False hopes or achievements falsified?

My instant reaction after reading his article entitled Four years of False Hopes is that Prof Bayes has been biased and wrote his piece with a mindset to malign the government. If it was not for Prof Bayes, a luminary in our intellectual circuit, I would have quoted a couplet from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Oh judgment thou art fled to brutish beast and men have lost their reason." Conventional wisdom has it that when critically examining performance, one should consider both the positive and negative contentions of an issue.

I felt intrigued why Prof Bayes picked up only two of the many election pledges of the ruling party. Is it because he wanted to take the 'pleasure' of TI's positioning Bangladesh as number one among the countries that have been labeled as corrupt? I know we have short memory and that is why we fail to remember what TI had to say five years ago. TI's one source of information is national dailies, and indeed I do not want to point out that not much of this information is substantiated by accuracy, not to speak of their being backed up by empirical research.

My pain was never so severe as when I read: "[S]ecuring first position and more so in successive years ... is always a point of pleasure." Have we forgotten that only this government had the sagacity to constitute an independent Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to stamp out corruption from our national life? One would agree that corruption that has been embedded in our lives will not tiptoe out that soon. Endeavours are afoot at the government's behest, and now it is for us citizens to help the government to translate its pledge to reality. Let us not forget that only fools dig canals to bring in crocodiles to swallow them.

Prof Bayes in his wisdom has challenged the statements of election observers from home and abroad about the free and fair elections being rigged, but the fact that this was not so is why opposition engineered hartal (despite their promise not to call hartal even if they are in opposition) did not receive peoples' support and ended in fiasco.

I am not sure whether Prof Bayes read my article published in The Independent on September 8, 2000 entitled: Gold, Goons and Gun: The Dreaded 3Gs Overwhelming our Politics? If he did, he would have seen a similar kind of observation then about the prevailing state of terrorism. One may recall how the state and government party MP-sponsored terror gripped our civic lives. One hardly dared to go out of the house after dusk. Houses and shops were looted at ease, bodies were severed with impunity, and black laws (public safety act) were enacted to punish those that voiced opposition. The AL government's reaction to the terror issue is a classic case of thief shouting the most, but surely AL government knew how the fable ended. People felt that perilous politics that prevailed at that time deserved a pause for propriety. So the people once again heralded that the government is not under one party, but under God, the law, and people -- by exercising their right of franchise in the hustings of 2001.

To curb terror that was on the upswing, the present government formed a force with a nod from parliament. Whoever wished to enjoy freedom of movement heaved a sigh of relief to see Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) ranks are moving to and fro, driving out anti-social elements that took the entire nation hostage. There was acrimony in the society to crush those that created a spectre of terror and unbalanced the social harmony.

The government's modest response to this unequivocal call to protect life and liberty of the people was the formation of Rab. There have been some unfortunate accidents in the discharge of the solemn duty of saving public lives that have been heckled in tens and thousands. Rab has disarrayed the miscreants backed by a few godfathers, some of whom were greeted by the highbrows of the AL government, while the current ruling party has not shown any mercy to anyone alleged to be a BNP man when caught by Rab, and never questioned Rab for those alleged BNP men killed in cross-fire.

As a result of the present government's prudent resolve of forming Rab, all and sundry are making hay even during the Eid shopping spree. If, as suggested by Prof Bayes, mentors (or godfathers) are to be unearthed, then many that he knows would be in the firing line. This does not mean that the defaulters would enjoy a field day, as the present government is up and about to unmask those that wear the facade of Godman when they in reality are godfathers. So may I suggest that please: "Judge not lest you yourself be judged, maybe sooner than you think."

Militancy has gripped the world after 9/11. Bombs are hurled at all with no holds barred. secured Green Zone of Baghdad, parliament in New Delhi, subway system in London, innocent Bali night club, NE Indian states, resorts of Cairo, mosques of Pakistan, motorcade carrying dignitaries, anywhere and everywhere. How many of the perpetrators of these heinous acts were brought to book? How many of these victim countries have "oikyojote" with so-called religiously biased political parties? Weren't Puja mandaps vandalised in Bangladesh before 2001? How many instances of bomb explosion have been unearthed between 1996-2001 in Bangladesh? Twice the leader of opposition during the last regime was fired at and many a times she was barricaded (I accompanied the leader on all those occasions) with impunity. At least this government has made honest effort to unearth the perpetrators by employing internationally famed FBI, MI 5 and Interpol.

The government's honest intention has passed the test of time, when after serial bombing most of those alleged to be involved have been caught in the dragnet. It does bring to fore the ruling government's resolve to bring to book the perpetrators of crime against its fellow citizens. Intellectuals are the conscience keepers of society and therefore one would expect them to be objective and to take measures to obviate antagonism that is partisan in nature. Purging oneself from conscience can only mislead one to draw conclusions that are untoward, unwelcome, and unwieldy.

Who would better define a "failed state" but an economist? Why ride on someone else's back to convey one's own statement about Bangladesh being a failed state or not? I remember having read a news items in which the US named a few countries as failed states, and if my memory has not failed me, I did not see any mention of Bangladesh in that report. The last regime in India was formed predominantly by devout practicing Hindus who preached Hindutva where non-Hindus were sidelined. Did we call it a country of fundamentalists? The major partner of the alliance government is BNP with its own hopes, aspiration, and agenda, and smaller partners have been acting in cohesion and harmony with the major partner, which is anything but a fundamentalist party.

I think those that have been misled by the biased publicity motivated statements deserve to be informed about what has been achieved during the last four years to give a quantum jump to the quality of life at present in Bangladesh. In the late 1990s, Bangladesh was known to be one of the environmentally most polluted countries, a highly crime-prone country, a country on a down-hill slide with poor liquidity situation, all time low foreign exchange reserve situation, and barely had any capacity to fund ADP from internal resources. Cheating in examinations became a festival, consumers rights were violated, food adulteration was rampant, and foreign policy was partially toe-chained.

This declining situation has been largely reversed by the BNP or steps are underway to undo what has been damaging for our nation. Although concerted efforts have been made at home and abroad to portray our country as a fundamentalist nation, there have been statements from Washington and London branding Bangladesh as a religiously moderate country, despite the letter mailed to US Secretary of State by 19 US Congressmen (pro-AL lobby) suggesting to call us as such, what a shame!

I believe that a lot more could be written to draw a comparison between the government of 1996-2001 and the present government, and this would humble the AL government. Those that made a desperate bid to falsify the achievements of the present government would regret the partisan view that they took.

The author is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.