Photo: Star
NEITHER the hartal called by the opposition, nor the arrest of five BNP leaders by the government makes sense. The 72-hour hartal that the opposition BNP-led 18-party alliance had called in the afternoon of Friday surprised many, because the last two spells of shutdown spanning 120 hours had already tried people’s level of tolerance to its limits. But even if that hartal or shutdown lacked sense, the government’s decision to arrest senior opposition leaders was inexplicable and could not be supported by any earthly reason.
It is hard to comprehend what kind of exigency drove the government to arrest very senior opposition leaders, who are sitting members of parliament and formers ministers, with ridiculous allegations of breaking cars, carrying out arson attack and attacking police! And that the arrests were a thoughtless act became evident from the fact that the court deferred the hearing for the cases until next Thursday as the cases brought against them were not supported by necessary documents. Then, what purpose did these arrests serve other than providing the opposition with the justification to extend its three-day hartal for another 12 hours.
What does the government aim, if it has any, to achieve by these arrests and hounding other opposition leaders who are now on the run?? To foil, what appears to be, the opposition’s plan to render the administration dysfunctional and then compel them to give up the path of hartal? Do not then all these actions by the government fly in the face of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s recent statement at a meeting that the opposition leader does not understand the language of democracy? Is then arresting opposition leaders on flimsy grounds and denying them the constitutionally granted democratic space to meet, hold rallies and organize processions the real ‘language of democracy’ ? We are flabbergasted.
And then consider the timing of the arrest. Even the day before the prime minister had assured the FBCCI leaders that the option of dialogue was still open at the general secretary-level of the two parties. The opposition leader also gave similar assurances. Foreign diplomats were also given signals about the prospect of dialogue from both the sides. But then what happened in the meantime that changed the entire political landscape to compel the government to go for such drastic action? Can the government, the PM, in particular, now convince the world at large, not to speak of the opposition, that it is sincere in its offer of talks with the opposition to resolve the contentious issue of election-time government? And what has the government to say to the people about this volte-face? Oddly though, some ruling party leaders, ministers as well as leaders of ruling alliance are resorting to too-familiar rhetoric to explain away such action by the government. A senior left leader of the ruling alliance Rashed Khan Menon, for example, told an audience in Dinajpur that if hartal and talks can go together then why can’t arrest and talk also take place at the same time? There is more to Mr. Menon’s remarks. Its rhetorical aspect aside, what an argument from a leader with a long career of struggle against authoritarianism and autocracy! , No doubt he has sufficient reason to be annoyed with and critical of hartal, a political weapon that the opposition has been using at the slightest excuse. But to support the arrest of opposition leaders! What then is left of the culture of showing the minimum respect to one’s, even the worst, political opponent? To think of what an abysmal depth our political culture has descended!
Now after the arrests of the senior BNP leaders, the police are now gathering in strength around the residence of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia. The government said it was to protect the opposition leader from the attacks by certain quarters. But the question is who those possible attackers are? Has the opposition leader sought any such protection from government or that the latter had a mysterious and sudden change of heart so much so that it rushed to beef up security around the opposition leader’s house?
The watching public is certainly not a bunch of fools to believe that. On the contrary, it only helps to substantiate the rumour doing the rounds that the government’s real motive is to put the opposition leader under house arrest and not to protect her from any attack. If anything, by such political gimmicks the government is only further muddying the atmosphere of a dialogue with the opposition.
One cannot also fail to notice that when the ruling party has started to sell nomination papers and is in an electioneering mood, the police have arrested some senior leaders of the BNP are in hot pursuit of the others.. Does not it all give credence to the growing suspicion this is a deliberate plan to compel BNP to boycott the elections.
The government must come clean with the public about all these questions pestering their minds for long. Otherwise, we would also be forced to conclude that the suspicion in the public mind that the government is heading for holding a unilateral election is true.
Source: The Daily Star
