Amid the ongoing tussle of our politicians over the nature of the next polls-time government, a serious political issue which is frequently being reported and commented on in the print and electronic media, very few of us can ponder on the fact that once a consensus is made on this transitional government, what could be the major issues for our politicians to argue about, refute and convince the voters to win the much coveted next national election.
A close analysis of the recent electoral politics in Bangladesh shows that some extraneous elements have dominated the electoral politics of Bangladesh. In our nation, less relevant issues frequently overshadow the burning social issues we are faced with on a day-to-day basis.
The recently concluded five city corporation elections are a prime example of this. There were reports that BNP and Hefazat men successfully used religion as a major campaign tool in Gazipur in the same way as they did against the ruling Awami League- backed mayoral candidates ahead of the Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal and Sylhet city corporation elections on June 15 this year.
This foregrounds a vital but disturbing issue in our national electoral politics. However, this tendency to depend on extraneous elements to gain public support in the election is not new. One can remember what Awami League and the sector commanders’ forum did ahead of the 2008 general election to garner popular support against BNP and Jamaat men whom they called “anti liberation forces.” It clicked then and a landslide victory for Awami League in that election only intensified that propaganda. But a number of scandals and corruption charges along with many other factors, especially the dealings with Jamaat-Shibir and Hefazat movements, have started overshadowing the previously dominant discourse of anti liberation forces, creating a completely new scenario in Bangladesh electoral politics. The table has been turned by the BNP-backed 18 party alliance through the agency of an alternative discourse, that of religion, this time.
Question is, whether people belonging to the 18-party-alliance are all “anti liberation forces” or whether the 14-party-alliance adherents are all “atheists and infidels?” This sort of question was repeatedly asked and many of us allied with one option or the other, and what resulted is a nightmarish experience on the street. While Gonojagoron Moncho appealed to our sense of patriotism, Hefazat drew our attention to the religious status we have.
But do these two issues really matter when it comes to the questions of the physical development of our nation? This is a very sensitive question to ask as the majority of Bangladeshis are born and brought up with one religious status or the other. They are also taught to cultivate patriotism and to show respect to the liberation war heroes and victims. While these two questions are significant in their own terms, the attempt at persuading us to choose one of the two does not really make sense. I know the case of a freedom fighter who fought bravely in 1971 with a small Quran in his pocket all the time. But we also know some persons who opposed the division of Pakistan for the same religious cause.
But do all these issues of religious and liberation war spirits actually play any role in bringing about positive social and infrastructural changes in our homeland? The answer, for me, is an emphatic no.
When it comes to the physical hard realities of life, the usually crucial questions of religion and liberation war do not bring us any tangible results. But the tendency in electoral politics of Bangladesh in recent years disregarded the issue and instead concentrated on these extraneous elements to gain popular mandate. While more innovative techniques and strategies for changing Bangladesh for the better could have been the mechanism for public support, all political parties’ priorities have been wrongly placed on some otherwise significant issues of religion and the liberation war.
What this situation shows is a kind of bankruptcy in our national politics, a symptom one cannot escape noticing even in the nation’s highest law-making compound, the national parliament, a place usually supposed to house dialogues and debates on the major policy issues of the country’s present and future. Unfortunately though, what could have been a platform for healthy debates on the current issues between the government and the opposition has frequently turned into a living pandemonium with lawmakers from both the camps busy badmouthing and assassinating characters of the nation’s veteran politicians.
In the hectic debate on the nation’s past, we have forgotten the present and in forgetting the present, we have become oblivious of our future as well. That’s why, our politicians can manipulate the people’s voting power by drawing their attention to not so significant issues, with the main questions of national development constantly unasked.
In the recently held five city corporation elections, religion had its sway, and with national election just a few months ahead, one cannot ignore the same for the entire country. Politics has taken a predictable path in the wrong direction as competing discourses are drawing our attention, keeping the more substantive issues untouched. The wrong questions have been asked, and people have died for it. Crucial issues have not been asked and people are dying even now, in frequent road accidents, fires and building collapses. A political bankruptcy has descended on us.
The politicians are to be blamed for this. But a fair portion of the blame must also fall on the shoulders of the voting people who allowed the politicians to manipulate their voting sensibilities into no substantial gains. The remedy must also come from them as they are the stakeholders and main actors. It is high time the people in general forced the politicians to ask the right questions, especially before the next general election. For this, the civil society, the conscious citizens, and the media people all have to shoulder the responsibilities of promoting appropriate discourses to make the right areas the electoral issues, to make the aspiring political parties committed to addressing more pressing problems of the nation. Only then can we hope of radically changing the face of our country.