By Rashed Khan Menon

Bangladesh experienced representative government for slightly over half of its 36 years of existence. The other half was marked by military or quasi-military rules. Though still functioning within the ambit of the constitutional provision of the caretaker government, the present caretaker government, it is admitted by all, including the law adviser, is a military-backed government and they have the final say in the running of the state. The army chief, however, was humble enough to say that the army, like any other institutions of the state, is part of the government. They take order from the government of the day. But when one sees the same army chief talking about new form of politics, new form of democracy as well as the ideological basis of the Bangladesh state, one remembers the old days when things were in the making for General Zia’s politics of Bangladeshi nationalism or General Ershad’s takeover to rid the country of corrupt politicians.
   But national and international situation has changed since then. It is easy to talk about those old periods, but difficult to go that way as the people of the country and all others have matured. But the vulnerability has remained as the representative government which functioned for the last 16 years has been made unworkable by naked corruption, greed for power and the partisanship of the people in power. Every organ of the state was made obliged to serve them and not the people who are the source of their power, at least by the provision of the constitution. But nobody cared.
   Bangladesh’s journey towards representative government started with a bang when a war-torn country came out with a constitution within a matter of one year of its existence. Looking back to the Pakistan days, it took nine years to frame a constitution after it came into being. And, in the meanwhile, an elected constituent assembly was dissolved and the results of the election to the provincial assemblies, particularly that of East Pakistan, were not accepted with grace by the power in the centre and democratic rights of the people were curbed time and again by imposing governors’ rule in the provinces and establishing government in the centre by manipulation. And that constitution also could not last long as the military intervened and martial law was imposed throughout the country and the so-called new brand of democracy and politics was introduced by them to perpetuate their control over state power.
   It is these experiences of Pakistan days and the long-drawn struggle leading up to the Liberation War and freeing the country from the clutches of Pakistani rule that prompted the leadership of the new country to frame a constitution which put the fundamental rights of the people at the top and went onto see that a secure representative government took the charge of the country. The country was made a people’s republic and all powers in the republic were vested in the people to be exercised on behalf of them.
   The sliding down from these constitutional principles led to the beginning of the end of not only the representative form the government but also the other principles enshrined in the constitution as the reflection of the aspiration of the liberation struggle. The first blow came when the government of the time, within a matter of one year of the framing of the constitution, by an amendment (the second amendment to the constitution) took upon the state power to declare emergency and suspend the fundamental rights of the people on whose behalf the state was supposed to act. But the most fatal blow to all these rights of the people came with the fourth amendment to the constitution which not only did away with the representative government but with all the tenets of democracy and the achievements of the democratic struggle.
   It opened up the path for the conspirators and the enemies of the independence struggle. The situation was summarised in the judgement by the Supreme Court on the eighth amendment to the constitution by chief justice Shahabuddin in the following words: ‘The Constitution Fourth Amendment Act, dated 25th January 1975, changed the constitution beyond recognition in many respects and in place of parliamentary form of government on the basis of multiple party system a presidential form of government, authoritarian in character on the basis of a single party was brought about overnight thereby. Fundamental rights to form free association was denied, all political parties except the government party were banned and Members of Parliament, who did not join this party lost their seats though they were elected by the people. Freedom of the press was drastically curtailed; independence of the judiciary was curbed by making the judges liable to removal at the wish of the Chief Executive; appointment control and discipline of the subordinate judiciary along with Supreme Court’s power of superintendence and control of subordinate courts were taken away from the Supreme Court and vested in the government. The change was so drastic and sudden. Friends were bewildered. Enemies of the liberation had their revenge and the critics said with glee that it is all the same whether damage to democracy is caused by democratically elected persons or by undemocratic means, like military coup.’ (1989 BLD (spl) edited by Mahmudul Islam: Bangladesh Bar Council.)
