the contrary. In fact, the parliamentary system has been tailored by the BNP and the AL to allow the Prime Minister to enjoy executive power as a President without the disadvantage of term limitation of a presidential system.

In Bangladesh, we have established one of the best systems of election for the people to elect the government of their choice. In that sense, we have democracy. But once we send our party of choice to form the government, they end up exercising power that cannot be described as democratic. Although our two parties are nemesis to each other, the Awami League and the BNP are partners in not allowing the parliament to be sovereign, instead allowing the executive led by the Prime Minister to exercise power arbitrarily by staying out of it when in the opposition.
Thus the nature of politics, mindset of the leaders and other objective conditions are not conducive to a parliamentary system of government in Bangladesh. Unless there is a sea change in the mindset with which the two mainstream parties conduct politics, the parliamentary system that we have will be one in theory only; in practice it will continue to be more presidential than a presidential system of government. In being so, the country runs the risk of power being exercised at the executive level arbitrarily because the two parties between them have made the "watchdog" of the people toothless in keeping the executive accountable.

Operation Clean Street

Published in The Independent, August 26, 2009

Going by newspaper reports the day after "Operation Clean Street" was launched, it increased people's sufferings in the streets instead of easing it. In fact, the Prime Minister who directed the concerned authorities to do something urgent for improving Dhaka's collapsing traffic "system" was herself a victim when her motorcade was held up at the Sheraton Farmgate intersection. According to newspaper reports, the traffic police did not receive the message from the PM's motorcade staff and hence she was stranded which was not bad. She did get to see firsthand what the ordinary people suffer every day. Also, this should remind her that her directive is not enough to get things done!

It is not the first time that a Prime Minister has called for improving Dhaka's traffic situation. In the past, our Prime Ministers have expressed concern over Dhaka's traffic. During the Caretaker government, the Adviser in charge held twice widely covered media events to inform the residents of Dhaka that the government would be giving contracts for underground and over ground transportation network to improve Dhaka's traffic. Not surprisingly, nothing happened because these were merely media events that were arranged with full knowledge that nothing would be eventually done.

In fact, Dhaka's traffic has been deteriorating over the last couple of decades and those in charge then knew as much as the public did that Dhaka's traffic would someday collapse unless dramatic improvements were made in the transportation network in the city. But then, there has been no dearth of meetings, workshops and seminars over the years with nothing being done at all to halt Dhaka's so-called traffic system going down the dark hole. We have not added new roads; we have not improved existing ones and we did nothing towards those measures without which Dhaka's traffic network is as good as dead, namely taking steps for modernisation of Dhaka's traffic system by either underground or over ground system of communication or a combination of both.

The existing statistics about Dhaka's traffic are abysmal and should lead to just one conclusion; that it is a miracle that people can still move in the streets. The ratio or area of the city devoted to roads in the context of the size of the city is unbelievable. The greed of the residents for land and the connivance of the city planners have ensured that even that unbelievable ratio is encroached. Due to the connivance of the law enforcement agencies, the existing roads are encroached by small traders and hawkers. The mindless way in which the drivers drive adds further chaos to the pressure on roads and often traffic jams are accentuated by the reckless way cars and vehicles are driven.

The greed of residents has also impacted adversely on our traffic situation in a different but much more dangerous way. A lot of traffic jams, in fact the unbearable ones occur when schools start and end in the residential areas. Let us take Dhanmandi for example. It was built as a quiet residential district with well laid out roads, with adequate space for lakes, parks and even schools, etcetera. But the planners quite rightly did not plan this residential area for a floodgate of schools; hospitals and most definitely not for business establishments. Following our independence, in fact after the 80s, greedy businessmen, dishonest town planners and other relevant agencies conspired to turn this wonderful residential area into a hub of schools, hospitals, now universities and business complexes. It is not just that greed of few people have turned this wonderful residential district into living hell; the congestion and overflow of traffic of these establishments is today a major cause of the hellish traffic situation of Dhaka.

As if lessons from Dhanmandi were not clear enough, the city planners and relevant authorities have "murdered" Gulshan driven by the same greed that drove them to "murder" Dhanmandi. Today, Gulshan has literally become unlivable particularly if people living there have to use the Gulshan Avenue. The Avenue has become the new commercial hub of the city where there is really no infrastructure to even imagine establishing such a hub. Each of these commercial buildings on the Avenue caters to the need of hundreds of cars but have space for parking in single digits. The result of this madness has turned Gulshan into a jungle of cars and vehicles where the residents are close to suffocating while the greedy and rich are becoming greedier and richer.

