Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Never mind my own doom’s day predictions, the truth appears to suggest that Narendra Modi, much as I hate the thought, looks set to lead the BJP to a significant win in the parliamentary elections due in the next few months. The BJP may indeed be back in the saddle in Delhi along with its allies, a full ten years after Atal Bihari Vajpayee yielded power to the Congress-led UPA I.
Yes, it is a distinct possibility. Only, for his survival at the helm, Modi must of necessity recast his persona in the Vajpayee mould. Failing that the country may well be headed for even more turbulent times.
This piece, though, is not meant to engage in any form of crystal-gazing. One would for the present be content to have an overview of the region and what the future holds for it.
From Afghanistan to Bangladesh the entire region is undergoing significant internal changes. With the Pakistani domestic scene looking as disappointing as it was when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took over power, we find the militant groups including the Pakistani Talibani, showing no interest in giving the country a chance to live in peace. The news from neighbouring Afghanistan continues to be grim only months before the US withdraws its troops from there. The ISI of Pakistan continues to play a dubious role in the emerging scenario there.
In Nepal the second Constituent Assembly, one hopes, will finally be allowed to play its assigned role, years after the king was dethroned. Prachanda’s Maoists who virtually played the dog in the manger, after they were reduced to a third place in the newly elected assembly, have relented after threatening not to accept the results of the elections; the Maoists will finally help set the Constitution-making process into motion after baulking it for nearly three years.
Leaving aside for the moment Maldives and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh will finally go to the polls on January 5 after long weeks of pitched battles between the authorities and the Jamat-i-Islami and its collaborators, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The clash of ambitions between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the principal opposition, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP, has seen the Jamat and BNP mobs fighting it out on the streets with the ruling Awami League.
Over 100 people have died in the run up to the poll early next month. The execution early this month of Abdul Qauder Mollah, a Jamat-i-Islami leader for war crimes during the liberation war of 1971, has triggered most of the violence, with the BNP lending a helping hand.
Sheikh Hasina on the face of it appears to have lost a lot of political credibility in large parts of country, even as the Islamist Jamat stands condemned in the popular eye. But together with BNP the Jamat has taken over the streets. The combine has been calling one general strike after the other, crippling the transport system and the economy. Its ally, the Jamat, is fighting for its sheer survival. Its hooligans, known for punishing political foes by cutting their tendons, have engaged in outright murder. The security forces have responded with live fire. In the north, members of Jamat youth wing have burned down homes and shops owned by member of the Hindu minority. Awami League cadres have fled the country-side to the capital, Dhaka.
People close to the Prime Minister say she is determined to see death sentences carried out on the entire Jamat leadership. The UN secretary general, Ban ki-moon, and America’s secretary of State, John Kerry, have asked Sheikh Hasina to stop the executions. But compromise is not her style.
She won a landslide election victory five years ago. In 2011 the constitution was amended to get rid of a provision, introduced in 1996 because of the chronic mutual distrust between the two big parties and their leaders, for neutral caretaker administrations to oversee elections. Sheikh Hasina did not deliberately set out to become an absolute ruler. But that is a likely consequence of the amendment. Ever since, the government has weighed the pros and cons of an uncontested election.
The biggest advantage is that the poll may be an obvious sham. Of 300 elected parliamentary seats, 154 will be contested. The BNP and 17 of its small allies are joining the boycott. The government had detained and seems poised to exile Mohammad Hossain Ershad, a former dictator and the leader of Jatiyo, the third-largest party, for its boycott. The next biggest party, Jamaat has been banned from taking part on the ground that its overtly religious charter breaches Bangladesh’s secular constitution.
At least the Awami league will win. Whatever happens to January 5th, there will be enough MPs for parliament to swear in Sheikh Hasina as Prime Minister.
However, India’s decision to give its implicit backing to an election with a predetermined result (a concept pioneered by Mr Ershad in the 1980s) may prove short sighted. Anti-Indian sentiment in Bangladesh has already surged. And as conflict worsens, India’s ally, the League, risks being seen as anti-Islamic. Backing Sheikh Hasina’s power grab is likely to give India the opposite of what it wants : a more radical and less secular Bangladesh.
The army is not keen to step in, as it did to back an unelected “technocratic” administration that ruled for two years from January 2007, after Mrs. Zia tried to hijack an election. Nor will foreign powers tacitly back a coup as they did then. So fighting can drag on for months perhaps leading to another poll later. According to an opinion poll, only 30% of Bangladeshis want the generals to take over. And remarkably, if they did and held another election only one-third would want the two “battling Begums” barred from politics. Badly as they serve their country, it cannot seem to do without them.
Follow our WhatsApp channel