Syed Badrul Ahsan
There is a whole lot that we in Bangladesh ought to be embarrassed about where dealing with the minority religious communities in the country is concerned. Indeed, it is a crying shame that in a land which emerged into freedom forty five years ago as a liberal secular republic, we have fallen back on the old medieval idea of religious majorities and minorities inhabiting the country. There is the arithmetic we need to bear in mind where our treatment of the Hindu community is the issue. At the time of the partition of India in 1947, the Hindu population in East Bengal stood at roughly thirty five per cent of the whole. By the time the War of Liberation came around, it had declined to twenty nine per cent. Today, it hovers around an appalling seven to eight per cent. Where have all our Hindu fellow citizens gone? And what circumstances did we create to drive them away from us?
These are questions we need to address in open public debate. To what extent our Buddhist population has suffered, especially since the mayhem in Ramu some years ago, calls for an academic discussion. Why the Christian population of the country has been in a state of inexorable decline is a question that must be answered. And these are issues we truly and assertively must discuss if the goal is truly the re-creation of a secular order in the country. The old platitudes about Bangladesh being a land of communal peace and harmony will not do. Harmony does not come of fear demonstrated in a majoritarian ambience. It comes through ensuring the inviolability of all faiths. In a secular, civilised country, no one must insult Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or Judaism or Hinduism and expect to get away with it if he or she does. The Hindu man who allegedly posted that anti-Islam message on Facebook is now being grilled. That must now be followed by a purposeful interrogation of those who destroyed those Hindu temples and homes in Nasirnagar. Blasphemy was committed on both sides.
Out of all this chaos relating to the mayhem in Nasirnagar comes the need for action. The Home Minister appreciates the police for acting the way they did – whatever it was they did or did not do – in Nasirnagar. He is entitled to his opinion. We do not have to agree with him, given what we know of the reality. The fact is that the OC has been withdrawn. A police officer is not withdrawn just like that. That said, we now come to the demand for the resignation of Fisheries and Livestock Minister Sayedul Haque. It was atrocious behaviour he demonstrated the other day in Nasirnagar when he was confronted with questions about the administration’s failure to provide security to the Hindus in the upazila. He would not answer those questions, but he went all out to try to intimidate the newsman who asked him and the Upazila Nirbahi Officer those uncomfortable questions. Should the minister resign? Logic and political etiquette suggest he should, for the clear reason that he not only failed to defend those people, in his constituency, who bore the brunt of bigotry-laden attacks but he also tried giving the country the impression that nothing terrible happened in Nasirnagar.
And that UNO? You wonder how men like him can ever make it to the civil service. Here he was, emboldened by the presence of the minister, in a clear mood to manhandle the offending newsman in question. ‘Do you know me?’ ‘Do you know who I am?’ Those were his arrogant questions hurled at the newsman. The line between hooliganism and public service thus got blurred. Therefore should this UNO be disciplined. The Fisheries Minister could have done that job on his own, right then and there. He did not. Who will now take this bully of a UNO to task? Does the Public Administration Ministry have an answer – or a remedy?
Governance which leaves citizens feeling humiliated is an insult to the values on which social constructs are based. Fisheries and Livestock Minister Sayedul Haque did grave disservice to his constituents, to the government he serves, to the country by his inability and unwillingness to come to the aid of those who came under fanatic assault last week. He has done nothing to prevent the fresh new outbreaks of violence against the Hindu community in Nasirnagar.
The bottom line ought to be obvious, to the minister and to everyone else: he should resign. It is for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to ask him to leave the government. Even better, she should relieve him of his responsibilities. And while she does that, she must also ask herself the question why some other ministers, despite the negative public sentiments aroused by their acts in recent times, continue to be in the cabinet.
Food Minister Quamrul Islam should have resigned, over the wheat scandal and contempt of court issue, a long time ago. Liberation War Affairs Minister Mozammel Haque should have quit over the penalty imposed on him by the higher judiciary over his contempt shown to the court. Disaster Management Minister Mofazzal Chowdhury Maya, with his son-in-law implicated in the seven-murder case in Narayanganj, should have been shown the door long ago.
Certainly the ruling Awami League would not want to go to the next general election with such a huge liability across its shoulders? Surely these men – and men like MP Badi of Cox’s Bazar – are not the individuals who can carry forward the torch of democratic accountability? And of course the Prime Minister knows all that, doesn’t she?
Source: bdnews24