Once when we used to talk about Dhaka's traffic, we would inevitably discuss the rickshaws as impediments towards modernising Dhaka's traffic. Now very few blame the rickshaws because even without them, we have managed to slow down Dhaka's traffic even slower than the snail's. In fact, tall talk and no action over Dhaka's traffic backed by increasing greed of some of its residents and their nexus of corruption with relevant authorities have created a situation that our Prime Minister faced on the first day of "Operation Clean Street," After this experience, she should spare a moment and consider that those who named "Operation Clean Street" are themselves a part of the problem. Under the present state of affairs, it would be taking us for fools if we believe that there could indeed be an "Operation Clean Street." In fact, those who codenamed this latest move taken after the Prime Minister's anger as "Operation Clean Street" have not shown sincerity because they better than anyone know that such a codename can only be a stunt because they will not be able to clean the streets just like that. In fact, the measures they have said they will undertake to take old cars/vehicles off the street will never happen. Instead, the law enforcement agencies will make money out of such a drive!

Dhaka traffic is today God's business for without His blessing no one should be moving between destinations in this city. Here the traffic police stops us on green lights and looks us in the eyes for stopping on red lights. Here we maintain our traffic lights and use them to ridicule ourselves. Here we name residential areas and hand them over to businesses. Here we do almost everything to make our traffic the worst in the world in which we ourselves often contribute, like allowing our drivers to drive as they like, park as they like. Yet we are perhaps also the most vocal about speaking on our unbearable traffic system. This is why with our traffic we go one step forward and the two steps back.

But then if we want to continue living in Dhaka, we will not have time that our city residents had in the past which was talk about Dhaka's traffic and continue with their greed. We are perhaps in the last stretch if we want to save Dhaka. We must have a modern network of both over ground and underground railway. There is not one city the size of Dhaka in terms of population that does not have such modern network for traffic. Building this network should start if possible tomorrow but it cannot be delayed anymore. Within this modernisation that will take time but must be done, Dhaka can follow Tokyo in improving its existing traffic network. In that city, except the main arteries, all other roads are one-way. The timings of schools can be looked into so that these do not conflict with the office timings in government and private enterprises. Those who drive and those who have drivers must ensure that the traffic regulations must be followed. We could also consider in certain important roads and areas, movement of cars by number plates; odd numbers on one day and even numbers on another. Finally, those who control the traffic on the roads must show intelligence that they most often do not to follow one basic principle of traffic management; make all out effort to keep traffic moving. Most often, we see a number of these traffic sergeants and constables giving directions at cross purposes that strangulate traffic instead of easing it.

We do not need "Operation Clean Street" for we know such operations are stunts. Dhaka's traffic problem is not one to deal by stunts for our traffic "system" is literally in the ICU. It is not one to fool with but one to deal with commitment; sincerity and vision. Let us also not forget that here time is of the essence.

Extortion and public misery: What is the way out?

Published in The Daily Independent, August 21, 2009

Two Ministers of the government, holding the key posts of Finance and Food between them, acknowledged that criminals with links to the ruling party and members of the law enforcement agencies are responsible for the high prices consumer pay for daily commodities because they regularly extort money from trucks and other vehicles that carry these commodities to the market. The Finance Minister, animated as always, pleaded with these elements to stop their illegal activities so that Bangladesh could "be a wealthy nation in 10 years."

The Food Minister gave unbelievable figures of how much the consumers suffer from these politically connected extortionists and members of the law enforcement agencies. He said that traders and truckers pay three fourths of the negotiated transportation fare to these elements that they conveniently pass on to the consumers. The Ministers were speaking recently at a business event in Dhaka.

In speaking to the media these days, our Ministers are often, candidly honest. This is indeed encouraging. What however is not encouraging is that the Ministers are not forthcoming on informing the public on what they intend to do with what they so honestly acknowledge. In this instance, the Ministers' candid admission is nothing unknown to the public. Our highways are used every day by millions of our people who see as a common sight, these extortionists at work. The law enforcement agencies also are not shy to do what they do out of sight of the public. It was however baffling that after admitting such criminal activities by members of their own party and the law enforcement agencies, the Ministers were expressing hope that they should stop such illegal activities to allow Bangladesh to become a wealthy country!

Of course, there is precious little that these Ministers can do to deal with what they have acknowledged publicly. The reason is in the nature of politics that we have allowed to grow in the country in the name of fighting for democracy. In a span of 25 years, we fought colonial and oppressive forces twice, the last one in 1971 that was also genocidal and won. In fighting these forces, we won because we have depended heavily and completely on our political parties that have played their role extremely well by bringing the people together to fight the common enemy. In other societies, the political parties that have played similar roles went into the background once the fight against the forces of oppression was won. The elected government was left alone to lead and build the nation. The role of political parties in all countries today adhering to a democratic form of government is predominantly, election centric. They come into the political stage actively in helping their candidates to win and form the government and recede into the background once the elections are over.

