A T Siddiquee :
The citizens of the country are commonly identified as people. Politics are perused to pave the way for a party to be elected for going to the power and rule the country. Peace is defined by various quarters differently according to their needs, understanding and aspirations. Those are the notions that commonly exist in the country.
People of Bangladesh were and are never homogeneous. They are extremely heterogeneous in character and understanding, even their emotional behavior is completely varied. If the entire population of the country are categorized as according to the characteristics found in reality, then it would be obviously observed that only 8% of the population regulates state of affairs that should happen in the country; the next 10% of the population is in the ‘opportunist class’ who actually are the beneficiaries of the whims and wishes of that very the top 8%. The next category can be termed as a ‘middle class’ who constitutes of about 30%. The largest majority of the people, say 40% of the population do not have any obsession for power or pleasure. They are simply the bread-earners, mostly farmers, workers, small traders, etc. Say, about 10% of the population would not be involved in or associated with anything about their own uplift, they just go through following others in the neighborhood and thus, survive. The rest 2% of the population is the poorest of the poor. They have no access to any source of income earning; they think that their conditions are predestined by the fate.
Anyway, this is not actual demographic and truthful representation of the pattern of the population of the country. Rather, to present a visual pattern of the structure of the country’s citizens for the readers, this example of the population pattern is cited; nonetheless, this citation is not altogether a wrong assumption, either.
Next step of the analysis is the system of politics in our country. In 50s and 60s, bright and meritorious boys and girls always hesitated to make an entry to politics, rather they would carefully prefer to maintain a safe distance so that the so called ‘student- politics’ did not hamper their studies, and politics was actually nurtured by those who were engaged in legal practice. With the partition in 1947 of the Indian Sub-continent, a state having its two wings of about 1,000 miles apart was emerged. The partition was carried out completely on the basis of religion without taking into consideration the culture, values and temperament of its people. Furthermore, the disparity that was carefully created between the two wings generated a strong sense of frustration in the public psyche in the eastern part of the country. These feelings of derivation ultimately prompted to develop a ‘Mass upsurge’ in the Eastern wing, which led to the liberation of the East from the West, as a consequence. This war of liberation was participated by all categories of people including those of women and children. Although there was a shade of politics in it, but mostly it was a spontaneous participation of the people of all walks of life, rural and urban, poor and rich to get rid of the disparities that existed between the two wings. After the liberation and with the emergence of a sovereign country, Bangladesh, the trend of political culture was changed. Unfortunately or fortunately, the change was not often made by the majority of the people; it was actually regulated by that top 8% of the population – the wealthy ones.
The kind of peace expected thereafter was to ensure a disparity-free society where no corruption will have an access to the socio-political and cultural lives of the citizens of the country. Everybody would have enjoyed equal opportunity to participate in the development of his/her own and for mutual benefit. Safety and security were required to be ensured in all spheres of life for all its citizens. Equal access to and over resources was expected to be ensured and maintained.
We are however almost 43 years old as an independent nation… how long we would need to have achieved our cherished goal? It is a long outstanding unanswered question which needs an immediate reply.
