To cure the so-called political violence in Bangladesh, which knows no bound, we need to diagnose its true nature. As we know, without knowing the disease, no remedy is possible.
The violence which has been going on in Bangladesh in the name of politics is not political violence at its core. Contrary to the general belief among the people of the country, and in the outside world, the politicians of our country are not power-hungry at all. Calling them power-hungry is just smearing their true character.
Imagine that corruption in Bangladesh has taken a nose-dive. In that backdrop, 99% of the present-day politicians, if they may be called politicians at all, will be found nowhere near the politics of the country. “If I cannot make money and amass wealth, what’s the use of doing politics?” -- uttering these words in sheer dismay, they would bid goodbye to politics forever.
Despite requesting and imploring on the part of the countrymen, none of them would join politics. Even at gunpoint, it would be impossible to put them in power; because to them, to be in power is wasting time and energy. To call this brand of politicians power-hungry is character assassination.
Outside the sphere of traditional trade and commerce, our present-day politicians have invented and developed many new non-traditional business ventures. Thanks to them, we now have in Bangladesh, untraditional trades and businesses like illegal toll-collecting from business houses, industrialists, shopkeepers, and street vendors; securing government and semi-government jobs for job-seekers in exchange for money; grabbing government tenders for someone else by flexing political muscle (of course in exchange for money); illegal sand-lifting from rivers; government land-grabbing; looting bank money in the name of loans; illegal logging; securing admissions in public universities, colleges, schools; and allotment of seats in student dormitories on payment of grease money. The list goes on.
Politicians belong to the political party in power, whichever the party may be -- the pro-liberation force with leftists or the nationalist force with fundamentalists -- and that party’s youth and student wings hold a monopoly on all these non-traditional, but extremely lucrative, businesses in the country.
These are billion-taka trades (dollar may be used instead of taka, because most of this money finds its way out of the country to unnamed offshore bank accounts).
So, why should the political party in power not try to stay in power forever by any means? And why shouldn’t the political party outside power try its utmost to grab power as soon as possible by any means? To be in power means making millions of taka a day, to be outside it means losing millions of taka every day. Democracy, ethics, people’s lives, peace in the country, the economy, etc mean nothing to them.
Politics sans ethics has become, in this country, so profitable a business that every day we see political people getting killed, not only at the hands of their opponent political party men, but also at the hands of their own party men.
In fact, these days, a lot more political people are getting killed in intra-party conflicts than in inter-party conflicts. Members of the same political party are fighting and killing each other for establishing sway on an area from where they can collect illegal tolls, grab tenders, etc and make money.
In Bangladesh, politics has become a money-making game without any set rules, and in which political ideologies take a backseat. During the British period, politics in Bangladesh was in the hands of landed aristocrats, in the Pakistani period, it came into the hands of the middle class, and now it is in the hands of the people who think politics is a business to mint money and amass wealth with.
Often, well-wishers of the country talk about dialog being held between rival political parties to end violence. Dialog will be of no use in solving the ever-present political problem in the country, at least not until corruption is properly dealt with.
Till we are able to control or eradicate corruption, violence in the name of politics will not stop. Inter-party violence may subside for a year or two but it will erupt time and again -- intra-party violence will still be a threat. Corruption needs to be controlled to stop our so-called political violence, but who will bell the cat?
Alarming is the change that has occurred in the mentality of the general people of this country, as to the perception of corruption. It may be hard to accept this, but the stark truth is that these days most Bangladeshis do not consider corruption as a social vice. To them, corruption is a golden opportunity -- those who can seize this opportunity and utilise it for their benefit are lucky and brave, those who cannot are chicken-hearted fools.
Moreover, corruption in Bangladesh is an open teamwork, no more a clandestine mischief to be perpetrated under the table. In this country, everybody is against corruption, except the ones they indulge in themselves. Against this social backdrop, the glory days for politicians in this country are not going to end in the near future, and thus the so-called political violence will not subside. It’s not only politicians; a section of our civil society still indulges in the vice that is corruption.
We may come to the conclusion that the acts of throwing petrol bombs into passenger buses, torching vehicles, and fighting with cudgels and machetes -- as we have seen in 1996, 2006, and now -- is not political violence but organised gang warfare guised in a political cloak.
For the last decade, Bangladesh has been achieving an annual GDP growth rate of around 6%. According to a Goldman Sachs study (2011), Bangladesh will be the 22nd largest economy in the world by 2030 (it is now the 57th largest economy according to IMF and World Bank). According to CNN Timeline, by 2019, Bangladesh will be the second-highest GDP growth rate (7%) achiever in the world.
Without our rowdy, so-called politicians, Bangladesh could possibly achieve an annual GDP growth rate of above 10%. Bengalis are some of the most intelligent people in the world. We can turn our Bangladesh into Golden Bengal once again, if only we can break the vicious circle of politics, corruption, and violence.