In Bangladesh, this did not happen because the anti-democratic forces managed to be around even after we won our independence. The political parties were therefore required to remain active in everyday politics. The opportunity to do the right thing after Ershad's decade long dictatorship fell as a result of the movement led by the BNP and the Awami League was wasted because these two mainstream parties created the need for using the political parties in everyday politics to fight each other. In fact, our politics has become corrupt and criminalised because the political leadership of both these mainstream parties have indulged with their respective parties to keep them busy in politics even when the elections were over when the correct thing should have been for the party in power and the one in the opposition to cooperate on a nation building agenda. The politics that has emerged in our country, created by these two parties is one in which the party that wins gives its members a share of political power by allowing them to use their political clout to receive benefit from governance, legally and illegally. The one in the opposition has kept its party alive by using it to fight these criminal activities, quite conveniently forgetting that when it was in power, it did pretty much the same.
For the first time though, we are witnessing a change in the way our politicians conduct politics. The way the two Ministers have acknowledged their own party's complicity in extortion is a hint of that change. The Prime Minister herself has spoken out strongly in urging the Home Ministry to crack down on the extortionists even if they would happen to be Awami Leaguers. However, for achieving the desired result, a lot more has to be done by the Prime Minister herself and her Ministers. There has to be a paradigm shift in the way she runs her party. At the same time, there has to be a major change in understanding and assessing the role of a political party in democracy. In the good old days when we were fighting the forces of oppression, our political leadership needed an extensive network of the party right up to the grass root level to carry the message of the party, its policies and manifestos to the voters to win their favour. This is also why our political leadership, as they were establishing their parties in those times of democratic struggles, had to depend on labour wings, youth wings, and students' wings, etcetera, etcetera for succeeding as a political party.

Today, times have changed dramatically. The revolution in information has short-circuited the need for the extensive network. The Prime Minister is aware better than anyone how much she and her party had to depend for winning the last elections so comprehensively. Privately she has even commented that with an AL ticket, even a log would have won a seat in Parliament. She owes very little for AL's massive election victory in December last to those who are today wearing the AL hat and extorting money. She owes very little also to the activists in her labour wing and none at all to her students' wing. Yet these are the people who are not just giving the party a bad name; if they are not contained, the party's election promises of a Digital Bangladesh and Vision 2021 would remain visions in paper and may not see the light of day.

It is time therefore for action and not for just hoping that these elements would give up extortion to allow Bangladesh to become wealthy. The Prime Minister's warning sadly will also not have the desired effect. A few facts must be acknowledged. First, the Awami League has won the elections and formed the government. Second, the AL leaders in government, including the Prime Minister, represent the nation, not just the party. Finally, they are therefore required by the principles and practices of a democratic government to give the nation's interests precedence over the party's. Unfortunately, in distortion of these principles and practices, our mainstream parties have, since the return of elected governments, allowed the officials of the party in power to use their influence in government, which is a major reason for the endemic corruption in our governance. Extortion that is now a major reason for people's sufferings is the direct consequence of this indulgence.

Once elected in a parliamentary democracy like ours, the influence of the party in office should end at the doorsteps of the executive branch. Its role should increase in the parliament instead. The reverse, unfortunately, is the reality in Bangladesh. Unless the reversal is corrected, the "hopes" of the Ministers and the dire warning of the Prime Minister would not lead to the desired result. The only way out is for a message to go out from the Prime Minister that in enforcing the law, taking decisions by the executive branch of the government, being an Awami League party official or representing the Awami League is not a license for favour. This calls for a paradigm shift in governance that will take a long time for sustainable results but it is high time to make a start as much for the Awami League as it is for the nation. The role of the law enforcement agencies in connection of money they make in the transportation sector is a different matter, much easier to handle if the government is serious about it.

Politicising the bureaucracy: Is there a plan?

Published in The Independent, Dhaka, 17th August, 2009

One of the issues that the AL had placed before the people for support to win the December, 2009 elections was blaming the BNP for politicising the civil bureaucracy. By implication this meant that if elected, they would not do what the BNP did. It is true that the BNP had politicised the civil bureaucracy during its 2001-2006 tenure. The BNP also overlooked the fact that under its watch, there was a change of guards taking place; that the civil bureaucrats recruited in the Pakistan days were finally leaving and those recruited after liberation, much weaker in ability, were taking charge at the top.

The BNP's playing politics with the civil bureaucracy was however nothing new. The BNP had just tried to fine tune what the AL did during its 1996-2001 tenure. In fact, the AL was brought to office in 1996 riding on the wave of a revolt by the AL leaning civil bureaucrats who had created the "Janatar Mancha." The BNP did during its tenure just followed on what the AL had established as a part of the politics of the country; that the civil bureaucracy, particularly those at the top, must be loyal to the party in power.

