Government helps BNP politically by imposing undeclared hartal

As I See It Column

The Independent

March 17, 2012

M. Serajul Islam

Courtesy the electronic media, the nation saw the unbelievable extent to which the Government went to spoil the BNP’s “Cholo, Cholo Dhaka Cholo” programme.   The private TV channels have showed days prior to the event the actions taken by the law enforcing agencies assisted by ruling party activists to restrict/check all busses and public transports plying to the city from the rest of the country.  Even the river routes and railways were clamped down to stop people from joining the BNP call. Nearer to March 12, all public transport to Dhaka was virtually stopped.

The police also clamped down on the hotels and boarding houses, issuing orders that they should not take guests till the 14^th. The police of course denied issuing such orders. Nevertheless, the electronic media exposed that denial as untrue where hotel owners interviewed informed viewers about huge losses. In doing so, the law enforcing agencies did not consider the fact that the hotels and guest house are used by ordinary people who come to Dhaka for a multitude of reasons, including treatment for life threatening health problems.

The AL’s political leadership also went into the act. They claimed that the BNP’s call was intended for acts of subversion in Dhaka. They linked the claim to the line they have taken for a long time that the BNP/Jamat is conspiring to create a breakdown of the law and order to derail the trial of those being tried for crimes against humanity.  The ruling party leaders, however, have not been able to give convincing evidence of such conspiracies to the public except repeating their statements like the pin caught in a broken record.

The result of the actions of the law enforcing agencies and the AL leadership created a situation that was surreal. In the past, we have faced hartals, shamabesh and mahashamabesh by the opposition that had put such fears in our minds of the public that we shut ourselves in our houses and hoped and prayed that the calls by the opposition would pass by without harming us. This time, we faced a similar predicament of fear and apprehension but very little of it due to the opposition and almost all due to the ruling party. Dhaka was deserted by 11^th and the BNP cannot claim even a little credit for it because it was the Government that did it all!

In the past, hartals of the opposition did not always pass by harmlessly. Lives have been lost, property damaged and the economy was forced to incur huge losses.  We were utterly disgusted and have been praying to the Almighty to give better sense to the opposition not to make us and the country hostage to their politics and put an end to hartal. It seemed like the Almighty heard us. In the past three years, unbelievable as it may sound, the BNP called just  7/8 hartals.

A lot of people would have a lot to say about the BNP’s governance in its last term for which it has paid badly by losing the last elections miserably. Nevertheless, in the last 3 years, the BNP has done very little to link itself to acts of subversion to destroy law and order to bring down the government. Instead, the BNP has adopted strategies such as demonstrations, long marches, etc that are guaranteed by the Constitution. Of course, many may blame the BNP for not going to parliament but then if the BNP did that as well, then it would have been too good to be true.

Nevertheless, even on the issue of not attending the parliament, the BNP has their reasons.   They feel that their 34 seats are so few that in a highly partisan parliament, their views would not even have any chance of being heard, let alone taken up for consideration. This was underscored by the Speaker while “reprimanding” the Minister for Finance in Parliament in parliament recently for his provocative statements against the BNP/Jamat in the context of their March 12 event.                                            

Those who thought that by stopping people from going to Dhaka, they would be able to turn the BNP’s event into a flop were badly mistaken. In the end, the number of people who turned out for the event was huge. It is strange that the AL leaders never considered that Dhaka has close to 15 million people and even a fraction of the people of the city would give the BNP the number it needed to claim success. By its un-democratic steps, the BNP has been given a much larger victory in political terms.

Few believed the police explanation that people were stopped from coming to stop Dhaka for acts of subversion.  In fact, ordinary folks interviewed on this point by private TV channel dismissed the explanation by saying that there was no reason for the BNP/Jamat activists to attack their own meeting. One folk said that if the BNP/Jamat activists were at all interested in subversion, the better target would have been the AL meeting on 14^th March where everyone was welcome to attend! 

A more unbelievable explanation was given by the authorities that said that the transport owners themselves did not run the buses on the highways, fearing attack by the opposition. The electronic media has interviewed the owners lamenting losses in many crores of Takas from the action of the Government. The shutdown of the private TV channels from live telecasting of the BNP programme was the most regrettable act of the authorities because it badly damaged the ruling party’s democratic image and its claim of giving the country a free media. The live telecasting of the PM’s address on 14^th March and encouraging access given to people to attend it also flagged the double standard of the Government. These actions have also dented badly its democratic credentials.

In the end, the Government’s fears of sabotage and subversion did not come true. In fact, the media showed armed ruling party activists in the streets of Dhaka trying to provoke the opposition.  Surely, if sabotage was the aim of the event, it could have been done at will.  The BNP event was to register their points against this government. In those objectives; the BNP achieved more than it could have hoped for. The opposition’s main claim that the government is undemocratic was successfully established by the government’s unbelievable actions.

One question lingers in the public mind which is why did the Government do all it did to stop the BNP event? One possible answer is that it feared that the opposition event would draw a huge number of people from across the country that would damage its political standing in the country  badly. In the end, the BNP programme drew a huge gathering. The public was left with no doubt that if the Government had not acted the way it did, the March 12 event would have drawn unprecedented numbers of people as the Government had feared and perhaps more.

Ironically therefore, by its undemocratic actions, the ruling party strengthened that fear more successfully than the opposition would have even if they were allowed to hold the event unhindered.  Nevertheless sadly, it is democracy that has been served badly in all that has happened by the actions of the Government leading to March 12. BNP’s overtures to do politics the democratic way have been spurned. It is such a shame that it the month of March, the country had to witness such un-democratic actions that led many to suggest that the country has returned to the Pakistan days.

People are now really worried whether by its actions the government has pushed the country and its politics into uncertainty. The programme given by the BNP from its Dhaka event is not encouraging with a daylong hartal called for the 29^th of March and a 90 ultimatum for the ruling party to accept its demands.  For the time being, the BNP is relishing its current healthy position in politics thanks almost entirely to the ruling party’s unbelievable efforts.

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan and Egypt

The Koran Burning in Afghanistan

Daily Sun
March 11, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

The US has upped its schedule to withdraw its combat troops from Afghanistan. In June last year, President Obama had made a public declaration to bring the troops back by end of 2014. Recently, the US  Defense Secretary announced that the US would be bringing all combat troops home by 2013 instead. 

