The Ershad Factor
By Taj Hashmi
22 December, 2006
Countercurrents.orgThe latest brouhaha and hullabaloo in the over-heated political arena of Bangladesh are over the High Court judgment against Ershad. Justice Faizee, who is said to have tampered with his own law degree, in his judgment on December 14th sentenced the former military dictator to two years’ imprisonment for misappropriating public funds. The judgment came as a surprise; “politically motivated” to many Ershad admirers and politicians forging ties with his Jatiya Party on the eve of the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
Only a stupid would think that the judgment was unprejudiced, if not unfair, as it came not long after Ershad’s volte-face; his abrupt decision not to join the pro-BNP but the pro-Awami League alliance in the elections. By rejecting Ershad’s appeal against the lower court’s verdict in a corruption case after eleven years, Justice Faizee has simply shown his gratitude to his benefactor, the erstwhile BNP-led coalition government and an adversary of the Awami League. The verdict has now raised the question if the corrupt general and his party will be able to take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, General Ershad has formally joined the Awami League-led 14-Party Alliance, a motley group of liberal democrats, ultra-right Islamists, ultra-left communists, and vacillating groups of opportunists without any ideological commitments. At a mammoth public rally in Dhaka he sought forgiveness for his “mistakes if there be any” committed during his eight years of military rule (Daily Star, December 19, 2006). He did not seek public forgiveness for illegally overthrowing an elected government through a military takeover in 1982 and stealing public money.
Egregiously, a thoroughly discredited convict (already spent six years in jail for corruption up to 1996) and a former military dictator who also introduced Islam as the “State Religion” of the country is now an ally of the 14-Party Alliance. The Alliance is supposed to be a champion of democracy and secularism. Surprisingly, the Alliance is silent about Ershad’s military takeover and plunder of public wealth a la Marcos and Suharto.
It is even more surprising that renowned jurist and lawyer Dr Kamal Hussain, who once felt that Ershad deserved a “500-year sentence” for his crimes, is now a comrade-in-arms of the former dictator in the 14-Party Alliance. Interestingly, Rashed Khan Menon, a “leftist” stalwart of the Alliance for free and fair elections, now has no problem in having Ershad as his comrade either (Prothom Alo, December 19, 2006). Only three days before Ershad’s joining the Alliance, “Menon expressed dismay at both the BNP and the Awami League’s lack of inhibitions to form political alliances with Islamist political parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote factions, and the Islamic Constitution Movement, as well as their shameless efforts to woo the former despotic president HM Ershad over the last few years” (New Age, December 16, 2006).
Those who know Ershad to be autocratic, hedonist philanderer and unscrupulously corrupt have no reasons to be sorry for him and his cohorts. However, one may be sorry for the state of affairs in Bangladesh. Being one of the most corrupt, poor and backward, the country is also in a deep morass of political chaos and social disorder where lack of mutual trust and respect among politicians is the norm. Here honesty is no longer the “best policy”. Politics is no longer a means to attain good governance but to make quick money through corruption. The upshot is disorderly mass behaviour and mob violence in every sphere.
Now, who is to be blamed for this state of chaos, which often converges on anarchy? “Leaders, not their followers” should be the obvious answer. And of all the post-Liberation leaders none is more responsible than Ershad for the prevalent chaos and underdevelopment. Ershad’s contributions to the degeneration process outweigh those of all the previous and succeeding regimes in the country. He is as deceptive as Bhutto, as dishonest as Marcos, as cruel as Suharto and as hypocritical and “Islam loving” as Ziaul Haq. As reported in Bangladeshi and foreign media, he institutionalized corruption at every level through his indulgence and hedonism.
What is intriguing that despite his total unacceptability to most intellectuals, students, human rights activists and feminist groups, Ershad somehow manages to remain popular among sections of the Islamists, professionals and rural masses. His allure and charm are more evident in his home district in northwestern Bangladesh. In the recent past, his party got around five per cent seats in the parliament. One may ascribe this support to his willingness to share his wealth with his close associates and cronies, and above all, to regionalism and to his Machiavellian disposition. He seems to be the most “successful politician” in the country. He has successfully proven that members of the professional and business elites, university professors, and politicians with liberal democratic, Islamic, ultra-right or even ultra-left orientations can be bought at a price, and are not that different from those who provide service in lieu of money.
