Balancing act

Tazreena Sajjad

Published in Daily Star (July 2007)

With a roadmap to elections to be announced by the caretaker government on July 15, the country is rife with conjecture on the form of this handover. This also opens up a space to contemplate on the existing and future possibilities of civil-military relations in Bangladesh.

What is critical to remember in these speculations is that 2007 is not a new phenomenon and neither will the prospective handover, necessarily, break new grounds. In the history of regime transitions, Bangladesh is another nation attempting to reach a balance between the will of the people and a dire need for stability through other means when political leadership has proved to be anything but satisfactory.

Transitions from military-backed unelected regimes to democratically elected governments are nothing new.

The bhodroloke revolution and its discontents

Asif Yousuf and Jyoti Rahman

Published in The Daily Star (11 July 2007)

A bhodroloke revolution is said to have taken place in Bangladesh. At least that is how the events of January11 were advertised to an international audience by the foreign affairs advisor Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury at the Australian National University on June13.

Dr. Chowdhury started his talk, titled “Evolving Challenges for Bangladesh in South Asia,” with the history of Bengal and South Asia. He noted the 19th century Bengal renaissance and the rise of the bhodroloke class.

He noted the intellectual accomplishments of the bhodroloke from Tagore to Dr. Yunus. Then he stated that the current government is the result of today’s bhodroloke class — composed of professionals and academics, the large NGO sector, and an army that is thoroughly imbued with the “UN values” — asserting its power to save the nation from imminent collapse after an extended period of political impasse.

Potential consequences of UN stance on January 11

Asif Yousuf

Published in New Age (July 4, 2007)

The UN in general – and the UNDP in particular – emphasises transparency and accountability in governance. Indeed, these two are the pillars of democratic governance, one of the Millennium Development Goals. By setting this awful example that embodies neither, the UN and its agencies have simply lost the moral authority to advocate for democratic governance. Worse, the same dynamics which drive people to lose trust in opaque and unaccountable governments might undermine the people’s trust in UN agencies as well.

IN THE wake of the declaration of emergency, a lot has been written in the media about the conduct of Western diplomats in Dhaka and a mini-debate has taken place over the rightness or wrongness of their conduct.

The argumentative oligarchs

Syeed Ahamed

Published in Forum (July, 2007)

It is only where political parties seriously challenge [the] relative autonomy and, along with it, the mediatory role of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy that conflicts arise in which, so far, the latter have prevailed.” Hamza Alavi (1972)

The ruling power in Bangladesh, when viewed in its historical context, essentially rested with three intermingling oligarchies: politicians, civil bureaucrats, and the military. While the first exhibited a disputed liaison with the others, the other two have demonstrated a reasonably steady companionship.

The oligarchs that emerged during different epochs have now appeared at a critical crossroad where the destiny of Bangladesh will be chosen for many years to come. In this vital juncture, this piece re-examines the evolution and inter-relations of these oligarchs in Bangladesh’s internal power politics.