The President’s commitment notwithstanding, no doubt necessitated by the Presidential elections later this year, events in Afghanistan are not shaping the way the President would have liked. The Karzai Government has failed to show the potentials necessary to give the confidence to the US that the country would be on track in which it has tried to put the country at great financial and human costs in pursuance of the war on terror. The Talibans are resurgent and negotiations are under way with US concurrence for a role for the so-called moderate Talibans in a post-US Afghanistan. 

To make matters worse for the US, its troops have become embroiled in the country for burning the holy Koran. The incident occurred in Parwan on February 20^th . It has affected since every aspect of relations between the two countries and all arrangements related to the withdrawal schedule of US combat troops in Afghanistan. Afghans are outraged. In incidents related to the Koran burning issue, 29 Afghans and 6 American soldiers were killed in the week following the burning. 

The US administration is very deeply concerned. The administration went to action immediately to contain the dangerous post-burning effects.  President Obama and  the US commander in Afghanistan also apologized; apologies that drew great flak in USA but nevertheless helped contain the situation from going dangerously out of hand. In addition, the US ordered immediately a joint American-Afghan investigation and the US military, its own investigation. The powerful Afghan religious body the Ulema Council also ordered a separate investigation.  

The US-Afghan investigations have identified a chain of human errors that led to the unfortunate event. The investigation revealed that six US military personnel that included an Afghan-American interpreter were involved in the burning. Importantly, the investigation did not find any pre-planned or deliberate attempt by the six involved in the burning to incite Afghans’ religious sentiments. Nevertheless, the episode had the script of a mystery drama and started with US suspicion of Afghans incarcerated in the Parwan detention centre. 

The US military in charge of the detention centre in Pawan became suspicious that the detainees were using library books to scribble notes internally and externally to organize an uprising. They feared a security risk and 2 Afghan interpreters were assigned to sort out the books in which the scribbling was reported to have been done. The two ended up with sorting 1652 books that included a few Korans but mostly books of secular nature, including novels and poems. 

What was actually scribed in the books and whether these writings in anyway posed a security risk was not thoroughly discovered by the US military personnel involved or the Afghans who assisted because there were too many books involved and too little time to review the writings. The Ulema Team that has also investigated the matter however found very personal writings on the books such as their names and other personal records. On the Korans and on  the  religious books, the writings were merely to explain the text in local Afghan dialects and had nothing to do with “terrorism or criminal activities.” 

Where the simple decision in the matter could have been to store the 1652 books as they did not reveal anything suspicious or threatening, the US military personnel involved in the matter simply went ahead and ordered the books to be burned. In deciding, the relevant officials made one procedural error and another of much serious nature, a total insensitivity and lack of understanding to Islamic beliefs and traditions. The procedural mistake was not to have retained the 1652 books for a while longer and instead deciding straightaway to burn the total lot. 

The cardinal error of the officials who ordered the burning was to have overlooked that in the lot, there were a few Korans or not to have thought that in lot, there could be a few Korans.  Clearly, anyone even with a vague notion of what a Koran means to the Muslims would have taken out the few Korans from the lot and gone ahead with the order to burn the rest. The officials did not do that.  It was only when Afghans who were ordered to burn the books found the Korans that the alarm bell was sounded but by then the Korans were substantially burnt. 

US apologies and orders of investigations however have not been enough to appease the Afghans. The Ulema Council has said that Afghan custom and tradition demands that those responsible for the burning should be publicly punished. The US of course is not going to do any of it. US public opinion is also strongly against such a demand. Some of the opinions on a report by the NY Times covering the burning incident make very interest reading. Almost all the 100 plus letters that I sampled  expressed deep contempt for Islamic  and Islamic values that could lead one to conclude that still in the US, Muslims continue to remain suspect even when their religion is violated and humiliated.  

The US has invested so heavily in Afghanistan that they should have been leaving the country as heroes. Instead, the Koran burning issue is surely going to be for the US the parting kick for all their sacrifices for the people of Afghanistan; the final nail to seal the coffin on US unpopularity in the country. In this Koran burning incident, the US has again underlined how little they know of Islam, Muslims and the Islamic world. The Koran is a living symbol of the Almighty in the lives of every Muslim, an overwhelming majority of who are not fundamentalists. They not just believe that the Koran has been authored by God; they believe that He gave it to Muslims through Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The Muslims show to the Koran the respect that a non-Muslim will never perhaps understand.

The US is also being forced to bring the Talibans to the negotiating table. Hamid Karzai has clearly proven that he would not be able to live up to the expectations that the US and its allies have placed on him.  The US would be spending the same amount of time in Afghanistan till it withdraws its combat troops by 2013 as did the Soviets in the 1980s. The Soviets had left in failure. It looks as if the US would likewise as did all foreign troops in history of Afghanistan. Like the dog’s crooked tail, Afghanistan is again about to go back to its own ways   and about to prove that there is a lot of truth in the cliché that history repeats itself.

Nevertheless, the US can take at least the comfort that it has broken Al Qaeda substantially having killed most of its top leadership including Osama Ben Laden. At its worst, even an Afghanistan free of US occupation with Talibans in power in one shape or another, would be a problem for the Afghans but little threat to the US or the West. The Muslim world would like to expect that after the US leaves Afghanistan, it would not use what happens there to humiliate them across the world. It is time for the US and its allies to realize that Muslims have been the victims of the world on terror that President Bush had started.

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan and Egypt

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Is ugly politics taking over Bangladesh’s cricket?

The Independent
As I See It Column
March 10, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

The Bangladesh Cricket Board’s President said in a press conference in Islamabad recently that international cricket would resume in Pakistan soon. He led an 8 member delegation there to see firsthand security arrangements to send our cricket team for a tour. Readers may recollect that all cricket playing countries stopped visiting Pakistan after a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in, 2009. Since then Pakistan has been playing its “home series” of Test, 50/50 and T20 matches in the UAE. 

It is a bit strange that Bangladesh is making this overture at a time when no other Test playing country has shown the slightest inclination to visit Pakistan. The decision of the Board’s Chairman to visit Pakistan to clear the way for a visit by our team  becomes more suspect because Bangladesh’s Coach Stuart Law has said categorically that he would not be a part of the team to tour Pakistan.   

