February 2015 has passed, and the nation has entered the historic month of March. While the month of February in 1952 was the beginning of spilling blood on the streets of Dhaka to bring home Bangalees’ political emancipation via the language movement, the final ultimatum was given to Pakistan by Bangabandhu on March 7, 1971.
The ultimatum to realise political emancipation had materialised in declaring independence on March 26 after a bloodbath in Dhaka was unleashed by the Pakistan Army in the wee hours of March 25.
The 71 generation indeed is fortunate enough to celebrate the 44th anniversary of independence in a couple of weeks. Out of the last 257 years, this part of Bharat Barsha was under three rules: British Raj for 190 years (entire Bharat for 90 years), Pakistani rule for 24 years, and 43 years of our own.
We have seen so much blood being shed over the last 43 years, it is now clear that we are indeed not capable of governing ourselves without blood on our hands.
From March 26, 1971, the nation lost 3 million lives during the nine months of the war of liberation. The bloodletting has not stopped till the present. The nation hardly enjoyed even five years of continuous peace over the last 43 years.
Why? Of course, this is a million dollar question. One can see a parallel with the partition of Bharat Barsha in 1947. Greater India was divided into two parts based on religion.
When former East Pakistan was liberated and became Bangladesh after waging a bloody war against West Pakistan in 1971, the war created divisions within politicians: More than 90% joined the liberation forces and the rest remained anti-liberation or pro-Pakistan.
The anti-Bangladesh mob was mainly constituted by the Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islam, and other minor religion-based political parties. This divide became too fierce within three years of liberation.
Since the government of Indira Gandhi was sympathetic towards our liberation movement, in the immediate post-liberation era, the anti-liberation forces and some opposition parties (JSD, NAP, Bhashani for example) of the newly independent Bangladesh in 1973 had started destabilising the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and finally, some stooges of anti-liberation seized the opportunity to kill the Father of the Nation along with members of his family on August 15, 1975.
The opposition, particularly JSD, and anti-Bangladesh forces were restless to grab power from Bangabandhu. The bloodbath was not ended there. Until today, the forces of anti-liberation have been fighting the incumbent and in the process, they made the general public pay the price.
The anti- liberation forces are not alone this time, and have been supported by the enemies of Bangladesh from home and abroad.
Under the present circumstance, the 14-party alliance government and the opposition forces of the 20-party alliance have reached a point of no return. Both alliances have drawn a clear line and the nation is divided into two camps: The incumbent on one side and the opposition on the other.
Under this circumstance, no credible solution of the present conflict is possible involving both the alliances since possibilities of any meaningful dialog between them has been lost.
In view of the above, since no credible option is left in hand to end this carnage from within, our foreign friends and the UN seem to be making a move to bring back sanity in the life blood of this nation. Would foreign intervention work? I do not think so. The solution has to come from home. In my view, if history was right, meaningful dialog will not take place. (Remember Sir Ninian’s attempt in 1996?)
We need someone who has the trust of both leaders and the alliances. No dialog led by the civil society will work. The approach should include a business like negotiation process between the political alliances with a team of facilitators.
This team may be called, The Commission, and needs to be created by the incumbent via lawful process for the legitimacy. The Commission would comprise of no politicians, but of three or more eminent persons with the consent of the two major alliances: The 14-party and 20-party (remember, like it or not, the two alliances constitute more than two-thirds of the electorate).
There must not be any face-to-face meeting of both the leaders (since all attempts by the PM has failed in the past) until the time when the commission realises that the ice has been broken.
The negotiations should begin with written submissions by invitation only from all major political alliances. The subject matter of the submission should include, how to nurture meaningful democratic governance in the short to medium term.
The negotiation process may need a few phases with a time limit such as submission of proposal, negotiation, implementation of the outcome, and so on.
In order to proceed further with such a device, the first precondition is finding people with integrity and a clean image from home. Like the introduction of CTG approach in 1996 to satisfy the then opposition demand, the outcome of The Commission needs to be adopted by the parliament before implementing it with a time limit.
I am sure this will not be the last proposal for solving the crisis, however, one hopes this may act as food for thought for cultivating further innovative approaches. Negotiation over dialog sounds appropriate after so much water has flown under the bridge.
