Given the destruction of the nation’s institutions over the past decade and a half and the chaos engendered by the sudden collapse of the Hasina regime on August 5, it was inevitable that whoever inherited the mess left behind would have a tough job on their hands.
As such, a certain amount of confusion and disorganization was to be expected when it came to the operations of the interim government, and it is no surprise that more than two months into its tenure that it is still finding its feet.
Repairing the instruments of governance, from the police to the administration to the judiciary, is no small task, and with thousands upon thousands of moving parts, the fact that we even have a functional government, given the circumstances, is more of an achievement than many are willing to give credit for.
The one sticking point, however, remains the opaqueness and lack of transparency when it comes to the decision-making process. This isn’t a question of capacity, it's a question of procedure and modus operandi. You don't need capacity to tell people what is going on. You just need to tell them.
It is understandable that with manpower shortage and disruption caused by the necessary chopping and changing of personnel following Hasina's exit, that the interim government will make mistakes. All governments do.
There will be missteps, and wrong turns, and poor decisions, and instructions and directives that are poorly implemented or not implemented at all. That’s the nature of the beast and even the most efficient and effective government is not infallible.
But where the interim government can and should improve is in the transparency of its decision-making process.
It is one thing to have a confused or muddled decision. It is quite another to have a decision no one seems to know how it was made and for which no one is accountable.
Take, for instance, the continuing arrest of high profile figures either in or close to the previous government. After an initial outcry, a directive was issued that arrest warrants would not be issued until and unless a preliminary investigation had been undertaken and evidence supporting the case produced.
However, in the case of former ministers Saber Hossain Chowdhury and MA Mannan, to take two high profile examples, it is clear that this directive was not followed. With these two, the issue was rectified somewhat by their prompt release on bail, but this does not answer the question of why and on whose authority they were arrested in the first place.
And that’s the problem. Unlike in the past administration, when we could be fairly certain that whatever injustices were being meted out were government policy ordered from the top, at present it is much harder to gauge who is behind what decision.
When it comes to law and order, we have the police, who may or may not be operating under the authority of the home minister, the attorney general, and the law adviser, and it is unclear at whose feet we should lay the blame for the tendentious legal cases that are being brought and for the abuse of defendants that we are seeing in and around the court.
If there is one thing that would enhance the reputation of and public trust for the interim government, it is more clarity and openness about who is making decisions and how and on what basis these decisions are being made
There seems to be a clear policy in place to put large swathes of the outgoing government -- and many people who were close to it -- behind bars by any means necessary. But whose police is it? No one can tell. Who is behind the strategy of adding dozens of names to single murder charges, many of whom clearly had no possible connection to the murder? No one knows.
To my mind, while the due process or legal issues raised by these arrests are troubling and require answers, the more worrying concern is the opaqueness behind who is behind them and why it is proving so difficult to rein in these excesses. If we could get a straight answer to the how and why, that would go a long way to calming alarm about the policy itself.
Lack of transparency permeates the entire law enforcement apparatus, such that it is impossible to know where one stands and whether your name is on one list or another or whether it will be attached to a charge sheet that has nothing to do with you. If this seems like a remote possibility, I can name dozens whose names have been included on charges for no discernible reason, who also have nothing but the remotest connection to the erstwhile powers that be.
It would seem that scores are being settled, but who is doing the settling remains, in many cases, under wraps, with no way of finding out and no way to appeal one’s case. Again, it is the unknown which is the most unsettling aspect of things.
In this context, the recent case of Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, one time vice-chairman of the BNP and currently chairman of Trinamool BNP, who was turned back from the airport on Wednesday, and later told by an official that he could not fly, is instructive.
The most perplexing aspect of his case was the lack of any kind of openness as to from where the order had come and on whose authority.
The home secretary informed him that there was no official restriction on his travel. The executive director of the airport opined that he should have been allowed to fly. Neither of them, nor anyone else, seems to know why then he was not permitted to leave the country.
From the start , this has been the Achilles Heel of the interim government. From its very inception, the public has remained in the dark as to how decisions are made and who is making them. We know there are various centres of power both inside and outside the government, exerting influence, but how these coalesce into a decision is not clear to us.
We still don’t know, for instance, who picked the members of the interim government to begin with. On whose say so were some individuals added and others left out? Even with new additions to the cabinet, we neither know who first proposed their names nor on what basis they were added (and others, presumably, rejected).
If there is one thing that would enhance the reputation of and public trust for the interim government, it is more clarity and openness about who is making decisions and how and on what basis these decisions are being made.
A little transparency would go a long way.
Zafar Sobhan is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.
