He better win, not least because I’m heavily geared. If Obama loses, I need to:
When I returned to Bangladesh after nearly a decade in the late 1990s, it used to bug me that everytime I opened my mouth people guessed my ‘outsiderness’. To improve my ‘insiderhood’, I turned to Dhallywood. Imagine my surprise when I found that the characters in classic Dhakai films would speak in the ‘promito’ language of the other Bengal, eschewing what the ever-eclectic blogger Fugstar calls the ’spirit of the ganj’. Okay, I discussed the language issue here. I’ll avoid any serious stuff in this post, and talk about a Dhallywood classic.
August is a violent month in our history. In August 1946, Hindu-Muslim antagonism turned violent in Calcutta, then in Noakhali, then in Bihar, and then elsewhere in South Asia, making partition inevitable by August 1947. In August 1975 the country’s president and his family was assassinated in a bloody putsch, and we are still suffering from the miliary’s withdrawal symptoms. More recently, in 2004, a possible civil war was narrowly avoided when the opposition leader survived an assassination attempt. And only last year, we stood at the precipice of a collapse of the state. I hope to never see another bloody August, I fear my hope will be in vein.
দেশভাগের ৬১ বছর হয়ে গেল গত সপ্তাহে । পশ্চিম বঙ্গে দেশভাগ খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয় । অনেক লেখালেখি হুয়েছে সেদেশে ৪০ দশকের সেই ঘটনাগুলি নিয়ে । কিন্তু বাংলাদেশের লেখকদের কলমে ঘটনাবহুল ৬০-৭০ দশকের কথাই উঠে এসেছে, দেশভাগ রয়ে গেছে আড়ালে । আমাদের কাছে ১৪ আগস্ট কেবলই ক্যালেন্ডারে আরেকটি দিন, আর আমাদের কাছে গুরুত্বপূর্ণ ১৫ আগস্ট ১৯৭৫, ১৯৪৭ নয় । কিন্তু ১৪-১৫ আগস্ট ১৯৪৭ আমাদের ইতিহাসেরও অবিচ্ছেদ্য অংশ । সেই চিন্তা থেকেই আজকের লেখা । পূর্ব পাকিস্তান সময়ের দুটি উপন্যাসে কেমন ভাবে দেশভাগ এসেছে তাই আমরা দেখব ।
The first general election in what is now Bangladesh took place in 1937. People, well about 10 per cent of adult population, voted for the legislative assembly of the British Indian province of Bengal. Elections were held under communal electorates. Indian National Congress became the largest party, but it fell well short of a majority. More importantly, it performed very poorly among the Muslim majority of the province. Muslim seats in the assembly were divided between AK Fazlul Huq’s Krishak Praja Party (KPP), HS Suhrawardy’s Muslim League, and independents, with KPP having the most seats.
KPP and Congress were both committed to secularism (by which they both meant pluralism), and Mr Huq expressed an interest in forming a coalition government with Congress. Provincial leaders of Congress were keen on the idea, but it was vetoed by their all-Indian leadership. Huq formed a coalition with the League. Within three years, he would be moving the Lahore Resolution. Within a decade, Bengal would be partitioned. What if Congress had taken up Huq’s offer?
This blog has consistently argued against a prolonged army presence in Bangladeshi politics. Whether in the form of a President Moeen, a National Security Council, a King’s Party created with the help of army intelligence, or the top brass getting involved in the corporate sector, prolonged army presence will set the country up for a long-drawn conflict that will not only hurt the prospect of a liberal society, it will also damage the country’s economic potentials. I believe the best possible way to avoid this is for one of the two main parties to win an absolute and unambiguous victory (over 160 seats by themselves) in a parliamentary election that is contested and accepted by everyone. Only with an unambiguously clear and credible majority can either of the two leaders stare down the ambitious generals and their bhadralok allies.
This post gives unsolicited advice to the two leaders on what they should do. If the government insists on it, then both leaders should abstain from participating in any election themselves. But they should both insist on being present in the country, and they should lead their respective parties in every election – upazilla, DCC, parliament – in any order the government presents. Their electoral platforms should clearly state the following:
- constitutional reforms are the sole prerogative of the new parliament, and no one else,
- the new parliament will form a constitutional reform commission that will tackle issues like the caretaker system etc,
- but things like NSC or altering the form of government (extra power for the president etc) are completely off limit.
There are more than one way of winning an election, and some are better – both for their parties as well as the country – than others. And whoever loses should accept the voters’ verdict and hold the winner accountable to the promise of ‘no deals with the generals’. I note my wishes from the BNP chairperson first, and then I write about what the AL chief should do.
As another murderous regime puts on another big show like Berlin 1936 or Moscow 1980, this blog salutes the heroes who fight for liberty and expresses solidarity with all the wretched of the earth.
This is going to be an overtly political post. It’s going to ask a set of questions that have come up from Monday’s local government elections. How one answers most, if not all, of these questions will depend on one’s personal political views. And in many cases, there will be strong disagreements. We should acknowledge, indeed celebrate, such disagreements for they are the stuff democracy is built with. We look forward to healthy debate on these questions.
The reader is almost certainly aware that The Dark Knight is the movie of 2008. It is breaking all box office records. The IMDB is calling it the best movie of all time. Pundits are calling it the first film of its type to be considered a genuine piece of art.
We watched it on Friday night. You know it’s a great movie when despite its length of 152 minutes, you never wonder about the time. I didn’t think it was as great as, say, Casablanca. But it is not that far behind. Action sequences rival anything I have ever seen. Heath Ledger’s Joker is right up there with Gabbar Singh. If you haven’t yet, please watch it in the big screen (but don’t take your kid – it shouldn’t be a PG movie).
In addition to being great entertainment, The Dark Knight (and to a lesser extent, Batman Begins, its prequel) is a study in politics. Its politics has been discussed enough in the blogosphere for the New York Times to notice. American bloggers discuss Batman’s relevance for the so-called war on terror, but the underlying political philosophy holds great relevance for contemporary Bangladesh.
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