On the morning of 26 March 2013, I was travelling by a rickshaw to go to a friend’s house. The middle-aged rickshawpuller was talkative, expressing his views freely almost about anything and everything. So, I asked him what he thought of our Independence Day.
“What independence day?” he shot back.
“Rain or sunshine, I spend 10 hours a day pulling this rickshaw, throughout the year, earning just enough to feed my family two meals a day. Last month my three-year-old son died of fever because I could not pay for his treatment. No, Independence Day is for sahibs like you, not for beasts of burden like me.”
And then there was this sudden outburst: “F – – – the independence day”.
The rickshawpuller, evidently, was very bitter about life and surely did not represent the general feeling about our independence struggle. But he made me reflect on what he said.
As I read in the newspapers a few weeks earlier, there were more than 300,000 cases piled up in the High Court and more than 1.2 million cases pending in the lower courts all over the country ! These figures were in addition to the millions of cases, both criminal and civil, which never even got to the courts. And all the while the higher judiciary is digging up 40-year-old cases to provide justice to the dead and passing judgment on other dead. All this makes one wonder when the living are going to get justice. Perhaps they have to lie in their graves for 40 years to have their cases heard. So, long live the country of the dead where the living find no justice.
In every country in the world, the people fear (actually respect) the police because the police enforce the law, come what may. In Bangladesh though, the police are feared — not respected at all — for a different reason. Supported by the state, the Bangladesh police can break the law with impunity: on mere supposition/suspicion they can shoot anyone to death; they can beat you to a pulp, maiming you for life; and they can forcibly enter your house, manhandle every member of your family, steal your money and valuables, break everything and still walk out as if they have just bravely fought and won the independence of this country. Such events are happening everyday — some reported in newspapers, many more not. I can empathize with the rickshawpuller when he so bitterly says, “F – – – the independence day”.
I am a great fan of parliamentary debates and never miss out a session; they provide me with valuable insights into human nature. These parliamentary debates are conducted in such language that a senior politician commented that the language used by the parliamentarians, to abuse their opponents, would put a prostitute to shame. This also left me wondering whether such a comment was derogatory to the politicians or the prostitutes. I am sure that the prostitutes would vehemently object to such comments and would demand a representation in the parliament to have their rights protected. And pray why not, when such a thing has come to pass in the Italian parliament. If this be the case, why do we need the Louise Kahn architecture of the parliament building to conduct such debates? We can blow it up with explosives and shift to some “red-light” district; at least the inhabitants of that much-neglected area would be benefited with some high-profile business.
The “civil service” in Bangladesh is neither civil not does it provide any service; they are our masters. A while ago, they drafted a law, supported by the Parliament, which says that government servants cannot be questioned or charged with allegations of corruption without the permission of the government — the “government” being the same “civil servants” and the politicians. That means the “government” is free to charge all the common citizens of the country with corruption. This legislation makes explicit the 160 million people of this country, less a few hundred politicians and bureaucrats, are all corrupt. No wonder this “ruling elite” of a few hundred bureaucrats and politicians with high integrity are finding it so hard to “rule” this wayward “Gonoprojatontra”. Mark the Bangla word for “People’s Republic”. We are all “gonoprojas” while the “tontra” is with the politicians and bureaucrats. And unless we conduct ourselves as good, obedient and servile projas, the police will convert us into the “dead” and pass us on to the courts who will deal with our cases after 40 years. Independence indeed!!
Speaking of the dead, as I was writing this piece, the nation was reeling from 1000-plus deaths of a collapsed building in Savar. For 15 days the rescuers had been pulling out corpses from the debris. We are all so kind to the dead and so unkind to the living! Our state has made every arrangement for us to die: we die of starvation; we die by drowning in floods and cyclones; we die of accidents; we die in fires and in collapsing buildings; we die of sickness without treatment; and we die from police bullets piercing our chests while protesting against dying. All this, again, makes one wonder as to how our population increases so much despite all these arrangements for “population control”. So, long live the country of the dead, for the dead, by the dead.
To say that I am frustrated would be a gross understatement. My father died on the night of 25/26 March 1971, fighting for this country. I think it was a foolish thing to do – not the fighting but the dying. My father ought to have saved his life; he would then have had a chance of becoming the President or some such thing and I could claim “Royal” status in this Country of the Dead, like a few are claiming these days.
I end with this quotation:
“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law”. – Henry David Thoreau.
On the morning of 26 March 2013, I was travelling by a rickshaw to go to a friend’s house. The middle-aged rickshawpuller was talkative, expressing his views freely almost about anything and everything. So, I asked him what he thought of our Independence Day.
“What independence day?” he shot back.
