Bangladesh: Victory from the grave

There's not a grain of doubt in Dacca as to who'll win the November presidential election. It will be Zia-ur-Rahman. Abdus Sattar's face appears below Zia's in the posters and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) only election slogan is that it will complete the unfinished tasks of Zia. Sattar will surf-ride the Zia wave.And there is a Zia wave. People in the remote villages had seen him. He'd plumped for a switch to rural priorities - grow more food, check births, teach more people to read and write, and lastly, only lastly, industrialise. On the food front there was real progress and Bangladesh now has a 1.3 million tonnes buffer stock of food grains. Of jobs, 10 per cent were to be set apart for women; this and Zia's efforts to help women break free from a dark conservatism won him their support. He left no private fortune. And, finally, there's very wide sympathy for an unarmed man shot down by assassins, and a feeling that the slayers should be punished. So much for the winner.Much more important is to try and size up who will lose. The ruling party for instance could well split. The BNP is a patchwork quilt with pro-Liberationists and two-nation believers, radicals and private sector-wallahs, fundamental Islamists and former Awami Leaguers. Zia juggled to hold it together, trying to weld it into a functioning party. No one can guess yet what Sattar's drive or dynamism will be. At 75, he's no chicken, but his London doctors say there's no leukemia. A disease of the urinary tract pulls down the number of his red corpuscles, but drugs,apparently, can control that.Strikes: No one knows his ideas about governing or economic development. The firmness with which the strike of the six nationalised banks was stamped out a couple of weeks ago was apparently his - all strikers who didn't report by a designated day were sacked, and the strike collapsed. He personally studied and dismissed the mercy petitions of all those convicted for the Zia assassination.Acting President Abdus Sattar: Riding a Zia waveThe Awami League could lose the 1982-83 parliamentary elections as well if it doesn't field a strong candidate. Dr Kamal Hossain is an enormously articulate intellectual, but he's no man of the people and his campaign seems spiced much too liberally with democratic theory and with the criticism of monetary policy and of the military-bureaucratic set-up rather than with the steep rise in the prices of essentials or the need for the liberation of women who are 50 per cent of the voters.Along with the Awami League, the thrust for civil liberties could also suffer a defeat. Almost every educated urban individual is troubled by the in camera field court martial trial of Zia's alleged assassins and the hanging of 12 officers with almost unholy haste. It isn't just the defence counsel who'd taken the stay petition to the Supreme Court who are unhappy. They, of course, are facing a great deal of criticism: that only three military officers were assigned to defend 31 accused; that there were allegations of torture; that (they said) transcripts of the court martial were not made available (the military authorities say, on the other hand, that the transcripts were given to the Supreme Court judges); that of the 19 convicted the sentences on seven were inexplicably not confirmed; that once the Emergency was withdrawn and fundamental rights restored, counsels were not given an opportunity to widen the scope of their arguments; instead, the men were hastily executed. The feeling is unmistakable that the principles of natural justice took a knock during the trial of the 31. Could it be that the ordinary soldiers - the jawans - had a lot to do with this? They apparently felt that in the previous secret coup trials over 400 of them had been strung up without protests from any civil rights activists and they weren't going to tolerate the officers being treated differently just because they had relatives in high places. One very senior official described how four enlisted men came unannounced to his office and wanted their 'message' to be passed on to the intellectuals.Demonstrations: What was extraordinary, though, was that the public protest was much more muted than one would have guaged from individual reactions. University students demonstrated, as they always do, bringing the universities to a halt and burning some cars here and there. But the public was apathetic. "The people have seen too many killings and now want just to be left alone," was one typical comment. The Army, some might think, is sitting pretty in a 'heads we win, tails we lose' situation. Yes and no. One of the many rumours is that the army chief of staff Lt.-General H. M. Ershad will retire a little before his time and take over the vice-presidentship. Parliament in the meanwhile will pass the constitutional amendment making the vice-president the automatic (not acting) successor to a dead president. Since an unstable Bangladesh can only mean trouble for India, it ought to try and understand the feeling of its people which is this: we have India on three sides of our border; the Indian army is so large that one smack from it would finish us off. So we cannot dream of any other course but friendship...But if Ershad does that, the die will be cast - the political parties will know that there'll be no civilian rule, and the armed services (if Ershad does indeed represent them) will be committed to administer. Bangladesh in the indubitably difficult days ahead.Paradoxically, Bangladesh is not so much a 'basket case' as an example of what international organisations and foreign aid can create. Dacca's car number plates need to have two special categories: SAS and IAS (Sahajya Sanstha and Jati Sangha); one for aid organisations and the other for UN cars. Over 96 church-missionary organisations have a footing in Bangladesh and many more non-church ones. A cycle-rickshaw ride through the residential area of Dhanmondi shows that almost every second or third name - plate belongs to an aid body an interesting story for an investigative journalist.Between the UN and the diplomatic community a lifestyle seems to have been choreographed for what is the poorest of the developing countries, where the largest number of people live. In Dacca the Toyotas, Datsuns, Nissans and microbuses clot the traffic. A room in the spanking new Sonargaon Hotel (built with Japanese collaboration) costs around 1,400 takas (Rs 700) a day. The