10-28-2006, 12:52 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>East Pakistan-II </b>
Pioneer.com
Udayan Namboodiri
With another Bangladesh general election 90 days away, policy-makers in New Delhi are well advised to compare the existing situation with the run-up to the 1970 polls. Reason: The two poles of Bangladeshi national politics are locked in a war which can have no winners
This Saturday we focus on Bangladesh, a little nation which is a big headache for India. Five years back, when the BNP was swept to power by a massive post-9/11 Islamic assertion, Raisina Hill was thrown into confusion. How to deal with another East Pakistan? With another general election 90 days away (the countdown begins today) <b>policy-makers in New Delhi are well advised to compare the present situation with the run-up to the 1970 polls. Reason: The two poles of Bangladeshi national politics are locked in a war which can have no winners. The issue at stake is the interpretation of the Constitution, the founding principles of the nation. The silent director of this absurd theatre is Pakistan, a country which has neither forgotten the humiliation of 1971, nor learnt lessons from it</b>. Former CPI(M) Parliamentarian Gholam Yazdani, who has been an observer of Bangaldeshi politics for decades, has detailed the contours of the new crisis while veteran commentator DR Ahuja has restated the age-old underbelly of Indo-Bangla relations - infiltration.
The flashpoint came this week with the news of the large-scale exodus of Ministers, MPs and loyalists from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) surprising observers of this nation's effervescent politics. As the current term of the Khaleda Zia-led BNP coalition comes to end, 102 joined the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to protest the "corrupt" regime and "extra-Constitutional role" of Tareq Rehman in party and Government affairs.
Tareq, to those unfamiliar with Bangladesh, is Khaleda's oldest son. Indians will immediately connect with the image he exudes if they recall Sanjay Gandhi. The young Zia straddles Bangladeshi national life in a manner which aspires to standards set by Sanjay in the 1970s. The only difference in Bangladesh's case is that Tareq doesn't have a regiment of his mother's sycophants at his disposal. In fact a depleted BNP is already under immense pressure to name a new caretaker head instead of KM Hasan to oversee the general elections in January. In its paranoia, it is likely to be driven to imposing stringent administrative measures to control the Awami League-led Opposition's protests, thus raising fears of large-scale pre-poll violence.
With the formation of the LDP by former Bangladesh President Badruddoza Chowdhury and BNP leader Oli Ahmed, the political situation in Bangladesh has taken a new turn. The bipolarity of national politics, which was déjà vu, is now a thing of the past. Oli Ahmed quit BNP as member of its standing committee on October 26. In his resignation letter to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Oli, who is one of the founder-members of the party, said that he had decided to step down rather than put up with the corruption perpetuated by Tareq. <b>Accusing Khaleda of running a Government under instructions of "1971 war criminals", he also put a contemporary tinge to his crusade by underscoring the regime's failure to give good governance, particularly on the price management front</b>.
Naturally, this has bolstered the case of the Awami League-led 14-party Opposition. Sheikh Hasina has made an issue out of the appointment of the caretaker Government and the Chief Election Commissioner. She has accused BNP Secretary-General Mannan Bhuiyan of "deceiving" the nation on Eid by making false statements about Chief Election Commissioner MA Aziz. Both sides had earlier proposed Aziz's name as head of the caretaker Government which, by the country's Constitution, takes charge for 90 days preceding a general election. But the BNP subsequently underwent a policy shift and settled for Hasan. The firmness with which Mannan defended this decision at a meeting with his Awami counterpart this week led to a collapse of all democratic norms.
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The Awami and its allies have threatened to boycott the January polls. But it will certainly not be a demonstration of passive resistance. As is its wont, <b>the Awami will plunge the country into a cycle of violence and counter-violence. The focus of its angst is Hasan, a known BNP sympathiser. The Awami League has been opposed to KH Hasan's appointment on grounds that he was earlier a BNP official and, therefore, could not be expected to be neutral when free and fair polls are needed. However, Bangladesh's Constitution stipulates that the caretaker should be the immediate past chief justice - which Hasan is.</b> Added to that is the party's image of a victim of terrorism. An August 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka nearly killed Sheikh Hasina and left other senior leaders dead or injured. Another bomb attack led to the murder of former Finance Minister AMS Kibria. The Khaleda Government has not bothered to launch serious investigations into these killings.