Looking back in hindsight, one of the reasons why the BNP became unpopular during its last tenure after going to power with a two thirds majority was because it followed the AL way of dealing with the bureaucracy. The BNP had just one legitimate issue with the civil bureaucracy, namely taking action against those members who had openly "revolted" against an elected government. The BNP, however, used the excuse of the Mancha's revolt by moving against those it presumed to be AL leaning. As a result, it divided the civil bureaucracy and weakened it. The BNP also introduced a selective system of "extension" to keep in service those that it deemed loyal to the party. That did not work either. The BNP ended by messing up governance because of this mindless politicisation of the civil bureaucracy. Those involved in politicising the bureaucracy also made money out of it. The country that could have made significant strides in over-all development, suffered as a consequence leading to conflicts and violence in politics that brought the emergency that pushed back our development efforts further.

Thus when the people, particularly the 20 million new voters who have voted this time, found that the AL was willing to de-politicise the bureaucracy, they were encouraged to vote for it. Of course, they voted for the AL for "digital Bangladesh" and "vision 2021" as well. It is still too early to judge the AL's on the last two named issues. Unfortunately, on the de-politicisation of the civil bureaucracy, the writing became clear on the wall almost as soon as the Awami League took office.
Immediately on assuming office, the Awami League made it clear that those presumed to be supporters of the BNP/Jamat alliance would have no place in the government. This time around, being an AL supporter would also not be enough; it would be necessary for civil bureaucrats to prove that they have no connections to those now referred in the party as "reformists" that is now a hated word in the Awami League's inner circles. It did not take long for the government to make these intentions clear. It made OSDs in numbers that have been the largest under any government since independence as the first step towards weeding out of civil bureaucracy those the AL government considered leaning towards the BNP/Jamat or "reformists" in the party.
In politicising the civil bureaucracy this time around, the AL government has thus introduced new elements. The part of isolating the presumed BNP/Jamat supporters has been easy because except for the first BNP government after Ershad's fall, the three successive elected governments have used politics as basic criteria in dealing with the civil bureaucracy. Hence when the AL took office this time, there was a handy list of presumed BNP/Jamat supporters available that was evident in the ease with which a record number of officers were made OSDs. In promoting to and filling important positions, the AL government could not however depend on that list. To ensure that civil servants leaning towards AL but also towards the "reformers" are not promoted, the government has introduced contractual appointments in key positions that are being given from people who have gone into retirement quite some time ago or from those in service whose loyalty to the party under the changed circumstances is absolute. In fact, the word going around in the bureaucracy is the government now has a "DNA test" for determining loyalty.

The Awami League government is thus entering into unchartered territories in dealing with the civil bureaucracy. Over the years, the civil bureaucracy has served useful purposes and must given a lot of credit for the development that has taken place in the country. Up to the first BNP government, the civil bureaucracy was allowed to follow the basic principles upon which it was established in the British and Pakistani days, namely keeping it apolitical and encouraging merit and efficiency as the basic criteria for promotions and other privileges.

These time-tested foundations are being eroded without any serious thinking about its importance and role as one of the most important institutions in governance. By making politics the primary consideration, the political parties are trying to introduce a system that has no place in any democracy today. If our political parties had themselves matured so that the nation would be safe in their hands, then a weak and politically compliant bureaucracy would not have been a major worry. But then we have heard our Prime Minister speak out many times about her cabinet colleagues in a critical manner. The Ministers have said publicly that they are unable to satisfy the Prime Minister because the bureaucrats are BNP/Jamat supporters despite the opposite being the truth! Something is seriously amiss here.
In 2005, a Director-General of a Japanese government financial institution had met me in my office when I was Ambassador to Japan just a few days before that country's national elections. He was extremely critical of Prime Minister Koizumi and the ruling LDP. I asked him with a great deal of curiosity why he was so openly critical of LDP and Koizumi being a civil servant. The gentleman answered that being critical of a politician and a party is his fundamental right but as a civil bureaucrat, he would be serving Koizumi and the LDP loyally without any question asked if he returned in the elections.

Our civil bureaucracy has served well because it too historically has been based on same principles. What the AL Government is doing is creating its anti-thesis. The question is: does it have a plan? The issue here is even if it has a plan, Bangladesh is just not the country to establish such a politicised bureaucracy because when our civil servants enter service, a large number of them are divided half and half into the AL and the anti-AL camps because of the politics they are allowed to do in their educational institutions. If such a policy is officially introduced, the government that introduces it would be paying for a large number of the civil servants without their support because in such a large bureaucracy, it would neither be feasible nor possible to weed out civil servants completely based on which party they support.