“Rain or sunshine, I spend 10 hours a day pulling this rickshaw, throughout the year, earning just enough to feed my family two meals a day. Last month my three-year-old son died of fever because I could not pay for his treatment. No, Independence Day is for sahibs like you, not for beasts of burden like me.”
And then there was this sudden outburst: “F – – – the independence day”.
The rickshawpuller, evidently, was very bitter about life and surely did not represent the general feeling about our independence struggle. But he made me reflect on what he said.
As I read in the newspapers a few weeks earlier, there were more than 300,000 cases piled up in the High Court and more than 1.2 million cases pending in the lower courts all over the country ! These figures were in addition to the millions of cases, both criminal and civil, which never even got to the courts. And all the while the higher judiciary is digging up 40-year-old cases to provide justice to the dead and passing judgment on other dead. All this makes one wonder when the living are going to get justice. Perhaps they have to lie in their graves for 40 years to have their cases heard. So, long live the country of the dead where the living find no justice.
In every country in the world, the people fear (actually respect) the police because the police enforce the law, come what may. In Bangladesh though, the police are feared — not respected at all — for a different reason. Supported by the state, the Bangladesh police can break the law with impunity: on mere supposition/suspicion they can shoot anyone to death; they can beat you to a pulp, maiming you for life; and they can forcibly enter your house, manhandle every member of your family, steal your money and valuables, break everything and still walk out as if they have just bravely fought and won the independence of this country. Such events are happening everyday — some reported in newspapers, many more not. I can empathize with the rickshawpuller when he so bitterly says, “F – – – the independence day”.
I am a great fan of parliamentary debates and never miss out a session; they provide me with valuable insights into human nature. These parliamentary debates are conducted in such language that a senior politician commented that the language used by the parliamentarians, to abuse their opponents, would put a prostitute to shame. This also left me wondering whether such a comment was derogatory to the politicians or the prostitutes. I am sure that the prostitutes would vehemently object to such comments and would demand a representation in the parliament to have their rights protected. And pray why not, when such a thing has come to pass in the Italian parliament. If this be the case, why do we need the Louise Kahn architecture of the parliament building to conduct such debates? We can blow it up with explosives and shift to some “red-light” district; at least the inhabitants of that much-neglected area would be benefited with some high-profile business.
The “civil service” in Bangladesh is neither civil not does it provide any service; they are our masters. A while ago, they drafted a law, supported by the Parliament, which says that government servants cannot be questioned or charged with allegations of corruption without the permission of the government — the “government” being the same “civil servants” and the politicians. That means the “government” is free to charge all the common citizens of the country with corruption. This legislation makes explicit the 160 million people of this country, less a few hundred politicians and bureaucrats, are all corrupt. No wonder this “ruling elite” of a few hundred bureaucrats and politicians with high integrity are finding it so hard to “rule” this wayward “Gonoprojatontra”. Mark the Bangla word for “People’s Republic”. We are all “gonoprojas” while the “tontra” is with the politicians and bureaucrats. And unless we conduct ourselves as good, obedient and servile projas, the police will convert us into the “dead” and pass us on to the courts who will deal with our cases after 40 years. Independence indeed!!
Speaking of the dead, as I was writing this piece, the nation was reeling from 1000-plus deaths of a collapsed building in Savar. For 15 days the rescuers had been pulling out corpses from the debris. We are all so kind to the dead and so unkind to the living! Our state has made every arrangement for us to die: we die of starvation; we die by drowning in floods and cyclones; we die of accidents; we die in fires and in collapsing buildings; we die of sickness without treatment; and we die from police bullets piercing our chests while protesting against dying. All this, again, makes one wonder as to how our population increases so much despite all these arrangements for “population control”. So, long live the country of the dead, for the dead, by the dead.
To say that I am frustrated would be a gross understatement. My father died on the night of 25/26 March 1971, fighting for this country. I think it was a foolish thing to do – not the fighting but the dying. My father ought to have saved his life; he would then have had a chance of becoming the President or some such thing and I could claim “Royal” status in this Country of the Dead, like a few are claiming these days.
I end with this quotation:
“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law”. – Henry David Thoreau.
– See more at: http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2013/07/12/in-the-kingdom-of-the-dead/#sthash.lowbU1R5.dpuf
very well written article. I admire the writer for presenting a complex picture of our society in such a clear manner.
Hats off to the writer! Yes, you’ve spoken our mind. This is a country where vengeance rules everywhere while adoring and embellishing the dead for forty years or more. This is a country for the independence of which so many lives were sacrificed but to the woe of the people like the rickshaw-puller, we in our declining days also sing in chorus ‘F—- the Independence Day’.