The party of Suhrawardy?

My last column contained observations about the main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in regards to its place in the political spectrum. This time, I turn to the other side of the equation.

“All respectable and educated people belong to the Awami League” was a mantra I heard all too often growing up. And why not? Those of my grandparents’ generation did indeed see in the creation of the AL in 1949 a coming together of the progressive, urbane, educated opinion of the new country where, heretofore, politics had been the preserve of an unwieldy, feudal-bureaucratic one-party contraption known as the Muslim League.

In its first national leader – the late Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy – the debutant party epitomised the promise of a social democratic future led by men whose political life had been defined by the tempestuous but refined tradition of sharp arguments traded across parliamentary aisles and consensus driven by dissenting dialogue.

A centre-left party, the AL was hardly radical, and the preference for incremental, steady, mature reform showed in the policies of the two governments formed by the party during the Pakistan era (the United Front ministry in Dhaka and, later, the Suhrawardy Ministry at the centre).

Fast forward to the tumultuous days preceding and proceeding the independence of Bangladesh, few would have accused the AL of being unforgiving or tyrannical. The famous Six Points, looked at objectively, were a manifesto for commonsensical federalism that is working well in places as diverse as India and the United States. The companion economic plan, crafted by the redoubtable Cambridge-educated Rehman Sobhan and his associates was reformist in its outlook and growth-oriented in its vision, even as it paid its due paeans to the tenets of a robust public sector.

Almost all the civil servants and petty functionaries who had shown accommodation to the Pakistani regime were forgiven instantaneously by the incoming Mujib administration. The 1972 constitution, largely put together by Dr Kamal Hossain, continues to be the envy of many a new country by dint of its speediness, liberality, and fealty to the principles of robust parliamentary democracy. It is a matter of shame that successive governments, starting with the very government that adopted it, have butchered that document into little more than a piece of paper that provides a fig-leaf of legitimacy to tyrants who could use the bullet or manipulate the ballot.

And then it all changed. Without going into well-known history, it is no surprise that statesmen like Rehman Sobhan and Kamal Hossain are despised by the AL of today. These men represent but the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, who would be well justified to feel that the party left them, rather than the other way around.

For those principled original supporters of the AL who continue to hold on to the ideals of secular social democracy, genuine parliamentary governance, and the rule of law, it is indeed a sad spectacle to see a party they do not recognise, except for the name. Truth be told, since its injudicious foray into the short-lived Baksal mode, the AL has sadly followed the path of most so-called national liberation parties in Africa: An amalgamation of crony capitalist interests held together by the cult of family, intolerance of dissent, distrust of independent institutions, and a reflexive penchant of tarring all political opponents as traitors.

When in government, this predilection has been expressed through the wholesale use of the national security edifice and the judicial apparatus to essentially eradicate any space for alternate views, let alone dissenting ones.  By any other definition than that of the apologists of the ruling party, it is fair to say that liberal, pluralist, democracy does not exist in Bangladesh any more than the rule of law does.

If the rudderless behavior of the main opposition BNP is a cause for grief for those who espouse a vibrant centre-right platform in Bangladeshi politics, the moral atrophy of the AL gives the same sense of disillusionment to those who hankered for a true social democratic party. The pain is perhaps even greater for the admirers of the original AL, only the second party in the subcontinent (after the Indian National Congress) that was built from the ground up with the goal of pluralist, social democracy as a key element in its set of principles.

The greater tragedy is, of course, that of Bangladesh herself: The lead vehicle of its independence and democratic hopes has now become stuck in the reverse gear, rattling the machinery of the state with the ugliest sounds possible.

This AL of 2014 is a lot of things, but Mr Suhrawardy’s party it is definitely not.