In 1933, a young student from the British Raj paraphrased Shakespeare in his pamphlet which called for the creation of a Muslim homeland in the subcontinent. Choudhury Rahmat Ali used a Shakespearean quote from Henry VI to give the title: NOW OR NEVER: Are we to live or perish forever?
At the time, the All India Muslim League faced a leadership crisis. The Muslims of British India were demanding self-determination. The League was an organizational mess. It had been stagnant for years. It required a revival and a rejuvenation.
The mantle fell on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an outspoken lawyer from Bombay, to revive the fortunes of the League. Jinnah was previously a member of the Indian National Congress and celebrated as an icon of Hindu-Muslim unity. Jinnah parted ways with the Congress because he disagreed with Mahatma Gandhi’s political tactics involving civil disobedience. Imagine what Jinnah would have thought of hartals in modern Bangladesh!
During the early 1930s, Jinnah was based in London and resisted calls to return to India to take charge of the leaderless League. The importance of leadership eventually dawned on Jinnah and he returned to India to lead an organization founded in Dhaka.
Until the 1930s, the League had been led by the political stalwarts of Muslims in British India. Its founding involved the Nawab of Dhaka and the Aga Khan. During World War I, its principal leader was Sher-e-Bangla A K Fazlul Huq, who was later elected as the first premier of British Bengal. Jinnah’s leadership represented the most politically successful period of the League, which culminated in the creation of Muslim homelands in the northwestern and eastern parts of British India.
Ever the constitutionalist, Jinnah led negotiations with the imperial government on the question of Muslim-majority states. Jinnah was pragmatic and understood the art of compromise. Politics, it is said, is in fact the art of compromise.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party faces a similar dilemma today. It is in organizational disarray. The secretary-general of the BNP recently praised its acting chairman Tarique Rahman for being a political organizer. But the reality is that he does not live in Bangladesh. His skills were of no use to the BNP during its loss in the 1996 general election. His skills were secondary to the anti-incumbency wave which brought the BNP to power in the 2001 general election.
Tarique Rahman’s reputation as the linchpin of the infamous Hawa Bhaban -- the alternate power centre which rivalled the Prime Minister’s Office during BNP rule between 2001 and 2006 -- has been compared to the mafia. The Economist describes this period as “a brutal kleptocracy.”
The acting chairman of the BNP is currently a fugitive in the eyes of Bangladeshi law. His indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom was obtained on grounds of torture and the death penalty. Ironically, torture and executions were widely employed under BNP rule.
The secretary-general of the BNP cannot whitewash his party’s track record of innumerable policy blunders and human rights abuses. The secretary-general talks as if he is a dove and as if his party is a phoenix. The people of Bangladesh don’t buy that. Sadly, the people of Bangladesh have to put up with this charade given the serious lack of alternative leadership.
The BNP high command have failed the rank and file of the party. The plight of the BNP cadre at the grassroots is amplified by the failed leadership of the party’s top brass. The BNP high command have failed to provide guidance for the members and workers of the party. The BNP high command should be ashamed of itself for allowing the party’s supporters to suffer at the hands of law enforcers while they chip away the party’s fortunes through incompetence.
The BNP has lost its competitive spirit. After years of neglecting its constitutional duties and shying away from electoral politics, it is now nothing more than a talk shop of negativity. Its standing committee refuses to engage in the broad spectrum of issues that affect the country and the day to day lives of the people. As a token gesture, the BNP recently took up the issue of soaring prices of essentials only after one of its coalition partners raised the matter.
As a centre-right party, the BNP has lost the plot. Centre-right politics usually bridges the gap between the working class and the so-called bourgeois. In Great Britain, Sir Winston Churchill was an astute interlocutor for the working class in the politics of the Tory party. According to Boris Johnson, Britain was spared from revolutionary fervour due to Churchill’s engagement with the working class.
The BNP has turned on itself by turning against Bangladesh’s best and brightest. It neither speaks for the working man and woman nor does it represent the national interests of Bangladeshi society. It does not want to create opportunities for Bangladeshis through improved education and access to the global marketplace. It is widely known that Bangladesh’s achievements are due to the hard work of its people, private sector, and NGOs, and certainly not due to the current leaders of the BNP.
On the question of Islam, the BNP fails to recognize the pressing need for Islamic reform and renaissance that has been articulated by scholars around the world. During its last term in power, the BNP gravely undermined Bangladesh’s reputation as a moderate Muslim democracy.
The BNP needs to change. Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman need to step away for good. The standing committee needs to resign. The alliance with Jamaat needs to be broken off.
The BNP needs to accept new leaders, including persons from outside its rank and file. The BNP needs to convene its National Council which has not met for years in violation of the party’s own constitution. The BNP needs a new constitution and hence a special council needs to be convened.
Turning to history, a new BNP can adopt the model of the All India Muslim League and the Indian National Congress in holding annual councils which adopt resolutions on major issues.
The BNP, in its present form, cannot rise like a phoenix as its secretary-general claims. It needs a phoenix to step in and revive the party.
Umran Chowdhury works in the legal field.