Then in our bureaucracy there has always been and still are a large number of civil servants who have no strong political affiliation who would be caught in the middle and left in a limbo. Such politicisation towards which the AL government is moving would eventually stifle life out of the bureaucracy while benefiting just a small part of it. Such a policy is not common sense either because a pall of gloom prevails over the majority of civil servants today except for those few who have passed (or hope to pass) the stringent test of party loyalty. The AL government's perception of a civil bureaucracy is in fact the communist/authoritarian model; only our system is neither communist nor authoritarian.

(The writer a Director, Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies and former Ambassador to Japan.)

Parliamentary delegation “convinced” on Tipaimukh

Published in The Daily Star, August 15, 2009

FORMER Water Resources Minister and currently Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources Mr. Abdur Razzak, upon his return home from leading a parliamentary delegation to India, said that his talks with the Indians have “convinced” him that Tipaimukh will not harm Bangladesh. He told news media that the dam will be constructed for generating hydro-electricity and ensuring flood control and its water will not be used for irrigation.

The parliamentary delegation did not include any member of the opposition. Mr. Razzak's words alone may not resolve the controversy that Tipaimukh has raised in Bangladesh. A lot more will be required to calm passion and apprehension over the issue that was allowed to develop into a full blown controversy with enough potentials to take Bangladesh-India relations off the track. The Indian High Commissioner, unfortunately, started the controversy as much by what he said as by the manner in which he said what he said. Some of the Bangladeshi ministers added apprehension to the controversy when they addressed the issue in the media in support of the Indian High Commissioner.

The Indian High Commissioner and the ministers failed to take into account the fact that the Farakka issue has embedded deep into the psyche of Bangladeshis a suspicion that India would eventually withdraw waters from the rivers that flow from India and turn Bangladesh into a desert. The public reaction in Bangladesh led by the BNP was therefore natural and spontaneous because in Tipaimukh, they saw the scepter of a Farakka on the north eastern side of Bangladesh-India border.

It is very encouraging that the Indians have “convinced” the Bangladesh parliamentary delegation. It is also encouraging to learn that Tipaimukh will generate electricity and control floods in the plains of Assam and that its water will not be diverted to cause shortfall in the flow of Barak River on which the dam will be constructed as it flows into Bangladesh into the Surma and Kushiara rivers. The assurances nevertheless raise a curious issue in the context of the serious controversy that Tippaihmukh has caused in Bangladesh: the inordinate delay by the Indian side to take Bangladesh into confidence over Tipaimukh. According to one member of the delegation, they were given information on Tipaimukh that was denied to Bangladesh in the last 20-25 years. The parliamentary delegation has submitted a report to the Prime Minister but its details are not yet known. The report must have all the technical details so that the Bangladesh government could tell the people the whole truth and let the issue rest. Therefore, one must wait to learn how much the Indians have taken Bangladesh into confidence on Tipaimukh.

When the AL won the December elections last year, it was expected in Bangladesh that Bangladesh-India relations would improve qualitatively given the AL's historical closeness with the Congress. Additionally, in recent times, there has been a perceptible change in people's attitude in Bangladesh over issues that had stalled Bangladesh-India relations in the past such as transit, use of ports etc. Given India's concern over terrorism, Prime Minister Sehikh Hasina even offered to establish a joint task force to tackle the issue. There was optimism in many quarters in Bangladesh that the two countries who need each other for compulsions of history and geopolitics would move towards a new era of win- win relationships where India, in reciprocal gesture, would look at Bangladesh's concerns on water, trade and maritime boundary.

Unfortunately, that optimism was very short lived. The Indian High Commissioner helped raise the controversy over Tipaimukh that put the Bangladesh government on a spot. Even the ministers were confused over the Indian High Commissioner, with the Foreign Minister at least once expressing reservation over his media comment only to be contradicted by the LGRD Minister the day after! All these did not suggest that the Indians were eager to settle outstanding bilateral issues; rather these actions by the Indians hinted towards an overbearing attitude on their part.

Tipaimukh nevertheless has helped the AL and the BNP move closer to making this a national issue, something unpleasantly rare in our politics. The ministers stopped supporting the project perhaps under the Prime Minister's direction who must have sensed the dangers of taking a pro-Tipaimukh stand. In her bilateral meeting with the Indian Prime Minister on the sidelines of the NAM Summit in Egypt in July she raised Bangladesh's concerns over Tipaimukh. Mr. Singh gave Sheikh Hasina assurance that nothing would be done to harm Bangladesh and the two leaders further agreed that a Bangladesh parliamentary delegation would visit India to discuss Tipaimukh.

