Let People reclaim their State

Published : 8 May 2013, 02:53 PM
Updated : 8 May 2013, 02:53 PM

There is little doubt in anyone's mind that the 'crisis' in Bangladesh will reach its culminating point within the next few months, that is by August 2013. Considering their self-interest, the AL and BNP, if they think rationally, ought to avoid an impasse, which would allow or even constrain the military to assume the reins of government, in a situation similar to 2007-2008. But the leaders of the two political parties blinded by their own rhetoric, polemics and propaganda may find themselves trapped in uncompromising and intransigent positions, thereby doing the irrational thing and creating conditions where military intervention might appear to be an attractive or even the sole alternative.

I would suggest otherwise.

Decisions arrived at without an indepth understanding of the history and culture of Bangladesh would be both faulty and superficial, leading to repetitive cycle of politico-social instability and temporary calm imposed by military bayonets. Without getting bogged in too much detail, let us just try to summarize the historical experiences and bring out the essentials lessons.

For two thousand years of recorded history, the people of the land called Bangladesh since 1971 have gone through a two-pronged development. On the one hand, communities coalesced into societies, which then formed a nation. On the other, a common language spoken by these communities developed into a social folk literature, which provided the basis for the formation of a national culture. Religion, religious symbolism and myths played as important a part as the language in the development of this culture. Ultimately in 1971, this Nation found its culmination in the formation of a State. It was the Nation which formed the State and not the other way round. Thus Bangladesh is a Nation-State. The State, therefore, is not merely a formal recognition of geographical boundaries but the repository of national culture, will, aspirations and hopes. In reality, however, that is not how it turned out to be.

A state, or for that matter any state, has five basic and primary institutions, which form the superstructure of the state based on its history and culture. These institutions are: (1) The system of Justice and Judiciary. (2) The system of Law-enforcement and Police. (3) The system of Public Administration or Bureaucracy. (4) The system of National Security or the Military and (5) The system of Politics or form of Government. When the British colonised India, they started with Bengal. So, Bengal bore the brunt of colonialism more and longer than any other part of India. In colonising Bengal, the British thoroughly and completely destroyed every economic, social, cultural and political institution developed over centuries, replacing them with ones which would permit them unrestrained and self-sustaining means of spoliation and exploitation of the wealth and resources of Bengal and eventually the rest of India. When the British hastily quit India in 1947, Pakistan not only kept these British institutions intact but in many cases reinforced them in East Pakistan for the very same purpose of harvesting wealth and resources. Within 25 years these institutions became illegitimate to the Bengali people of East Pakistan and it took a bloody War of Liberation in 1971 to get rid of the Pakistanis.

To its utter dismay, the people found the very same illegitimate institutions imposed on an independent Bangladesh which had been the woes of the people for 250 years. The ruling elites of the AL found it to their advantage to keep these institutions in place. Over time, other alternative ruling elites, such as the BNP, developed (the senior officers of the military formed one such ruling elite group), but the basic issues were never addressed. These ruling elite groups monopolised political power and used the state institutions to loot and rob public and private wealth unhindered and ruthlessly. After all, these institutions were meant to do exactly that. Gradually, a robber economy with its attendant robber society and politics developed, pitting the State against the Nation. That the Nation and the State stand as antagonists to each other can be forcefully attested to by the many revolts in Bangladesh since 1975; the latest one being the Feb 25-26, 2009 BDR revolt, which cost the lives of 57 army officers. Each of these revolts was an attempt by communities, even entire social groups within the Nation, to realize their perceived needs and aspirations from a State which robs them not only of their wealth but also of their freedoms and often their lives too.

In the last 40 years Bangladesh has gone through every form of government: Parliamentary, Presidential, Single Party, Military Dictatorship and back to Parliamentary. None has been able to, in the least bit, ameliorate or even reduce the economic, social and political problems of the Nation. Periodically, these underlying tensions erupt into open, overt, violent conflicts. Thus intermittent changes of forms without changes in substance do not address the fundamental causes for the antagonism between the Nation and the State.

Therefore, the next round of "disturbances" may be something different, to the extent of a revolutionary upsurge by the Nation. Military intervention, in such circumstances, may be seen as an attempt to replace one robber group with another so as to hold on to the crumbling defences of a besieged robber state. Additionally, the entirely morally, materially corrupt and largely politicised military might itself break up and provide the means for a full-fledged civil war. Whether a revolution at all comes about depends on a number of subjective factors: leadership, the organization and articulation of the collective national will, the political-ideological mobilisation of the masses, etc. The objective factors, defined by history, already exist.

Ipso facto, a revolution implies the destruction of the old economic, social and political order and their replacement by new ones. Revolution ends all implicit and explicit Social Contract which formed the basis of the old order. Revolution implies the dissolution of all economic, social and political relationships both at individual and group levels; and lastly it implies the cessation of the concept of justice predicated on the old order. For a period therefore, there is anarchy, that is, an absence of any government, institutions and socio-legal controls, until the dynamics of the revolution forges and self-organises its own new relationships, institutions and controls. Thus, every revolution is totalitarian, with no limits to its powers to do or undo any thing. Violence is endemic and sustained because the old order does not give way without a fight to the death. In other words, it is Civil War; it is Civil because the ends are economic, social and political; and it is War because both the old and the aspiring new orders resort to organised mass violence. Revolutions invariably turn into Civil Wars when the military forces of the old order intervene to subdue civil conflicts by force and are countervailed by military forces developed by the Revolutionary Order. Such has been the case from the earliest times, right down to the present – for instance, the revolutionary upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East for the last two years.

If we are to survive and prosper as a Nation-State, then we must be something much, much more than the sum of our individual interests, prejudices and ambitions. So, my suggestion to military officers is: let the Nation reclaim its State, any way it can. Keep the military out of it. Do not be driven by personal ambitions or a misplaced sense of patriotism or be blinded by the chimera of power to assume the reins of Government. As Plato said: "…the measure of a man is how he handles power…"

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Mahmudur Rahman Choudhury is a retired officer of the Bangladesh Army.