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It was 14th March, the year 1971. Dhaka and the rest of what was then East Pakistan, was simmering with anticipation, and a fear of uncertainty had gripped the nation. The political leadership of the day was still fantasising about a political solution to the constitutional crisis that had engulfed Pakistan following the elections of November 1970. Logicaly, the leadership had illusions about sitting in the power corridors of Islamabad as the results of the elections would suggest. What they were unaware of was the machinations that were taking place in the political and military corridors of Karachi and Islamabad, more than a thousand miles away to prevent transfer of power to a legitimately elected political party that had its power bastion in East Pakistan. The mass, however, had moved ahead, aware that the days of Pakistan’s territorial integrity were numbered, that it was only a matter of time before the map of South Asia was to change forever. It was in this background that Enayetullah Khan penned what certainly was to become his greatest journalistic piece, when on 14th March 1971 he wrote in the weekly Holiday, ‘They are not finished with you yet, Bengal.’
   Mintu Bhai’s, (as I came to call him), fiery premonition had suddenly reinforced a collective sense of fear that worse was yet to come, that the power brokers in the western wing of Pakistan were about to unleash their brutal military might on the unarmed and powerless populace of East Pakistan in a matter of days. Within 11 days, his prophecy was to prove true to the word and the world was to witness the beginning of a mindless genocide of a people whose only dream was to have liberty and democracy, to be able to define their own destiny. With one stroke of his pen Enayetullah Khan had awoken the people to the horrors that lay ahead and called upon the political leadership to act before it was too late. This was journalistic brilliance at it’s bravest and best.
   Enayetullah Khan was again to show his journalistic courage in early 1972, shortly after the emergence of independent Bangladesh.
   The month was February, the year 1972. This time the people of Bangladesh were in a state of collective euphoria, having seen the results of their bravery and sacrifice lead to the birth of Bangladesh as the newest state in the world. The national leader was at the pinnacle of his power and popularity. The country was reeling from the massive destruction ravaged by the occupying Pakistani army. Millions of refugees were trekking back to what was left of their homes. It was time for the nation to unite, to reconstruct and rehabilitate. Unfortunately, forces were at play to divide the nation between those who had crossed over to India and those who could not. The seeds of a permanent polarisation of the society were being sown. It seemed that those who did not or could not cross over into India were sinners, never to be forgiven. Once again Enayetullah Khan put his brave pen to paper and wrote on 6 February 1972, again in the weekly Holiday, ‘Sixtyfive million collaborators.’
   It was a scathing commentary on the shortsighted wisdom of the political leadership who failed to see that such thoughts would only serve to disunite the democratic and peace loving people of Bangladesh forever, and it did. But it took extraordinary courage for Enayetullah Khan to have put it in such a bold and transparent manner. Not that it made any difference to the power players in Dhaka, but the message from Enayetullah Khan was loud and clear.
   I had come to know Mintu Bhai from my student days when he appeared in Pakistan television in the mid 60s as a promising young journalist, able to articulate his thoughts and views with equal flair in English and Bangla. It was around this time that he founded the weekly Holiday. I had come to admire him for all that. His younger brother Shahid Ullah Khan Badal was a close friend of mine and became a soul-mate when he joined the country’s War of Liberation as a Freedom Fighter. Mintu Bhai and I often spent time together exchanging thoughts discussing our viewpoints. Not that we always agreed, but that was the nature of our relationship.
   I had the opportunity to work with him when he was Bangladesh Ambassador in Beijing in the mid eighties and I was his Deputy. To say that my professional experience with him was all well will not be telling the whole truth. The fact that we learnt to live with our differences and differing styles and manner of work was testimony to the kind of mutual respect we had for each other. I recall my anger with him in Beijing when I told him that I did not expect someone of his stature and background to represent a corrupt military dictator. I reconciled that it was a human frailty, after all he was also human.
   If one was to evaluate Enayetullah Khan’s achievements in life, it could be done in one word — Holiday, a fiercely independent English weekly he founded that filled the void of the time. Holiday was the voice against repression, it was the expression of nationalism, it was the thunder of freedom. Over the time, Enayetullah and Holiday had become synonymous.
   I feel proud that Holiday’s first issue in independent Bangladesh had a feature story on me, my role in the liberation war and my ordeals as a prisoner of war. It’s a happy coincidence that in Mintu bhai’s last editorial a week before he passed away he mentioned me, crediting me for what I
   had done in handling a particularly sensitive issue as Bangladesh’ Ambassador in the world’s most powerful capital. He called me early in the morning from Toronto where he was fighting the inevitable to tell me to read that day’s Holiday. His voice was weak. He told me that he was planning to return to his beloved Dhaka where he would try to beat the disease if the disease did not beat him before that.