Apprehensions in Bangladesh will not be fully laid to rest till the people are convinced with facts. The favourable impression carried home by Mr. Razzak and his delegation will not be enough to clear the apprehension in Bangladesh. The facts must come out in a transparent manner so that assessment could be made by experts. The best and perhaps the only way to resolve this issue satisfactorily would be to discuss Tipaimukh in the Joint Rivers Commisison with India providing all the facts and figures, something the Indians have refused so far despite Bangladesh's repeated requests.

The Tipaimukh controversy can land Bangladesh-India relations in the doldrums if handled badly or insensitively. It can also act as a conduit for taking relations to a different level altogether if handled positively. Given the fact that there is very deep and significant opposition in India, particularly in Manipur over the project, the Indians could drop it altogether because the amount of electricity it will generate is by no means dramatic. In fact if generating electricity is the main argument, then there are other places India could look to generate many times more electricity. That could provide a quantum leap to the development of Bangladesh-northeast India-Nepal and Bhutan sub-region and could very well include Manipur with no environmental costs. For many decades now, Bangladesh has been trying to pique India with Nepal's tacit support for a sub-regional management of water resources. Nepal could be used for building dams and reservoirs that could provide the much needed energy as well as control devastating floods in India, Bangladesh and the sub-region.

Recently Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has spoken of a South Asian power grid. It is an old call, one she also made when she was Leader of the Opposition. Such a power grid could become transformational if the vast water resource of the region, which is now being wasted because of India's mindset for dealing with each of her neighbours bilaterally, is developed multilaterally. Bangladesh should now make a strategic shift in conducting her bilateral relations with India. Past experience of using the traditional channels alone have not worked in our favour for we were seldom given a fair deal when our Foreign Ministry and other Ministries and established channels such as the JRC have been used to negotiate with their Indian counterparts. Issues have always been bogged down by a mindset on the Indian side that neighbours cannot be trusted multilaterally and on Bangladesh's side that India cannot be trusted as a friendly neighbour. It is time that our Prime Minister takes charge to deal with the major irritants at the highest level to reach the political understanding without which it would be very difficult to improve and strengthen Bangladesh-India relations.

The Tipaimukh controversy is far from over. Nevertheless, it seems that India is eager now to give Bangladesh information that was not forthcoming in the past. The meeting between the two Prime Ministers in Cairo may be the reason for the change of heart on India's part. The Indian Prime Minister is a statesman and knows the importance of a friendly neighbour. Our Foreign Ministry needs to make more use of summit diplomacy for better attention and resolution of our problems with India.

How safe are we from criminal and religious militancy?

Published in The Daily Independent, August 10, 2009

The State Minister for Home made a statement while opening the Sher-e-Bangla Police station recently that is surprising to say the least. He said that no one is safe in the country, whether walking on foot or in a car and that "we all are under the surveillance of the networks of criminals and religious extremists and this is the reality… no people, big or small, are beyond such networks." The Minister acknowledged a very bad law and order situation but blamed it upon the anti-Bangladesh forces of 1971 and criminals for the state of affairs.

The Minister was candid to say the least although he certainly over-exaggerated the case. Since the return of civilian rule following the December 29th elections, criminals who were forced to lie low have returned with vengeance to make up for their lost time and business during the two years of emergency. Hijacking and mugging are now routine affairs of life in Dhaka. The extortionists are also making up for lost time and their impatience is showing; businessmen are getting killed without being given a second chance to meet the demands of these criminals.

The public universities have been the first casualties signalling the deterioration of law and order. The student wing of the ruling party moved on the student wing of the opposition to gain control of the residential halls immediately after the AL government took office. They lost no time to start manipulating tenders and interfering in admission to extort money. Intra-party quarrel within the student wing of the ruling party worsened the environment in the universities that have also spread to the other educational institutions. The lawlessness in the educational institutions forced the Prime Minister to de-link her official position as the party chief in the party's student wing. Sadly, her action did not have the desired impact and conflict and criminal activities are far from being rooted out from the educational institutions. To compete with the ruling party's student wing, the BNP named a central committee of its student wing where middle aged non-students have been given key positions, signalling clearly their intention to match their opponents to vitiate the environment of the educational institutions.

In his emotional appeal, the Minister's heart was in the right place but not his head. He has correctly assessed the dangers of militancy from the criminals and religious extremities but his dire conclusions are grossly exaggerated because fear of the militants is not that serious yet to force people to stay home. Nevertheless their activities have increased beyond the tolerance of the public. However, in appealing to the people to be united for tackling militancy of the criminals, the Minister is knocking at the wrong door. The people are united as ever against militancy from criminals but they are frustrated that such militancy has become a feature in their lives because politicians patronise the criminals. The major parties are all equally guilty of allowing this nexus to grow in their respective parties. When one of these parties is in power, the criminals with links to them make lives of people hell while those supporting the opposition go on the run, usually crossing into India where they have a safe haven.

