Legacy of Martial law and Democracy grown in Garrison

Bangalee is a rare genre of nation which feels ecstatic seeing calamity like 'martial law' or 'emergency' gulping the nation. Again, soon eulogy turns into agony, optimism turns into despair, and national hero reduces to zero - anything is possible and visible in capricious history of Bangladesh where truth can be hardly differentiated from the false. If we consider Bangladesh Army as clone of patriarch Pakistan, how contradictory it is with the eulogy often heard in the mass media these days portraying our army as true flag bearer of our liberation war and saviour of the nation in critical juncture of history.

Direct participation of army in our politics started on the ominous morning of August 15, 1975. Without mincing words or muzzling plain truth, Ziaur Rahman spearheaded that campaign. Dissecting ethics from politics and turning it as a saleable commodity was his only achievement. When the killers of women and children were medalled as national hero by him, he has been, till today, worshipped by his successors as hero at par with Mujib and Bhashani in our history. As an able heir of legacy of martial law, Zia crashed secularism and added Islamic placebo to state policy for political expediency. Bangladeshi nationalism was uniquely invented by this Army General with a view to stripping Bangalee nation of her culture, heritage and history.

The next hero of martial law is Hussain Ershad , unlike his ruthless guru General Zia, he earned the reputation of an acclaimed debonair and a poet in his own right. He has successfully completed the incomplete historical task bestowed upon him by his martyr guru to turn secular Bangladesh into a fundamentalist state and to turn Bangalee into Bangladeshi. Yet Ershad,s position in the history is not at par with his guru, because his image was not of a blood-thirsty warrior, rather a Lt. General poet with extraordinary taming skill of the shrew. He is still alive, marginalized human but living in opulence of unlimited corruption. His guru has got martyrdom.

The third advent of martial law (civil version) took place, amid much funfair and upsurge of national optimism, on January 11, 2007 under the command of General Moin, a World Bank cadre Fakruddin in the forefront as dummy and two demagogues; ex-General Matin and Barrister Mainul as civilian stooges. This martial law is evangelized with only agenda to uproot corruption from every sphere of nation. A day after the promulgation of emergency, none other than Tofael Ahmed, a name synonymous with the history of our independence, gave an interview to BBC in a trembling emotion choked voice eulogizing this clique as saviour of our nation. I was numbed. . Only four months have passed since. Mr. Tofael Ahmed, our political leader of unparallel stature – is your eulogy too soon turning into haunting nightmare! I wonder.

First political stunt of the bossman was to decry the nation for failing to recognize father of the nation. Confused and carried away, a pro-liberation friend of mine soon sent me a brief message bitterly denouncing my scepticism about the current affairs in the country and my obstinacy about abhorring uniform in politics. Second bombshell was photo collage of national heroes at parade ground on Independence Day. I considered it as the funeral of our history, when a formerly pseudo-communist and now a civil society agent, editor of a popular Bengali daily dubbed it as true portrait of our history. My friends of hope remained silent and baffled. Recently from a podium shared with North America based political theory-monger Dr. Zillur Rahman Khan, General Moin has hinted of a special recipe of democracy to cure the ills of our nation. The first monumental step towards that was to induct Dr. Yunus into politics. A giant leap of respectable Dr.Yunus like a lion into empty political arena protected by emergency law and soon cowering like a mouse back to old business den was the first crack and proof of strategic incompetence of the Generals and their cadres. Congenitally doomed Minus Two theory drove a fatal wage into the crack. The series of events; the ordeal of Hasina in exile, Khaleda under eviction threat, government’s denial of involvement, arrest and release of Koko, imposition of reforms on political parties, tall talks in seminars and zero progress on the ground on holding a fair election etc. have started activating the thought process of individual Bangalee – what is there under the wrap!

The status of city Mayors Qamran, Mahiuddin, Minu, Tyeb, Sarwar and Khoka gives a clear sense how deeply this anti-graft campaign is laced with partisan politics. What is the mesh size of the anti-graft dragnet! Is it a single dragnet or multi sized! Mahiuddin Khan Alamgir is in the prison, Syed Iskander along with family, couple of days ago, flew to UK for leisure and participation in family events. What about Obaidul, Jalil and so on, or, how about General Ershad, Shahjahan Omar, Aminul, Shamim Eskander and so on. The initial balance between the campaigns of anti-graft and anti-politics is now totally lost. The only sworn motto of this government to eradicate corruption is now tailgating their political agenda. And the agenda is to incubate a genetically modified political party with a manifesto of democracy grown in the green house. In fact, from Tareq to Mayor Mahiuddin, under the pretext of house cleaning thousands detained for political strategy and soon will be used as pawns on political chess game. To substantiate this claim look at Pakistan, our patriarch of martial law.