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Much as one would like to speak of the happier aspects of life, one cannot but dwell once more on the calamity that befell the country on 17 August. Throughout the country there is today a single strand of thought at work, which is that having failed to ensure the security of people, it does not appear plausible for the government to assume that it can now make things any better for all of us. The reassurances about security and safety that the authorities have been making over the last few days are those they have been mouthing for more than three years. The nation remains aware of the results of those reassurances. It is perhaps a sign of the drift the government finds itself in that three days after the blasts that rocked the whole of Bangladesh, there have so far been no policy initiative from the government and no specific comment made as to what the government’s assessment is regarding the explosions. The impression that has been given out is that in the absence of the prime minister, who was on a visit to China she cut short on Friday, the country’s administration is unable to function. Therein does one get a picture of the centralisation that has often stymied a proper functioning of the nation’s administrative structure.
   It should be clear to those who matter, however, that a sweeping change in approach is today necessary if the country is to be given back the confidence it lost so badly on 17 August. No matter how many apologists emerge to explain away the explosions as happenings that really do not push the nation off course, what we as a nation cannot ignore is that our lives have been rudely disturbed by these recent explosions. The shock is in the knowledge that even as the nation waited, with fading hope, for the authorities to solve the crimes which have been committed in recent times —- the 21 August mayhem, the Kibria murder, the attack on the British high commissioner, et al —- we have been made the target of a fresh and more fearsome attack. While some of us may feel complacent about the fact that there were no major casualties save for the two persons who have died and those who have received injuries through the 17 August blasts, there are millions in the country who cannot but look upon 17 August as a trial run on the part of those who carried out the explosions. Now, of course, our many security agencies, having failed spectacularly in keeping themselves abreast of what was about to happen, have gone into a search for the culprits. But how prepared are they to deal with a possible repetition, on a worse scale, of what took place on 17 August? It will simply not do to make a few arrests here and there on the basis of scanty information; and it will be politically unwise if in the name of restoring order the government opts for a detention of opposition political figures. What will matter is an acknowledgement on the government’s part that its agencies have failed it, that it was caught napping by the Jama’tul Mujahideen when it should have been in a state of high alert. Government, by any stretch of the meaning, is a twenty-four hour job. Those who forget this rule do much damage to the country.
   Imagination and sagacity, two elements in woefully short supply these days in the corridors of power, are what the nation needs today.

Demolishing structures

That illegal structures on the banks of the major rivers of the country pose a threat to ecology is not a new discovery. But despite many measures and regular demolitions and evictions, this problem seems a recalcitrant one. That means no matter how many times illegal establishments are destroyed, after a certain time the occupiers appear to take the situation back to its previous state. In fact, this reversion process has been at work in such a way that now much of the bank of the river Buriganga is under illegal occupation.
   However, a recent report informs us that the government demolished 250 illegal structures recently and of them three buildings belonged to a film actor purported to have strong political ties. Obviously, we are happy because in carrying out the demolition the authorities did not show preferential treatment towards people with so-called connections with high officials. But even as we laud this effort we would like to emphasise the probable re-occupation of land once it has been cleared.
   Time and again we have seen that occupiers, after being evicted, return after a certain amount of time has elapsed and once again the authorities have to waste resources and time to clear those areas. In addition, many influential people with political connections also play a vital role in this vile affair as they exert power and often feed money to corrupt channels to ensure that at the end the situation remains unchanged. Need we say that these are the people who must be targeted first because it is due to them that re-occupation of land becomes possible? Coming to the matter of the Buriganga, we all know that the situation affecting it is nothing short of pathetic and as the days go by, with illegal occupation and massive pollution the water body narrows down beyond imagination. But there is hope still and we can reverse this process of ecological devastation if the banks are cleared and efforts taken to maintain that status. We believe that barbed wires put up on cleared lands can be an initial deterrent and to follow up, imposition of heavy fines can also ensure a better ecology. Unfortunately, people, usually from the uneducated classes, have no clue whatsoever as to the harm they are causing the environment. In this regard, we think that a massive drive involving the media is necessary. We also think, not without reason, that if this move picks up the efficiency of the effort that has gone into forming mobile courts to assess the quality of food in restaurants success is guaranteed.