The Minister has also shown a misplaced sense of confidence on the law enforcement agencies by asking the people to support them against criminal militancy. It is general knowledge in the country and for good reasons that the law enforcement agencies are part of the problem with criminal militancy. The political party in power has always used these agencies to protect and sustain the nexus between politics and criminals. The law enforcement agencies on their part have used this interference as an excuse to maintain and sustain their own nexus with the criminals for their own ulterior benefits.

The Minister's fight against militancy, if he seriously means business, must start by making it a non-political issue. The law enforcement agencies must be given the task of apprehending criminals without any political interference. Sincerity in this context is of the essence for such a step will break the dangerous nexus between criminals and politics. It will also put the law enforcement agencies on the spot so that they can no longer make an excuse of political interference for their incapability in nabbing the criminals. Once this freedom is given to the law enforcement agencies, they can then be made to bear the responsibility for the rise of criminal activities or else face the music. This pinpointing responsibility should be an easy task once the nexus is broken because the country has an excellent network of police stations all over the country to tackle criminal militancy.
As for militancy growing in the educational institutions and out of it, the task is even easier. The government has to severe the umbilical cord between national politics and student politics to deal with it. The Prime Minister should complete the task that she has started when she disassociated herself from the student wing of her party. She should ask her political associates to do the same. Once this cord is disrupted, criminal activities inside our educational institutions would die naturally because students on their own cannot sustain breaking the law because they simply do not have that strength or capability. Once the ruling party takes these steps; the opposition will be forced to follow or face the law.

These steps will not definitely root out criminal militancy from the country. Our imperfect legal system will set free many of the criminals who would be nabbed by law enforcement agencies working without political interference. No society can achieve total freedom from criminal militancy and our imperfect legal system needs reform to tackle criminal militancy better. Nevertheless, once these steps are taken, the major source of criminal militancy arising out of the nexus between crime and politics would be thrust a major blow. Whatever criminal militancy would remain afterwards would be something that the people would be able to bear without losing sleep over it.

Religious militancy is a different issue although its potentials for damaging the country's fragile law and order situation are significant. In the last elections, the religious based parties have been dealt a major blow. The BNP has paid a heavy price for encouraging religious militancy when in power last time. In fact, it was the BNP's indulgence for political reasons that religious militancy gained grounds in Bangladesh. Once that patronage was gone, religious militancy has become less a factor in the context of the country's law and order. In fact, since the BNP left government, religious militancy has been talked about in the media a lot but there has not been any action by religious militants that would scare the daylight out of anyone. Although Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, there exists in the society a deep dislike against those who use Islam in politics and more so, for militancy that the law enforcement agencies could use to tackle religious militancy provided political considerations are left out of the equation.

The Minister has over-exaggerated the case on both criminal and religious militancy. His statement unfortunately has been covered outside Bangladesh where his views on religious militancy have caused interest. At least one stringer of a major international news media has been asked to provide more information on the Minister's concern about religious militancy. At a time when we need to project a good image abroad, we should be cautious in creating alarm on religious militancy.

Criminal militancy in Bangladesh can be resolved if the government is willing to call a spade a spade and not play politics with it. Religious militancy is the lesser of the two evils. It is criminal militancy that, if not tackled, could soon keep people from coming out of their houses not religious militancy and the Minister should keep this in mind in dealing with the deteriorating law and order situation in the country.

Corruption during the Emergency: How deep was it?

Published in The Daily Independent, August 3, 2009

Serious allegations are coming out from the relevant Parliamentary Committees on corruption of former Advisers of the Caretaker Government (CG). The committee investigating the LGED Ministry that Transparency International, Bangladesh and the CG publicly identified as the most corrupt Government. Ministry concluded that under the CG, corruption in the LGED Ministry was more than in 39 previous years. Charges are by no means proof of corruption and hence these must now be substantiated through the legal process. Those who brought the charges must now ensure that the law is set in motion.

