।। Syed Badrul Ahsan ।।
Bangladesh is trapped in an existential crisis today. Its historical legacy is under assault. Its constitution is under threat. In the aftermath of the political change caused by a student-led agitation in August, the country has been reeling from one crisis to another. There is as yet no indication of the crisis coming to an end anytime soon. And there are the reasons why politics, despite the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in August, remains stalled.
But the crisis facing the country has a whole lot more to do with blatant attempts to tamper with its history than with politics as usual. In the first place, the interim administration headed by Professor Mohammad Yunus lacks legitimacy given that it was installed in clear violation of the country’s constitution. Of course, a reference was made by President Mohammad Shahabuddin to the judiciary on whether Article 106 of the constitution could be applied to have the interim regime installed. But in a broader perspective, with the caretaker system of government no longer part of the constitution, the installation of the Yunus government is clearly an undemocratic move in contravention of the constitution.
In the second place, there remains the inescapable fact that Sheikh Hasina, who was flown to India by the army, did not resign or was not permitted to resign under the provisions of the constitution. The head of government, under the provisions of the constitution, is expected to meet the President of the republic and submit his or her resignation to him or her from the office of Prime Minister. Additionally, Sheikh Hasina has publicly made it known that she did not resign or sign any resignation letter. For his part, President Shahabuddin, in an interview with a newspaper editor, noted that he was not in possession of any document relating to Sheikh Hasina’s resignation.
The situation is thus rather chaotic. But worse is the reality of the Yunus administration being at sea where governance is concerned. Where it had been expected to bring back normalcy and restore law and order with the sole objective of paving the road to a fresh election, it took upon itself the unwieldy task of forming as many as eleven commissions geared to reforming various institutions of the state. The problem here is that any reform measures suggested by the interim regime will not be implemented because Parliament does not exist (it was dissolved when the Awami League government was removed from power). Moreover, once elections take place and a new Parliament comes in, there is little guarantee that it will adopt the reforms suggested by an unelected administration.
Beyond and above everything that has been happening in the country, it is patently the moves the interim regime has been making to undermine the roots of Bangladesh’s historical heritage. The Supreme Court recently stayed, upon a petition filed by a pro-regime lawyer, a 2011 directive by the High Court to the effect that Joi Bangla, the national slogan inspiring the nation during the War of Liberation in 1971. In other words, the message being given out is that Joi Bangla cannot be the slogan it has always been. And that is not all.
The students who have been inducted in the council of advisors by Yunus have gone out on a limb to undermine the constitution adopted in 1972. The government has appointed a Bangladeshi-American academic, Ali Riaz, as chairman of a constitutional reforms commission, thereby ignoring the constitutional experts in the country. The move has run into predictable criticism, the point of which is that any move to replace the constitution with a new one will be an affront to the legacy of the War of Liberation won through the sacrifice of as many as three million Bengalis and the rape of 200,000-plus Bengali women by soldiers of the Pakistan occupation army in 1971.
In clear terms, it is the freedom struggle, the nation’s Muktijuddho, which is under assault in these parlous times. Not long ago, an elderly freedom fighter was paraded by anti-liberation Jamaat-e-Islami elements with a garland of shoes around his neck. The image led to severe condemnation on social media. The government, which has never condemned the torching of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s home-cum-museum and the razing of all symbols of the 1971 war in August, preferred to keep its silence on the issue of the dishonoured freedom fighter.
And, as this article is being written, the students whom Yunus publicly referred to as his source of power in August, continue to cause havoc through their intention of discarding the constitution with a new one based on what they call a proclamation related to the July-August political change. In other words, it is another step to the slide the country has been subjected to in the past nearly five months. Anarchy reigns supreme.
Bangladesh, in light of everything that has gone on since August, is not a happy country. Journalists have been lodged in prison, with murder charges clamped on them. Those who remain free have had their press accreditation cards revoked. Former ministers are in prison, with lawyers too petrified to defend them in court. In the interior of the country, atrocities continue to be perpetrated on local leaders and workers of the Awami League. The media, which was vocal, and justifiably too, against the operation of such measures as the Digital Security Act and Cyber Security Act during the period of Awami League government, today have been reduced to silence for fear of mob attacks on their premises. No report or article critical of Yunus or his regime is carried by newspapers, television and radio.
Mob rule has become the order of the day. Mobs have demanded a ban on such leading newspapers as the Daily Star and Prothom Alo. One of the students involved with the so-called anti-discrimination movement turned up at the home of a media owner, giving him a list of journalists who needed to be sacked from his organisation.
Bangladesh’s relations with India have nose-dived as a result of atrocities to which the country’s Hindu population has been subjected since August. In the UK and US, criticism has been mounting on the threat to human rights under the Yunus outfit. Dhaka has been demanding that Sheikh Hasina be sent back to Bangladesh for what it calls the genocide carried out by her government in July-August, a demand which is unlikely to be met by the Indian government.
With the Jamaat and Hizbut Tahrir quietly placing their own people in such significant places as banks and other governmental bodies, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is unquestionably agitated. It has made it known that the Yunus regime should lay out a roadmap to elections rather than engage itself in bringing about reforms. It is the ethos of Bangladesh, as conceived fifty-three years ago through a War of Liberation, which is under organised assault on Muhammad Yunus’ watch. Under the rule of the Nobel Peace laureate, it is peace which has gone fugitive in the country. Political illegitimacy has been running riot all over.
Writer:
Syed Badrul Ahsan
Bangladeshi Journalist, Residing in the UK
** The views expressed and the spelling used in this article are solely those of the author. It is not uncommon for the author’s opinions to differ from Bangalianaa’s editorial policy. Therefore, Bangalianaa bears no legal, orthographical, or any other responsibility for the content of the articles published here, the author’s column, or its accuracy. – Editor