The 35-year history of Bangladesh has been bloodied many times by political assassinations, military interventions, coups and associated mayhem. After 20 years of repeated slippage into martial law, Bangladeshis seemed to have put the past behind them in February 1991, when a combined BNP-Awami struggle led to the country's first free and fair election. <b>After 25 years, it now seems that the past is catching up. In the background, Islamic fundamentalists, with tendencies mirroring that of the Taliban, are set to capitalise on the anarchy that the country is about to be plunged into. The country's return to abject Pakistani control is a foregone conclusion. </b>
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Pioneer.com
Udayan Namboodiri
With another Bangladesh general election 90 days away, policy-makers in New Delhi are well advised to compare the existing situation with the run-up to the 1970 polls. Reason: The two poles of Bangladeshi national politics are locked in a war which can have no winners
This Saturday we focus on Bangladesh, a little nation which is a big headache for India. Five years back, when the BNP was swept to power by a massive post-9/11 Islamic assertion, Raisina Hill was thrown into confusion. How to deal with another East Pakistan? With another general election 90 days away (the countdown begins today) <b>policy-makers in New Delhi are well advised to compare the present situation with the run-up to the 1970 polls. Reason: The two poles of Bangladeshi national politics are locked in a war which can have no winners. The issue at stake is the interpretation of the Constitution, the founding principles of the nation. The silent director of this absurd theatre is Pakistan, a country which has neither forgotten the humiliation of 1971, nor learnt lessons from it</b>. Former CPI(M) Parliamentarian Gholam Yazdani, who has been an observer of Bangaldeshi politics for decades, has detailed the contours of the new crisis while veteran commentator DR Ahuja has restated the age-old underbelly of Indo-Bangla relations - infiltration.
The flashpoint came this week with the news of the large-scale exodus of Ministers, MPs and loyalists from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) surprising observers of this nation's effervescent politics. As the current term of the Khaleda Zia-led BNP coalition comes to end, 102 joined the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to protest the "corrupt" regime and "extra-Constitutional role" of Tareq Rehman in party and Government affairs.
Tareq, to those unfamiliar with Bangladesh, is Khaleda's oldest son. Indians will immediately connect with the image he exudes if they recall Sanjay Gandhi. The young Zia straddles Bangladeshi national life in a manner which aspires to standards set by Sanjay in the 1970s. The only difference in Bangladesh's case is that Tareq doesn't have a regiment of his mother's sycophants at his disposal. In fact a depleted BNP is already under immense pressure to name a new caretaker head instead of KM Hasan to oversee the general elections in January. In its paranoia, it is likely to be driven to imposing stringent administrative measures to control the Awami League-led Opposition's protests, thus raising fears of large-scale pre-poll violence.
With the formation of the LDP by former Bangladesh President Badruddoza Chowdhury and BNP leader Oli Ahmed, the political situation in Bangladesh has taken a new turn. The bipolarity of national politics, which was déjà vu, is now a thing of the past. Oli Ahmed quit BNP as member of its standing committee on October 26. In his resignation letter to Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Oli, who is one of the founder-members of the party, said that he had decided to step down rather than put up with the corruption perpetuated by Tareq. <b>Accusing Khaleda of running a Government under instructions of "1971 war criminals", he also put a contemporary tinge to his crusade by underscoring the regime's failure to give good governance, particularly on the price management front</b>.
Naturally, this has bolstered the case of the Awami League-led 14-party Opposition. Sheikh Hasina has made an issue out of the appointment of the caretaker Government and the Chief Election Commissioner. She has accused BNP Secretary-General Mannan Bhuiyan of "deceiving" the nation on Eid by making false statements about Chief Election Commissioner MA Aziz. Both sides had earlier proposed Aziz's name as head of the caretaker Government which, by the country's Constitution, takes charge for 90 days preceding a general election. But the BNP subsequently underwent a policy shift and settled for Hasan. The firmness with which Mannan defended this decision at a meeting with his Awami counterpart this week led to a collapse of all democratic norms.
Â
The Awami and its allies have threatened to boycott the January polls. But it will certainly not be a demonstration of passive resistance. As is its wont, <b>the Awami will plunge the country into a cycle of violence and counter-violence. The focus of its angst is Hasan, a known BNP sympathiser. The Awami League has been opposed to KH Hasan's appointment on grounds that he was earlier a BNP official and, therefore, could not be expected to be neutral when free and fair polls are needed. However, Bangladesh's Constitution stipulates that the caretaker should be the immediate past chief justice - which Hasan is.</b> Added to that is the party's image of a victim of terrorism. An August 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka nearly killed Sheikh Hasina and left other senior leaders dead or injured. Another bomb attack led to the murder of former Finance Minister AMS Kibria. The Khaleda Government has not bothered to launch serious investigations into these killings.
The 35-year history of Bangladesh has been bloodied many times by political assassinations, military interventions, coups and associated mayhem. After 20 years of repeated slippage into martial law, Bangladeshis seemed to have put the past behind them in February 1991, when a combined BNP-Awami struggle led to the country's first free and fair election. <b>After 25 years, it now seems that the past is catching up. In the background, Islamic fundamentalists, with tendencies mirroring that of the Taliban, are set to capitalise on the anarchy that the country is about to be plunged into. The country's return to abject Pakistani control is a foregone conclusion. </b>
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