It seems like the BCB President is either not taking a lot of factors in the equation or just sidetracking some obvious ones. A major factor he   is sidetracking is the law and order situation in Pakistan, specifically the activities of various terror groups that have increased in recent times. The Pakistan terror groups had no reason to attack the Sri Lankans. Yet they attacked the team to show their potency. More importantly, they targeted the Sri Lankan team because it was a soft target.  

The Bangladesh team would also be a soft target explained by the fact that if our team is, God forbid, attacked, there would be little or no repercussions as there was none when the Sri Lankan team was attacked.  There could however be more reasons for possible terrorist attacks on the Bangladesh team for acrimonies related to our war of liberation. The terrorists could have added reasons there to attack a Bangladesh team on a visit to Pakistan. 

The Pakistanis at the moment are on an upswing in Test cricket. After the match fixing allegations against some of its team members that included Captain Salman Butt, Pakistan Test team had become almost a pariah in the annals of Test cricket.  After sincere efforts of its new management ably supported by the cricketers on the field led by Misbah Ul Huq as the captain, Pakistan has made a dramatic come back to Test cricket wining three “home” test series they played against South Africa, Sri Lanka and England in UAE. The last one against England was a 3-0 white wash. 

Unfortunately, the so-called home series were away from home, without the home crowds watching. More importantly, Pakistanis were not just failing to take pride from the victories of their Test cricketers by watching them in the fields; these victories were embarrassing the country instead. The victories were flagging for the outside world the fact that Pakistan continues to remain a terrorist prone country adding to its negative image. 

Pakistan has therefore been pursuing with all the Test playing nations with offers to visit Pakistan for playing Test cricket. So far, none has shown even a lukewarm interest to visit Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan would consider it a great favour not just to its cricket but to the country if any of the Test playing countries visited Pakistan. It is in this context that one has to know the reasons that are motivating Bangladesh to be the exception among the Test playing nations and undertake an official tour to Pakistan.   

One answer is in the poor performance of our team in Test cricket in recent times for which we are not receiving any offers from Test playing countries for playing a series abroad. Pakistan has just not offered us a series but it is doing so in a silver platter. Unfortunately, this is only one reason and not a good enough one to do Pakistan such a huge favour by putting the lives of our Test team at risk. If one were to look at Pakistan from the view point of our bilateral-relations, Pakistan does not deserve such a huge favour from us. We have many issues outstanding with Pakistan starting with an apology for 1971. 

Thus on balance, there are no strong enough reasons for Bangladesh to do Pakistan such a big favour.   The main reason  for a visit to Pakistan was to see firsthand the security issues. One fails to understand why should a delegation with the responsibility to look at security issues had to be led by the President? His leadership of the delegation has given rise to suspicion whether there is a hidden agenda. The Pakistanis has already used his visit to good political use. Pakistan’s Interior Minister with the BCB President held a press conference in which the latter expressed confidence that international cricket would soon return to Pakistan, a strong political statement to build Pakistan’s fragile international image. 

Bangladesh, as ICC rules are at the moment, could be a candidate for the President of the ICC in 2014. However, Bangladesh would have to be elected to the post of Vice President this year to be in line for assuming the post of President. Unfortunately, there is a move underway to bring changes in the ICC that would deprive Bangladesh of the post of Vice President and eventually that of the President. It is in the context of these proposed changes that the visit of the BCB President makes sense because without the proposed changes, his door to the ICC President’s post was more or less assured. Pakistan is a member of the ICC and could be very useful for Bangladesh. A tour of Bangladesh Cricket Team at a time when Pakistan needs it very badly could be a quid pro quo for its support of  for the BCB President  to become the Vice Prescient this year and President in 2014. The proposals for reconstituting the ICC would come up for consideration in June this year. 

It is of course a national issue for a Bangladeshi to be the President of the ICC. However, it may not be as simple as the BCB President may think.  Pakistan is at this time suspect in the international cricketing circles and its support could bring the opposite result to what the BCB’s President could be expecting. There are also many issues beyond cricket involved here that the BCB President needs to clear with the relevant authorities. Above all, the whole process needs to be transparent. 

Bangladesh cricket is now looking down the barrel of the gun in terms of its Test status because of its poor performance in the field. The recent green signal given by the BCB to BPL has pushed our cricket in the wrong direction. It seems our cricket officials are becoming too interested in cricket politics and lures of money for cricket lovers of the country to feel comfortable.  Individual interests are taking precedence over cricket related and national interests. 

At the time of submitting this piece, the news has come in the media that the BCB President has expressed satisfaction with security arrangements in Pakistan. This means Bangladesh would take the risk of a tour to Pakistan.  Meanwhile, the Board’s President has dropped Tamim Iqbal from the Bangladesh squad for the Asia Cup to be played in Dhaka next week after the selection committee had included him. The Chief Selector has resigned over what he termed as undue interference of the President.  Many other former cricketers have spoken in the media about the role of the President. 

Tamim Iqbal, despite his recent poor form, is still world class and indispensible for the Bangladesh in the short versions of the game. He cannot  simply  be dropped on cricketing merit. He has been retained as a reserve which means that he is not unfit either. Is politics, ugly politics, spreading into our cricket to destroy it? So it seems.

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan.

The power of Mamata Banarjee

The Holiday
March 9, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

It is a pity that the present Government has to contend with Mamata Banarjee who has emerged as the proverbial party spoiler for the Awami League Government. When Sheikh Hasina could have been basking in glory for taking Bangladesh-India relations by the scruff from the doldrums of stagnancy to a paradigm shift to  mutually beneficial relations, she has been left high and dry having given India major concessions on security and land transit without receiving the expected concessions from India. Failure to get an agreement on Teesta and delay in executing the enclaves exchange deal, both on account of Mamata Banarjee, has put Sheikh Hasina in a very soft spot politically.  

In 1996, the government of Sheikh Hasina had been able to get then West Bengal’s support for a water deal more important and more complicated than the Teesta. The Ganges Water Agreement was reached within six months of Sheikh Hasina assuming office in 1996. Successful negotiations with Deve Gowde who was then Prime Minister paved the Centre’s approval to the deal. However it was Delhi that had then told  Bangladesh the a Ganges water deal would need approval of West Bengal and that Bangladesh would need to take WB Chief Minister Jyoti Basu on board. 