As a jaati with a lot of atto-shomman, we are today in a very bad state. Of course the shorkar has told us it will protect us, it will provide us with nirapotta. But must we really accept its words at face value? In the four years in which they have been exercising rashtriyo khomota, these men and women who have been our government have done nothing to tell us that they are qualified to save us when we need saving. You can go back to all the kharap things that have happened since the bigoto nirbachon. Nowhere will you come across a single udahoron of the khomotasheens doing something that can make us have confidence in them. If you have been going through the potrikas lately, you must have read about the Jamaluddin abduction case again. It all began anew after someone called Shahid Chairman (observe the way in which we sometimes address people through the positions they may have) was nabbed by RAB. Now, we are not sure if the man has been giving us everything of a shotto nature where his ‘revelations’ about the abduction are concerned. Besides, he has been indulging in a good deal of matlami the purpose of which is something we still don’t know. He has also been using some odbhut language about one of the officers who took him into custody.
   In any case, the bishoy here is that the kortripokkho have in more than two years failed to make any headway into the Jamaluddin case. Now think of the smooth and torhit goti in which the police in Britain have been working since the 7 July boma hamla there. They have located all the bektis involved in the oporadh. And here in our swadesh? All we have been getting from the shorkar is a bunch of promises, with nothing really happening. The Kibria hotya case will perhaps never be resolved. Nothing will come of the investigation into goto bocchor’s 21 August grenade attack on an Awami League shobha in the rajdhani. The British rashtrodoot here will perhaps never know why he was attacked in Sylhet and who attacked him. So you can now draw the jukti shongoto conclusion that the country will never know who or which organisation carried out the many bishforons in the country on Wednesday. That is a seriously dukkher bishoy for the entire jaati. After all, what do you have a government for? To ensure the nirapotta of your jaan-maal, isn’t that so? Is that what you have been getting? You do not need to answer the question, for we know what it will be. The ashol kotha is that it is about time the shorkari wallahs did something about the country and its future. But, as we all know, our bhobishshot is dependent on how we deal with our bortomaan. The bortomaan, just in case we have forgotten, is in a bad state. If you have heard what montri Babar was telling the media on Wednesday, you could not but have been surprised. He said, simply, that his government was prepared for any gondogol on the 14,15 and 16 August. The hamla actually came on 17 August. It was a ghumonto government which was suddenly made aware of the shonkotmoy poristithi in the country. Should that have happened? After all, a government is always expected to be in a state of alert, or what is a government for? But, no! In our present obostha, it is the shorkar which thinks that a laid-back attitude to life is more important than governing. As usual, these powerful people have told us they will find the culprits and punish them for the ghor oporadh they have committed. The question is: when in the bigoto teen bocchor they have not been able to nab any culprit, let alone punish him, what guarantee is there that this time they will be as good as their promise?
   It is a hridoy bedarok ghotona knowing that a shorkar with so many montris, protimontris, upomontris and what not simply does not have its finger on anything. What is the problem here? Is it that no one knows anything about proshashon?
   
   The drive against bhejal food
   The obhijan against bhejal food has been going on for a number of weeks now. What is most amazing about it is the way the magistrates have been discovering criminals in nearly every food factory or joint or canteen they have raided. Ammonia is being used in the preparation of biscuits, rotten fish is served to customers, pocha moshola is added to food, et cetera. All of this shows that as a jaati we have reached a very low point. How did that happen? Better yet, why did it happen? To find answers to your proshnos, you have to go back to our itihash as it has developed after our bijoy in the muktijuddho. A lot of explanations, a lot of truths will come out. That may upset a lot of people. So let us not go into all that, for we are really in no mood to indulge in any jhogra jhaati at the moment. Besides, it is pointless arguing with people who know nothing about our itihash or are constantly playing chhini mini with it.
   But what we must surely tell ourselves is that so much of durniti has spread all around us that we are today unable to decide as to what we can do about our future. The drive against adulterated food has only exposed the choritro of some of our shikkhito people. Day in and day out you see all these people giving us many kinds of upodesh about what we should do to develop the country. They are always on the pages of the newspapers. And we see them nearly every day on television. The shadharon manush are always in awe of them, for they give us the feeling that they are the bibek of the nation. But now that we have seen how they dupe us in the name of giving us food products, we realise how terrible the situation is. It is the same in other areas as well. Perhaps we can have an alochona on that some other day. But for now it should be enough to remember that the good, suited-booted people we see around us may not all be as they seem to be. Consider this simple fact: when the country attained its shadhinota, there was hardly anyone who was rich in the country. We were more or less all the same, sharing one toqdeer for ourselves. But today? The number of koti potis we see in this doridro to doridrotomo country is mind-boggling. How can so many rich Bengalis be there when the apamor jonoshadharon are so poor and famished?
   That is a question we have been asking in these last many years. We know the answer, surely. If we start talking about these people, so many skeletons will come out of the almirah that we will have a tough time keeping count. But rest assured that one day there will come a time of reckoning. One day this nation of poor nari purish will rise in anger and in that anger may bring about a condition where a real, well-meaning shorkar will take charge of our lives. We can only hope and pray. Maybe that will do us some good?