new international airport has just been named after Zia and almost every day some dignitary or other flies in to be received by impeccably dressed, talcum-browed Bangladeshi officials. More and more comfortable houses with astronomical rents go up in the swank residential areas of Gulshan and Bonani, a good number of them owned by senior civil servants. There's a site set apart for a World Trade Centre. Biman continues to advise that "the world has grown smaller" so fly Bangladesh's airline, with its smiling hostesses and gourmet food. With all this, Bangladesh is a credit to the First World, even if its credit in the consortium has dangerously slipped.Inflation: Sadly, that is not the real Bangladesh. The incredibly beautiful countryside only masks the poverty. Gumai Beel (in Chittagong's Rangoonia thana) has 6,400 emerald acres of paddy stretching to the hills, where the Chakmas and Mannas live; the Meghna river at Grahmanbaria-Ashuganj is as wide as the sea. Whoever made Bangladesh seems to have used up all the green paint there was. But little boys in knickers ply all manner of nets, trying to coax the last little fish out of the last little stretch of water. Onions are between 22 and 28 takas (Rs 11-Rs 14) a kilo (taking a kilo and a seer to be about the same), mutton nearer 30 takas (Rs 15), and beef, 25-30 takas (Rs 12.50-Rs 15). Eggs are 1.60 takas (80 paise) each, sugar 17 or 18 takas (Rs 8.50-Rs 9) a kilo, soyabean or palm oil 18-19 takas (Rs 9-Rs 9.50), and dal 13 takas (Rs 6.50). Baby food could start at 125 takas (Rs 62.50) for a five-pound tin. The cheapest possible lungi in the market is 25 takas (Rs 12.50), (a surprise, as one would have expected it to be higher), but ask for a checked one and it will be at least 35 takas (Rs 17.50). Shopkeepers quoted 125 takas (Rs 62.50) for the cheapest sari but there must be some for 60 takas (Rs 30) or so, else many women would have to go naked.The biggest loser of all in Dacca will be development. This is the perspective that should - but doesnt - influence the Indian outlook on Bangladesh. Our stereotype is rock-ribbed and disparaging: that Bangladesh is irredeemably anti-Indian; that most people there want to renew a link with Pakistan; that they are ungrateful for Indian help during the Liberation; and that the country is unstable and increasingly gruesome.Instead, the reasoning should go this way: 75 to 80 per cent of the people of Bangladesh are below the poverty line, a situation much worse than even India.Over 60 per cent of the households are landless or near-landless and the proportion is growing.82 per cent of the revenue earned from exports goes to pay for oil.The number of the unemployed is roughly rated at 14 million.More even than other poor countries, Bangladesh is at the mercy of foreign 'aid' and the 'conditions' that such aid requires. Since 1971 there have been two devaluations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this year has not paid more than $ 86 million (Rs 77 crore) of the first instalment of $200 million (Rs 180 crore) of a payment due last January. Two other instalments since then have not been paid at all as the 'economic indicators' (like foreign exchange reserves, taxation and money supply, are not right. As a result the foreign exchange plight of Bangladesh today is quite desperate. Businessmen have had their exchange allocations even for capital goods slashed,In a situation where almost 80 per cent of the development budget of the country depends on foreign aid corning in even the generation of domestic resources depends on the disbursement of foreign aid which has slowed down.In jute, Bangladesh's major export, India stands in a paradoxically competitive position - India's own surplus of jute this year is 2.5 million tonnes.Into such an unpromising scenario Zia-ur-Rahman strove to bring a little faith, spirit and order. Not in everything did he succeed. In a women's cooperative in Tangail district, for instance, its highly intelligent secretary Suraiya Begum said that among her 40 members there were no illiterates. It turned out that the ability to sign one's name on a bank receipt was considered 'literacy'. In upper class homes at least, the requirement of making two people literate, before a student can get a high school certificate, is often faked. The family planners have boldly taken to the use of injections but the ampules come from abroad. Since many centres, particularly government ones, have turned in no account of last year's ampules, none has been distributed this year, leaving the clinics - government and non-government - in a highly frustrating situation.Imported Goods: The dependence of the Bangladeshi middle class on imported consumer goods-cars, electronic equipment, televisions, refrigerators, cosmetics, synthetic fabrics, and foodstuffs, remains as total and wasteful as ever. The Electronics Market at Dacca Stadium (from which many items are also smuggled to India), Baitul Mukarram Market, the third floor in a particular market (Bipani Bitan) in Chittagong, or Khulna's sophisticated shopping spots might give the illusion that Bangladesh is a major consumer nation. Unfortunately, it is consumption without production and the most genuine admiration that Bangladeshis have for India is that India can produce almost all its consumer necessities. Here Zia drew a blank. But he tried, juggled, parleyed, and failed also in the almost impossible task of keeping military ambitions in check.His death makes the evolution of a stable Bangladesh immensely more difficult - even if the party he created wins. Since an unstable Bangladesh can only mean trouble for India, it ought to try and understand the feeling of the vast majority of its people which is this: we have India on three sides of our border; the Indian army is so large that one smack from it would finish us off. So we cannot dream of any other course but friendship. If that is so can't India be considerate enough to give us the vital things we need like our share of water from the Ganga? This is not what the Bangladesh newspapers write - nor indeed the Indian - but it is what people most often say.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 26, 2013 13:35 IST--- ENDS ---

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Bangladesh: Victory from the grave

There's not a grain of doubt in Dacca as to who'll win the November presidential election. It will be Zia-ur-Rahman.

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