Asif Nazrul There was a strike that day. Almost deserted road behind, one or two rickshaws and idle buses. But with the microphone close to the mouth, the reporter is saying casually, today the hartal is not celebrated, the traffic is normal, the shops are open! Like some media, the government is not accepting that the strike is going on in the country. The government says the situation is under their control. But people are dying every day, state resources are burning, economy, public life and education are at a standstill. Even the all important SSC exam. The country is suffering from strike after strike.
The strike is actually happening. Be it out of fear or voluntarily, people are on strike. Intolerance and conflict in politics has reached a peak. There are two warring parties on the streets and in the media, threatening an all-out and totalitarian confrontation. On the one hand, the government and some of its allied parties, on the other hand, BNP, Jamaat and most of the religious organizations. One side says, the other side has gone against the spirit of the liberation war. Another side says, the other side has come against religion. The two sides are at war on two of the most sensitive issues in the country's politics.
There is no organization or person to take initiative to avoid this conflict! Vishodgar or silent rejection is going on against the most senior and respected people in the country. The rest took different sides. One side is only criticizing the brutality of Jamaat-Shibir. The other side is only condemning the indiscriminate firing by the police. A section of the media is asking to give details of the violence of the Jamaat, in which 40 or 50 people died in one day. However, more than half of the dead people, Jamaat-Shibir, who died in police firing or enemy attacks, they are reluctant to give this little information. The other class of media is seeing only the excesses of the police. In most cases, the conflict that is happening due to the brutality of Jamaat-Shibir, there is no trace of it in their words.
The situation is so deplorable that the government is being blamed for desecrating the mosque. In some cases, there are also reports that religious groups are being blamed for desecrating the Shaheed Minar or the national flag. The religious minorities of this country are the most helpless in this confusing situation. There is a long history of Jamaat-BNP anger against them in this country. On the other hand, the recent Ramu incident has also seen examples of religious minorities being attacked by the mysterious inaction of the government. In this chaotic situation, BNP-Awami League has finally spoken of protecting religious minorities, even Jamaat has claimed that they are not attacking religious minorities. But they should not be convinced by any assurance. Like many other people of the country, they are spending their days in severe uncertainty and insecurity after being attacked every day.
Is there any possibility of changing this situation, the call of civil war that we heard from the Jamaat has really started by criticizing the Shahbagh stage and inciting religious sentiments. Finally, Jatiya Party leader Hussain Muhammad Ershad has already become a party to this war. Was this all-out war really inevitable, could the government or BNP not have been able to avoid it, now we will understand where our destination is after the apocalypse.
Two.
It was unimaginable to many that such a situation would happen after the Shahbagh awakening. The way the youth of Shahbagh created an atmosphere of national unity to demand justice for the war criminals, the BNP supported it mildly. But their awakening was misused by the government to create an opportunity to oppose it and even debate the trial of war criminals.
At the beginning of the Shahbagh awakening, the state minister for law said that if this awakening had happened earlier, the judgment of Quader Molsna could have been different. Some of the ministers present in this wake took part in the slogan "Fansi Chai Fansi Chai". The prime minister then called upon the war crimes tribunal to take into consideration the sentiments of the people while giving its verdict. Due to these statements and actions of the government, if even a notorious war criminal is sentenced to death, then there is a danger that it will be controversial. This controversy further opens up the possibility of anarchy by war criminals and sectarian forces in the country.
If the policy makers of the government wanted, they could have made the trial of the war criminals more smooth, they could have isolated the Jamaat-Shibir and avoided the conflict situation to a large extent. We should remember that just a few weeks ago, BNP leader Khaleda Zia had expressed the hope that the government would accept the demands of the caretaker government and complete its term. The government could have removed the BNP from all activities against the trial of war criminals by entering into meaningful talks with the BNP on the guardianship issue, but the government did not do so. Rather, the government's actions seem to have an aim to capitalize on the public opinion created to prosecute war criminals and hide the demand for a caretaker government. In this situation, it is not easy to separate BNP from Jamaat, it could not be done.
The policy makers of the government have also failed to realize the religious values of the people of the country and the opportunity to depoliticize it. Most religious groups in Bangladesh dislike and oppose Jamaat-e-Islami on religious issues. Allegedly, they too have turned against the government after being hurt by offensive propaganda on religion and the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in some blogs. The government failed to give due weight to these allegations and to take legal action (such as prosecuting them for religious offenses under the Penal Code) against the accused, despite directions from the High Court before the Shahbagh Jagan. Rather later on this issue applied excessive force in some parts of the country to prevent the strike of the Islamic parties.
If the government had prudently determined the political strategy of the war crimes trial, then this incident would not have happened. But it was not done. Rather, the government and government parties have entered the field with BNP-Jamaat in the evil game of dividing the country. In the history of Bangladesh, the highest number of people have been shot dead by law and order forces. The highest number of policemen were also killed in a single day in the brutality of Jamaat-Shibir.
The question in people's minds, what is happening in the country and what will happen next, there is no answer anywhere. On the contrary, there is an attempt to create two antagonistic groups, maddened by blood addiction like Hutu-Tutsi, from different quarters. There is an attempt to create a provocative situation by talking about the spirit of the liberation war and religion from the two conflicting parties. However, no one insists that there is no conflict between these two consciousnesses. During the war of liberation, no one abandoned religion and joined the war. Islam also did not encourage a just war of liberation or the prosecution of the hellish destroyers of this war. Most of the people of Bangladesh are living with two consciousnesses. However, some people are trying to create differences between people by highlighting these two consciousnesses as conflicting.
In such a situation, the urge to establish good governance, human rights and democracy has been suppressed. Images of stock market, hall-mark, Padma Bridge, railway corruption, Sagar-Rooney murder and ruling party's terror have been suppressed. In the last two years of the BNP government, NGOs and civil society created a stir across the country with various agendas of qualified candidates, good governance and fair elections. For some strange reason, they were silent during the entire period of Awami League. The conflict situation in the country has taken away all the attention of those who were personally involved in these issues in talk shows and newspaper pages. The whole country is waiting with tense tension for the outcome of an inevitable and prolonged conflict. Many may not understand that whoever wins this conflict, the country will actually lose. A deeply divided population can never move a country forward. Neither can we. Rather, taking the opportunity of our division, the international circles, multinational capital and their local allies can establish more dominance over the resources and potential of Bangladesh in the future.
Three.
It is the responsibility of the government and BNP as the main opposition party to take initiatives to save the country from this situation. The general secretary of Awami League spoke about the discussion. We have heard such things before, but have not seen any meaningful initiative to discuss. Government should take such initiatives. They have to understand that there are only two options before them. One: More effective and aggressive suppression of various opposition groups and opinions, which may result in a major disaster for the country. Two: Trying to reach a political compromise on the two issues of the trial of war criminals and the upcoming elections by discussing with the BNP.
The government can think of one more thing. If normal means fail to control the situation, the government can declare a state of emergency in the country and deploy the army to protect the lives and property of the people. The imposition of emergency is a shame for democracy. But even more shameful is allowing the long-term anarchy in the country, allowing the country to go into bloody disunity.
# Asif Nazrul: Professor, Department of Law, University of Dhaka
(Courtesy of Bangladesh News24 This article is published with readers in mind)
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