Thus Ershad not only robbed the country of its resources but also its the social fabric, traditional norms and moral values that promote honesty, hard work, patriotism, love, respect and integrity. While Ziaur Rahman, another military ruler, made politics “difficult for politicians” by inducting controversial and discredited people into the arena of politics, and militarized and “Islamized” the polity, Ershad destroyed the semblance of civility and institutionalized corruption and hypocrisy at every level.
Consequently politics has become synonymous with “business” or the easiest way to make money by evading taxes, bank defaulting, drug trafficking and sheer plundering of national resources. Hence the endemic power struggle between rival political groups, parties and alliances, albeit in the name of restoring democracy, holding “free and fair elections” by further fine-tuning the ridiculously unique, unelected “care-taker government” for the last two months. Since politics has become so rewarding, political parties are least interested to remain out of power. Meanwhile, thanks to the institutionalization of corruption by Ershad and its further nourishment under his equally unworthy and corrupt successors, hard-core criminals, including murderers and mafia-type godfathers, are well-entrenched in the arena of politics.
This explains the ongoing state of anarchy, especially since the last days of the BNP-led Coalition government in October. In the name of holding free and fair elections the pro- Awami League Alliance have questioned and challenged the legitimacy of almost all the state institutions. From the president to the chief justice, designated chief adviser of the care-taker government to the chief election commissioner and other government officials, none are above criticism, vitriol and even physical attacks for their alleged conspiracies and pro-BNP (hence “anti-Bangladesh”) bias. Some pro-Alliance activists wanted to physically assault the chief justice for rejecting their plea to bar the President of the Republic from simultaneously holding the Chief Adviser’s position. They also attacked the attorney general and vandalized property on the premises of the Supreme Court. Some senior lawyers took part in the vandalism, literally chasing the attorney general. The height of lawlessness by lawyers and former lawmakers did not stop there. Dr Zahir, a pro-Alliance senior lawyer, almost relished the incident in the following manner: “During the last 45 years of my legal career, I never saw before any attorney general running so fast for fear of his life” (Prothom Alo, December 2, 2006). Meanwhile, during late October and December 2006, rival political activists shot and beat to death more than forty political rivals on the street in the name of holding free and fair elections. One wonders as to how free and fair elections could be ever held in the country, with or without the care-taker government while political parties do not have democracy within. Most parties are conglomerates of political opportunists, devoid of any ideology or ethics; and run like corporations or personal fiefdoms on dynastic lines.
While the pro-Awami League Alliance has made Ershad its bedfellow, the pro-BNP 4-Party Alliance is hobnobbing with Rowshan Ershad. The latter is trying to win over the estranged first wife of Ershad (another half-educated housewife-turned-politician), with a view to getting political support from her faction of the Jatiya Party, originally established by the former dictator. Political opportunism rather than any goodwill for the country, let alone democracy, is the prime mover of Bangladesh politics. As political parties are the most corrupt institutions globally (Transparency International, Annual Report 2005, p.4), there is little wonder that political parties in Bangladesh, consecutively the most corrupt country for five years up to 2005, should be leading in this regard. On this token, one should not trust any Bangladeshi politician despite his / her promises or apparent ideological stand or commitments.
One may assume from one’s experience that while corrupt but relatively efficient elements run the public and private organizations, the least efficient and unemployable corrupt elements swell the ranks of politicians in the country. Had Bangladeshi politicians really meant what they had been telling the people in favour of democracy, rule of law and corruption free society, they would not have associated with dictators, convicted murderers, thieves and traitors at all. Those who want to punish (albeit selectively out of political expediency) the former collaborators of Pakistan in 1971, generically called razakars, by now would have singled out the nouveau razakars as well. Those who collaborated with Ershad in plundering national wealth, destroying democracy, secularism and morality of the people by glorifying corruption and hedonism are no better than the razakars of 1971. The latest political developments in Bangladesh suggest that neither Ershad nor his cronies have anything to fear, at least not in the foreseeable future.Meanwhile, the ongoing chaotic movement, apparently for holding free and fair elections, if not resolved peacefully in a civilized manner, Iraqization of Bangladesh is no longer a distant possibility. The four major parties – BNP, Awami League, Jamaat-i-Islami and Jatiya Party – eventually might run parallel governments in their strong holds threatening the integrity of the nation state in the long run, not that different from the worst prognosis of Iraq.
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