Bangladesh did just that. Then Foreign Minister Abdus Samad Azad visited Kolkata and met the Chief Minister who also came on an official visit to Dhaka. At that time, New Delhi, Dhaka and Kolkata were on same wave length. Things were all over board. However, at that time Devi Gowde was a weak Prime Minister and Jyoti Basu was a powerful Chief Minister whose party’s influence was also important for Delhi. Importantly, the government in New Delhi was not even a Congress Government and Bangladesh at that time had made no major or minor concessions to India. 

This time, it is the Congress in power in New Delhi that returned to office for a consecutive term more or less at the same time as the Awami League.  Both parties were given major support by the people in the respective countries. Historically, due to factors embedded in the events of 1971, the affinity between the Congress and the Awami League is deep.  On top of it, this time Sheikh Hasina made the first moves with concessions to India that were fulfillment of Indian dreams. 

It is such a positive setting that has been messed up. Two politicians made major accusations against the Advisers who have led the Bangladesh negotiations for the mess up. Former President HM Ershad and Rashed Khan Menon have blamed the Prime Minister’s Advisers, using very harsh language.  Rashed Khan Menon said that the Advisers have acted as Advisers to the Indian Prime Minister rather than to Sheikh Hasina.  HM Ershad has said that the Advisers are “in favour of India”. While the accusations are unfortunate and extreme, such views nevertheless highlight the fact that the India factor has  become a very major political issue in Bangladesh’s politics as the parties enter into the final stretch leading to the next general elections in about 2 years’ time. 

 President Ershad is the veritable weather cock of Bangladesh’s politics and his remark about the Advisers has a lot of political meaning.  He has already led marches to benefit from people’s frustrations with India on Teesta, Tippaimukh and recently on the Feni River. In fact, he is playing the “India card” more strongly than the BNP while being a partner of the ruling coalition that underlines the fact that the ruling party is politically in a very tight corner with the poor way it has negotiated with India thus far. 

The Advisers’ role notwithstanding, the real accusing finger is being pointed both by New Delhi and Dhaka at Mamata Banarjee for the failure of India to deliver on the promises it made after accepting the Bangladesh concessions. . When Mamata Banarjee led her party Trinamool to victory in Paschim Bangla in May last year, she was fondly projected in the Bangladesh media as an ally to our efforts to get India to agree to our legitimate interests and rights from India. In fact, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also called her on phone to congratulate her on her victory. She was taken for granted so much so that no one on our side cared that that at about the time of the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Dhaka, she was facing the electorate in the Teesta area in Paschim Bangla. If anyone had done so, it would have emerged as daylight that there was no way for her to offer Bangladesh 50% of the share of Teesta water because, first, India had never agreed in the past to give Bangladesh more than 28% share, and second, the people using Teesta waters had urged Mamata Banarjee not to enter in to any deal that could affect them adversely. 

Facts about how and why she has today turned out to be the major block in Bangladesh’s efforts are now emerging. Former Foreign Affairs Adviser Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed Chowdhury who now is a Senior Research Fellow at Institute of South Asian Studies at the University of Singapore has just written a research article on Mamata Banarjee. The article has given insight to the questions our side should have asked instead of taking MB for granted. Then there are issues of history, culture, etc that Dr. Chowdhury have brilliantly brought into his analysis leaving readers wondering if our negotiators even knew a little bit about Mamata Banarjee or had cared to know about her. If they had, they would have saved themselves from wasting Sheikh Hasina’s vision and courage because as the cliché goes, “forewarned is forearmed.” 

There are some ominous facts that Dr. Chowdhury has revealed in his paper that our negotiators must read for a grip on reality instead of fondly hoping some power will emerge from the heavens and turn Mamata and Manmohon into angels for making Bangladesh smile. Mamata Banarjee is no ordinary lady or any run of the mill politicians. She has not just taken on Manmohon Singh and making him dance to her tunes; she is simultaneously fighting two of India’s most powerful politicians simultaneously and so far, winning.

In choosing her Cabinet, she spurned Pranab Mukherjee by declining to give a post to his son. Instead, she offered him a lowly bureaucratic post of Chairman of the State’s Industrial Development Corporation. Most recently, she teamed up with a few other Chief Ministers and torpedoed a pet project of the other most powerful politician in New Delhi, Home Minister P. Chidambaram. They shot down the establishment of the National Counter Terrorism Centers on the plea that the matter of law and order is a state subject and not a central one. The major source of MB’s power base is the 19 seats that her party Trinamool contributes to the Congress led UPA coalition of Prime Minister Manmohon Singh. The seats are simply put, crucial to the Congress’s survival. 

That power of MB was palpably visible when Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai mentioned categorically on the evening of 5^th September last year that as Mamata Banarjee had objected to the Teesta deal, it was being taken off the table for Prime Minister Manmohon Singh’s talks the next day in Dhaka with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The Indian Foreign Secretary flagged for us the power of MB that we should have known weeks and months earlier instead of being led up the garden path totally unaware of the perils ahead. In fact, even after Ranjan Mathai’s statement, our side was still hoping an agreement would be signed the following day! 

Mamata Banarjee has now said that any agreement of Teesta must wait till she knows for certain on how much water would be available in the river for sharing with Bangladesh.  It is just not the 50/50 sharing that is the only contentious issue. She is also insisting that the water available on the Bangladesh side where there is barrage must also be calculated before the sharing formula is agreed upon. Clearly, the Teesta agreement is caught in the quicksand and with it, our hopes for a just share of its waters anytime soon. 

Mamata Banarjee has also set her sights at the exchange of enclaves and has objected to the agreement. Recently, our Home Minister has returned from New Delhi with the assurance that the issue would be placed in the next session of the Indian parliament for ratification. In fact, she has submitted it to the cabinet that it is the 1974 Indira-Mujib Agreement that would be placed for ratification 37 years after it was signed! The way she put it made it appear like that the ratification would be done easily. She failed to ask the Indians what they proposed to do with MB’s objection to the exchanges.  Her party’s support would be crucial for the 2/3^rd majority in both houses of the India parliament that would be required to ratify the agreement on the exchange of enclaves. 

Mamata Banarjee has clearly chosen to use the “Bangladesh card” in the political game she is playing with New Delhi. With BJP also opposed to the exchange of enclaves, one must wonder what it is that has led our Home Minister to be convinced that India would ratify the 1974 Indira-Mujib Agreement. One element of the Agreement gave Bangladesh “lease in perpetuity” over the Teen Bigha corridor. Is that going to happen instead of the 24hours’ access to the Dahagram-Angorpota enclaves? Either this is a fond wish of our negotiators or someone has got the issues mixed up!  

The Congress had expected that elections in the five Indian states, including UP, would give it some leverage over Mamata Banarjee. In particular, the Congress was hoping that a good show in UP where Rahul Gandhi staked his claim to be the next Prime Minister of India on line would send a message to Mamata Banarjee that the popularity of the Congress is on an upswing. Unfortunately, the news from UP is not good. Congress fared very badly although it did gain some seats and did not do its national image any good. Mayabati’s Bahujan Samajbadi Dal has lost badly but the swing has gone to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajbadi Dal where his son Akhilesh Yadav has captured the nation’s attention as the face of the new generation well ahead of Rahul Gandhi.  

The state elections are thus not expected to lessen Mamata Banarjee’s political value to the Centre as no helping hand is expected to come to the Congress from the state elections. Clearly, the leverage to come out of the predicament in which Bangladesh finds itself is not with us.  Mamata Banarjee is holding the whip hand. We have lost our handle on influencing events in the way we did our diplomacy with India. Bangladesh would now be left watching how much and to what extent Mamata Banarjee plays the “Bangladesh card”. 

Nevertheless, in diplomacy there is never a lost case and the scenes quickly change as they do in a drama. For our own interest, we need to know more about Mamata Banarjee and take lessons from past mistakes following the merit in another cliché, better late than never. In this context, those negotiating should on a priority basis read Dr. Iftekhar Chowdhury’s article. Better still, they should take his advice for future course of action on how to deal with Mamata Banarjee.  

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan.

Bangladesh-India: The Home Ministers’ talks

Daily Sun
March 4th., 2012
M. Serajul Islam

In the opening session of a seminar organized by a leading NGO on Bangladesh-India relations recently, Finance Minister Mr. AMA Muhit made a very valuable reference. He spoke of the need of political will to take relations to newer heights. The Minister would have done himself and his Government a world of good if he had just given his Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina the credit she deserves in showing that political will and by that token held the Indian Prime Minister responsible for failing to show that political will.

In a talk show on a private TV channel last week, I had said that Sheikh Hasina should be given 10 out of 10 for the political will of which the Finance Minister spoke. I added that by the same token, Manmohon Singh should receive a big zero. The failure by India to show even a little of the political will that Sheikh Hasina have shown has resulted in Bangladesh-India relations being caught in quick sand today. When Sheikh Hasina had made the moves on Indian security concerns and granted it land transit on trial basis, there were high hopes that India would come forward and reciprocate and a new era of mutually beneficial Bangladesh-India relations would begin.

That has not happened. After accepting the Bangladeshi offers that have been answers to the Indian dream, India has so far not given Bangladesh what it had legitimately expected on issues of water and border. The Teesta deal was taken off the table at the proverbial 11th hour. Tippaimukh is going ahead despite promises by India to take into consideration Bangladesh’s fears and concerns. India has instead offered Bangladesh duty free access for 65 items in the RMGG sector. The two sides also signed on the dotted lines on the exchange of enclaves. India has also offered Bangladesh a US$ 1 billion in soft loan for infrastructure development related primarily to developing infrastructure for the land transit that Bangladesh has granted to India on a trial basis.

Bangladesh and India reviewed some of the issues that Bangladesh has been hoping India would resolve to take forward the bilateral relations when the Home Ministers of the two countries met in New Delhi last week. The Indian Home Minister stressed that already there has been a dramatic fall in the number of dead in the Bangladesh-India border in the last 3 months. He however fell short of convincing Bangladesh that it would be gone altogether. The Indian Minister also did not disown the demand made by the DG, BSF, UK Bansal that his force would continue to shoot to kill if their lives are threatened when the issue was raised at the Meeting. The Indian Home Minister who had assured in Dhaka in July last year about the zero tolerance and use of rubber bullets seems to have forgotten his commitments.

On another important issue, namely the exchange of enclaves where India had conceded to Bangladesh during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Dhaka, the Indian Home Minister assured that in the next session of the Indian parliament the agreement would be placed for approval as required under the Indian constitution. Under the Indian Constitution, any change to the territory of India that the enclave exchanges would cause has to be made through a constitutional amendment in the Parliament. That process would now be undertaken. It would not be as easy as the India Home Minister seems to have suggested.

The reason is the BJP that has already taken a tough stand against the exchange of enclaves. There are additional factors here that should worry Bangladesh. The Chief Minister of Paschim Bangla Mamata Banarjee has also lent her strength against the exchange of enclaves. The Centre of India is now very weak and clearly Manmohon Singh is not in a position to commit and deliver anything to Bangladesh when forces as MB and BJP are in opposition.

During her stay in New Delhi, the Bangladesh Home Minister also met the Indian Prime Minister. She got an assurance from him that New Delhi is trying its best to expedite a deal with Bangladesh on the sharing of the Teesta waters. This time though, he was not as optimistic about a deal being imminent soon or like his Foreign Minister had assured our Foreign Minister late last year that a deal on Teesta is “round the corner.” Clearly, New Delhi, because of internal politics of India, is now weak and unable to deliver on its promises to back the political will and courage of Sheikh Hasina for a paradigm shift in Bangladesh-India relations and made the unilateral concessions to India.
On the TV programme, I was also asked what marks I would give to our diplomatic skills. I did not get to answer the question completely as I got into another issue. Later I remembered a recent seminar in which a well known public figure had some harsh comments for some of us who had been critical of India on recent overtures in Bangladesh-India relations. He dismissed concepts like good relations. He held our side responsible for what we have not got from India. He said that we should not blame India for failure of our negotiating team.
I had to agree with him on skills of our negotiators. We are where we are today because of some rank poor diplomacy. If I have been able to answer the viewer on the TV programme, I would have said that where our Prime Minister had scored 10 out of 10 against Manmohon Singh’s zero on political will, our negotiators have scored zero against the Indian diplomats who have taken 10 points out of 10. Our negotiating team has been a hopelessly fragmented team with no leadership and no vision except a fond hope that India would open its doors for Bangladeshi exports to make us rich and also make Bangladesh the connectivity hub of the region involving Bangladesh, Indian northeast, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and South China with fabulous economic prospects.

India would have to come up very fast with the economic promises having failed very badly with the political ones. At the meeting of the Prime Ministers in September in Dhaka, India agreed to allow 65 items in the RMG sector duty free access to the Indian market. That access would allow Bangladesh to reduce the huge trade gap but not substantially. The promise of making Bangladesh the regional connectivity hub must be fast tracked for a very threatening dark cloud is developing against the very few bright spots. India has decided to go ahead with linking the Ganges with the Brahmaputra on their side. The consequences of such linkage could have a tsunami like impact on Bangladesh-India relations.

Bangladesh India relations are not going in a positive directions Bangladesh’s political will and concessions notwithstanding. The Home Ministers’ meeting in New Delhi has not given any reason for optimism, although our Home Minister has claimed success without giving any details. She has said the Indians have committed to a zero tolerance of border killings but only if BSF is not attacked! Her statement is a curious one because the hundreds of Bangladeshis killed have been unarmed. She has backed the DG, BSF instead of putting him on the dock for a very insensitive and inaccurate statement. In fact, she has followed a pattern that our negotiators have adopted with India which is to claim success for their meetings in general terms without providing any details.

In fact our negotiators prepare their success story even before they prepare their talking points for meetings with their Indian counterparts. As a result, the Indian negotiators are under no pressure to deliver. The public in Bangladesh is now suspicious of such claims of successes of our negotiators because there is little of it that they could see!

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan

On late Faiz Ahmed and the Communist Manifesto

The Independent
As I See It Column
March 3rd, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

Faiz Ahmed passed away quietly. He lived a long and an eventful life. In a visible public life he remained above controversy and at the same time earned bipartisan respect in a highly partisan society. Among the news that came out after his death in the newspapers, there was one that made me think about the wisdom of the man. This was about the advice he had given his niece when he was alive. He asked her to keep a copy of the Communist Manifesto with her all the time.

Faiz Ahmed was himself a communist all his life. Therefore, it is understandable that he had the faith in the book that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote 164 years ago, that had taken the world by storm and had shaken the foundations of the capitalist world. In the 48 pages, the two had scribed the text book of communist revolution by which the poor and the downtrodden could overthrow their age-old historical bondage to the rich. His call to the working class, the proletarians was to unite and challenge the bourgeoisie “for they have nothing to lose but their chains” and a “world to win” if they succeeded.

In the post Cold War world, communism that had held up such high hopes for the proletariat died an unsung and innocuous death. The lures of riches that capitalism offered and showcased by the West found converts among the communist countries China and the former Soviet Union that had held such promises for the people in the developing countries. The Chinese leader Deng Xiao Ping was the first Communist leader to open China to capitalism. He had said in 1979 that China was adopting socialism with Chinese characteristics as a result of which all Chinese would become rich but some earlier while others later.

Since adopting socialism with Chinese characteristics, the fate and destiny of China has changed dramatically. Today China is the second most powerful economy after the USA. However, how much has Deng Xiao Ping’s promise that all Chinese would become rich has been realized is a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, China fabulous economic development has left some provinces very well developed while some are still very poor. Among China’s 1.6 billion people, there still exists abject poverty among a large section of the country’s population.
Nevertheless, China’s opting for a mixture of socialism with open market economy was a body blow on the fundamentals of communism. The end of Soviet Union a decade later was an equally fatal blow to the hopes of the proletariat worldwide to overthrow the bourgeoisie because the communist party there also compromised with the bourgeoisie and sacrificed Marx’s promise to the proletariat that the Communist party would help them lose their chains to take their destiny in their hands. The changes towards the market economy in China and the former Soviet Union ended the hopes of the proletariat round the world of getting rid of their chains.

Whether the average Chinese and Russian has benefitted by making fundamental compromises with the teachings of Karl Marx is debatable. Nevertheless, the demise of communism has not been good for the poor in the developing countries like Bangladesh. With the demise, the Chinese and the Soviets who were sponsors of the local communist parties stopped their sponsorship with negative impact on the usefulness of these parties in Bangladesh. The parties have not withered away; they have simply become impotent. Their ineffectiveness removed for the proletariat, the poor and impoverished the instrument through which they could hope to achieve their needs and demands. Although socialism has been enshrined in our constitution, it is no more than lip service that the state gives to it. With international communism dead and buried rendering their supporters in the country weak and in disarray, there is no pressure on the government to be serious about socialism.
A host of new institutions, concepts, etc have emerged since the demise of communism as hopes for the poor not to lament. Globalization has been one such hope. In Bangladesh, the government and the NGOs have also appeared on the scene as saviors of the poor. Programmes such as those related to alleviation of poverty have been talked about in a huge scale. Each successive government of the country has claimed credit for reducing the number of people below the poverty line. These claims notwithstanding, we see below the surface seething discontent in the society. The symptoms are all around us but we just ignore them. We see the expansive life style of the novae riche in the country with fabulous wealth made mainly at the expense of the country’s success in export of RMG and a few other items to complement the RMG sector.
Yet the predicament of the working class, the proletariat of the forgotten era, is visible all around us. Frequently, they take law into their own hands. They destroy factories but in the end, without even the right of a trade union, they have to return to their enslavement and accept what is dished to them by the new era bourgeoisie with the Government always by their side. In a largely agricultural country, the predicament of the agricultural workers is no better than the workers at the factories. While technology has helped massively in enhancing production bringing Bangladesh, despite its unbelievably humungous population, close to self sufficiency in food production, agricultural workers are not getting even a pittance of their work. With the government turning a blind eye, agricultural land and is being devoured by the emergent bourgeoisie for their “summer homes” and real estate development. The bourgeoisie never had such a tension free time as they have in Bangladesh today. One needs to just contemplate these rich people of Bangladesh existing when communism was a force in society and with the former Soviet Union and China as active sponsors of the local communist parties. Surely, the rich would have, for their own survival, given much more to those who have made them fabulously rich.

