The perils of using indiscreet language

Mahmud Us Samad Chowdhury, a ruling party lawmaker from Sylhet, has just given us the perfect reason why the making of the law is often put at risk when it passes into the hands of parliamentarians noted for their intemperance of language and behavior. Chowdhury has had the gall to abuse the nationally respected academic and writer Zafar Iqbal. He would like to whip Zafar Iqbal in public. That comment may not have put this MP or his party colleagues in shame, but it has left a whole nation embarrassed at knowing that politicians of such arrogance happen to be strutting about all over the place.

But, then again, we are not really surprised, are we? Over the years, we have had the long unedifying spectacle of politicians taking upon themselves the role of God. Not very long ago, the social welfare minister in this government, Mohsin Ali, realised not at all that he was only pulling his own reputation down when he described all journalists in this country as 'khobish' which, loosely translated, is actually a term denoting 'scum'. Had this been a properly democratic society, had civilised behavior been an underpinning of life, Mahmud Samad Chowdhury and Mohsin Ali would be in the political wilderness by now. For the Prime Minister, the proper thing would have been to ask Ali to resign. And the ruling party chief whip in Parliament should by now have publicly called Chowdhury to account for his remarks.

Neither of the needed moves has been made. You can be sure that the minister and the MP, and others like them in the days ahead, will have nothing to fear. Their heads will be held high, now and always. It is part of the legacy we are heir to. Remember the insensitivity that characterised former home minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury's expression of sympathy to a couple who had just lost a child to political violence? God had taken away His own, said the minister. Of course, he could not foresee the unintended consequences of his remarks. But there it was. And since that moment, he has been reminded over and over again of his faux pas. The lesson? Politicians must look beyond the present, for what they do or say might well turn out to be an albatross around their necks in the future.

There was Richard Nixon who, at the height of the Watergate scandal in the United States, angrily told journalists, "I am not a crook." Only weeks later, when the missing conversations on part of the Watergate-related tapes were discovered in their loud absence, it became abundantly clear that he had indeed been a crook. Nixon did not survive. He resigned from the presidency in August 1974.

An unwise, ill-considered employment of language always comes back to haunt the individual who makes that statement. That being the truth, you can be sure that the 'dushto chhele' remarks of the present inspector general of police, besides being regarded as a deliberate denial of reality, will in future formulate for him an image he will not find easy to get out of. It will be his bane, just as General Ziaur Rahman's imperious statement, "Money is no problem," is a historical outrage we have not quite been able to tide over.

In the late 1980s, A.S.M. Abdur Rab, then leader of the opposition in an Ershad-dominated Parliament, was pretty dismissive of the question of whether he regarded Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the Father of the Nation. It was not important that the country, he retorted, have a father or an uncle. A nation could go ahead on its own. And this was from a man who, till the formation of the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) in October 1972, had always regarded Bangabandhu as the nation's founding father. But, of course, once he linked up with Sheikh Hasina in her first government as shipping minister, he went back to revering Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as Bangabandhu and Father of the Nation.

Khondokar Moshtaque wept copiously at the funeral of Bangabandhu's father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman in late 1974, to a point where even Mujib was surprised at his histrionics. Only months later, Moshtaque and his band of assassins ended up murdering the entire family of the Father of the Nation. On radio and television, after he had usurped the position of president, he paid glowing tributes to the killers as 'shurjo shontan', children of the sun. It is said that toward the end of his life in 1996, only months before Sheikh Hasina rode to power twenty one years after her father's government had been violently overthrown, Moshtaque went around telling anyone who would listen that he had had nothing to do with the killings of August 1975, that Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana were like his own daughters.

People, especially politicians, need to be careful when they speak on subjects that call for wise handling. On the eve of the June 1996 elections, Badruddoza Chowdhury told a questioner on television that the day was yet far away when the Awami League would return to power. A mere week later, the Awami League was forming the government. Perhaps Chowdhury remembers that indiscreet remark? Or perhaps he does not? There are many among us who sometimes go for selective amnesia.

That being the case, you can be pretty sure that Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, in his post-presidential days in Pakistan, did not recall his threat to use the 'language of weapons' against the proponents of the Six Points in 1966. Here at home, did General M.A.G. Osmany, when he joined Moshtaque as the usurper's defence advisor, remember the brave words he uttered when he turned his back on parliament in protest against the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution in January 1975?

"I have seen Ayub Khan," he said. "I don't wish to see a Mujib Khan." There was courage in those words. Yet this courageous man had little compunction in being part of the Moshtaque-led assassin regime post-August 15.

Ayub Khan, as he campaigned against Fatema Jinnah at the presidential elections in 1964, tried scoring cheap points over the opposition. He described General Azam Khan, once his colleague but at that point on Ms. Jinnah's team, as a man who had hay in his brain. "Uss ka demagh mein to bhoosa bhara hua hai" – those were his exact words. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, one of the most hubristic of politicians in the Indian subcontinent, regularly belittled other politicians, especially if they happened to be Muslims not ready to agree with him. At a meeting with the Congress leadership, he shook hands with everyone but deliberately ignored the scholar-nationalist Moulana Abul Kalam Azad. In Jinnah's opinion, Azad was a mere 'showboy' of the Congress.

Ironically, Azad's reputation has endured. Jinnah is a nearly forgotten man in terms of modern world history.  Irony is again to be spotted in a comparison of the politics of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and his disciple Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Following the adoption of the 1956 constitution in Pakistan, Suhrawardy went on record with his statement that under the constitution East Pakistan had been granted ninety-eight percent of regional autonomy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It would remain for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to prove Suhrawardy wrong, through leading East Pakistan to independence as Bangladesh in 1971.

Language used by politically responsible men and women, unless employed wisely and carefully, can often undermine the reputation of the one who lets go with his or her tongue. Morarji Desai once described Indira Gandhi as a 'chhokri', a mere slip of a girl. That 'chhokri' has an assured place in history. Desai does not. Winston Churchill thought of Mahatma Gandhi as no more than a half-naked fakir. That half-naked fakir was eventually to defeat him with his patient exercise of non-violence.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, informed late in the night in Tashkent in January 1966, "Sir, the bastard is dead," responded in equally despicable manner, "Which one?" For Bhutto, Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri were equally evil. And remember Bhutto's misleading confidence as he arrived back in Karachi from a burning, blood-drenched Dhaka in March 1971?

"Thank God, Pakistan has been saved." He clearly did not understand that Pakistan was at that point mortally wounded and would soon have the life go out of it. Khaleda Zia once thought demands for a caretaker government were 'pagoler prolaap', a madman's rants. Today, she is all for a caretaker government to supervise national elections. Not long ago, Sheikh Hasina thought no proper elections were possible unless they were conducted by a caretaker government. Today she is convinced such a government is a violation of democratic norms and the constitution and hence the Fifteenth Amendment.

Time now for a break. Enjoy the remains of the day.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is a bdnews24.com columnist.