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Remote and hard to reach chars are home to several million of the poorest people. People who live on these river islands probably do not have much choice. On average landless char families have to shift their homes five times in a generation due to erosion. They are often forced to live on the least safe outer edges of chars. Often the new home is on a newly raised river island, made of sand. People plant crops within the first few years but the quality of the harvest is poor.
   The char people face huge challenges. Being completely landless, not owning even their own homestead land, is one of the main reasons why extremely poor people move to newly deposited chars in the first place. Limited employment opportunities and low wages also characterise life in the char areas – labouring jobs offer Tk 60-70 for a day’s work. And then there is the perennial risk of flooding.
   Year after year, flooding is a risk that can destroy a lifetime’s savings.
   The UK has been helping Bangladesh’s respond to this huge challenge. They are working with over 100,000 poor families in the Northern Jamuna chars, in conjunction with the Rural Development and Co-operatives Division of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives, Government of Bangladesh. This is an important part of the UK’s support to help reduce extreme poverty in Bangladesh. The Chars Livelihoods Programme (CLP) aims to help lift at least half of the people living in these areas out of extreme poverty by 2010.
   Over the last two years, the CLP has used stabilised earth plinths to raise the houses of 32,000 families above the level of the 1998 floods. The programme also provides latrines and ensures access to clean water through tubewells. And 11,500 very poor women have received Tk 13,000 to invest in productive assets – mostly cattle. Within the next 6 months the number of women helped will more than double to over 25,000.
   How successful are the plinths in helping poor people live with floods? This year’s floods offer a useful insight.
   Look at the two photographs below. They were taken in the same area and on the same day in late July. The flooding you can see happened virtually overnight. The house on the left had been abandoned. Its owners’ possessions, and the house itself, were probably lost. But the house on the right is raised on a plinth and is largely unaffected by the floodwaters. Its occupants were able to continue living there – even the fruit trees and livestock were unaffected. The family on the left had to look to the mainland for accommodation, or seek temporary refuge from an unaffected neighbour.
    Less than 2 per cent of houses on CLP plinths were washed away or destroyed by this year’s floods, with only about 15 per cent suffering some partial damage.
   ‘Last time there was a lot of damage to our village. This time there is none,’ said Feroza Begum, a resident of Fulchari Char in Gaibandha. Her house is built on a plinth.
   Another woman, Asia Begum, agrees. ‘In previous years, the biggest problem was clean water and sanitation,’ she says. ‘And diarrhoea was severe. This time, nothing.’
   In Islampur Upazilla, Saidur Rahman had been less than convinced of the need for plinths.
   ‘When the plinth was raised, I thought it was far too high. I thought that access for old people, children and cattle would be difficult. I thought I might even need a ladder! I was very unhappy. But now I can say that the plinth has saved us – and some of our neighbours. I’m now convinced that the plinth is the right height.’
   Many other people living in the chars talk of the advantages of plinths. Women value the security and privacy they give. But do the plinths make poor people ‘flood-proof’? The evidence in favour is compelling.
   They guarantee normality. Perhaps their greatest advantage is that life can continue fairly normally during flooding and families can stay together. They protect assets. The home and possessions remain relatively secure and dry. Livestock can also be kept safely which is vital as cows, sheep, goats and poultry make up the bulk of most poor families’ assets.
   Raised plinths offer greater protection against disease and harassment of women and girls than on public embankments. They also allow people to accommodate other families whose dwellings have been destroyed, and this goes a long way to improving social cohesion and local cooperation.
   People can continue to harvest crops and fruit trees grown around the house. This is particularly important for the diet in times when food may not otherwise be readily available. Emergency supplies and food stocks remain out of the floods’ reach.
   Raising plinths is relatively straightforward and is not technically demanding. It involves moving a considerable amount of earth from one place to another, pounding the surface, planting anti-erosion grasses on the side of the mound, and raising the house onto the plinth. Once in place, it is easy to add a water-sealed latrine and tubewell, which dramatically increase the plinth families’ hygiene status.
   So much for the advantages. What about the drawbacks? Critics point to the temporary nature of plinths. An average char exists for less than twenty years. But for families that move every three years or so, the prospect of a life relatively secure from floods – even for ten years – is a huge benefit.
   Then there is the cost. The CLP calculates the cost of raising a home on a plinth including a waterseal latrine to be about Tk 13,000. But against the cost of evacuating a family to the mainland, along with the additional relief efforts that are required, and most importantly protecting the value of homestead gardens on the top of the plinth. This is a sand investment.
   The threat of eviction is real and serious. The chars are Khas – or government owned-land. In practice, though, there is a de facto and sometime de jure recognition among communities of one landowner usually living on the mainland. Therefore, the ‘owner’ could theoretically seek to evict the family after the plinth is completed. But the CLP’s experience of raising more than 32,000 plinths in three years suggests that eviction is a minor risk that is far outweighed by the benefits.
   The programme has also learned that there is no one optimum height for a plinth, because flood levels are unpredictable and vary from year to year. The plinths built under the CLP are raised about two feet above the level of the devastating 1998 flood. To know the precise local heights of the 1998 flood requires consultation with local people. This can be a problem for chars that have been deposited after 1998. Of course, the possibility of floods more damaging than those of 1998 cannot be discounted, but even a house under one foot of water will allow cooking and livestock care to continue. And it is infinitely preferable to taking refuge on the roof.
   Even without erosion to the char itself, some damage to the plinths will occur during a major flood. The CLP responds to this by working with community volunteers to repair damage, re-turf the edges and replant lost trees.
   Char families typically prefer plinths for single families rather than for multiple households. This provides more privacy and autonomy in these conservative societies. Nevertheless, multi-household plinths have the advantage of being cheaper to construct and allow tubewells to be positioned further away from sanitary latrines, thus reducing the risk of cross-contamination. They can also shelter more non-plinth families during floods – one plinth-family will generally take in one or two non-plinth families. And during prolonged flooding, multi-household plinths can readily become natural relief points as well as focal points for private traders and boat operators.
   Life continued more or less as normal during this year’s floods. That is a valuable lesson. Plinths really do reduce char dwellers’ vulnerability to flooding. They protect lives, assets and livelihoods. I have seen some of the impossible achievements and met some of the inspiring beneficiaries myself. DFID and the CLP will use this very positive experience to further reduce extreme poverty and vulnerability for the people that live on the Jamuna chars.
   Chris Austin is country representative, DFID Bangladesh