There are serious moral issues involved in these charges. During the emergency, the CG identified corruption as the most important impediment to Bangladesh's future. They made full use of the media to sensitise the public in favour of their assumption that the country's politics, civil administration and business were responsible for such widespread corruption. Political leaders, businessmen and civil bureaucrats were arrested, including two former Prime Ministers, without respect for the law and human rights, and were humiliated. The CG, however, failed to prove the allegations in the overwhelming majority of the cases they filed in the court.
The ACC under the CG acted like an institution possessed. The Chairman, a military bureaucrat appointed to the post with the rank of a Minister by an unelected government toured the country, holding meetings at district headquarters, in pursuit of banishing corruption from Bangladesh. He vowed that the ACC would change the character of the people for zero tolerance against corruption. The ACC held regular press briefings to announce corruption charges against individuals that private TV channels and newspapers made public. The ACC did not for a moment care or consider a fundamental fact of the law that a person is innocent till proven guilty in a court. From their body language at these press briefings left few in doubt that they were pronouncing judgement. The ACC in fact acted in these briefings as the prosecution, judge and jury.

In the beginning however the people supported the ACC silently because they also believed there was widespread corruption under the elected governments and the corrupt needed to be punished. They were very soon disappointed to see the Commission make a mess of tackling corruption by placing itself above the law. In catching both "big and small fish" of corruption, it went after far too many than it could handle. Its other mistakes were, first, it showed a very subjective interest to incarcerate politicians in the end appearing distinctly vindictive. Second, it also showed a distinct dislike for businessmen and civil bureaucrats and assumed the military to be above corruption. Finally, it made the corruption agenda a political instrument aimed at breaking the major parties to create a "king's party." The civil leaders of the CG and their military backers complimented the ACC's over-enthusiasm instead of cautioning it for its extra-legal activities. It took no note of gross human rights violations by the ACC and allowed it to do pretty much what it wanted. The CG also allowed the military intelligence to do behind the scene what the ACC did publicly in the name of tackling corruption. In fact, behind the scene, the military intelligence acted like a government unto itself and a lot of corruption and human rights violations during the emergency are directly linked to them.

There was no doubt that the ACC Chairman was well meaning in his jihad against corruption. That notwithstanding, it was surprising that he failed to realise that the task of banishing corruption was not the task of the ACC; its task was simply to catch corrupt people and prepare cases against them for the courts to handle. Likewise, the task of changing character of the people was surely not one that the people of Bangladesh would entrust to a military bureaucrat. The CG allowed the ACC to catch the "big and small" fish of corruption in scant respect to the law and human rights without lifting a finger.

Two instances, involving an Ambassador and a former Minister, highlighted how eerie the activities of the ACC and the military intelligence had become after it had created so much hope among the public in the initial period of the emergency rule. The Ambassador was sentenced to a five years' prison sentence while still in station representing the country! The charges against him were all audit objections, like changing of residence, etcetera that should have been dealt with by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and settled against the Ambassador's pension and other benefits that were held by the government. While the Ambassador pursued his case in the High Court and received a stay order, the ACC pressured the lower court to sentence him for five years, a decision for which the lower court was held for contempt by the High Court! In openly pursuing the case against this Ambassador, the ACC boasted before the media that all Ambassadors while in station abroad would be similarly treated. It was utterly surprising that the Foreign Ministry at that time did not protest that insane statement nor defended the Ambassador who was sentenced anyway. It is not that Ambassadors are above the law but for sake of the country, action of corruption against them while in their stations can be taken publicly only by a government that is not in its senses. The Minister was physically tortured by the military intelligence to sign on dotted lines about corruption in his Ministry. His wife and daughter were also incarcerated to break the Minister's will for securing the confession.

The military leaders of the CG promised that thousands of crores of Taka would be recovered from the corrupt that would be used to build hospitals and in other social services. In fact, a substantial amount of money was recovered but none of it went for those hospitals and other social services that were promised. Huge sums must therefore be in some pockets instead of lying in the government exchequer.

The Chief Adviser surprisingly watched the ACC and military intelligence trash the law and human rights without raising a finger. Instead he and his Advisers and the military leaders came before the public continuously deriding corruption in every segment of the society except the military. It is therefore unacceptable that corruption charges should be brought against Advisers of the CG and the CG itself. Additionally, there is also the need for an answer as to where the thousands of crores arm-twisted by the army intelligence during the emergency, went. The present ACC should pursue these allegations with extreme seriousness but outside the media. The Commission could also consider amnesty to people who were arm-twisted and tortured for money to recover the thousands of crores that were paid but were not deposited in the government exchequer. Although unrelated to the corruption issue, the government should also inquire into the constitutional violations by the CG because these violations allowed the CG to carry out its extra-legal activities by setting the law aside for which grave charges are now being brought against it.

There were a good number of people who were incarcerated by the CG who were genuinely corrupt. In the name of political victimisation, they should not all be allowed to escape; nor should such cases be handled on political lines. The ACC has a difficult task but the Prime Minister has assured it independence. It should now pursue the corruption allegations against the CG, its Advisers and the intelligence people following the same yardstick they had set for politicians, businessmen and civil bureaucrats during the emergency that no one is above the law.