Bangladesh opposition threatens election boycott, hints of overthrow

SALEEM SAMAD

BANGLADESH'S MAIN opposition party has threatened to boycott the election if the government refuses to hold polls under non-partisan neutral government.

“We will not take part in the elections under a partisan government, as people will never accept the scrapping of the caretaker government system,” the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), former prime minister Khaleda Zia, said Wednesday.

She urged her supporters to overthrow the government through a popular uprising such as those that have occurred in some Middle East countries since the beginning of the year, a definite shift of strategy of her anti-government campaign launched two weeks ago.

Criticizing the government that has been in power for two and half years, Zia said should her party win the election, she would scrap the recently overhauled constitution that dropped the impartial non-party caretaker administration to ensure holding of a credible general election.

The opposition fears that the election would be rigged and manipulated, which would further marginalize their share in the 300-member parliament. The next election is scheduled in 2013.

“Election without caretaker government cannot be held in the country and any election without participation of BNP will not be acceptable,” she warned.

The ruling Awami League has amended the constitution, which not only prohibited the interim government from holding a general election, but also included a Koranic verse in the constitution. In a radical shift from secularism, the government has adopted an Islamic constitution.

Ruling party vehemently opposed the argument and said the election commission, literally a paper tiger would hold the election independently after it is significantly strengthened, the government promised.

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow is an award winning investigative journalist based in Bangladesh. He specializes in Jihad, forced migration, good governance and elective democracy. He has recently returned from exile after living in Canada for six years. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Swim The Padma: Merely looking east won’t do. India now must hold Bangladesh’s gaze.

Photo: S.M. Krishna met Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka on July 7. They reaffirmed the ‘high trajectory’ of bilateral cooperation.


PRANAY SHARMA , SALEEM SAMAD

A 48-hour bandh call, sit-in demonstrations and street protests of the Opposition snowballing into a pitched battle with the police—these were the images Indian foreign minister S.M. Krishna faced as he landed in Dhaka on July 6 for a three-day visit. Usually bursting to the seams with teeming millions thronging noisy, congested streets, the near-desolate Dhaka that greeted him just didn’t provide an appropriate backdrop to propel India-Bangladesh relations on a higher trajectory.

But herein lies the twist, typically Bangladeshi—those who had taken to the streets were venting their anger against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and not against Krishna or India. There were two distinct sections among the angry collective—opposition forces had rallied against Hasina’s decision to abrogate the constitutional clause that requires a caretaker government to oversee the general election; the other section was out there bemoaning the government’s lack of resolve to adequately bolster the secular foundation of the constitution.

This, though, doesn’t mean the people here aren’t miffed at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s impolitic remarks about Bangladesh in an informal chat with newspaper editors in New Delhi. To them, Manmohan had said that at least 25 per cent of Bangladeshis were anti-India, owed their allegiance to the Jamaat-e-Islami, and were in the clutches of Pakistan’s ISI. Inadvisably placed on the PM’s website, the remarks were eventually pulled out—but not before wounding Bangladeshi pride.

An opinion piece in Dhaka’s Daily Star faulted Manmohan for exaggerating the numbers of staunch Jamaat-e-Islami supporters who are consequently deemed anti-India. The newspaper has a point—in all the four general elections beginning 1991, the Jamaat’s best performance has seen it bag just 8.61 per cent of the total votes, a far cry from Manmohan’s figure of 25 per cent. Pointing to another of his comments—“the political landscape in Bangladesh can change anytime”—the piece said New Delhi must improve its relations with Dhaka to such an extent that a change in the political dispensation in Bangladesh does not impact negatively on India’s security and prosperity.

Others tried to analyse the motives behind Manmohan’s controversial remarks. So what was his intent? The New Age said, “It would not be a stretch to presume that the comments arrived at the right time to exert an influence on the number of agreements that are likely to be signed during these (Krishna’s and the PM’s) visits.” As for the Jamaat, it was quick to condemn the remarks as “baseless and untrue”. Its acting general secretary, A.T.M. Azharul Islam, said, “The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is a political and an Islamic movement party. It’s the party’s duty to talk in favour of the country’s interest.” He also vehemently denied any links between the Jamaat and the ISI or any other foreign intelligence agency, and said it wasn’t opposed to India.

The consensus here is that Manmohan did rile Bangladesh, but only temporarily. As Prof Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University told Outlook, “Well, the citizens did react, but didn’t overreact; nor did the mainstream opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Khaleda Zia. In fact, many people laughed at Manmohan’s claim that 25 per cent of Bangladeshis are anti-India. Do I understand that the rest are pro-India? That figure is very unlikely.” Agrees former Bangladeshi high commissioner to India, Liaquat Ali Chowdhury, “In appreciation of the possibility of a positive development in the Indo-Bangla relationship, the people did not demonstrate their anger on these unwarranted comments.”

Perhaps Bangladesh isn’t infuriated because India acted with alacrity to defuse the situation. Apart from Krishna’s visit, Manmohan made a call to Hasina and announced dates for visiting Bangladesh, which hasn’t hosted an Indian premier for 12 years now. Yet, even the Indian foreign policy establishment faults the PM for not exercising discretion. Former diplomat Ronen Sen told Outlook, “We need to be mindful about the sensitivity of our neighbour, especially when we are commenting on their internal situation. The issue isn’t about the veracity of the comments, but the fact that it was not kept confidential by PMO officials. This needs to change.”

Change it must, for New Delhi can’t expect a friendlier government in Dhaka than Hasina’s. For all the ripples Manmohan’s remarks created in Bangladesh, Hasina sent her foreign minister, Dipu Moni, to receive Krishna at the airport, signalling her resolve to strengthen bilateral relations. This had also been on vivid display during her visit to New Delhi last year, when she promised to address New Delhi’s security concerns. India returned the favour by extended a whopping $1 billion line of credit to Bangladesh. Says Abdul Matlub Ahmad, president of the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, “India’s credit for building the road and railway infrastructure from Bangladesh to Tripura will widen the scope to explore the huge consumer market in India’s northeastern states.”