FROM the sublimity of the lawyers’ movement (and don’t tell me it didn’t have a touch of the heroic about it) we are down to the spectacle of the country’s politicians — most of them — lost in a wilderness of their own making.
   What should be their first priority? It has to be blocking Gen Pervez Musharraf’s ‘reelection’ as president from these assemblies if the victory of democracy is their aim. But what are they actually doing? Playing bizarre games as if power is already in their grasp and all that remains is to decide how to share it. Placing the cart before the horse, something like it.
   They are overlooking a basic truth. If Musharraf is cornered, if he is now having to talk to the very politicians he earlier reviled, it is not because of the political parties or any struggle mounted by them.
   It is solely because of two factors: the lawyers’ movement and a rejuvenated Supreme Court. This has upset the power equation hitherto governing Pakistani politics. Whenever the army rode into the political arena, the unconstitutional acts it committed, and there was always a long list, were validated by the superior judiciary. This was a very effective collaboration, between generals and judges, and the people of Pakistan had to live with the consequences.
   Things have changed, utterly changed, a new Supreme Court arisen from the seeds of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s defiance, his saying no to Musharraf, and from the lawyers’ movement which erupted in his support. It is this new Supreme Court, revelling in its new-found powers, which is causing nightmares to Musharraf and his coterie.
   The political parties are trying to profit from this situation. They are feeding on the carcass brought down by the lawyers and the judiciary, in this respect emulating the conduct of the jackal who feeds on prey hunted by others. But to a great extent they are abdicating their own responsibilities.
   If it had only been up to the political parties Musharraf would have managed his ‘reelection’ from these soon-to-expire assemblies without too much difficulty. Whether a deal with the PPP comes about or not, we know at least this much that Benazir Bhutto is keen on a deal. She is in no mood to forge a common front with other political parties although if she were mindful of her father’s legacy that’s what she should be doing. Perhaps her priorities are different.
   As for the holy fathers, no one can teach them the virtues of ‘pragmatism’. Well-versed in the intricacies of this game, they cut a deal with Musharraf at the time of the Seventeenth Amendment and at least a part of them would do so again if the terms were right or the Americans were not that heavily involved in our politics. (In their present mood the Americans equate terror with most forms of Islam).
   Nawaz Sharif’s clash was directly with Musharraf. He had to be out in the cold and Saudis or no Saudis would have stayed there had it not been for the lawyers’ movement and the rediscovered power of their lordships in the Supreme Court. So we need to keep things in perspective. The independence of the judiciary is the key to the triumph of democracy. It is only the judiciary protecting the rule of law and the spirit of democracy. But the judiciary must not be left alone in this task. The politicians must fulfil their responsibilities which, at this juncture, boil down to taking a correct stand on the question of the president’s election. There are other issues but these come later. To put the country on the right track, to correct the derailment caused by the Oct 99 coup, to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution, it is essential that the president, it could even be Musharraf if the Constitution allows him, should be elected by the next assemblies.
   The legal community realising the gravity of this issue is already gearing up for another movement if Musharraf files his papers for election from the present assemblies. But what about the political parties? Are they looking ahead too?
   We know about Benazir, still in thrall to the prospect of a deal with Musharraf. We know about the holy fathers although even they, being smart politicians, will flow with the tide if a democratic movement gathers strength. But what about Nawaz Sharif? Valuable time I think has already been lost by not taking the first available flight to Pakistan after the Supreme Court verdict. Choosing when to come and which city to land in is not a mathematical conundrum waiting to be solved by a party meeting first in Islamabad and then London. Such homework should have been done earlier. Any Saudi or Lebanese complications should also have been sorted out before approaching the Supreme Court.
