Editorial
Prices rise as Ramadan nears
Despite the efforts made by the government to keep the market stable, the rocketing of prices of consumer items cannot be contained and a recent report published in a local newspaper informs us that the situation, which is already ominous, may turn into a nightmare just before the holy month of Ramadan. Already the price of fuel has seen an abnormal rise and along with it the prices of daily items are going uphill. Now, it is quite apparent that by the time we are into the holy month, consumers as well as people from the middle income families will face tough times. In fact, a rise in the price of daily items during the month of abstinence is nothing new; but in previous years we have seen that this hike usually took place once the month of Ramadan set in. However, this year the trend has begun long before Ramadan and it is evident from the signs in the market that on this Eid, people may have to go through severe economic difficulties.
The prices of lentils, sugar, edible oil and powder milk are on an upward trend and several other items in the market may also follow this formula of an abnormal price rise. Specialists believe that these conditions will worsen through the government decision to reduce the import of consumer goods and obviously when Ramadan sets in a huge demand against a short supply will result in a crisis. Understandably, against such a grim situation we also have the hoarders who are lurking in the bushes to capitalise on the situation and, needless to say, the main victims of these unscrupulous people will be none other than the common consumers with limited income. Though the global picture may be burdened by several political and geographical problems, we cannot but feel that this preparation to increase the prices of items has been engineered maliciously to coincide with the arrival of Eid-ul-Fitr.
Be that as it may, the authorities must come forcefully into the markets to ensure that prices are not raised artificially. Every year, at around this time, we see a hike and eventually after the season passes the rates do not come down. Maybe a deployment of RAB at certain markets and warehouses can provide a solution. In addition, the government can determine the maximum prices of certain products ahead of Ramadan.
If we really wish to arrest a criminal surge in prices, then the time to act is now. Otherwise the scene in the markets before Eid will be no different from what they have always been.
President Bush’s legacy
Some pretty interesting things have been happening in America. Of course, with much of the world glued to news of Hurricane Katrina, not many may have noticed what has been occurring elsewhere in the United States. We refer to the recent death of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The long serving justice died a few days ago of cancer and thereby gave President George W. Bush a unique opportunity of filling two empty positions on the court. When a few months ago Justice Sandra Day O’ Connor decided to retire from her position, the president nominated John Roberts to take her place. The new associate justice-designate was almost through his confirmation process in the Senate when Chief Justice Rehnquist died. President Bush lost little time in advancing the case for Roberts a little further through then naming him to succeed Rehnquist rather than O’Connor.
The stage is therefore set for a fresh new battle. Democrats in the Senate are already giving out every indication that Roberts will now face tougher scrutiny since he now means to preside over the Supreme Court. While all this fresh new battle is joined by both Republican and Democrats, President Bush will be looking for a new person to actually replace Justice O’Connor and clearly he will be angling for someone who will strengthen the conservative hold on the highest judiciary in the country. As it is, under Rehnquist, the Supreme Court gradually tilted to a position where conservatives quite outweighed liberals on the bench. But that was not the way things were when Rehnquist took his place as an associate justice in the Nixon era in 1971. At the time, the debate was about whether conservatives would have a chance of overturning the liberal hold on the court, given that Supreme Court justices in America are appointed for life, unless of course they decide to resign on their own (as Sandra Day O’Connor has done). Those were days when despite a Republican controlling the White House the political trend tended to favour the Democrats. But that picture began to change in the 1980s through what some Americans would like to describe as the Reagan revolution. It was Mr. Reagan who placed O’Connor on the Supreme Court, the first woman in America to hold that position. Since those days, the political pendulum has swung decisively in favour of the conservatives, with the result that it was basically a conservative court decision in 2000 that allowed George W. Bush to enter the White House, thus leaving the Democrats’ Al Gore beaten.
In the United States, the shape and complexion of the Supreme Court are what decide the long-term political and social future of the country. Mr. Bush, despite his failings in leadership (the most recent of which has been his inability to rally the country on the Hurricane Katrina issue), now finds himself in the unique position of leaving a lasting legacy through the instrument of the Supreme Court. For a man to whom a right-wing ideology matters, the two openings on the bench are a chance that will be utilised to the fullest extent. One can therefore rest assured that this president of the United States, for all his intellectual limitations and controversial foreign policy, will yet cast a long shadow on the Supreme Court. A hint of how deep the shadow will be can be assessed when the president names the successor to Justice O’Connor.