   My own frailties as a mortal human ought to define my own mention in Holiday’s first post Bangladesh issue and in Mintu bhai’s last act as a journalist as my most enduring memory of Holiday and indeed of Mintu bhai himself. But I am a freedom fighter and like Mintu bhai, a nationalist.
   To me, his prophetic and bold editorials of 14th March 1971 and of 6th February 1972 shall always remain my most lasting and enduring memory of the journalistic brilliance of Enayetullah Khan.
   Mintu bhai, today as you step into the other side of eternity and start your longest holiday, maybe you shall see the birth of a new age.
   Shamsher M Chowdhury, BB is a freedom fighter and diplomat

Corruption strikes again
   IT HAS happened again. The World Bank (WB) in a dramatic move alleged 'collusive biddings' of the government agencies in the tender process in three different WB-assisted projects and formally announced the cancellation of funds amounting to well over US$1 million last week. The amount in question is not large - in Bangladesh currency it comes to about Taka 68 million - but it had a devastating effect on the country's already battered image. After being named the number one corrupt country by the Geneva-based Transparency International (TI) for five years in a row, this was the last thing that the hapless people of this country was prepared to accept.
   The three projects mentioned are: Municipal Services Project (MSP); Health and Population Programme Project (HPPP); and National Nutrition Programme (NNP). In a formal communication on 2 November, the WB has asked the government to refund the cancelled amount and also to take 'appropriate action against the responsible officials.' There was no ambiguity in the expressed language because the WB's allegation preceded their own 'investigations' that 'found evidence of inappropriate and collusive bidding practices that violated the arrangement between the World Bank and Bangladesh.'
   The WB issued an 'information note' (IN), commonly known as press release, to the media after informing the government formally to get the maximum mileage out of it. This was done apparently to humiliate the government and does not bode well for the multilateral body. Perhaps it did it in response to Finance Minister Saifur Rahman's recent broadside at the donor agencies.
   To make the meaning of the allegation more lucid for the lay people to understand, the IN stated: 'Collusive practices mean 'a scheme or arrangement between two or more bidders, with or without the knowledge of the procuring agency, designed to establish bid prices at artificial level' and describes a non-competitive practice in which bidders submit bids in complicity with each other to gain an unfair advantage.' According the WB statement, these findings were based on an independent procurement review undertaken by the international audit firm SGS of Netherlands, which examined a sample of contracts financed in two of the projects.
   The national media, as expected picked up the story and had a field day and the government was obviously embarrassed. The concerned ministry of LGRD and Cooperative and its powerful minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who also doubles as the ruling BNP secretary general was perhaps more annoyed than embarrassed and reportedly directed the concerned officials to 'thoroughly investigate' the matter before trying to refute the allegations. Apparently, the minister who is not known to be corrupt has restrained his officials having a penchant for refuting any allegations at the drop of a hat to save their own skin and asked them to do some soul searching instead. Nevertheless, the top officials of the ministry in a bid to do some initial damage control attempted to assuage the minister by informing him that everything was done as per the rules and after getting the 'no objection' certificate from the WB. Obviously, they would try to make it look more like an inadvertent mistake and convince the minister that the ball should now be in the WB court.
   Perhaps the experienced officials should know what they have to do in damage control efforts in such a situation. However, it could not be ascertained how they reacted to WB's IN, which stated, among other things, 'the World Bank determined that its Procurement Guidelines were also violated in a ninth MSP contract implemented by Panchagargh Pourashava, through Bangladesh Municipal Development Fund (BMDF).' It further read: 'A review of the bid evaluation report showed that (I) Bidders quoted identical unit prices for most items of work, and that (II) Most bids submitted had identical handwriting, although they were allegedly submitted by different bidders.' This is too vivid a description for the officials to claim that 'rules were strictly maintained'.
   
   Why such allegations recur?
   Refuting the allegation of indulging in 'collusive bidding practice' armed with such incriminating documents is a difficult job that the officials are faced with. Nobody should envy them because they are in a 'no win situation' regardless of the fact whether they were involved in or gave indulgence to such an act or not. But why do such things recur even though so much has been said and reported about corruption in this country and the government leaders' frequent and mouthful promises to put the governance issue at the centre stage?
   However, one simple, albeit blunt, answer to this dilemma is available. This is happening because the government as an institution could never seriously believe in its own ability to stamp out corruption from the society and elected only to pay lip service to keep the critics at home and abroad at bay. The weak political leadership is unlikely to deliver the goods because it lacked both commitment and quality. As a result, those responsible for making and implementing policies on issues such as corruption and good governance always preferred to take a back seat. So one does not really have to go far to find a direct answer to this vexed question.
