Every year a list is published whereby certain individuals are honoured as commercially important persons (CIP). The award brings with it certain privileges (if that is what it can be called) including use of Hazrat Shahjalal Airport's VIP facilities, rush through immigration on departure and return, service first on domestic airline and train tickets, and in most cases invites to events at Bangabhaban and Gonobhaban.
That a few of these persons, often heading or being on the board of directors of trade bodies and organizations, figure as top tax payers is apparently lost. Nationally recognized teachers, and more crucially farmers, don't make any such lists. That with one group is entrusted with nurturing citizens of tomorrow and another with contributing 63-odd percent of the GDP. Not that they hanker for such trappings or would spend their hard-earned money to travel to the austere functions and be viewed with suspicion by the gimlet-eyed security personnel.
Every political party has an agricultural wing of sorts. Come the occasion, only office bearers will be given a place on stage or podiums. On May Day the debates centre around garments' workers wages and facilities. The farmer or day labourer hardly gets a mention. The brick field worker, the push cart worker can never be considered so because they are scruffy, don't wear clothes that “belong,” and can't make media friendly speeches.
That they could speak their mind and tell it as it is not desirable.
Farmers might not understand the macro or micro part of economics but they certainly know what's what in their daily struggle. They are the ones who don't necessarily eat at tables as they squat on the edges of their fields for afternoon meals. Options such as overseas employment have resulted in fewer youngsters willing to take up farming and it certainly has not helped the profession by increasing tax on using rivers or reservoir water for irrigation. That is a dire message. Similar is the case with fishermen that brave the seas, toil in the sun for a pittance from that vicious cycle of middle-men or heartless investors.
The farmer is shackled and bundled off to jail for non-payment of a small agriculture loan. Compare that with the Mercedes Benz driving large business groups that take massive loans and wait till repayment can be rescheduled as part of a smooth mechanism of pat-my-back-and-I'll-pat-yours. The farmer and labourer doesn't commit corruption, it's high society that does.
The farmer doesn't commit fraud, that's for the so-called educated mind. And we don't see any remittance soldier being commended for the money he/she sends back so that a target group can flaunt their jewellery, swanky cars, and travel business class. No VIP treatment for them. No one to help fill out immigration forms and ward off suspicions about their luggage.
Their presence at Bangabhaban? Unthinkable.
Come budget time businesses will cry their hearts out for tax relief on everything conceivable. Not one suggests parting with some of the windfall profits made in times of duress. Take a trip to any market and the prices will leave one bewildered. The excuses are the same: Low supply, etc.
Marie Antoinette's hardship in converting from a maiden to a queen is documented but it was a flippant comment that sparked a revolution. When told people were begging for bread her response was, to paraphrase, “if they don't have bread, give them cake.”
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist.