A complacent AL in post-council flush?

The triumphant AL of the post Council 2016 era is looking worse for wear within a month as Nasirnagar and Santal "genocide", as Sultana Kamal has called it, hits the government. One had thought that nothing could disturb its image in those heady days, but Nasirnagar alone has cost the confidence of most minority citizens and the Santal pogrom has given it a stamp of pattern. In both cases, AL leaders were directly involved. Suddenly the shine of the AL is a bit weak and it resembles a party that has grown so big that it can't be controlled. That is bad news for the AL and, one is afraid, Bangladesh.

The dragging on of the Nasirnagar drama and the lack of transparency have been the main damage-maker as people feel the government didn't bother to care quickly enough or act to prevent it. It first blamed the BNP-Jamaat as it always does and went on to host several conspiracy theories which were not believed even by its loyalists. The obvious reluctance of the AL leaders and ministers to get stuck in the Nasirnagar mess is understandable, but the damage has been done in terms of credibility. It's the media which doggedly stuck to the hunt for facts and got the stories.

The 10% of the population who make up the minorities will not trust the AL the way it did before and will trust Bangladesh even less. They feel they are outsiders, excluded and victimized. The AL General Secretary's comment that the minorities should not see themselves as "minorities" is quite absurd given what happened. How else are they supposed to see themselves when their homes are attacked, their temples vandalized, their security crushed? Muslim homes are not attacked as a community target and no mosque is ever damaged. Hindus don't have equal status in Bangladesh. There is no other way of reading the message than this way by them.

The strange practice of blaming the BNP-JI is a symptom of the AL's inability to grasp what role public perception plays in constructing politics. The party does assume a strange innocence on the part of the people, as if they are unable to form an opinion unless informed by the political and bureaucratic leaders. The government has shown by its negligence of public opinion that it doesn't need or care about public opinion. The nine days which the Home Minister took to go to Nasirnagar to look at the situation shows how mild a situation it was considered by the authorities. The words that flowed out of the leaders and their apologists on the media were absurd and damaged the party and administration's image even more. Sadly, what didn't happen in a decade happened in just a few weeks as public trust in the government has been reduced. It can't be counted in vote terms as the AL reigns supreme, perhaps forever; but to have citizens who are not trusting enough of the words of the administration and political leaders while it rules on isn't exactly what is called realizing the spirit of 1971.

The AL is very focused on crushing the BNP-JI nexus and it has done so, but in the process it has depended more on administrative and bureaucratic machineries, not political systems and choices. But it's not behaving like a party with total power. Whether there is another party or not, it really doesn't matter anymore. When only the AL matters, how it deals with itself is where the problem lies. This is what the government is not recognizing. In this process of crushing the opposition, no public consent was required and it was the strength of the government that did it, public agitation and interaction was not necessary. There was no convincing necessary to try war criminals and neither to file cases against the BNP leaders. The result has been much less dependence on public opinion to achieve political gains. But with the decimation of the opposition, the huge party structure with opportunity to access resources and power, linkage with administration, the sense of non-accountability is high. There is no political price to be paid by the AL and the administration because there is no chance of its ever losing political power. The AL hasn't grasped this fact still.

Yet conflict, rivalry and a sense of invulnerability have now gripped the AL and internal rivalry has led to violence and loss of image. In Nasirnagar, says a bdnews24.com report, it's Rabiul Alam Muktadir, the district committee chief and MP who engineered the attack on the minorities in his conflict with Sayedul Haque, the minister. This is shocking not just because such senior party loyalists can get into such violent fights but how their fight has turned into a national embarrassment of the party. But this is only one of the many conflicts that occupy headlines everyday involving AL groups. To this has been added the Santal pogrom where the local AL leaders are accused of murdering several of them, accompanied by the usual looting that follows such attacks. Is this trend stoppable?

Can they act against Muktadir Chowdhury, a freedom fighter injured in war, jailed before 1971 for his politics, a member of BAKSAL Students Central committee along with Obaidul Quader and a select few and so on? Who went away to India after the August killings and after his return revived Chhatra League in Bangladesh and was arrested and tortured by the spook agencies but never betrayed the party? Or act against many new and old veterans who have done much to keep the party going in the worst of times but may now face discarding in their best moments because they want their share of the pie and there is only so much to go around?

Can the AL act against the Santal killers? Can it afford to weaken the party structure if it wants another fifty years at least in power?

It can actually because when the vote day comes, there will be no one to contest the AL. The EC has shown that the executive has the upper hand when it comes to such matters, which is totally loyal as well. And the opposition is non-existent. So why the AL leadership is hesitating to act to protect citizens from its party leaders when they go rogue has become the question. The AL's supremacy is beyond question, but can people seek safety under its rule?

The AL needs to understand there is no threat from any quarters anywhere and maybe it can be a little stricter while dealing with its conflicts within.