The search committee does not look like a solution

Presidential dialogue with political parties across the divide over the ways of holding free and fair general elections raised enormous hope among the people who want peaceful transfer of power. The hope, however, was dashed first as the president did not heed the idea of restoration of a non-party, caretaker government for conducting the polls — an idea that most of the political parties, again on both sides of the political divide, put forward. The president eventually came up with the government idea of forming a ‘search committee’ to find out non-partisan people to constitute the next Election Commission to preside over the polls without any bias for or against any contender for state power. This is, indeed, an ideal solution for an ideal democratic political atmosphere, particularly for those, like New Age, who do not believe in the running of the affairs of the state by any unelected body even for a while. But, unfortunately, the political parties and authorities managing the state since independence have not contributed, intentionally or unintentionally, towards the creation of that ideal, democratic political environment. Subsequently, the political parties of the ruling class, let alone those who find the ruling class inherently undemocratic, do not trust each other’s neutrality in conducting the polls. But the president, who is expected to function as a symbol of unity of the state, went ahead with the incumbents, ignoring their political rivals.

After the four-member ‘search committee’ was officially announced, the hope of the peace-loving people, however, was dashed again because of the composition of the search body. The New Age report on Saturday, ‘Who’s who in the search committee,’ reveals that most members of the body either have a partisan background identified with the ruling Awami League or the identity of being a ‘victim’ of being the incumbents’ political rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party. None of the identities promise party-neutrality in choosing the members of the next Election Commission, one of the most vital bodies in conducting general elections with non-partisan attitude.

The head of the committee, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, had reportedly served the Awami League government during its 1996–2001 tenure as a deputy attorney general. He was appointed a High Court judge in February 2001 when the Awami League was in power. He was elevated to the Appellate Division in February 2011. Justice Md Nuruzzaman, a member of the search committee, had been elected general secretary and president of the Dhaka Bar Association from the Awami League-supported panel. He was appointed a deputy attorney general immediately after the Awami League had assumed office on January 6, 2009. He was appointed a High Court judge in June 2009.

Another member, AT Ahmedul Huq Choudhury, was appointed chairman of the Public Service Commission by the incumbents in November 2011. A former inspector general of police, Ahmedul was forced into retirement by the BNP government in 2001 on charge of his participation in Janatar Mancha, a platform of professionals that the BNP claims to have helped unceremoniously in overthrowing its government in 1996. Ahmed Ataul Hakeem, another member of the committee, was appointed the comptroller and auditor general in February 2008 by a military-driven government.

Those who have the idea of the level of mistrust between the two rival political camps led by the Awami League and the BNP could have no reason to believe that the latter would accept the commission chosen by the search committee in question. So, the problems regarding peaceful transformation of power remain. The president, if really willing, needs to make fresh attempts to save the country from the emerging political conflicts that the country would confront in the near future.

Collected :

Now comes India’s reluctance to exchange enclaves

AFTER the blow to the potential of improving the thorny relations between Bangladesh and India by the latter over the signing of an agreement on Teesta water sharing in September last year, now comes another over the exchange of enclaves. Following a series of negotiations over the years, Dhaka and Delhi had agreed to sign the Teesta agreement during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka on September 6, 2011. 

But after his arrival in Dhaka, Bangladesh came to know that Delhi could not sign the agreement because of West Bengal’s objection to the idea. The government of Sheikh Hasina was embarrassed before the people, while those critical of India’s unfriendly attitude towards Bangladesh found their views further confirmed. 

However, the two neighbours signed some other bilateral agreements, one being a protocol on the exchange of enclaves to end the suffering of the peoples concerned. Notably, more than 50,000 people in 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 enclaves of Bangladesh inside India have been living in immense miseries and uncertainties without any ‘official identity’ since 1947. The protocol was signed in September 2011 after the first-ever headcount of the enclave people jointly by the governments of Bangladesh and India in July that year. Subsequently, the suffering people living in the enclaves have eagerly been waiting for the exchange of the landlocked areas in adverse possessions of the two countries.

But, again, as reported by New Age on Friday quoting Indian media, the Indian government has adopted a ‘go slow’ policy about implementing the ‘ratification of the exchange of enclaves’ on the ground that there has not yet been a ‘national consensus’, particularly with the government’s coalition partner Trinamul Congress  and the rightwing opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The two parties have reportedly been opposing the idea and, therefore, as reports say, the government of India is not enthusiastic about implementation of the accord that it had signed with the ‘friendly’ government of Bangladesh last year, let alone ending the suffering of the poor people living in the enclaves.

No one can blame a foreign government if it refuses to implement an agreement signed with a neighbour in the face of its opposition parties at home. Rather, it is democratically important for any elected government to forge national consensus on issues of national interest. The incumbents in Bangladesh need to learn from their Indian counterparts and consult with the opposition political camps before entering into any important agreement with the foreign countries in general and India in particular.

Collected :

BSF atrocities continue

It is indeed a matter of serious concern that India-Bangladesh borders remain as dangerous as ever, courtesy of the persistent violence being perpetrated by the Indian border guards, Border Security Forces, despite a number of top level initiatives from both countries and assurances from the highest level of government in India. If reports in the last few days are anything to go by, the situation along the border appears to have worsened. On Saturday, the BSF shot dead a Bangladeshi and injured three others along the Benapole border. On Friday, Indian smugglers abducted a Bangladesh Border Guards havilder and a flag meeting between BGB and BSF failed to secure his return. He was however returned early Saturday after intervention of the highest level of officials. On Thursday, the Bangladesh government formally protested the inhuman torture of Bangladeshi national Habibur Rahman who was brutally tortured by Indian border guards at Mairashi camp in Murshidabad for failing to pay Tk 2,000 in bribe. Worryingly, according to a report published in New Age on Saturday, an Indian human rights group alleged that the Indian government was putting pressure on the Bangladeshi authorities to make Habibur Rahman change his statement. Bear in mind, last year, in March, the BGB and BSF chief signed an agreement on the use of non-lethal weapons along the Indo-Bangladesh border, while the Indian prime minister, through the joint communiqué published after the visit of the Bangladeshi prime minister to Delhi in February 2010, had provided assurances on stopping extra-judicial killings of unarmed Bangladeshis along the border. In May last year, the Indian home minister further reiterated India’s assurance on the issue. Given the prevailing situation, time has come to seriously question the commitment of the Indian government and its authorities to address the issue of the killing and torture of Bangladeshis along the border, something which is not just a cause of serious grievance and injury, but also an ‘insult’ to the notion of friendly relations, for the people of Bangladesh.

While the government of Bangladesh and India over the last two years worked towards forging stronger ties, it is indeed noteworthy that during every single major diplomatic and political event between the two countries – be it Hasina’s visit to Delhi, Sonia Gandhi’s and Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka – the BSF resorted to killing Bangladeshi nationals along the borders. One would not be mistaken in interpreting a ‘message’ in the timings of the killings. Moreover, the use of non-lethal weapons along the borders seems to have turned into a curse for Bangladeshis, as BSF has now resorted to medieval forms of killing such as stoning, beating, hacking, torture and running speed boats over victims. Now, if it is indeed true that the Indian government is trying to make the Bangladeshi authorities to make the victim change his statement, then the ‘message’ from India becomes all the more clearer.     

At a juncture when the many parts of the world, including the Indian media and human rights groups, are waking up to the atrocities of BSF on Bangladeshis, the Bangladeshi government would well-advised to revisit their relations with the big neighbour, to revisit the pledges to India they are too eager to deliver on so far, to refrain from trying to protect India’s interest ahead of Bangladesh’s, for example, by trying to change the victim’s statement, and make India diplomatically accountable for failing to respect the rights of Bangladeshi citizens. 

Collected :

Brutality at the borders

Need a change in BSF attitude. 

 

The Tv footage of a Bangladeshi being tortured by BSF personnel was, to say the least, appalling and contemptible. It shows a depraved mentality. The Indian TV channels deserve compliments for exposing the brutal side of the BSF behaviour at the borders. The pictures were a shocking and outrageous narrative of how one cattle smuggler was tied hand and feet after being deprived of his clothes and mercilessly beaten up by the BSF jawans, apparently for not paying up the BSF for plying his trade, smuggling cows. 

We have in the past repeatedly highlighted the issue of BSF highhandedness and their rather trigger free attitude on the borders, and called for reining in the Indian border guards. If anything, the TV footage has vindicated our position.

Killings of Bangladeshi nationals at the borders by BSF have been taking place with impunity. Nothing has been done to bring down these killings despite assurances from the highest quarters in India. Regrettably, according to human rights bodies, in the last three years more than 200 Bangladeshi nationals have fallen victims to BSF firing, among them many women and children, and many tortured to death by the BSF. 

It is a matter of regret that these should continue to occur given the state of bilateral relationship between the two countries. Descriptions of the Indo-Bangladesh border as the “world's deadliest frontier” or “one of the world's most dangerous border” are some of the testimonials to the insensitive way that the border is being managed. 

Although such incidents have been termed as human rights violation by the Human Rights Watch in 2010, the perpetrators have apparently gone scot-free so far. We are glad that the Indian authorities have acted quickly by suspending the jawans. We would hope that these errant BSF men would be made examples of.

Collected :

‘Fun-tastic’ education and campus killings

Corporal punishment is often defined broadly as bodily punishment of any kind. Bangladesh is celebrating the first anniversary of the abolition of corporal punishment in schools on January 13. The credo of Sir Frank Peters, the pioneer in this noble campaign, is: Learning should be FUN-tastic – help them know; help them grow.” We sincerely admire his endeavour.

As a knowledgeable person Sir Frank should be aware what The Bible Says: “He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” (Proverbs 23:13-14). This was the inbred belief among parents that beating children was a corrective method. But modern professional organizations of physicians and psychologists have suggested that spanking is damaging and leads to family violence and child abuse. They have suggested that spanking teaches physically aggressive behaviour which the child will imitate. Well, though the conclusion is not definitive, but it is incontestable that severe forms of physical abuse does more harm than good. At least this can be asserted with certainty that corporal punishment does induce fear among school goers.

One of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy, Aristotle – who believed that liberty as well as equality are chiefly to be found in democracy and they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost – asserted over twenty-three hundred years ago that Man is by nature a political animal. So there is no argument over the necessity and importance of politics; but nowhere else in the world politicking and politicisation have assumed such an intolerably demonic perilous shape in the political scenario as in Bangladesh where the people – even professionals like lawyers, physicians, journalists, freedom fighters et al – are sharply divided into two distinct political camps. It is anybody’s guess what might happen unless the ongoing imbroglio over the caretaker government issue and the next general election are not amicably resolved.

No other people know better than the Bangladeshis how politics can vitiate academic environment. Nevertheless, what are posing potential threat to academic atmosphere are the violent fights on the DU and all the other ‘varsities as well as colleges since 1974 when several students were shot dead near the TSC. Over the past three years the pro-Awami League Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) factions have been engaged in internecine mortal clashes. A fourth-year student of Jahangirnagar University succumbed to his injuries on January 10 after he was brutally beaten up allegedly by activists of a rival faction of BCL. Statistics of the victims of campus murders may not be readily available, but the figure should be terrifying.

Let us turn to our foremost centre of higher education. The University of Dhaka (DU), which celebrated its 90th birth anniversary last year, now boasts 10 faculties, 48 departments, 9 institutes and 26 research centres, and 17 dormitories. Two-thirds of the faculty members have degrees from European, North American, Australian and other foreign universities; and some of them achieved international renown for their scholarship and have taught at well-known ‘varsities and institutions abroad.

This ‘Oxford of the East’ had a very stormy start when many Calcuttan leaders were unhappy with the government’s intention to set up a university in Dhaka. A delegation headed by Dr Rash Bihari Ghosh, met the viceroy and contended that “Muslims of Eastern Bengal were in large majority cultivators and they would benefit in no way by the foundation of a university”. Lord Hardinge told Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University, that he (Hardinge) was determined to establish a university in Dhaka in spite of their vehement opposition. However, modelled on modern British universities such as Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool, the DU itself became a model for Indian universities at Allahabad, Aligarh, Annamalai, Benaras, Hyderabad and Lucknow.

 There is no gainsaying that Sir Frank has inspired many teachers and parents here to seriously look into the issue of corporal punishment. Can he begin his second phase of campaign against senseless murders on the campuses taking place with horrifying frequency? For example, he may organise countrywide human chain to press home the issue. But a word of caution! Before doing so he must get assurance from the Home Minster that that his harmless programme shall not be attacked by the police.

Collected :