December is our victory month. It will be fifty years of our independence next year. You took such a high risk to participate in the liberation war. Afterwards, you participated in running the country the entire of your professional life. How do you feel in this month of victory after about half a century? What have we got being independent?
The Bengali nation has a big achievement in these 49 years. The biggest achievement is our independence. Many had not believed that we would see this independence in our lifetime. But Bangladesh has really become independent. We have made a place in the world as a sovereign and independent country.
Our second achievement is poverty alleviation. Poverty was high before independence. In Bangladesh, poverty has gradually decreased in these 49 years. The people of Bangladesh now can eat, wear clothes and shoes. Many marks of poverty have disappeared from Bangladesh. We are proud of these two achievements.
We did not only hope that the people of Bangladesh will eat and wear clothes and live in an independent country. We hoped that a democratic system will be established in Bangladesh and the country will be ruled as per the expectations of the people. In this context, there are ups and downs. It is not still clear as to how far we have progressed in establishing a the democratic state in real sense. This is a big failure. At the same time, with the degradation of the democratic system, there is a fall in good governance. Human rights are being violated due to the lack of good governance and rights of the people are not being established.
Are we getting more services now than the people would get from the government or the public administration during the Pakistani rule? Is the scenario now just the opposite? Has not the quality of public service degraded?
There was a crisis of money during the Pakistani rule, so government services were very limited. I will not compare now with the Pakistan period. If we compare with the eighties and nineties, we see we could not advance. We had to advance much than other countries in the world.
The two big political parties that have been ruling the country by turns, they are not so interested in carrying out administrative reforms, improving the service of the people and enhancing good governance as they are interested in power. In the political context, the reforms are not convenient for them as the reforms will the harm interests of some quarter while some will be benefited. For this the politicians always avoid reforms. Although the administration is not reformed, currently something is evoking hope and that is the digital system.
We are gradually heading towards another good governance. For example, the pension system. There was huge corruption in the pension system of Bangladesh. Officials had to suffer a lot after retirement. The pension system has become hassle-free due to introduction of the digital system. Say for electricity bill payment, there was no correct estimation. Now we get lot of information about the electricity bill and Titas Gas bill. In these sectors, the digital system is advancing rapidly. So our good governance is progressing in this one sector. The good governance will advance further if we can properly apply digital system and expand its use.
It is also heard that a vested quarter has an attempt to create obstacles and delays in the digitalisation of the public administration.
The use of computers aslone will not help progress, power has to be decentralised. Power is centralised in our country, under this system it takes time to take decision. So if the power is decentralised and digital is added to it, we will be able to overcome some deficiency in the good governance.
We fought and liberated our country from Pakistani autocratic rule and have now come to face such a situation. We fell to the trap of military autocratic rule two times. In the second time, we forced autocratic ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad to step down through huge mass upsurge. Today is 6 December the day of fall of autocracy. Since then 30 years have passed. How do you view the political situation in Bangladesh now?
When the autocracy fell, we were elated. We thought that the autocratic rule would come to an end in the soil of Bangladesh. But in fact that did not happen. Later, though not directly, the autocratic rule was introduced indirectly, and people had to bear the brunt of that. So we have to advance in this context, and only avoiding the autocratic rule is not enough, our democratic system has to be strengthened. As the democratic system in our country is weak, such problems emerge.
I agree with most of the issues you talked about. I also reckon that the democratic system has been weakening in Bangladesh. But we will be disappointed if the democratic system weakens. Earlier, the democratic system weakened more, but the democratic consciousness imbued in the people reemerged. I have firm confidence in the political wisdom of the people of Bangladesh. I think their wisdom will take us to the path of democracy.
When and how may that journey begin?
Nothing can be said specifically about that. But it this is my belief that that will happen.
The reasons for movements and struggles were launched against the autocratic rule of Ershad, remain strongly. The situation is now very bad regarding political rights, citizen rights, right to freedom of expression, freedom of the media. How to overcome this situation?
This is a suffocating atmosphere, but I am not disappointed in it. As eight to ten years is not a long period for a nation. So the democratic consciousness of Bangladesh history says that that will reemerge and, we will of course be able to advance on the right path.
Thank you
Thank you too
*This interview, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam
