Recapturing the spirit of the Liberation War: Secularism and socialism
The constitutional commitment to secularism was grounded in our long struggle to rescue Bangladesh from the abuse of religion for political gain. Throughout the phase of Pakistani rule, greedy, corrupt and immoral political elites quite cynically attempted to use religious slogans to mask their anti-democratic rule. The abuse of religion reached its most degenerate form in 1971 when genocide was committed on large numbers of innocent Bengalis, in the name of religion, by a leader and his forces who were totally irreligious in their personal character and motivations. The founding fathers of Bangladesh were, thus, determined that in an independent Bangladesh no scope should be provided to similarly abuse religion for purposes of political gain. At the same time, recognition was given to our plural faiths, by ensuring the equality of all faiths in the eyes of the law. Secularism, as it was interpreted in our constitution, was thus never designed to interfere with the practice of religion by any individual or community or to discourage religious education. Nor did we go so far as to discourage any reference to religion in our public educational institutions or public sphere as is the case in the United States or France.
This attempt to discourage the abuse of religion for political gain did not prevent the post-liberation government from being slandered for discouraging religion, putting locks on the mosques or banning religious education. Even in the election campaigns of the last decade we have heard the slogan that the sound of the azaan will be replaced throughout Bangladesh with the sound of the conch shell.
This deliberate misinterpretation of the approach to secularism, incorporated in our constitution, led to the legal excision of this provision from the constitution by the post-1975 regime and its replacement by the constitutional proclamation emphasizing the supremacy of the religion of the majority community. The subsequent insertion in the constitution by President Ershad that Islam will be the religion of Bangladesh further emphasized the deviation from the principles of secularism originally enshrined in our constitution. These constitutional assertions of supremacy of one religion may not have derogated from the secular foundations of our constitution or legally arrogated a particular religion into a guiding principal of our jurisprudence but it severed to encourage politicians and parties seeking political power and private material gain to shamelessly abuse religion to promote their political fortunes and slander their opponents. This same abuse of religion culminated in the genocide of 1971. Whilst this tendency has not yet led to another genocide, the recent emergence of terrorism in the name of religion has demonstrated that violence in the name of religion is once again emerging as a threat to our society. Pakistan's experience should have taught us that when ambitious politicians and generals deliberately manipulate religious beliefs to both capture power and perpetuate their anti-democratic rule, sooner or later, ideologically motivated fundamentalists will use these same slogans for imposing their beliefs on the people by terror rather than the ballot box.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Fortunately for Bangladesh we had so far only had to tolerate ambitious politicians who were cynical in their abuse of religion for political gain without themselves having any commitment to religion in their personal or political practices. This phase has now ended and the ideological zealot, armed with the bomb, has now emerged in our national arena. Vacuous references about moderate Islam will do little to reverse this tendency towards ideologically inspired terror. This trend can only be effectively challenged if the mainstream political parties collectively decide that whilst people should be free to pursue their religious beliefs this cannot be opportunistically manipulated for political gain which divides the country into political categories of believers and unbelievers. Once we introduce such variables into political life then those who are obsessed with the conviction that they are the truest believers will feel encouraged to assert their right to annihilate not just minorities but even those of common faith who they feel do not share their interpretation of the religion. Globally this tendency has been strengthened by the jihadists in Washington DC who also believe that they are engaged in a holy war to combat Islamic terrorism. This clash of fundamentalisms has introduced a new challenge to the establishment of liberal, secular and democratic societies around the world.
The introduction of Socialism as a pillar of the constitution was intended as a metaphor for social justice. The struggle for social justice was central to every democratic struggle which inspired the politics of the people of Bangladesh from the peasant uprisings of Titumir and Nureldin, to the 6 point/11 point movement led by Bangabandhu which drove the election campaign of 1970. The dispossessed peasantry of Bengal, which constituted the numerical majority of the population, provided the support base of every major democratic struggle. It was this same class of peasants, now joined by a nascent working class and the students of Bangladesh, who provided the vanguard for the liberation struggle. It was this class which gave the Awami League its overwhelming electoral victory in 1970 and uncompromising support to the non-cooperation movement which culminated in the genocide unleashed by the Pakistan army on March 26, 1971. It was again this same subaltern class which provided the foot-soldiers for the liberation war and bore the brunt of the casualties. It was their families which were the principal victims of the genocide, their wives and daughters who were raped and their homes which were burnt by the Pakistani army.
The incorporation of socialism into the constitution was, thus, a recognition of the debt of honour owed to the deprived majority of Bangladesh who bore a disproportionate share of the heavy price we paid for liberating Bangladesh. It was expected that post-liberation Bangladesh would put the deprived majority at the forefront of our concerns. We never aspired to build a society which recreated a privileged elite, presiding over an inequitable social order, which had characterized Pakistan. Contrary to our aspirations, mass poverty has been perpetuated in the 35 years since our liberation, whilst we have recreated a highly inequitable, deeply unjust, society which has graduated from the two economies which characterized Pakistan, into two societies which characterize contemporary Bangladesh.
Bangladesh's two societies are characterized by the emergence of an elite which is becoming increasingly differentiated from the mass of society. This elevation of a group of people, who a little over three decades ago, were part of a shared fabric of middle class society in Bangladesh, into a far more exclusive elite, integrated into the process of globalization and operating in a policy environment which makes it possible to perpetuate themselves, has far reaching implications for the people of Bangladesh. Such an emergent elite, it is argued, goes in the face of Bangladesh's history, repudiates not just the spirit of the Liberation War but of the two-century old democratic struggle of the people of this country. The circumstances in which such disparities have emerged constitute a violation of the social contract binding the Bangladesh state and hence lacks social legitimacy thereby threatening the sustainability of our social order.
The sustainability of a social order depends on its legitimacy in the eyes of society. Those who exercise political and economic power should be deemed to do so on the basis of a freely given electoral mandate and through demonstrable enterprise, efficiency and competitiveness. Social disparities originating from such legitimized political and economic disparities enjoy a greater degree of acceptance by society. If such social power is deemed to be illegitimately acquired it remains exposed to instability because it will remain under constant question and hence challenge which can only be contained by a monopoly of force, violence and money in the hands of the elite. Such societies, founded on weak social legitimacy, tend to be more prone to crime, violence and possible social breakdown. The weak legitimacy of Bangladesh's social order derives from the questionable ways in which both political and economic power have been attained in Bangladesh.
The manifestations of injustice in our political system itself originates in the injustices in the economic order which have been accentuated by the policy regimes put in place over the last two decades. A policy agenda based on an indiscriminate belief in the allocative efficiency of the market place, notwithstanding the structural features of an economy, or the institutional arrangements which determine the working of markets, is likely to malfunction with serious implications for social justice in any country.
In such a system where markets either do not function or malfunction due to the capacity of those with power and access to resources to manipulate these markets, justice emerges as the first causality. Thus, those who are honest and competent have little reason to expect that either the government or even the market will reward them. The reward systems of our society, in its present configuration, depend on access to power and influence, the capacity to manipulate the system for personal or sectoral gain and to escape from accountability either in the market place or through exposure to popular or legal institutions. Where power, access and immunity from the law are distributed very inequitably, the values of a market driven system tends to aggravate inequalities and injustice.
Those who remain without land, access to adequate education and health care, cannot expect to avail of the opportunities offered by the open market. Where access to work is a privilege which lies within the patronage of those with privileged access to knowledge and resources, the system itself becomes whimsical since no competitive norms guide access to administrative decisions or economic opportunities. In such an environment those who produce outputs do so in an unprotected and uncertain environment where price behavior and foreign competition, make an already unpredictable environment even more erratic. In such a system access to capital is not based on market principles but on access and the cost of capital itself varies from person to person depending on their power to perpetuate their defaults. Law enforcement remains a hazard rather than a source of security where access to the law is determined by who you are and what you are willing to pay so that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor. Within the rich there is one law for those with political access and another for those who compete in the market for purchasing law enforcement. The system of justice at the lower levels remains negotiable and encourages contempt for the rule of law.
Illegitimately acquired wealth and misgovernance percolates down to private crime. Defaulters in Motijheel and political leaders patronizing these defaulters, finance mastaans, who help them to contest elections. These some mastaans use their political access to buy immunity from the law to extract tolls and use crime as an instrument of private enterprise. Many of these criminals graduate into politicians and eventually into elected representatives. In such a milieu crime becomes another form of entrepreneurship as well as an entry point into politics. Such a process perpetuates the injustices of a system where the dividing line between the law enforcer and the law breaker increasingly becoming invisible.