   The subsequent events of history have shown the correctness of these observations. The country went through a long period of killing, coups and consecutive period of military and quasi-military rule for about one and a half decade. The constitution of the country, through fifth and seventh amendments, was changed beyond recognition. The principle of the liberation struggle was thrown away; basic principles of democracy and democratic behaviour were done away with. The state coffer and the state machineries were used to form political parties (remember the birth of both the BNP and the Jatiya party). The institution of election and election commission was made subservient to the wishes of the rulers. The manipulation of election results were done not only by stuffing false ballot papers into the ballot box, but also by changing the results by announcement in the media, which was sarcastically dubbed by the critics as ‘media coup.’ It did not stop there. The rubberstamp parliaments were filled up with goons who were brought into the political process deliberately to ward off the political elements from the political arena. Corruption was institutionalised. Bangladesh went through the blackest part of its history.
   The mass upsurge of 1990 opened up the opportunity to re-establish the representative government in Bangladesh through the 12th amendment to the constitution. The aspiration of the Bangladeshi people was fulfilled. The parliamentary form of government was back and new journey towards a democratic system began. But the old habits die hard and the concentration of power in the person of the prime minister turned the whole system into an elected autocracy. The sovereign parliament was made dysfunctional both by the treasury and the opposition. The members of the government party would not ask any question about the executives lest they are ousted by the use of article 70 of the constitution which bars any members to vote against or abstain from vote against his party. And the opposition would not join the session of parliament on the plea that they were not allowed to talk or heard about issues of governance and other national issues.
   The politics at the same time following the footsteps of the earlier autocratic regimes became criminalised and corrupt. The 16 years that followed the changeover of representative form of government saw how politics and the whole political process, election and parliament became captive in the hands of criminals and corrupt people as well as the communalist forces. The unbridled partisan politics, politicisation of the administration, sheer loot of the economy made the country absolutely ungovernable.
   Added to it was the rise of religious fundamentalism and militancy which not only threatened the peace and social stability of the country but also the very basis of the state. This had also, in the background of international terrorism, become a headache for others in the world. The foreign observers started to evaluate Bangladesh as a near-failed state, at the least a dysfunctional state.
   It is in this background the country has seen the new imposition of emergency and quasi-military rule, having a civilian caretaker government in the front, and the armed forces in the background. Though this government immediately after taking over power promised election and reverting back to elected representative government, the roadmap for election has been stretched to the end of 2008 and not without uncertainty about journey towards election through that road. And politics has also become victim of this situation.
   In the name of fighting corruption and reforming political parties a de-politicisation process has been set in motion. The established political leadership and the political parties are in doldrums. Many of them are in jail having been indicted for corruption and misuse of power. Others have been immobilised by the same threats. The main parties either have been divided or on the verge of it, while the old game of building up new party and front by the state apparatus is being repeated once again. The representative government in Bangladesh and people’s sovereignty over power are under threat again.
   The most pertinent question which is often asked about why Bangladesh, which has come to existence through a long period of struggle for democracy during the Pakistan days and a valiant freedom struggle which attracted the attention and appreciation of the whole world, has to go through such experiences repeatedly. The answer lies in the very nature of the state which was imposed on it after independence and the class characters of the rulers who ruled the country throughout these periods. Though Bangladesh made a definite break with Pakistan through the liberation struggle, the remnants of that Pakistani state were pieced together and re-imposed on the new country. The whole system of running of the state of the past was continued and it soon caused clash with the aspiration of the liberation struggle.
   The ruling class which ascended to power of the new state was not capable of translating those aspirations into reality, rather found it convenient to amass wealth by way of loot and plunder. And hence it was necessary for them to revert back to authoritarian rule which ran through one-party rule to consecutive military regimes. The changeover to representative government could not turn the tide as the whole system had decomposed to such an extent that nothing could be done without a revolutionary change in the polity and a determined leadership. Unfortunately, Bangladesh lacked both. In the meanwhile, the change in the world situation made things worse. The victorious march of the free market economy opened the door for loot and plunder, corruption and criminalisation of the economy further. And in these the donor countries and donor agencies lent their helping hand in exchange of handing over of the whole economy, and politics too, to their hand.
   Thus the plight of people who fought time and again for a democratic setup and a democratic representative government is still continuing and would continue further if a total change in the polity is not brought about. And it is not a matter of words, but a matter of struggle. The new generation is to take over responsibility from the predecessors who achieved great victories, but failed to keep and advance it to the derived goal for which the people fought so long.
   
   Rashed Khan Menon is a politician