The problem

HISTORY seems to be offering Bangladesh another chance. The issue is not whether the necessary and sufficient conditions are present – they are – for equitable economic growth and democratic consolidation, but whether the political class will take advantage of this chance and steer the country into the harbour of a stable and inclusive polity. Or will it once again squander the chance and allow the politics of confrontation and destruction, that had plagued Bangladesh in the years leading up to the emergency, to return? Does the current leadership have the qualities, described so cogently by Max Weber in the essay ‘Politics as a Vocation’, of vision, passion and responsibility? Will this leadership be able to rise above party and partisan considerations and actually think Bangladesh?

During the last four years Bangladesh has been going through an interesting, if not paradoxical, transformation. The processes are both long and medium term and at both the structural and super-structural levels. Let me briefly map some of these processes. They constitute, what I have earlier referred to, as the ‘necessary and sufficient’ conditions for a robust democracy.

The first, and most valuable, is the process of ‘institutionalization’ that has been taking place, because of and since the caretaker government (CTG2) of Fakhruddin Ahmed. Prior to the CTG2, Bangladesh had been going through what can best be described as a process of institutional undermining or to put it strongly, de-institutionalisation, where all the key institutions of the democratic polity, from the judiciary to the Election Commission to the police and bureaucracy, had become heavily politicized and partisan. CTG2 passed over 120 ordinances that had been prepared by the ministries themselves to attend to the governance deficit that was afflicting Bangladesh. There are at least seven areas where this process of institutionalization had an effect: (i) corruption, (ii) separation of the judiciary from the executive, (iii) human rights, (iv) consumer rights, (v) local government, (vi) right to information, and (vii) elections.

While all these areas are significant, the most significant and dramatic was the strengthening of the autonomy of the Bangladesh Election Commission, a measure that worked as the BEC won universal praise by conducting the freest and fairest election in independent Bangladesh. A competitive and open electoral system, where the rules of the game are strictly policed, is the one of the most important ‘conditions’ for the consolidation of democracy. Through these ordinances, and the subsequent acceptance of many of them by the elected government, Bangladesh has been able to not just reverse the process of de-institutionalisation but move the polity forward to a higher level of institutionalization. This is necessary for political stability. A strong set of institutions not only regulates political behaviour but also creates a new normative basis for the polity.

The second condition that I would like to flag is the expansion of the ‘public sphere’. There are several elements of this public sphere that are worth mentioning. The element most discussed in studies on Bangladesh is the large number of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh. These cover many of the important areas of human life – from human rights to women’s education, micro-credit to sustainable environment to youth affairs.

In the last few years these CSOs have created a public discourse that has been able to get the state’s attention, and even more, its concern, thereby enabling them to play the conventional role ascribed to them in theory of limiting the state’s excesses. While many of them are dependent on the state’s largesse and hence vulnerable to the state’s displeasure, many others draw their support from international agencies and thus are not so vulnerable. The large number of such CSOs, and the large size of some such as BRAC and Grameen, gives them the capacity to check an errant state.

The next interesting element of the public sphere is the entry of women in large numbers into the public domain. This presence, especially in a religious Islamic society, signifies that lived Islam in Bangladesh has cultural dimensions that are infused with the Bangla personality. If one excavates this emerging personality, one finds rich resources for the building of an Islamic democracy.

There are at least four processes by which women have entered the public sphere. (i) The growth of the garments industry has created a workforce of mainly women coming from across Bangladesh. As a result they occupy a workspace that not only empowers them within their families but also socializes them differently. They acquire worldviews that are more expansive and that in turn have the secondary effect of influencing the worldviews of the women that they meet in their native villages. (ii) This growth in the economic spaces also results in a shift in their cultural spaces, from the village to the towns, especially Dhaka, where they acquire new ways of seeing and behaving. (iii) Added to this is the active programme, by both state and CSOs, to educate women. Not only has this improved their life condition, especially the extension of free schooling up to the XIIth standard, but it has also delayed the age of marriage and child bearing since it has made them more aware of their civil rights. (iv) Coupled with these three processes are the opportunities provided by the micro-credit movement which has given women a new sense of self-worth since they are now contributors to the family income. The political fallout of the entry of women into the public sphere has been a blunting of the forces of religious extremism, a major gain for democracy.

Another new element of the public sphere is the phenomenal growth of the old and new media. Newspapers in both English and Bangla have an extensive readership. Television channels are many and the new feature of ‘talk shows’ has gained immense public attention. By extrapolation, the benefits of this expansion of the new and old media can be gauged by the use of ‘digital Bangladesh’ as an election slogan by the Awami League which realized the potential of both the constituencies of the media and the youth. Youth is the other important element of the growing public sphere. Bangladesh is poised to harness the demographic dividend of a large youth population if it creates the appropriate policies. If it fails to do so, since the restlessness of youth can produce a politics that is not just anti-regime but also anti-system, as has happened in other conflict-ridden states, then it is at risk.

Two other dimensions of the public sphere remain under-theorised but are of importance, especially in the context of Bangladesh. These are one, the attachment to books, as can be seen in the huge crowds at the book fairs in Dhaka and other towns, and the very successful movement to promote books and reading among the young by the NGO Bishaw Sahitya Kendra, and second, the celebration of language day, or more appropriately ‘international mother language day’ by all universities and educational institutions. Closed societies cannot have such book fairs. Furthermore, Bangladesh’s commitment to Bangla should be seen as more than just language nationalism, for a language which is evolving and as open to borrowing as Bangla is becomes a bulwark against the forces of religious fundamentalism. This is borne out in the election results of 2008.

The growth of the economy, at a steady 5-6%, touted as the ‘development surprise’, and the simultaneous social campaigns, have produced conditions that one can read as conducive to democracy. In classical political economy this would be seen as the emergence of a petty bourgeoisie that has often functioned both as a predator and as an ally. In the recent past Bangladesh has had to pay the price for excessive predatorship. Today, however, it is poised at that historical juncture where its processes of institutionalization may convert the predator tendency into a tendency of support for the rule of law since capital requires stability for its tasks of accumulation and expansion. The old way is under challenge by the new logic of capital accumulation.

In the face of these processes, albeit somewhat sketchily discussed, one is tempted to persist with the thesis that Bangladesh is being given another chance by history. These processes not only define a conjuncture but also suggest that because of a series of events, the most significant being the emergency of 2007-8 under the caretaker government (CTG2) and the subsequent election, Bangladesh has today an opportunity to exit the path dependency that it was trapped in – of hartals, mastaans, politicization of all institutions, unbridled corruption, nexus between criminals and politicians and so on, and enter a new path of growth and democracy. If we are right that Bangladesh has an historical opportunity to exit the path on which it has so far been stuck, then this moment is, in fact, more than a conjuncture; it is an interregnum.

In such an interregnum political agency has great play. It can forge a new architecture for the nation. It can initiate a new political culture. It can raise, by its bootstraps, the polity to a new normative level. But for this to happen one needs statesmanship. The unanswered question as always is: When does such a statesperson appear? When does a society get a Mandela who, after years in prison, many in solitary confinement, can issue a call for reconciliation and be heard? Or a Havel who piloted a velvet revolution? Invariably in history, it seems, we must be willing to be bigger than our fathers if we are to carry out our historic tasks and grab the opportunity that history offers. The potential is there. Will it be taken?

PETER RONALD deSOUZA