It is not the Government or the private sector that is helping Bangladesh avoid a serious conflict between the poor and the rich. It is again the poor that is doing the job although sadly they are hardly aware of it and neither the Government or the rich of the country giving them any credit for it. The cushion of a conflict between the rich and the poor is coming from the US12 billion a year that the poor people send to the country by literally putting their lives on the line. These poor people receive almost no help from the Government or the manpower agents except obstacles in their effort to go abroad for employment. There is a curious parallel here why England did not face a proletariat revolution as Marx had predicted. England was saved by the wealth repatriated from the colonies such as India with which it kept its working class happy. In Bangladesh, a class conflict has been kept at bay, albeit temporarily, partly due to the remittance that reaches the poor of the country and partly because the communist parties have been rendered impotent.

Nevertheless, the gap in Bangladesh between the rich and the poor is widening with threatening prospects. A re-emergence of the Communist Manifesto could at least help increase awareness among the rich that the country could continue to treat its proletariat, its working class and the poor with such disdain only by inviting anarchy with cataclysmic consequences. Faiz Ahmed may have seen that catastrophe in his wisdom and that must have been the reason for his advice to his niece.

The writer is a retired career diplomat and former Ambassador to Japan.

Democracy Bangladesh style

The Holiday
March, 2, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

Former Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Shamsul Huda’s statement on the quality of democracy in Bangladesh made at a BEI Seminar recently has attracted widespread news coverage and attention. Dr. Huda is well known for his matter of fact way of talking on some of the most sensitive issues of our politics. At this seminar, he took the floor at Dr. Kamal Hussein’s urging so that the Seminar could benefit from his 5 years experience. Incidentally, the Seminar at BEI was organized on democracy and development in Bangladesh.
Dr. Huda’s submission that democracy in Bangladesh is hostage to the ruling party’s vulgarization was not made in the context of the Awami League alone. It was a generalization about the political reality in Bangladesh. His comments applied to the BNP as well that too has shown the same attitude and mindset while in power as the AL now. In democracy “Bangladesh style”, the ruling party uses black money and “mastaans” or muscle power to sustain its hold on power instead of law and order for governance.

The former CEC also accused the ruling party of destroying institutions instead of strengthening and building institutions that are indispensible to sustain democracy. He named the Election Commission and the Judiciary as institutions that the ruling party destroys. He also mentioned that the ruling party tries to politicize the administration, police and “dangerously the military.” He made a damning comparison in all he said. He said that what “democratic” Bangladesh is doing was “not even possible in the Pakistan period.”

Dr. Huda’s comments were acknowledged by all who participated at the Seminar as realistic assessment of our politics. In fact, despite all the tall claims that our politicians make all the time about how far democracy has gone in Bangladesh and their sacrifices for establishing it in the country, outside the circle of the professional politicians, the consensus in the country is Bangladesh is still far from becoming democratic. Often, from the civil society, we hear views supporting the professional politicians about how well democracy has taken roots in the country. They talk of the free and vibrant press as a major argument in support.

It is such a pity that those who argue in favor of democracy as having taken roots in the country do not see what Dr. Huda has placed rather bluntly. Yet Dr. Huda has not said anything that the public does not know; that when either of the mainstream parties has gone to power, it has made serious attempts to make the administration and the police an extension of the party. Such attempts have weakened both the civil bureaucracy and the police as institutions so substantially that today it is badly affecting good governance. The deterioration of rule of law on one hand and strengthening of the muscle power with political links have encouraged one Minister who has emerged as the public face of the ruling party to demand legalizing extortion in road transport! This underscores that those who speak of strengthening of democracy from among the civil society have themselves become a part of the vulgarization of politics. A largely free media is no guarantee for democracy when institutional guarantees are being taken away from the people one after another.
In fact, up to the last general elections, Bangladesh fulfilled only one basic criterion albeit a major one for its claim to be a democratic country. Up to that election, Bangladesh had achieved a change of government peacefully through four free and fair national elections. Three governments elected through these elections completed their terms and the current one also expected to do the same. The non-party caretaker government has been the main reason that has helped the people of Bangladesh exercise their democratic rights to change governments freely and fairly and has been a significant achievement in their tryst to establish democracy. Unfortunately, it is their only achievement for once the new government has taken power; the ruling party has unfailingly destroyed the institutions and foundations fundamental to sustaining democracy. In addition to destroying the administration and police, they have also made the Parliament that is the heart of a parliamentary democracy, an extension of the ruling party.
It is now on our only achievement for democracy that the attention of the ruling party has fallen. It has already, using its brute majority in parliament, ended elections under neutral non-party government by a system of elections under a party government. In its hurry to abolish the people’s only guarantee of electing the government of choice, the ruling party did not wait for the Court’s judgment, that while recommending the abolition of the CG, has also recommended that the next two elections should be held under such a system. In making the case for abolishing the CG, the ruling party and its supporters have said that it is a shame that in a democratic country, elections for changing the government were conducted by non-elected individuals. They even went to suggest that a democratic election cannot be held under a CG comprised of unelected individuals.

It is a pity that no one cared to ask a few fundamental questions. First, where has it been written that it is only elected people who can elect democratic governments? Second, on the issue of shame, was it not the politicians who had argued that they could not be trusted to hold free and fair elections because of the lack of trust among the parties and that the country needed to get politicians out of the process of holding the elections to make them free and fair? Third, is it not a fact that under a non-party government, the people were able to elect the government of their choice 4 times in succession, a fact attested by national and international observers? Finally, has politics improved to the extent where we can believe in the politicians to hold free and fair elections?
On the first question, democracy is not practiced by any text book. The litmus test to prove whether an election is democratic or otherwise is whether people have voted freely and fairly and whether their votes have been reflected in the results. On all the other questions, Dr. Huda has given us the answers. Politics has deteriorated substantially where all the institutional guarantees of the people to be able to elect to power a government of their choice have been taken away from them. The administration and police today are politicized in favour of the ruling party; so are the other institutions such as the judiciary that could have protected people’s right to vote.
The people backed the clarion call of the Father of the Nation to establish a democratic Bangladesh. They got very little of it except the right to vote once every few years and have the satisfaction of electing to power a government of their choice. They have deep regrets that after electing their government, that government very much ruled the country as it wanted with very little regard to the wishes of the people. The freedom to vote freely and fairly in a national election under a non-party government is now about to be taken away. If it is, then there would be very little left to call the country democratic. Hundreds of thousands of our people who gave their lives for democracy in 1971 would start to turn in their graves.