Yet Hasina was unsure of Indian reciprocity to her efforts, as there was no clear indication then of a Manmohan visit to Bangladesh. Only through that visit could Hasina counter her detractors, who claimed New Delhi hadn’t warmed to her overtures. With the Indian PM’s visit now scheduled in September, Hasina would get enough chances to prove India means well. Indian goodwill was on display during Krishna’s visit that saw the inking of two agreements between India and Bangladesh—one seeks to protect and promote each other’s bilateral investments; the other allows trucks plying between Bhutan and Bangladesh passage through India. Krishna also assured Bangladesh that several projects under the line of credit were now in the “implementation stage”. He confidently declared in Dhaka, “The bilateral cooperation between India and Bangladesh is on a high trajectory.”

Will Indo-Bangla relations tick now, in a better way than before? “For it to work,” says Sen, “the relationship has to be perceived by people of both countries as mutually beneficial.” Sen argues that New Delhi must change its attitude of perceiving its projects in neighbouring countries as favours bestowed upon them. He also thinks New Delhi must quell opposition to its foreign policy plans from states bordering Bangladesh in the larger national interest, as also that of Indian business interests.

Photo: Upping Ante Khaleda Zia being greeted by Manmohan Singh during her 2006 India visit. (Photograph by Narendra Bisht)

Take the textile sector. Bangladeshi garments are not only of good quality, but are priced low, as it is a labour-intensive industry. Providing the Bangladeshi textile sector access to the large Indian market will boost employment and endear India to Bangladeshis. Adds Sen, “The trade imbalance between the two sides is huge and favours India. Though we may not be able to narrow the gap overnight, by giving Bangladeshi garments access to the Indian market, we can perhaps make a dent.” Sen, who has worked in the Indian mission in Dhaka, believes “India’s ‘Look East Policy’ will not work” without Bangladesh, Myanmar and the northeastern states earning a stake in developing the region.

An obsession with Pakistan often makes many in India overlook Bangladesh’s importance. Says Leela Ponappa, a former diplomat who had earlier handled the Bangladesh brief, “Bangladesh’s importance needs to be brought into the Indian people’s consciousness. It is a very intense and extensive relationship. There are huge opportunities for both sides which need timely cashing in on.” For one, India and Bangladesh share a massive 4,000-km border, the porous nature of which lets many Bangladeshis to cross over, and also criminal gangs from India seeking a safe haven there. This phenomenon has resulted in the Border Security Force of India exchanging fire with the Bangladesh Border Guards (the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles). Since every such incident becomes a highly emotive issue in Bangladesh, it is imperative for the two sides to evolve a mechanism to address this problem at the local commandant level through regular interventions.

Despite the hope enshrined in the Indira-Mujib agreement of 1974, nearly 6.5 km of the border still remains undemarcated. The exchange of enclaves that belong to one but are under the control of the other is also pending. No agreement has yet been reached on “adverse positions”, areas which, by virtue of their location, are under the control of one country but difficult to govern. Still hanging fire is the problem of sharing the waters of the Teesta and other rivers.

When Manmohan visits Dhaka in September, it is believed agreements on these contentious issues—better access for Bangladeshi goods to the Indian market, better border management, and water-sharing—will constitute the “big package” the two sides would agree upon. Former Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh Veena Sikri says, “We need a few high-visibility projects in Bangladesh as China has got. Modernisation of railways and dredging of rivers are examples.” Perhaps then the Indian premier might discover that he has no need to dream up anti-India forces.

Published in OUTLOOK magazine, July 18, 2011


By Pranay Sharma in Delhi and Saleem Samad in Dhaka

Bangladesh blunts Manmohan missile

SUBIR BHAUMIK

Dhaka is angry and sad that the Indian PM said a fourth of Bangladesh sympathises with the radical Jamaat. As TOI-Crest followed up the faux pas with a cross-section of people in that country, their unanimous sentiment was: We aren't Pakistan and we try hard not to be one.

INDIA HAS a habit of provoking controversies in Bangladesh - and often for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. When Sheikh Hasina's government started a massive crackdown against north-east Indian militants holed up in the country in 2009, home minister P Chidambaram alleged in public that tens of thousands of Bangladeshis were illegally infiltrating into India, many of them terrorists. The allegations, not entirely unfounded, may have stuck during the previous regime when Pakistan-backed Islamic radicals were using Bangladesh to enter India for subversive action. But Hasina's government has cracked down hard against both north-east Indian militants and Islamic radicals, so Chidambaram would have done well to hold fire. Manmohan Singh's ill-informed briefing of Indian editors about Bangladesh comes at a time when Dhaka is preparing to welcome him - and possibly Sonia Gandhi - in September. Hasina's government, in fact, intends to formally acknowledge India's role in the 1971 liberation war by naming a road in Dhaka after Indira Gandhi. Her statue will be placed in an appropriate crossing of that road. Bangladesh has also prepared a list of a few hundred Indians who will be formally honoured for their unstinted support to the cause of that country's liberation.

Moreover, many key agreements - sharing of Teesta waters, for instance, and removal of tariff barriers on Bangladesh products - are likely to be concluded during Manmohan's visit. "We look forward to this visit with great hope. This may open a new chapter in India-Bangladesh relations," Bangladesh foreign secretary Mijarul Quayes told this writer in Dhaka in late-June. The Indian prime minister's salvo, then, which encourages foes and berates friends in Dhaka, couldn't have been more mistimed. To say that 25 per cent of Bangladeshis are supporters of Islamic radical group Jamaat-e-Islami and thus pro-Pakistani and anti-Indian is factually incorrect, mildly put. In the December 2008 parliament elections, the Jamaat-e-Islami got only 2 seats out of 300. Post 9/11, too, the Jamaat managed only 17 seats in the 2001 elections - and that because it had an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Seven years later, it was all but wiped out. Its share of popular vote has never crossed single digit.

"Islamic radicalism has no future in Bangladesh. We are moderate Muslims but we are Bengalis first, " says anti-fundamentalist campaigner Shahriar Kabir. Adds leading film-maker Nasiruddin Yusuf: "We are not Pakistan. We will never be. Pakistan is a failed state; it failed in 1971. But there are conspiracies to turn our beloved country into a Pakistan. If that happens, it will lead to another mukti juddho (freedom struggle)." Yusuf's Guerrilla, based on the Bangladesh war of independence, is currently running to full houses in that country. In the theatres, cutting across generations and class, people can often be seen weeping through the film, cursing Pakistanis. "India helped us win the war. Our only complaint with India is it should have intervened earlier.

That would have saved much bloodshed, " says Abdul Bari Liton, whose father fought in 1971 as a guerrilla in the Mukti Fauj.

All Bangladeshis who value their hard-fought independence hate the Jamaat because it supported Pakistan and its brutal army.

Hasina's government has already started a war crimes trial to bring the offenders of 1971 to justice and many top Jamaat leaders are in jail on non-bailable charges. Some members like Ali Ahsan Mujahid have been booked in the Dhaka grenade attack case of 2004 when 24 Awami league leaders and supporters were killed. Hasina herself had barely managed to escape the murderous assault. Other leaders have been implicated in the Chittagong arms case (of 2004 again) in which ULFA military wing chief Paresh Barua is facing an arrest warrant. The Jamaat has not been able to take out a proper rally or procession in the last two years to protest against Hasina's crackdown on their leaders or against the commission of the war crimes trial. Manmohan's statement did give them cause for one, but that too was poorly attended. Even religious clerics like Maulana Zia Hassan openly support the war crimes trial and call for punishment of Jamaatis. "Islam does not permit torture and use of force against non-believers," says the Maulana, asserting that only liberal Islam can survive in Bangladesh. "We are a Bengali nation and we value our Bengali heritage.

We are a nation of believers, but we broke off from Pakistan because we were not like them. Many Indians though, especially in the far right, feel we are another Pakistan. And that is a great tragedy, " says Major (retd) Shamsul Arefin, whose magnum opus Bangladesh Elections explains why the Jamaat and other religious parties have done so poorly in Bangladesh. “They are seen as the forces of counter-revolution, as those who opposed our freedom."

"So why should a poorly-informed Indian prime minister give Jamaat credit for a popular support base that it has never enjoyed at any point, " asks writer Saleem Samad. "Why should he mislead Indian editors who are equally ill-informed about Bangladesh?" Samad fled the country during the five years of the BNP-Jamaat government after he was tortured by military intelligence agency DGFI for exposing the government fundamentalist-military nexus.

Many liberal Bangladeshis actually see their country as a future model for the Islamic world. "We want the best of (Rabindranath) Tagore and the best of the Prophet,” says history student Mustapha Mohsin Ali. "How can you deny the power of local nationalism for the sake of pan-Islamism? That does not work."

The interesting fact is that India has been a role model for Bangladesh's large secular constituency. So any awkward statement from New Delhi comes as a rap on their knuckles and as a shot in the arm of the discredited Islamic radicals. When Begum Zia took power in Dhaka in 2001, hot on the heels of anti-Hindu pogroms in the country, former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra rushed to Dhaka and became the first foreign dignitary to congratulate her. The Awami League and its secular allies haven't forgiven Mishra - and the BJP - for announcing that "India has no favourites in Dhaka.”

Chittagong broadcaster Samaresh Baidya says, "So when a Congress leader like Manmohan Singh shoots off absolute rubbish, we are hurt. It wounds our pride and it bolsters our enemies. He and his advisers have got us totally wrong. "

Manmohan Singh will be visiting Bangladesh at a time when it's not exactly smooth sailing for his counterpart Sheikh Hasina. For one, the BNP has been frequently hitting the streets to protest against Hasina's efforts to end the caretaker system during elections. Since democracy was restored in Bangladesh in 1991, the country has reverted to a caretaker administration that stays in place three months before a national parliament election. But the caretaker increasingly came to be dominated by the army that went beyond its mandate, provoking the government to try and curb its influence. While Hasina feels polls, like in India, can be held by a ruling government with a strong election commission, the opposition alleges that it's just a ground to rig the next parliament polls.

As if that wasn't enough, Hasina's allies are pulling her up for not proceeding decisively to restore the 1972 secular constitution promulgated by her father 'Bangabandhu' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. She is, of course, apprehensive about the reaction from religious bodies as it involves doing away with 'Bismillah' and replacing it with 'Sristhikorta' (creator).

Hasina's test lies in strengthening the secular fabric of her country while fighting back the activities of Islamic radicals. It's clearly a tough job and Indian leaders like Manmohan Singh would do well to understand the complexity. They have to understand the dynamics and handle relations with the eastern neighbour with greater care and empathy.

First published in The Times of India, India, July 9, 2011


Subir Baumik, a former BBC correspondent, is author of 'Troubled Periphery' and 'Insurgent Crossfire'

GIVE SOME, TAKE SOME

It is in India’s interest to be generous towards Bangladesh


SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

Manmohan Singh’s warning about Bangladesh reflected Inder Kumar Gujral’s advice to Sheikh Hasina Wazed in the 1990s to not sell gas direct to India but via an American consortium. “Let them take their 10 per cent,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll both be subject to too much political pressure.” Too diplomatic to be specific, Gujral meant Bangladesh’s Islamic fundamentalists.

S.M. Krishna’s visit confirms the underlying message that neither country can afford to alienate the other. Political shifts and economic growth can change many things but not geography. Bangladesh is surrounded by India with a border of more than 4,000 km and 54 shared rivers. Apart from the Bay of Bengal, its only other outlet is the 193-km frontier with Myanmar. The retired Bangladeshi diplomat who argued in Dhaka’s Daily Star newspaper that “geographical compulsion dictates that laying the foundation of friendly relations with neighbouring countries should be the cornerstone” of his country’s foreign policy might have been speaking of India as well.

Of course, both countries can transcend geography in an age of advanced science and technology, as one of India’s most perspicacious high commissioners told the Dhaka Rotary Club as long ago as 1980 when relations were less cordial. But cost and profit effectiveness make it advantageous to make the most of geographical and other complementarities, all the more when one neighbour’s security demands the other’s cooperation. The envoy also stressed that “to a very great extent”, Indo-Bangladeshi problems are psychological and “this psychology is derived from our common past.”

He stopped short of adding what is unfashionable to the point of being unmentionable — that today’s subcontinental politics cannot escape the legacy of undivided India’s Hindu-Muslim equation from which it sprang. Amen to the prayer of the optimistic Bangladeshi who wrote that Hindus and Muslims have lived peacefully “for over a thousand years and will have to live in harmony for thousands of years more”. But that expression of hope wouldn't have been necessary if his premise had not been flawed. Despite Dipu Moni’s handsome exoneration, Singh’s comment caused a flutter precisely because it hinted at what is nowadays called identity politics.


The apology that he was not being “ judgmental” is neither here nor there. If the prime minister is to be faulted, it’s that he wasn't sufficiently probing. Hindus there will aver that Bangladeshis don’t have to be “in the clutches, many times, of the ISI” to be “very anti-Indian”. Apart from instinctive communalism, they can also have reason enough of their own. Even Bangladeshis who “swear by the Jamaat-ul-Islami” (Singh meant the Jamaat-e-Islami) can nurse grievances that secular Awami Leaguers share because they concern water resources or transit rights. Not all complaints can be dismissed as anti-liberation communalism.

If 25 per cent of Bangladeshis are “very anti-Indian”, that’s the group Indian diplomacy should focus on instead of basking in cozy camaraderie with the already favourable 75 per cent. But the prime minister’s arithmetic is puzzling, seemingly exaggerating the importance of a minor electoral player whose 32,09,226 votes in 2008 meant only 4.55 per cent of the total and just two members of parliament against the previous 17. Had Singh said 37.39 per cent, it would have been clear he bracketed Jamaat’s senior partner, Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in the anti-India camp. Some might also include H.M. Ershad’s Jatiya Party (6.65 per cent) for all that he is now Wajed’s ally.

But the 25 per cent isn’t an empirical figure. In fact, Singh might have erred on the side of caution if he fears that a substratum of Bangladeshi society, cutting across party lines, is susceptible to religious propaganda. Wajed’s ultimate refusal (after a tortuous sequence of events involving the courts) to abolish the “state religion” that was Ershad’s handiwork and restore her father’s “four state principles” (democracy, nationalism, secularism and socialism) confirmed that Awami Leaguers aren’t immune to populist winds. Islamist protests against the National Women’s Development Policy echoed Ershad saying when he was president that Wajed would never be elected because an Islamic head of government must lead the nation in prayers, which is a man’s job.

These internal matters don’t concern India. But Wajed’s ability to deliver may cause concern if she has to make concessions to the Islamist lobby for survival. Discerning Bangladeshis are not unaware of the problem. The Daily Star has published articles recommending inter-religious and inter-cultural cooperation as an “important aspect” of bilateral relations. The author warned of the danger of politicizing religion and demanded that “state mechanisms must be secular in outlook”.

Bangladesh’s small ruling elite is probably too cosmopolitan to be communal. But the base it rests on isn’t. The latter cannot be expected to appreciate the nuances of various disputes either. It’s easier to invoke the traditional bogey (which impacts on local Hindus) when India’s commitment to provide 250 MW of electricity is delayed than trying to explain that there can be no power without a 100-MW transmission line that calls for a separate purchase agreement and will take two years to build after the contract has been awarded.

Some see Singh’s comment not as an innocent generalization but as a devious bargaining ploy in the context of Krishna’s visit, to be followed (according to New Age, another Dhaka daily) by Salman Khurshid as water resources minister and Sonia Gandhi before the prime minister goes in September. Connecting all these events, they accuse Singh of setting the stage “to seek a number of concessions from the Bangladesh government.” Timothy Roemer’s farewell speech as ambassador saying that the United States of America and India are “working more and more closely on issues such as Bangladesh” added fuel to fire.

This is what the former high commissioner called the “small-neighbour-big-neighbour syndrome” in which every attempt to improve relations arouses suspicion. The danger in his time was of sentimentally attached Indians being disappointed when their high expectations were not realized. The emotional fervour of 1971 still lingered in 1980. But it’s gone now. Bangladesh may sizzle but it sizzles on a back-burner of Indian priorities. Across the border, however, Wajed’s determination to punish her father’s killers threatens to explode into a witch-hunt that can trample on the rule of law and drag India into domestic contention. Even a well-meaning retired bureaucrat’s “We would like India to be our friend as it was during our liberation war” does that.

It’s an involvement India must avoid. But overall cooperation can’t await the resolution of particular problems like the participation of Bangladeshi businessmen in the commerce generated by transit to the Northeast, a $3-billion trade imbalance, the illegal influx into West Bengal and the Northeast or the South Talpatti/New Moore island controversy. If relations don’t improve, they will stagnate, which means worsen. Pakistan won’t be the only beneficiary. In its search for “a compliant, divided periphery” (Henry Kissinger’s words), China is ever ready to offer Bangladesh the market access India can’t, mainly because of domestic textile interests.

India must make some sacrifices and cut some losses in the greater interest of securing the Northeast and its eastern flank as well as of saving an ideal. Krishna expects Dhaka, which has been helpful in tracking rebels, also to liquidate terrorist bases. Self-interest demands that India, with eight times the population of Bangladesh and more than 12 times its gross domestic product (quoting Bangladeshi papers), should be generous.

This was the gist of the Gujral Doctrine which Nirupama Rao reiterated recently (without attribution) by crediting India with adopting “an asymmetrical and non-reciprocal approach” in strengthening the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation “where we are willing to go the extra mile in order to strengthen regional cooperation”. However, that may not be quite as obvious in Dhaka (or Kathmandu, Thimphu and Colombo — Islamabad is another matter) as it is in the external affairs ministry in New Delhi.

Published in The Telegraphs, Kolkata, India, July 9 , 2011


Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is a journalist and could be reached at sunandadr@yahoo.co.in

The pressure on Singh is showing

Photo AFP: Indian PM Manmohan Singh

Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami has protested against Indian PM's remarks: The group is fundamentalist, no doubt, but every fundamentalist is not anti-India


KULDIP NAYAR, Special to Gulf News

WE MUST reckon that at least 25 per cent of the population of Bangladesh swears by the Jamaat-e-Islami and they are very anti-Indian and they are in the clutches, many times of the ISI."

These words by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are part of the record that his office has released on his informal talks with five editors a few days ago. Why a cautious person like him should be so indiscreet is beyond me and why the Prime Minister's Office has uploaded this portion of talks on the prime minister's website leaves me confounded.

One, the following of the Jamaat-e-Islami is not a quarter of the Bangladesh population. In the last general election, the party was routed. Two, how has the prime minister come to the conclusion that all members of the Jamaat-e-Islami are anti-India? They are fundamentalist, no doubt, but every fundamentalist is not anti-India. The Jamaat has justifiably protested against the remark.

The entire blame comes to the PMO which released the recorded talks without listening to them beforehand or reading the transcript. The office is meant to correct the version which might carry some words of the prime minister that he spoke on the spur of the moment.

He could not have meant the remark in the way it is being taken in Bangladesh. This is the reason why he has rung up Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina and why the Ministry of External Affairs has offered the Bangladesh government an apology.

In fact, the five editors who talked to him for an hour have been more discreet before the media on what the prime minister said. They were sensitive to what their writings might convey because there was no official briefing. Probably, they were conscious to avoid the criticism of the prime minister.

The remark on the Jamaat fell in that category. The PMO realised its mistake but too late. After uploading the record of talks on the website, which remained for 30 hours, it withdrew the portion referring to the Bangladeshis. The damage was done because the Bangladeshi media had gone to town on the prime minister's remark.

The prime minister, tense as he is these days, is obviously under pressure. He is fighting against the opposition, the dissidents within his own party and the carping of the coalition partners, some of whom are flirting with the opponents. That he said what has been attributed to him should not indicate that he is helplessly dependent on a few in his office.

His only blunder is that he does not pursue his own instincts as the scandal on 2G spectrum in the Ministry of Telecommunications has proved. It is a welcome report that there will be wholesale transfers in the PMO. In fact, it needs to be pruned. Indira Gandhi expanded it unnecessarily because of the type of government she ran.

Naturally, the diplomatic circles are shocked because they do not expect such remarks coming from Singh who is mature and an international figure. India has a standing in the world and every word it says and the action it seeks is taken seriously, particularly least by the neighbouring countries.

Shaikh Hasina is doing everything in her power to come closer to India. Singh has himself acknowledged that "Bangladesh government has gone out of its way to help us in apprehending the anti-Indian insurgent groups which were operating from Bangladesh for a long time."

Shaikh Hasina has given the much needed transit facilities to India to reach the states in the North East more quickly than it did because the goods had to be carried on a road which ran zigzag to circumvent Bangladesh. She has taken a number of steps to bring the two countries nearer economically. Indeed, the prime minister's remark must have come as a shock to her.

Waiting for excuse

Yet Bangladesh reacted in a mature manner. It summoned the foreign office India's High Commissioner at Dhaka to tell about New Delhi's version on the goof-up. He reportedly assured that India's relations were far deeper to be affected by a remark here or an indiscretion there.

Nonetheless, Singh's words have come in handy to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and other opposition elements which were only waiting for an excuse to take people on the streets. They want to put a spanner in Shaikh Hasina's efforts to straighten things internally and with foreign countries, including India.

Sometimes I have wondered whether there is a clique in the PMO which is purposely trying to blacken Singh's face. Even the formation under which the five editors were called was ill-conceived and ill-executed.

Yet it would need a lot of explaining to the people in Bangladesh because they are far from pacified by New Delhi's apology or the announcement that Singh will visit Bangladesh on September 7 to 8. The Bangladeshis are not an anti-India lot and they nostalgically recall the time when the Indian army fought by the side of Mukti Bahini during the Bangladesh war.

Published in Gulf News, July 9, 2011


Kuldip Nayar, a prolific writer, columnist, is a former Indian high commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member

Bangladesh: More urban poor depending on food subsidies

MORE AND more urban Bangladeshis, burdened by rising food prices, are seeking assistance under the government's open market system (OMS).

Under the scheme, rice and other commodities are sold at almost 30 percent less than the market rate, with each household entitled to 5kg of rice and 3kg of atta (wheat flour). The government sells rice, a staple, directly to the poor whenever there is a shortage of supply and prices go beyond their purchasing capacity.

"An increasing number of people are now dependent on the government-run OMS system," Sharifuzzaman Sharif, General Secretary of Citizen Solidarity, a national rights-based campaign group, told IRIN, noting longer queues than last year.

Close to 700,000 metric tons of rice, a staple, was sold under the scheme between January and June 2011, against about 260,000MT for the same period in 2010, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

At the same time, 23,369MT of atta was sold between January and June 2011, against none over the same period in 2010.

Urban poorAnd while the government conducts the OMS each year, the programme has taken on added significance in Bangladesh's larger cities, where many urban poor are struggling to cope.

"We know cases in Dhaka where people from the lower middle class and the urban poor are forced to skip a diversified diet or [take out] loans, as well as working extra hours to buy food," Quazi Faruque, president of the Consumers' Association of Bangladesh, said.

"The lives of the urban poor with fixed incomes and even middle classes living in Dhaka city have been exhausted due to the wave of price hikes in food, transport and energy. They are barely managing to survive [and have no] social lives," Citizen Solidarity's Sharif said.

In mid-June the government began trucking subsidized rice and wheat flour to some of the poorest suburbs of the city under the OMS.

The programme deploys 150 trucks a day, each selling 3,000kg of rice at a subsidized price of US$0.32 a kilo in selected poor neighbourhoods, and will continue to do so until food prices fall, according to BD Mitra, secretary for the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management.

To cool domestic prices, the government doubled rice imports to 1.2 million tons for the year ending in June, up from the 600,000MT target set in November, media reports say; three times more than the US Department of Agriculture's earlier forecast.

Yet despite those efforts, food prices remain comparable to peak prices during the 2008 food crisis.

Although the price of rice has declined by 3-4 percent since February, it still costs 10-15 percent more than in June last year - 37 and 41 cents per kg for wholesale and retail respectively, according to the June 2011 Fortnightly Food and Grain Outlook, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) publication.

Meanwhile, other food prices have also been rising. "The inflation of non-rice foods has been accelerating, sustaining overall food inflation," added Ciro Fiorillo, FAO's acting country representative. "It has put pressure on the purchasing capacity of fixed income groups."

Mohammad Abdul Mannan's family has been forced to give up its traditional diet due to high food costs. "We usually had a rich diet of pilau rice, meat and vegetables once a week with the whole family, but for the past three months we are simply living on basic meals due to the price hike," he said.

The rate of child malnutrition in Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world, according to the UN Children's Fund and rising costs are now forcing people to trim their diets and work longer hours just to eat.

Mannan earns $100 per month as a messenger for a city textile firm and spends most of his salary on food. "As a father I feel hopeless that I can't feed my children well any more," he said.

This article is written by a contributor and syndicated by IRIN News, 8 July 2011

Bangladesh: Protect Women Against ‘Fatwa’ Violence

Despite Court Orders, Government Has Failed to Intervene

The Bangladesh government should take urgent measures to make sure that religious fatwas and traditional dispute resolution methods do not result in extrajudicial punishments, Human Rights Watch said today. The government is yet to act on repeated orders of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court, beginning in July 2010, to stop illegal punishments such as whipping, lashing, or public humiliations, said the petitioners who challenged the practice.

These private punishments significantly harm women’s and girls’ lives and health. Instead of intervening and taking active measures to prevent these abuses, the Bangladesh authorities have been mute bystanders.
Aruna Kashyap, Asia women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch

In 2009 Ain-o-Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), BRAC, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (BMP), and Nijera Kori, brought a public interest case. They challenged the authorities' failure to address extrajudicial punishments imposed by shalishes - traditional dispute resolution methods - in the name of fatwas, opinions that are supposed to be issued by Islamic scholars. These punishments include whipping, lashing, publicly humiliating women and girls by forcibly cutting their hair or blackening their faces, ostracizing women, girls, and families, and imposing fines. While many of these incidents go unreported, ASK has assembled news reports of at least 330 such incidents in the last 10 years.

"These private punishments significantly harm women's and girls' lives and health," said Aruna Kashyap, Asia women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Instead of intervening and taking active measures to prevent these abuses, the Bangladesh authorities have been mute bystanders."

The issue became especially urgent when a shalish in Shariatpur district in the Dhaka division ordered 100 lashes in January 2010 for Hena Akhter, an adolescent girl, for an alleged affair, though by most accounts she had reported being sexually abused instead. She collapsed during the lashing and ultimately died. Since Akhter's death, the local media has reported at least three suicides of girls following similar punishments.

The High Court division of the Supreme Court issued its judgment in the case on July 8, 2010, criticizing the Bangladesh government for not protecting its citizens, especially women, from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Saying that the punishments contravened constitutional guarantees of the rights to life and liberty, the court directed the government to investigate and prosecute those responsible and to take preventive steps with awareness campaigns in schools, colleges, and madrasas. It instructed the Ministry of Local Government to inform all law enforcement and local government officials that extrajudicial punishments are criminal offenses.

On February 2, 2011, the High Court issued an additional order directing the government to publicize as an urgent matter, through electronic and print media, that extrajudicial punishments are unconstitutional and punishable offenses. On May 12, the Supreme Court reiterated that "[n]o punishment, including physical violence and/or mental torture in any form can he imposed or inflicted on anybody in pursuance of fatwa." The court further held that fatwas can be issued only by "properly educated persons" and clarified that even where issued, they are not binding and cannot be enforced. Commenting on the Supreme Court verdict, Sara Hossain, a lawyer involved in the Supreme Court case, said that women's rights groups were relieved to see the highest court strongly condemning extrajudicial punishments in the name of fatwas. But women's rights activists in Bangladesh remain deeply concerned that the highest court had left the door open for the issuance of fatwas and the potential threats to women's rights to equality, she said.

"Akhter's public flogging and death is a stark reminder of the Bangladesh government's failure to prevent this type of violence," said Khushi Kabir, coordinator for Nijera Kori. "The High Court has been very clear that the government must stop inhumane and illegal punishments and the government's failure to do so costs lives."

Local groups that followed the case said that during the investigation of Akhter's death, doctors falsified initial autopsy reports to say that the girl's body bore no injury marks. The High Court intervened and ordered another autopsy, which reported signs of injuries. A criminal investigation is under way against those involved in Akhter's flogging as well as the doctors who fudged the initial autopsy report.

Local activists, who routinely monitor newspapers and electronic media, have said that the government has issued no public messages against extrajudicial punishments. ASK collated news reports of at least 16 such cases between January and May 2011. While Akhter died because of her injuries, ASK has found news reports that at least three other girls committed suicide because of the public humiliation they faced.

One girl killed herself, news reports say, after a local shalish in Cox's Bazar publicly flogged her in May for allegedly having an affair with her brother's friend. Another killed herself after a local shalish in Lakhipur district in April ordered her to be isolated and ostracized to punish her for an alleged affair. In January, a local shalish blackened a woman's face with coal, forced her to wear a garland of shoes, and paraded her around the village for marrying her brother-in-law long after her husband had died. Her parents later found her dead in her house and said she had committed suicide after the incident.

"The government has pledged to uphold our laws and constitution, and part of that promise is to prevent, prosecute, and punish these criminal extrajudicial punishments," said Faustina Pereira, director of BRAC Human Rights and Legal Aid Services. "There is no excuse for not acting."

In November 2010, Bangladesh was elected to the board of the international agency UN Women, assuming a new role in the international arena on women's rights. With this new role, Bangladesh should ramp up its efforts to protect women's rights in-country, Human Rights Watch said.

To end this kind of violence against women and girls, Human Rights Watch and Bangladesh human rights organizations ASK, BLAST, BMP, BRAC-HRLS, and Nijera Kori, said the Bangladesh government should immediately carry out the court orders and take the following measures:

• Initiate a massive awareness campaign against extrajudicial punishments in the name of fatwas. Among other measures the government should educate everyone in schools, colleges, and madrasas about the fact that punishments under the garb of fatwas are illegal and regularly publicize these messages through print and electronic media.
• Set up around-the-clock toll-free helplines that are easily accessible to poor rural women so they can report violence and seek emergency assistance.
• Improve access to women's shelters and safe homes in every district to ensure emergency protection for women if they face such dangers in their communities.
• Provide psycho-social support and legal assistance to those who have been punished by traditional shalishes, encouraging them to take action to hold those responsible to account.
• Monitor investigations and prosecutions into punishments imposed in the name of carrying out fatwas to ensure that the accused are punished under the law, and that effective reparations are available to victims and survivors.

Published in Human Rights Watch, New York, United States, July 6, 2011

Press freedom has its limitations in Bangladesh

Photo: Journalist leaders protest against police attack on press photographers during political violenceANGUR NAHAR MONTY


IN THE last decade, the growth of print and electronic media and a new generation of journalists have changed the face of the media in Bangladesh. But there is a long way to go until there is true press freedom. Politicians, criminals, and businessman exert undue influence, and the industry itself lacks the professionalism to withstand it.

Pressure from political quarters is much less than it was when the military-backed government was in power only two years ago, Nazrul Islam, chief reporter of the English-language Daily Sun, told me in a telephone interview. Still, progress is slow to take hold. In 2009, the ruling Awami League government adopted the Right to Information Act. Journalists who had fought for transparency welcomed it, but the government needs to provide more information, because people still do not know how to take advantage of it. So we remain deprived of information from government offices.

Other limits are still in place. Zahid Newaz Khan, news editor for the private television station Channel I, told me that some topics are off-limits, because of limited access, or fear of official reprisal. "It's very tough to report the inside story of the armed forces and judiciary," he told me by telephone from Dhaka. In August 2010, Amar Desh newspaper editor and former politician Mahmudur Rahman was sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article that accused the Supreme Court of bias towards the state.

There is still pressure from powerful groups, particularly on broadcast and electronic media, journalists say. Increasingly, these groups include businesses as well as political organizations, according to journalists I spoke with. The media in Bangladesh used to be primarily government-owned. Now, it is primarily owned by private enterprises. News is published or broadcast by big businesses that pay good salaries and benefits to journalists--but also have the power to make them report what suits their interests. Ownership of the media is influenced by politics, and both the government and big businesses use advertizing as a weapon to control the media.

"Journalists try their best to maintain professionalism amid pressure from these many adversaries," Islam told me. "In a transitional society like in Bangladesh, I believe, lack of democratic practices in almost all spheres of life hinders the growth of purely professional journalism. The state-owned media is highly controlled by the government and lacks professional standards. They work as mouthpiece of the government, regardless of which party is in power." That is significant in a country which is increasingly partisan, "pathologically divided," in Islam's words, "between two major political camps," the Awami League, and the opposition Bangladesh National Party.

Anwar Hossain Manju, former deputy chief news editor of national news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, agreed. "It's not a matter of which party is in power," he told me. The ruling parties, whether in government or opposition, don't like criticism, and as a result, many journalists are facing not only defamation cases, but also death threats, said Manju, now special correspondent for the New York-based weekly Ekhon Shomoy. Both media outlets and journalists are under the close scrutiny of government agencies, he said. "Democracy in Bangladesh has not brought full press freedom," he told me.

Media is widely seen as a tool of empowerment in Bangladesh and successive governments have come to realize that it is safer to let it work freely than to curb it. However, media freedom will significantly improve if the government allows state-run media outlets to enjoy freedom of expression. At the same time, the media should work to raise their own professional standards and reduce political bias.

First published in Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) blog, New York, USA, February 8, 2011


Angur Nahar Monty, a CPJ Guest Blogger is the diplomatic correspondent for Bangladesh’s Bhorer Kagoj and a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at the University of Maryland

Indian prime minister comments on Bangladesh raises eyebrows

SALEEM SAMAD

IN AN unwarranted comment, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said Bangladesh political landscape can change anytime.

Speaking at the capital New Delhi to a select group of Indian newspaper editors he frankly said his neighbours worries him a great deal. “So a very uncertain neighbourhood.”

He blames Pakistan’s dreaded spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) having nexus with the terrorist elements in Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami may change the political regime in Bangladesh, India’s eastern neighbour.

The prime minister also said that he reckons that at least 25 percent of the population of Bangladesh motivated by the Jamaat-e-Islami are diehard anti-Indian, and are working for Pakistan spy agency.

The branding of a quarter of Bangladesh's population as “anti-Indian” by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has raised diplomatic eyebrows here.

However, Bangladesh senior government official who does not wish to be names scoffed off Indian prime minister comments and said it was out of context. The official on Friday, of course said that Bangladesh would seek clarification from New Delhi regarding the sensitive comments.

Professor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah of state run Dhaka University said his comments came when Indian and Bangladesh senior officials are frequenting visits into each other capital prior to the visit of prime minister Singh’s visit to Bangladesh, like in the end of this year.

Since Shiekh Hasina returned to power nearly three years ago, has initiated steps to nab wanted Indian insurgent leaders who were sheltered in Bangladesh for decades. Most of anti-Indian leaders were unofficially extradited, despite both countries does not have any treaty to handover each others most wanted persons. Scores of camps of northeast guerrilla groups and were operating from inside Bangladesh territory have been busted.

India's former High Commissioner in Dhaka Veena Sikri was more forthright. “I don't think it is proper to describe people of another country in this manner,” she said while contextualising the BNP's stand. “The BNP says the interests of Bangladesh are not served by India. Sheikh Hasina on the other hand seeks to promote friendship because she feels friendship with India is in Bangladesh's interest.”

“I do not agree that 25 per cent population of Bangladesh supports the Jamaat-e-Islami. If you look at the votes they had polled in the last elections, it does not reflect so, although they contested elections along with the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Begum Khaleda Zia,” said a close observer of politics in Bangladesh.

The influence of the ISI, which has been trying to regain its hold since the early days of an independent Bangladesh, was strong under earlier regimes. But institutions such as the Bangladesh Army or the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, unlike the Pakistani ones, are very sensitive to public opinion.

Singh mentioned that Bangladesh government has gone out of its way to help India in apprehending anti-

Indian insurgents operating from inside Bangladesh for a long time, he said. “And that is why we have been generous in dealing with Bangladesh.”

The former Indian ambassador Dev Mukerjee, who was posted in Bangladesh echoed with the Bangladesh official and said he does not fear that Jamaat-e-Islami is capable of undertaking any action, when he does not have significant people support, which they failed to demonstrate in the electoral regime in past polls.

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow is an award winning investigative journalist based in Bangladesh. He specializes in Jihad, forced migration, good governance and elective democracy. He has recently returned from exile after living in Canada for six years. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Thousands protest in Bangladesh against Islamic constitution

Photo Saleem Samad: Thousand demonstrates in Bangladesh capital on Thursday against adoption by parliament an Islamic constitution

SALEEM SAMAD

Thousands of protesters marched in capital Dhaka on Thursday against Bangladesh parliament adopted an Islamic constitution, steering away from a secular political culture, which was enshrined in 1972 constitution.

A half a mile long rally organized by a conglomerate of left parties and pro-secular groups, chanting anti-government slogans and waving red flags marched towards the parliament, where the ruling party and her alliance lawmakers hastily adopted several amendments to the constitution on Thursday noon.

Hundreds of riot police in flak jackets, armed with shot guns and tear gas shells blocked the marchers putting up barbed-wire fences. The protesters in summer heat and intermittent rain stopped at exit of the Dhaka University, where leaders in makeshift dais addressed the crowd and bitterly criticized the government for switching to an Islamic constitution.

In a massive constitutional reform, the non-partisan interim government has been deleted, which was practiced for 15 years to hold credible elections and ensure smooth transition to an incumbent political government. The opposition fears that the ruling party will rig the election, despite denial by the prime minister.

A set of 55 amendment proposals were incorporated in the constitution amendment bill by 289-1 division vote.

Main opposition described the abrogation of neutral caretaker government from the democratic constitution will be written in the history as a “black day”. Opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia threatened series of street protests and political agitations to undo the constitution reforms.

Prime minister Shiekh Hasina warned the opposition not to create anarchy and instead olive branches to hold parleys with the government and suggest how to hold a credible election scheduled in 2014 and also reduce military interference in state polity.

The prime minister was highly critical of the last military-backed caretaker government (2006-8), which sent the present prime minister and opposition leader to prison for corruption.


The independence war veterans, secularist and left leaning parties have came down heavily on the government for converting a secular political culture to an Islamic one.

Several lawmakers mostly from the left leaning parties have voted against the proposed amendment of the constitution, which has included Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim (in the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful), a verse from Koran in the preamble and Islam as state religion.

The ethnic minority leader Mangal Kumar Chakma in a statement protested the new constitution, which has termed the indigenous peoples as “tribals, small nationalities, ethnic groups and communities.”

What angered the indigenous peoples when the discovered that they have been bracketed as “Bangalee”, who are majoritarian Sunni Muslims. The indigenous communities divided in several sub-groups have different languages and are mostly Buddhist, Hindu and animist.

Bangladesh gained independence from Islamic Pakistan after a bloody war on the principle to establish a secular and democratic nation.

Former Justice Golam Rabbany lamented at a seminar on Thursday that from now the nation has lost its secular identity, which was gained after decades of struggle. The sacrifices of thousands of martyrs during the independence war forty years ago have been insulted, he decried.

Saleem Samad, an Ashoka Fellow is an award winning investigative journalist based in Bangladesh. He specializes in Jihad, forced migration, good governance and elective democracy. He has recently returned from exile after living in Canada for six years. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com