We often hear about our “broken politics” and need for a fix. Yet this term escapes the scrutiny that it deserves. Let us ask the critical question of whether we have ever had an “unbroken politics” in this country.
Reflecting deeper into our consciousness, if we allow ourselves to, have we ever been a polity with the substance and coherence to form a state, govern, and deliver on our principles?
Without addressing these questions and dialing down the volume on some of the slogans we keep singing to ourselves, seeking a “political settlement” or breaking the cycle of “political stalemate” is of little worth.
On April 17, 1971, the government-in-exile proclaimed independence as a free and sovereign people’s republic to ensure “equality, human dignity and social justice” for its people. These proclaimers, nation’s “founding fathers,” did not declare or intend our nation to become an emirate, kingdom or sultanate -- but a People’s Republic.
This social contract fully asserted that rulers could not behave like kings or treat the people like subjects as serfs in feudal Europe or Asia. Rather, elected representatives were expected to behave as accountable public servants of the nation who would respectfully treat the citizens under law.
Our proclamation of independence connected with the French and Russian revolutions’ crafting principles that were both progressive and inclusive. It came from a centre to left orientation.
The centre to right end of the spectrum, including the various political and non-political Islamic parties raised no reservations to those principles. Voices from the religious right generally viewed them to be in alignment with the Charter of Medina signed by Prophet Muhammad (SM) in seventh century CE. Some even included them in their party’s rule book.
In the time between the proclamation and the adoption of the Bangladesh constitution in November 1972, three principles morphed into four: Secularism, Bengali nationalism, democracy, and socialism. These were never part of the proclamation nor six-point demands of 1966 or in the election manifesto of the (East Pakistan) Awami League in 1970. They were not even in the party constitution.
We must remember the geo-political tectonics of the Cold War and their different impacts on smaller nations and societies like ours, past and present. The Non-Alignment Movement was also organizing, with mixed success, to create alternative space for the other nations to negotiate their futures.
It has been profoundly disappointing, but neither inevitable nor surprising to witness the downward spiral of principles in proclamation to our first constitution and then straight into electoral practice and our political lives today.
During our first elections as a newly formed state in 1973, all manner of unfair practices manifested themselves during campaigning and on the election day itself.
The left wing National Socialist Party (JSD), which splintered from the Awami League’s student wing, was the most popular opposition party permitted to contest. It officially garnered just a single seat, although predicted to win in 72 seats.
The fourth amendment to the 1972 constitution paved the way for one-party rule, frustrating the purpose of becoming a free and democratic nation. Multi-party democracy as a governing principle of the constitution thus initially lasted just three and a half years.
Post-November 1975 brought into view a different vision of Bangladesh when Ziaur Rahman came to power after a series of bloody coups from Right and Left sections of the unsettled military-political establishment.
The first of these coups resulted in the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and murder of most of his family.
Eventually, after plenty of unsuccessful attempts on his life, the nation lost its second most popular president in 1981.
Both oppressive conditions and political assassinations contribute ongoing trauma to our society, subordinating political, social and cultural space to vengefulness, score settling, and further outrage.
Both parties, and their support bases, look at each other with a profound sense of mistrust and feel the urge to annihilate the other, which has too often gotten the better of them.
In this self-limiting schema, the BNP and Awami League are not merely political parties but mortal enemies of each other and by extension, of the nation and state. Too many amongst them believe with absolute certainty that, in the interest of the nation, the other should cease to exist.
Our present political deadlock cannot be understood nor addressed in short or long term without digging deeper into our own and other nation’s histories: Colonizer, colonizing, and colonized.
We are not exceptional. How did this popular Liberation War and its beneficiaries become so splintered? What decisions, alliances, and exclusions harmed and benefited major players? Why did our first republic fail to deliver on its pledges “to ensure equality, human dignity and social justice.”
The US founding fathers could not fathom decades long civil war to, amongst other things, resolve the question of slavery after declaring that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
How long are we going to take to deliver on our higher principles?
The post-revolution French have developed a taste for building successive republics. Their first lasted nearly 60 years and they are currently on their fifth model. From the events of the last 52 years, we argue that our first republic has been a failure and it is high time for a second.
We suggest that this should be based on the three cardinal principles enshrined in our Proclamation of Independence: Equality, human dignity, and social justice -- which would be our fundamental values for governance, politics, and campaigning.
We believe that every political party, social movement, union, cooperative and social constituent can easily express their respective consciences through these three principles for future transformation of this state.
Let us begin, the sooner the better.
Asaduzzaman Fuaad, Barrister-at-law is Joint Member Secretary, AB Party. mab2031@googlemail.com.