Nevertheless, we are not friendless abroad in our tryst for democracy and they may be of help to us. The EU delegation that recently came to Dhaka has urged the government to make efforts for a consensus for holding the next general elections. That message was voiced by the US Assistant Secretary of State Mr. Robert Blake. The US Ambassador in Dhaka has made strong statement in the media for a “participatory” election. It is for the people now to voice their views strongly for if they do not, their one and only democratic right would be taken away from them. Dr. Huda has flagged the message and the apprehensions clearly for them.

The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan.

Mr. Blake Comes to Twon

Daily Sun
26 February, 2012
M. Serajul Islam

The last visit before the recent one of the US Assistant Secretary of State during the Grameen Bank controversy was not a pleasant one. He came to Dhaka with something specific to convey to the Government on the Grameen Bank. Although we have not been informed what exactly transpired between him and the Bangladeshi leaders he met on that visit that included the Prime Minister, we are seeing the consequences that are not pleasant.

His just concluded visit has been less dramatic. Nevertheless it drew flak from the Minister of Railways who said that Mr. Robert Blake had no business interfering in the internal affairs of Bangladesh. As for this accusation of interference, there was very little in evidence except his call for consensus between the political parties on the next elections so that those would be fair and free. In addition, he also said in his press conference that human rights situation in Bangladesh is deteriorating, particularly in the context of the media.

Compared to the type of external interference we have seen in Bangladesh politics by foreign visitors and those who stay in the country under diplomatic license, what Mr. Robert Blake said was benign. In the past, foreign guests to Bangladesh of both the short and long duration have not spared Bangladesh on any aspect of governance. They even have been threatening at times. The AL is not on record as ever saying that those blatant interferences were wrong. In fact, when those were made with the BNP in power, they applauded.

One has to wonder also what a Railways Minister has got to do with the visit of a US Assistant Secreteray of State. He has not been named the Government Spokesman and we are not buying anything related to his Ministry from USA. Hence if there has been any real interference here, it is he who has interfered into the responsibilities of his colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

As far as external interference in our internal affairs is concerned, it is something from which we will never be spared for, first, our dependence on foreign assistance for our development, and second, our politics where our politicians welcome foreign interference and criticism to use against each other for political mileage. They complain only when such interference and criticism are not in their favour. If Mr. Blake had by chance spoken in favour of the interim government, the Minister of Railways would have been all praise for the US visitor.

Mr. Blake’s statement upon which the Railways Minister has taken umbrage is however significant. He has said that the US would like to see in Bangladesh elections in which the opposition would have a stake and participate. His visit to the Grameen Bank premises underscored the fact that the US Secretary of State has no digested the insult she was served over the issue of Dr. Mohammad Yunus. These issues are going to haunt the ruling party in the time ahead. Nevertheless, US interference in our politics is going to be different from what it was when the AL was fighting the BNP and seeking the support of foreign powers against the government in 2006.

Between end of 2006 and the present, international politics has changed significantly and so has regional politics. The US is closing its international preoccupation with war on terror. In 2006, that war was the main focus of US’ foreign policy. The BNP’s connections with Islamic fundamentalist forces such as JMB had the US deeply worried about Bangladesh. On a visit to New Delhi in middle of 2005, then US Secretary of State Ms. Condoleezza Rice had said that Bangladesh was emerging as the “next Afghanistan”. In that context, then US Ambassador in Dhaka together with her western colleagues openly entered Bangladesh’s politics with the objective of getting the BNP out of power. In fact, the British High Commissioner had acted actively in favour of the Awami League in pursuing the case against the BNP.

Looking ahead into the next elections in Bangladesh, the US’ interests are not the same. The need to have a hold on politics and government in Bangladesh with a view to fighting the war on terror is no longer an issue for the US in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, Bangladesh has a value to the US for a variety of other reasons, most importantly its geopolitical locations. Hence Bangladesh has a place in US’ foreign policy priorities although of a lesser importance than when it was actively fighting the war on terror.

This time, the US would be happy to deal with these priorities by using its strategic partnership with India by which South Asia minus Pakistan has been left to India as the latter’s sphere of influence. The western powers are also expected to follow the US in allowing India to play the leading role in the emerging issues in Bangladesh’s politics. In this context Mr. Blake’s visit is a very important. He has flagged for the Indians what it expects from the two parties in the context of the next general elections.

Hence whether we like it or not, the external powers will continue to play their roles in our politics and in these roles, India is expected to be more prominent than the western powers including the US. In playing such a role, the Indians have the advantage of its well acknowledged influence over the ruling party. At the present, the ruling party is adamant to hold the next elections under it that the BNP has rejected. Elections under a neutral non-party government is however not just the demand of the BNP; it is today the demand of almost all parties and all shades of opinion except a few in the ruling party. It would be in the interest of India as well to use its influence over the ruling party so that the BNP is encouraged to participate in the next polls because without it, Bangladesh could face political uncertainty that would put into jeopardy India’s vital interests in Bangladesh.

No doubt what Mr. Blake has said about the next elections would also be discussed in the respective capitals of the two countries. The outcome of such consultations could be reflected when the Indian Ministers of Finance and External Affairs come to Dhaka shortly. One only hopes that the Indians would be prepared to play a major role as it is likely to play in our politics without any favorites. The BNP could held the process by softening its stance on India because geopolitical realities demand that Bangladesh as a nation makes its best efforts to have relations with India to further its national interests.

Nevertheless, whatever the outcome, we should be prepared for more interference in our internal affairs by external powers because Mr. Suranjit Sen Gupta and his fellow politicians on both sides of the aisle have failed miserably and are responsible for the undesirable meddling of foreign powers in our internal affairs that is for us all , a national shame. He should be the last person complaining about Mr. Blake’s comments.


The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan.