Dr. Mizanur Rahman Shelley :
A spectre of violent disorder haunts Bangladesh. The crisis of the State is more than constitutional. Politics are uncertain and confused. The economy is buffeted savagely by the incertitude in the political order and inadequacy of governance.
Violence, patronised and protected by powerful and influential quarters of society, tends to make civilised social existence increasingly difficult.
The common citizen, therefore, cannot be blamed if he or she is tempted to take recourse to the wisdom of Alexander Pope who candidly asserted:
“For forms of Government
Let fools contest;
That’s best
which is administered best.”
As the ruling party and the major opposition forces opt for confrontation in the streets the man in the street may willy-nilly opt for that discipline and order in political, economic and social spheres without which the existence of not only democracy but civilised social existence becomes impossible.
Uncertain Democracy
Where the institutional roots are strong, and operations of the institutions are smooth, and efficient democracy is a stable politico-social order, guaranteeing certainty of peaceful and orderly transfer of power, ballots, not bullets, decide who shall hold and exercise power and how long. After all, theoretically at least, democracy “counts heads” and does not “break them”.
Bangladesh is not alone in finding that so certain a form and mechanism of civilian rule becomes fraught with uncertainties on account of institutional inadequacies and human failure. Other postcolonial developing nations, or at least their leaders, have treated newly-established or resurrected democratic order as freshly acquired toys in the hands of an impatient child.
After five reasonably fair national elections, they tended to mismanage things. Politics became the last refuge of the intolerant. Questioning the patriotism of those not in one’s fold became the principal political exercise. Mutual consultation, participation in vital national decisions (through the parliament or other suitable Institutions), negotiations and give and take between the ruling and opposition parties, tended to become rare happenings.
In these and other uncertain democracies as in Bangladesh, bullets started flying from illegal arms as musclemen and petrol bombs began to be used for political purposes.
In many cases, the institutional bastion of democracy, well-organised, disciplined and orderly political parties did not emerge or take roots. Increasing reliance on money, no matter how it is obtained, and force of illegal weapons tended to turn both political parties and parliaments into either elected oligarchies or ‘democratic’ autocracies.
Civil administration: Eroded competence
On account of historical factors, administrative institutions in these societies also lost strength. Even the law and order and regulatory functions that civil administration coped with reasonably in colonial times, could not be performed adequately by it as its original mandate and competence eroded as a result of political tumults. The challenge of fashioning a post-colonial administration capable of meeting the maintenance of law and order in poverty-riddled, largely illiterate, developing society could not be effectively met.
Uniform negligence or reckless politicisation, or both, made mince-meat of time-tested processes of recruitment, training, promotion and monitoring and control of civil administrative institutions. Consequently these remain unable to discharge the onerous responsibilities in a fair, neutral and detached manner which is an indispensable condition of the existence and consolidation of such a sophisticated and trusting political order as democracy.
Elusive Fourth Estate
Besides political parties and civil administration, free, fair and strong media is both a pillar and unfailing guarantee of sound democracy.
The “Fourth Estate” is, ideally, the brake and balancer of the excesses of the other three. The elite, whether within the government or without, the wealthy and the influential cannot ride roughshod over the society if well-organised, free media act as the vigilant sentinel of human rights and democracy.
Unfortunately, the pathology in other segments of post-colonial democracies, continuing or resurrected, did not leave the media alone. In ‘uncertain’ and ‘illiberal’ democracies, to paraphrase Karl Marx, the media cannot be higher than the society.
The private sector media, though relatively free, suffers from the lack of adequate resources both in financial and personnel terms. Those who supply the funds are like the proverbial masters – who pay the piper also call the tune. Polarised politics, featured by intolerance and violence, divide and handicap the media. It cannot, therefore, appropriately serve the cause of democracy, in the shaky societies.
Business and associations
Free market and market-friendly economy is a condition and companion of democracy. In uncertain societies, free-market exists only in name. As the lists of massive defaulters of repayment of industrial and commercial loans from state-owned and other banks in Bangladesh show, ‘controlled and selective patronage’ by powers that were or are, rather than competitive free-enterprise has been the mark of uncertain and illiberal democracies.
Non-political associations and professional groups are not also well-organised or strong. Political and factional subdivisions and fragmentation keep them perpetually weak. These cannot, therefore, like the twisted business in private sector, act as a force for or watchdog of the democratic process in uncertain societies.
Autobiography of power relationship
As in other shaky democracies so also in today’s crisis-laden Bangladesh, the problem is not constitutional or technical. The present crisis of the state has far deeper roots. It has emerged as the manifestation of the many maladies of this struggling society.
The weakness and inadequacies of the institutional bed-rocks of the democratic order threaten the frail framework of democracy fabricated since the 1991 elections.
Democracy, like capitalist free-market, is a system that exists and thrives on order and discipline. Freedom is the essence of democracy, license is not. Aptly has it been said, “You can have order without liberty but you cannot have liberty without order”.
With weak and failing institutions, civil society faces a titanic challenge in Bangladesh. Unable to utilize the democratic mechanism of interest-articulation and interest aggregation, social forces in Bangladesh are confronting one another with disorderly violence.
Will we have to then find that Herman Finer was right when he asserted, “A constitution is an autobiography of power-relationships within a society”?
Will then as disorder threatens to descend into chaos, the stronger institutions will be induced by force of circumstances, to add a new and yet unwritten chapter to that evolving “autobiography of power relationships” we call constitution.
No one can be sure. Those who are in power are determined to fight it out to the bitter end. They and their supporters view the present confrontation as an ideological contest. The opposing forces see it as a struggle for rescuing democracy for reluctant rulers. According to them the ruling party ‘rigged’ elections of the 5th January, 2014 and thereby torpedoed both fair elections and their product democracy. The opposition forces are also adamant in their vow to continue their movement through relentless siege and hortals. Evidently their movement gives opportunity to the plotters and the criminals to kill and hurt innocent citizens in public vehicles plying on the roads and the highways. The law and order machinery also remains visibly unable to control the savage criminals.
In this backdrop harassed and bewildered people desperately want respite from confrontational violence. They want peace in an atmosphere of democracy where their lives, honour, rights and properties are secured. Only democratic dialogue can ensure this, if normal civilian order is to survive.
(The author, founder Chairman of Centre for Development Research, Bangladesh (CDRB) and Editor quarterly ‘ASIAN AFFAIRS’ was a former teacher of Dhaka University and former member of the erstwhile Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) and former non-partisan technocrat Cabinet Minister.)