Salma (12) heard one morning from her parents that this afternoon she was getting married to a boy who lives in a nearby village in Ashulia, near Tongi, Dhaka. Khaleq (18) heard one morning that he was getting married this afternoon with a 12-year old girl who lives in a village nearby. She was scared but could not say anything about it to anyone. Khaleq did not like the idea of getting married so early but he had no voice. After marriage he never talked to his young wife who was busy taking care of his ailing mother. When contacted both of them poured out their hearts to this writer. They felt miserable but could not protest as they were not old enough. There are thousands of stories like that of Khaleq and Salma in Bangladesh that go unreported.
   When developed countries are marching ahead applying empirical knowledge and technology, Bangladesh continues to see girl children as young as 12 and boys as young as 18 getting married despite various laws prohibiting such practices in existence in the country. These marriages are not registered and are seldom reported to the law enforcing agencies because of the mutual agreement between the two parties. The two major factors for child or early marriage are extreme poverty of the parents and their social insecurity. It is in the rural areas that poor parents are giving their minor daughters, age 12 to 13, to marriage and studies show that these minor girls are immediately engaged in menial work in the houses of their grooms. Once the young bride begins to menstruate she is allowed to sleep with her young husband, who are usually between age 18 and 20. Also in the urban slums girls are married off as soon as they turn 14-15. In the cities and outskirts girls belonging to lower income groups are married off mainly for security reason. With the deteriorating law and order situation in the urban slums and low income areas parents do not feel safe to keep their growing girls at home and as a result they give them away in marriage before they attain the age of 16. A government statistics shows that about 5 percent of the girls falling within 10-14 years and 4 percent within 15-18 years age group are now getting married in the country.
   The right to free and full consent to a marriage is recognised in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is Muslim Law of 1961 in which age of marriage for girls and boys are clearly given. As per marriage law in vogue in the country minimum age for a girl is 18 and that of boy is 21.
   Studies reveal that child marriage robs the child bride of her basic rights. At minor age she is forced to accept a life of bondage that is harmful for her body and mind. At an age when her more fortunate friends are going to school and playing with friends, the child bride has to enter the kitchen early in the morning with her mother-in-law.
   With early marriage comes the inevitable-early pregnancy. This further compounds the misery of the child bride as she is still growing up physically and mentally, she is not ready to take a child and she is suffering from malnutrition. As a result, when an unhealthy teenage mother give birth to a child the newborn baby usually turns out to be a low weight (lbw) baby, which again puts at risk the lives of both mother and child. They continue to suffer from various complications and ultimately become a burden on the husband’s family. If their health conditions do not improve within a short time, the sick mother and her baby will be eventually abandoned by her husband.
   Research findings show that 58 percent of the under-19 girls in Bangladesh are already mothers, or pregnant. According to Bangladesh Fertility Survey, 16 percent of women get married under 10 years of age, 34 percent under 11 and 80 percent under 14. The report says that it is difficult to estimate the accuracy of these figures as women are likely not to give the accurate age of both puberty and marriage because of ignorance. The marriage law in itself is faulty and the people who run these offices can easily be manipulated.
   Child marriage cannot be accepted in a modern world as the primitive custom causes severe damage to the health of the adolescent mothers. At the same time it denies proper physical and mental growth of a girl child and limits her personal freedom. Research findings indicate that no girl wants a marriage that is forced on her. Early marriage is also exposing adolescent girls to the risk of higher fertility that leads to rise in population in Bangladesh.
   The picture on the side of the young groom is not rosy either. Many young grooms are forced into marriage in order to inherit family property, get a job in the city or abroad, get higher education and so on. They resent being seen with a child bride and often curse their luck for falling in a situation from where they cannot get out. Such marriages hardly bring happiness in the family. When the young groom becomes older and gets his own property and has substantial income, he may want to divorce the first wife and marry again.
   There are laws against the custom of child marriage but these laws are not proving to be effective among the poor and illiterate. The law enforcers themselves are not sufficiently aware of the various ills of early marriage.
   To discourage the practice in society wide scale awareness campaigns will be required in backward societies using the mass media and through inter-personal communication. The UP members and chairmen, primary and secondary school teachers, college teachers and religious leaders can play important role in such campaigns. More television spots should be telecast at prime times on the ill-effects of child or early marriage. Eminent child specialists and social workers should be interviewed in television to sensitise viewers. College and university students should be sensitised about the issue by the NGOs so that they can work as advocates in their own areas. Law enforcing agency members should be made aware of the issue and requested to implement laws with iron hand. NGOs should monitor such marriages taking place in their work areas and report these to the higher authorities. Parents, religious leaders (Imams), madrasa teachers and community leaders need to be educated and informed about the sad consequences of child marriage.
   The writer is senior assistant editor, New Age