Gen. Ershad seems to have pulled a couple of fast ones in a couple of days not just in joining the all-party interim government but by bagging a ‘blessing alliance’ with the Hifazat-e Islam. Jatiya Party has shown that it’s very useful to whoever needs it and even now after all these years Ershad is a force to be reckoned with. If his worst moment was being pulled down by a street movement in 1990 and landing up in jail spending several years there, he is now back playing a role that is going to push him close to the power plays of the throne than ever before. Suddenly the AL needs Ershad and it’s not just to make up the all-party cabinet but in shoring up the AL’s position with the religious groups that feel more at home with Shapla Chattar than Shahbagh.
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Ershad has always been a great survivor and the present phase shows how smart a player he really is bidding his time with patience till his moment arrives. Islam has always been a favourite tool of his politics even when he came to power in the ’80s. He quickly turned to the madrassah teachers association to push through his “Islamic state’ idea. This was considered a one off by some but in the end, even Sheikh Hasina’s government — the inheritor of a “secular” constitution, had to accept it. While that may be hypocritical of the AL, nobody can say that Ershad has changed his stance in politics. Despite him being considered a dictator, a thief and a womaniser, ‘Islam’ in politics has always been friendly to him. Joining the present cabinet means he has endorsed the new system. But it may be less political compared to his decision to shake hands with the Hifazatis. He has managed to introduce a new element in politics which may have important contribution to the way electoral politics is shaping up.
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Ershad in the city and in the villages are not the same and no matter how much one dislikes him in the urban centres he has some popularity in the rural areas. It’s not an accident that he is called “Polli Bandhu” reflecting his core constituency. It’s actually very difficult to lose a great deal of popularity in Bangladesh once elected or in power. Everyone knows the person and given the nature of our politics, which is free from all kinds of value judgments as far as politicians are concerned, nothing can happen that can reduce one’s political status to zero. So jails never actually tarnished the image of Ershad, his convictions for corruption was more like announcements of his wealth and his several marriages and womanising were a declaration of his virility. If there is one man who suits the image Bangladeshis love to admire, this man would be the one. After getting out of jail, playing second fiddle to the AL for a while, he now looks set to be bigger and better though one asks how much the AL had tried to inspire him.
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Hifazat-e Islam emerged as an organisation of religious conservatives in the last few years through its opposition to the National Women’s Policy but it’s only in 2013 that they became a political force when they issued a 13-point Charter of Demand which was a ‘medieval’ piece of documents according to its critics. However, no matter what the level of opposition to Hifazat, it has not gone away. Much of that comes from the rural areas particularly from the neo-conservatives. Many have confused them with supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami but this new group has been produced by the remittance culture of new money flowing into the village to mostly traditional and conservative families rather than any ideology. It does seem that Ershad and the Hifazat are not strange bedfellows.
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The BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami never really could muster the support they needed to topple the AL and the rise of Hifazat was God’s gift to them. The “atheist blogger” issue may have been manufactured by the Jamaat-e-Islami strategists but the hay was cut by the Hifazat. So the BNP and Jamaat egged on the Hifazat to take to the streets and in doing so they actually had their best days till the Shapla Chattar crackdown. The AL in the first round actually didn’t resist the entry of Hifazat-e Islam there and it was only when the BNP tried the “sit down” approach of insurgency that the AL moved in leaving the Hifazat followers to take the heat while the Jamaat and BNP supporters melted away. But it was the mobilisation of supporters and that too within weeks that showed that no matter how disliked Hifazat maybe by the liberal urban, they had become a force. And if it wasn’t pro-AL, it was of course in favour of the BNP, at least by default.
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At least a partial impact of this anti-AL antagonism of the Hifazat supporters was reflected in the municipal elections where sympathetic Hifazat-e Islam feelings were cited as one of the reasons for the AL’s debacle in the 5-city elections. Hardly any assessment was there that gave the AL much hope and the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami from elections didn’t help matter either because these voters would go directly to the BNP bag. To this was added the pro-Hifazat vote. So the BNP kept looking stronger. That very significant equation has now been adjusted and at least Ershad can hog some Hifazat votes. Since elections will be keenly contested every vote for once counts.
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But the situation is hardly over since the BNP has not finally given up so there is some flickering hope that we will have an election that will be better than a single party farce. But it does seem that the AL is playing a better game than the BNP and one can safely say that no one is sure about the outcome but the AL+ HI and Ershad together do look formidable. In the process, Ershad has returned to the mainstream and displayed the power of patience and the triumph of cynicism which is the most valued element in our national politics.
Source: Bd news24
