Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque and Dr. Md. Shakhawat Ullah Chowdhury :
Liberation war was a movement for national reawakening – a sort of Bengali renaissance with its cultural underpinnings and idiosyncrasies. The root-cause of this cultural regeneration was language movement in 1952. The mistakes that came thick immediately after the birth of Pakistan in 1947 were beginning to sound a death knell to ‘two nation theory’. Bangabandhu shaped Bengali perception and psyche hovering around linguistic nationalism that ultimately turned into war of liberation.
We lost many including freedom fighters, endless unarmed civilians and a large number of women in the war of liberation. “At least three million people were killed and over 200000 women abused by occupation forces and their local agents.” During the war women taken away from their homes, at the war fields, roads and corners in rural areas were persecuted and raped. They were honored with the title ‘birangana’ for their loss of virginity (in case of unmarried daughter) and chastity (in case of married women). They ‘are the source of inspirations to the whole nation. Symbolically, they are the war mothers. As long as Bangladesh remains, the whole nation would honour and salute the great women.’
The advent of 26th March every year renews our quixotic attachment to the values of liberation. Thoughts ridding through victory anniversary deepen our sense of history – an inkling of the legacy of enlightened Bengalis. It reminds us of the great truth that only Bengali nationalism with progressive ideas and expressions is the basis of thinking of our glorious past and liberation war. This is a true reflection of Bengali mind.
The struggling masses having the poignant experiences of the notorious process of exploitation may win freedom with a separate political identity and territorial sovereignty, national symbols and national flag. Nevertheless things remain rhetoric full of subjectivity if people do not get the real taste of freedom. Economic emancipation remains a distant dream if a country born out of liberation war fails to minimize the gap between expectation and achievement. But the struggling masses as real freedom fighters have yet to reach the height of emancipation. Then what is the intrinsic value of freedom? What is its symbolic significance? Are impendence and emancipation standing in dichotomous relationship?
We have a dream of emancipation from the process of semi-colonial exploitation. That is why Bengalis rallied behind a series of movements for democracy and parity organized by vernacular elites that in the long run culminated in liberation war. Spontaneity and enthusiasm coupled with pure patriotism prompted peasant masses to fight for liberation. No sooner had the war been over with the emergence of independent Bangladesh than the masses were overtaken by a kind of post-war disillusionment. Masses were beginning to encounter with night mares and menacing set backs. The grim socio-economic realities in the countryside and other aberrations afflicted peasants. Socially aware anguished observers look at social and political vortex that overtime developed in the country due largely to the ravages of misgovernance.
Freedom has to be meaningful to smooth the way to popular emancipation. ‘We need to change our mind-set for an affirmative Bangladesh growing out of a liberation war. The goal to achieve economic emancipation is a far cry. Unfortunately 44 years have passed since independence the toiling masses continue to fight for social justice and democratic rights. Most of them are still living in abject poverty. Each successive government that ruled the country failed to fulfill the expectation of the people. Wanton corruption and abuse of power rather add to economic crisis adversely affecting the disadvantaged groups. The journey to corruption-free society started on a firm footing during the incumbency of army backed care taker government. But euphoria started evaporating very soon as the abuse of power by some helmspersons messed up things. We have another problem. Side by side with political divide we have digital divide. This is to be addressed to prevent widening of rural-urban gap.
The toiling masses thought that liberation from colonial and semi-colonial thralldom would create an exploitation-free society and that they would be free from hunger. They had no dream of being fed by milk and honey only. They just hoped for a simple food enough to support healthy life. This myth of freedom stems from the fact that the leaders spearheading freedom movements at different phase contributed largely to the development of such myths with lofty promises and tall talks. They too had a tiptoe expectation that they would be able to shape their disunities in a free country. Distressingly, the revolution of rising expectation turns into rising frustration.
The crux of the problem thus concerns the issue of governance. It is stressed over and again that governance is a key to policy implementation. Participants in international seminars, and conferences point an accusing finger at fuzzy governance in developing countries in general and Bangladesh in particular. “Structural rigidities ‘ and ‘complexity of the socio economic environment and criminalisation of politics definitely perpetrates the crisis of governance in Bangladesh. Now development intervention based on aid for policy implementation is on slippery slope. The donor agency like USAID revealed disappointing state of governance characterized by lack of transparency, deteriorating law and order situation, and corruption. Corruption is termed ‘a dreadful disease’.
‘Fuzzy governance’ is a pervasive character of the ‘soft and predatory state’. Repeated policy failure in such state is a foregone conclusion emanating from the below standard of governance in policy implementation. Policy actors as patrons and their loyal followings use power as a scarce resource to plunder ‘bounties of the state through corruption and graft. In fact, inept management of implementation coupled with environmental constraints brings about disastrous policy outcome impairing the rights and legitimate claims of ‘wide ranging coalition of deprived sections and economic groups.
Confronted by such a paradoxical situation good governance is still a distant dream in an apparently elite dominated state. Recently a question that has arisen is: whether the state is meting out evenhanded justice with the state of governance. A plausible answer to this question needs a careful study and ‘structural explanations’. Nevertheless, it is perhaps not wrong to comment that Bangladesh is a state based on fragile institutional foundation. Each successive regime has more or less failed to stamp out institutional and organizational dysfunctions and deep-rooted corruption
Let us hope against hopes. We have also plenty of good news. Over the last couple of years tremendous growth in agricultural sector and industrial (small scale especially) arena too, has its impact on poverty reduction. Farmers have been generating bumper crops very year. The poor find a chunk of opportunities for get absorbed in various jobs with increasing employment generation.
The dichotomy between development and poverty continues to be a palpable fact of south Asian situational context. Policy institutions both at the micro and macro levels hardly scale up articulation of the ideas of those living at the corner of misfortune. Lofty ideas are within the confines of conventional wisdom suffering from subjectivity and misconception. Policy intervention today is thus devoid of its objective content much less capable of facing the challenges of the new millennium.
The least developed countries (LDCs) can pin high hopes about the future of anti poverty social movement. For, the UN is determined to combat a worse poverty situation a threat to human dignity – by declaring International Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006). More heartening is the advocacy and campaign for Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to curb poverty situation. Constitutional obligations, various international conference, UN poverty alleviation decade and MDGs mandate governments to promote improvement of the lower income group of population and sustainable development through resilient macro economics and different social indicators as the targets for social welfare programs. The state shaped the policy framework and this turned to the latest dimension of poverty alleviation policy in the name of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). Of late, the planning and policymaking agencies of Bangladesh have adopted appropriate strategies for economic growth and poverty reduction.
(Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque, Professor, Department of Public Administration, Chittagong University and Dr. Md. Shakhawat Ullah Chowdhury, Assistant Professor of Social Science, Department of General Education, Southern University Bangladesh)