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Mukul’s place in our history
There was a garrulous man in Mukul. There was the exuberance of life in him, a simple and yet absolute belief in the secularity of this land. The dedication to Bengali nationalism he brought to bear on himself, indeed on all of us, through the maze of the guerrilla war our sons and daughters waged in the marshes and the swamps and the hamlets and the narrow urban streets of the land, was a principle he sustained for the remainder of his life,
writes Syed Badrul Ahsan
In the midst of all the dying and maiming in 1971, a particular life force informed M.R. Akhtar Mukul’s defence of liberty. That is what we as Bengalis remember now that Mukul is dead and gone. Mukul’s was the voice we waited for in the land of darkness the Pakistan army had created for us through its medievalism. In Charampatra, there was a resonance of the nation’s aspirations, a special coming forth of energy that did not come in staccato bursts of sentiment but flowed inexorably in the manner of a tide in the sea. All of those nine months of the war were the worst period in our collective national life; and yet all of that time was the best we could muster in terms of resolve, in terms of the determination to drive the enemy into the abyss. Beer Bangalai Ostro Dhoro Bangladesh Shadheen Koro was the slogan we raised, even before we went off to war. It was the darkness Mukul lifted, day in and day out, even as we crouched in our urban, curfew-laden homes, in our unlighted villages as the monsoon rains fell in heaps all over. All around us were the tens of thousands of young men and women making off to the fields of battle, because in Charampatra came the story of what wars of national liberation were all about.
Charampatra was about Chhokku Mia, the intrepid warrior, the patriotic Bengali youth whose lack of education and sophistication nevertheless did not hold him back from spinning the tales of Bengali glory and Pakistani discomfiture which kept us going. Chhokku Mia did not exist. Or may be he did. Maybe he was refashioned all over again by Mukul. But whatever may have been the reality behind that voice exuding streetwise intellect, Mukul made sure that he spoke for all of us. Charampatra, therefore, was war lived in the horror of the times. It was, again, humour which came interspersed with our epic struggle to dislodge the enemy from a land we needed to free — and free fast. When Chhokku Mia broke into his pedestrian Bangla to give us an idea of how the enemy was being routed all over the place, he made us leap for joy. An entire Pakistani company, he declaimed, had been wiped out. Okkore saaf. There was fury and there was sarcasm in those two simple words. Every time Chhokku Mia said Okkore saaf, a few more young men decided that it was time to go to war. And go to war they did. To clean the country of wild men come from across the mountains.
Mukul’s success lay in an employment of terms which were to turn into stock phrases in the course of the War of Liberation. Pakistan’s soldiers and their local henchmen, said Chhokku Mia, after spitting out some betel juice — ek gada peek phalaiya — were shaking in their boots on hearing rumours of the bicchhus in town or in the nearby villages. The bicchhus were of course the Bengalis, the Mukti Bahini who stung like bees and wasps and left their victims drained of the will to fight. Nothing, no word or image or imagery, could convey the grit and determination of the guerrillas any stronger than this word Mukul popularised all through the war. Bicchu was the young warrior the occupation army feared and the razakars looked upon as angels of their doom. For the country, the bicchhu was the future, a surefire path to glory. When he moved through the dense rural woods or coursed down the river on sullen moonless nights, it was one more sign that Bangladesh was on the way to being born. It was those horrible moments when the enemy dirtied his own trousers out of fear. The trousers came to acquire a bashonti rong or colour. Those who glued themselves to the radio and the crackling sounds flowing all the way from Shwadhin Bangla Betar Kendro laughed quietly. And they knew that the battle was going on apace. Everything was in place. Only Yahya Khan and Bhutto were in disarray. They drank like buddies, ek gelasher dosto. They were the presiding judge and jury in that jollader darbar. Their soldiers killed, before being killed. Karbar shara, said Mukul, or Chhokku Mia. Through the gleaming rains, Mukul gave us an idea of the infinity of charm ingrained in thoughts of freedom.
That was Mukul, our brave soldier in the most glorious of times we as a nation have passed through in history. He gave a new dimension to the cause of liberty through an appropriate and effective use of the radio. Shwadhin Bangla Betar was ceaselessly a glowing affair. It began with Bojro Kontho and ended with Joi Bangla Banglar Joi. Mukul simply added his own touch, an ingenuity which remains unparalleled in the saga of war by other means, in this case the radio. Charampatra was a weapon we used to good effect in the war. It lent a welcome rusticity, the same that has held the thread of our society for ages, to our yearning to be free.
There was a garrulous man in Mukul. There was the exuberance of life in him, a simple and yet absolute belief in the secularity of this land. The dedication to Bengali nationalism he brought to bear on himself, indeed on all of us, through the maze of the guerrilla war our sons and daughters waged in the marshes and the swamps and the hamlets and the narrow urban streets of the land, was a principle he sustained for the remainder of his life. His journalism, his versions of history as he saw it forge itself in the poignancy of Mujibnagar, his infusion of hope in a post-war generation on twilight moments at his bookstore are tales we have passed on to our children. Mukul was an illustrious figure, by any means. His end was therefore the closing of a window to our past.
E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk
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