   If on August 23 after the Supreme Court decision, when the atmosphere outside was delirious, the Sharifs had announced that they were flying to Lahore the next day, or the day after, chances are all of Lahore (I exaggerate but you get the point) would have poured out to welcome them. No elaborate arrangements would have been needed for a reception. Spontaneity would have taken over.
   The crowds will still turn out when the Sharifs eventually come but, I suspect, the element of spontaneity will have been lost. ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune…’ etc.
   Anyway, speculation is rife that Musharraf is prepared to shed his uniform prior to seeking a vote from these assemblies. This is a measure of the straits to which he has been reduced. Even if he has mooted this point it is fair to assume that he won’t step out of uniform unless he has iron-clad guarantees regarding his ‘reelection’. He would have to be dumb to entrust his fate to the next assemblies. ‘Who has seen tomorrow’, as the Urdu expression goes. Who has seen the next assemblies? The Q League would have disintegrated by then.
   But who can furnish him guarantees about his ‘reelection’? Not Benazir because the real issue is the attitude of the Supreme Court. Will it allow a violation of the Constitution? Will it go along with a farce conducted in the name of a presidential election? The charged armies of the legal fraternity would also not allow such an outcome.
   Musharraf may have the numbers but he doesn’t have the constitution on his side. The constitution was not of much importance before March 9. Things have changed since then. But even as far as the numbers are concerned, his party, the Q League, has begun to leak. Who knows how wide the breach in its side in the next 10-15 days?
   So whatever the deal between Benazir and Musharraf, the rest of the political parties have to sit down and decide quickly what their strategy is going to be. There is no time to lose. The clock will start ticking from Sept 15, barely a fortnight away. Where the PML-N should have been concentrating on this issue, and leading the effort to forge a united front, it is still caught up in the nuts and bolts of the Sharifs’ return to Pakistan. It should be moving faster.
   Pakistan has been marking time at one spot for too long. It should move on. The army too can do with a fulltime chief (hopefully the best professional available rather than a favourite chosen for his Musa Khan-like meekness or his presumed loyalty). We have to revisit the American-dictated war in our tribal areas. The sovereignty we have forfeited must be reclaimed. But this won’t happen with Musharraf around. After eight years in power he now represents the past. For Pakistan to embrace the future there must be a return to the Constitution (as its framers intended it to be and not as military expediency has distorted it).
   The political parties need to show some imagination and panache, the kind displayed in the letter written to the Election Commission by a serving professor of pathology at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dr Anwar ul Haque, submitting that if Gen Musharraf, a government servant, can run for president he (the professor) should also be allowed to run for the same. Impeccable logic which the government has not found amusing. The professor has been transferred to the ministry of health, presumably to cool his heels. But he has made his point.
   The first act of any post-Musharraf government must be to reinstate Dr Haque in his post.

Manna Bhuiyan: prove your merit

For Mannan Bhuiyan, it is time to realise that he is nobody as he has been expelled from the post of secretary general of the BNP. If he has any
   leadership quality and ideals of his own, it is time to prove those by founding a new political party. I hope people of Bangladesh will reward any attempt
   that could read their minds and fulfil their dreams. Mannan Bhuiyan should give it a try.
   Muhammad Mizanur Rahaman
   On e-mail
   

There has been a general agreement among many that Bangladesh needs either of the two ladies, Khaleda or Hasina, to run the affairs of state. Although both of these ladies allowed crooks around them misappropriating public funds and government property, there is also a general agreement among many that both Hasina and Khaleda are needed in the Bangladesh politics to draw popular support. Basis of such feeling is essentially the feudalistic mentality we inherited and could not yet stomach the democracy being drummed up all around us all the time. Whatever is the popular agreement, the signs are that slowly but surely both the ladies are getting entangled in nets. Chances of their coming out clean in the foreseeable future seems more and more unlikely. If the political stage in Bangladesh becomes free from these two ladies for the next five to ten years, it would be interesting to see who takes the centre stage, the pragmatists or the old guards. Or would a third force step in?
   Akhtar Ahmed BP
   Dhaka

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