   Corruption has not been a new phenomenon in this country; it existed in the past as it did in most other countries and continuing till today. It is only a matter of degree. While many countries tend to manage the practice well and keep it under control, in Bangladesh there are no holds barred. President Ershad's quasi-military government in most of the 1980s seriously promoted corruption. His 'cronies' did indulge in widespread, mutually beneficial corruption but their number was small and the administration was able to keep it under control. The Ershad cronies used the opportunity to their full advantage and some of them are now well-established business houses. However, discreet observers describe the Ershad era practices as 'elitist corruption' where only a select group of already known people of means had been patronized based on enlightened self-interest.
   The character of corruption however changed dramatically under the democratically elected regime since the 1990s. Successive elected governments - three different governments were voted to power since 1991 - when actually the 'elitist corruption' was turned into what has been aptly described as 'democratisation of corruption'. Successive elected governments professed populism of their own kind but could not make much headway in their initiatives to check corruption because of the chronically weak leadership the two parties inherited historically. The leadership of the two mainstream political parties that are destined to lead this country for sometime to come appear too ill prepared and ill versed to be able to steer and park the runaway wheel of corruption to safety.
   The only ray of hope that still flickers is a possibility for the administration to put good governance at the centre stage by strengthening the key institutions responsible for ensuring good governance by undertaking reform measures. However, with the next general election due in less than a year's time, the government and the ruling coalition partners do not have the time or the appetite to go for any new reform measures. Meanwhile, the question of widespread corruption, good governance as well as the TI report on the issue would surely dominate the next election campaign that would be bitterly fought by the two contenders for power.

In our secular and material world, ritual can be lacking in daily life. From praying in a house of worship to participating in a family dinner, time honoured rites have become less common. The demands of efficiency do not care for the intangible worth of ritual.
   Last week marked the end of the month of fasting for Muslims across the world, one of the great mass human rituals. Ramadan as it is known asks Muslims to abstain from eating or drinking, from sunrise to sunset, for an entire month. Its end is signalled by the sighting of the new moon, formalised in some Muslim communities in Sydney by the dispatching of the quaint but authoritative moon viewing committee.
   This committee usually travels to the Blue Mountains the night before to confirm the new moon has been seen. The celebrations can then begin the next day, marked by communal prayer and unadulterated feasting.
   It is indicative of the Muslim community’s emphasis on ritual that in the 21st century some elderly men can hold sway over the matter of when thousands of people will celebrate.
   Almost all cultures have some tradition of fasting. Whether it is Catholics avoiding meat on Fridays, to the Jewish tradition of Yom Kippur or Native American tribes fasting to stimulate ecstatic experiences, fasting is culturally ubiquitous.
   In modern times, fasting has become more associated with political protest than religion. Gandhi is perhaps its most famous proponent, but more recently in Australia asylum seekers have become the torch bearers. Only last month two Bangladeshi asylum seekers refused to eat or drink unless they were granted permanent visas.
   For a self confessed cultural Muslim who does not always see how Islam fits in with modern life, fasting is one of the few traditions that holds great attraction.
   In my younger days, eating in the wee hours of the morning, just before dawn, was more likely to be after some crazed dance party. In Ramadan it is a considered, droopy eyed bonding session with family and my stomach. Food takes on a particular significance when you know it will be your last meal for almost fourteen hours. A glass of water feels more like an elixir of eternal life. Timing your life with the sun suddenly provides links with nature that few bushwalks could match.
   Fasting in Australia is particularly difficult. From Gallipoli to the Olympics, Australians have long seen themselves as hardier than their European cousins. Now Australian Muslims are carrying a similar baton when compared to their global counterparts.
   In parts of the Middle East, the daily timetable is effectively turned upside down during Ramadan. This makes a mockery of the reasons for fasting, allowing people to sleep during the day when they should be attempting to abstain from food. It’s like exploiting the loophole in God’s word. It is a wider comment on the kind of spiritually barren Islam that emanates from countries like Saudi Arabia.
   In Australia, the combination of daylight savings, hot weather and a populace that is not aware and therefore does not cater for Ramadan, means fasting requires greater mettle. Furthermore, our working hours hover amongst the highest in the OECD.
   If fasting were an Olympic event, Australian Muslims would take out the gold every time.
   But fasting is not meant to be a cause for gloating or competition. Nor is it ultimately about food. Its deeper purpose of instilling self-control and a greater spiritual awareness could benefit everyone grappling with the complexities of modern life. While all the signals we receive from the mass media encourage immediate consummation , fasting demands patience and sacrifice. Its benefits are the mortal enemy of the credit-card industry. Environmentalists would also be thrilled by the resonance with natural rhythms it inspires.
   The day of celebration is called Eid-ul-Fitr. While all the usual messages of tolerance and understanding remain important regarding Muslims, especially with the introduction of the new anti-terror laws, a message regarding the importance of ritual and community in our lives is perhaps equally important.