It’s been 22 years that Bangladesh is a democracy. We claim that we are learning and getting better at tolerance, symbiosis – living through each other, together. Bangladesh’s democracy, however flawed, is making strides towards betterment.
Lies, all of them. Coexistence demands that people respect personal boundaries. Every citizen has equal rights and no one should invade or obstruct anyone else’s right.
It may well come as a surprise to many that moving freely, safely across a free country happens to be a right. Privacy is a right too. People have a right to be safe at their own homes without any aggression directed against their natural environment. In this sense loud noises, odorous, smoky air in a residential neighbourhood are simple forms of aggression.
In a country where crime, ranging from being murdered or mugged at home to petty theft or mugging, is commonplace, improvement overnight is a far-cry. Bishwajit Das was unlucky enough to be slashed and killed, without help or treatment, on national television; it could have been any of us though. Let’s not forget the daily extortion that businesspeople have to endure as well.
But the least we can expect is sensibility from the people who repeatedly advocate the mandate to rule or are paid to facilitate the exercise of a citizens’ right: the state mechanism – public service and law enforcement.
Irony is, the attacks on peoples rights begin at these very institutions. Take yesterday’s Chhatra League’s mass gathering for example that took place at Dhanmondi 32. Movement through all the streets adjacent were restricted as the prime minister was due to speak there. People were asked to change routes. The loudspeakers shred the ambience of the otherwise silent residential area.
The police behaved as if the public was obliged to make way so that the ruling party backed student wing could properly execute the intended programme. If questions on where their duties actually lay were put to them, the response, surely, would have been a confused stare.
The idea of civic rights is almost totally absent here.
This is not a case of one incident only. This is the norm and it has prevailed. Nobody actually ever raised a strong enough voice. Then again, it is the political parties that were supposed to raise the voice anyway. This is where political activism should have started. This is what happens when your gatekeeper breaks into your house: you become morally bankrupt.
There can be long debates on the ill-effects of these political events on city life and the economic loss that the nation has to incur. What is beyond dispute though, is the fact that Bangladesh’s politics, governance and executive bodies, at the very least, need to be more aware of their roles in the nation.
It is not okay to stop people on the streets and ask them to take a different route because some VIP is on the way. It is not okay to stop anyone, any time, and search the belongings or question his or her right to pass. It is not okay to create undue turbulence in otherwise serene lives.
It is, categorically, not okay to not understand the rights we can enjoy and the responsibility that follows that right. The least we can do is respect others. We must give respect to be respected in return. Constructivism in politics starts with the understanding, protection and upholding of civic rights.
