The tragic hero, Aristotle wrote, suffers a change in fortune because of a mistaken act to which he is led by his "error of judgment" or his "tragic flaw". Such a man moves us to pity because his misfortune is greater than he deserves. That tragic hero, writes an author from Dhaka, was Shaikh Mujib-ur Rahman, father of Bangladesh. He liberated his country but did not take strong action against counter-revolutionary elements.
I feel the real tragic figure is his daughter, Shaikh Hasina. All her life she fights fundamentalism and keeps distance from anti-liberation forces. But for the sake of votes, she shakes hands with Bangladesh Khilafat Majlish, a fundamentalist and counter-revolutionary organisation.
Hasina is correct when she says that the caretaker government has failed to create "free and fair" environment for election. But she is wrong when she signs a pact with the Majlish to recognise the principles of fatwa and promises to bar any enactment which goes against the Quranic values. There is nothing wrong in upholding Quranic values. But she does not realise she mixes religion with the state. This is not what the liberation forces had in mind when they seceded from West Pakistan. Nor would have Shaikh Mujib imagined his daughter might one day shatter his dream of pluralistic country.
He had, in fact, declared secularism as one of the pillars on which the structure of the Bangladesh would rest. The country's constitution underscores secularism as one of the fundamental objectives. When Hasina heading the main party, Awami League, and Khaleda Zia, heading another main party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, ally themselves with fundamentalist parties they turn their back on secularism. Democracy has already the stamp of cantonment because of the Khaleda Zia rule. Whom does the nation turn to when even the country's basics are sought to be changed?
I recall the scene at Dhaka airport a few days after the liberation: passengers shouting Jai Bangla slogan. They looked like people returning to their promised land. What happened to their dream? The nation has been at war with itself from day one. On the one hand, there are forces which, although weaker in ideology than before, are fighting against those who are taking the country back to division and despondency before the liberation. On the other side are people who want the days of communal and combative politics to come back.
Still hopes soar when a Bangladeshi gets a Nobel Prize for working among the poor. Suddenly, there is light but it is only for a short time. Doubts and fears then take over. The country has been wracked by a succession of strikes and violent demonstrations. Anxious donors are worried because neither their persuasion nor their threat has worked. They face a strange predicament. They cannot afford to quit but at the same time they loathe to live together with ever-increasing disruption of work.
India's homilies make little sense when Hasina, on whom New Delhi has invested the maximum, has defiled the very ethos of Bangladesh. Strange, New Delhi should have no inkling of Hasina's pact with the Majlish. People in India are hurt over Hasina's volte-face because of their feeling that they too had stood by the side of Bangladesh when the war was fought and lost hundreds of soldiers.
Process of reconciliation
Before it was decided that the polls will be postponed, the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh aptly warned that "participation of all major political parties in a parliamentary election is required to form a legitimate and credible government". The question that faces Bangladesh is not election but how to begin the process of reconciliation.
Elections are part of a political process. They are meant to choose a representative who participates in the process of constituting a government. The voters are the master. If a substantial number among them does not go to the polling booth, election ceases to serve any purpose. It may not be acceptable the world over.
A few years ago the Awami League did not participate in the election. Khaleda had a walkover. But she had to quit due to lack of credibility of the polls. New elections were held. The person who is most to blame for the mess is president Iajuddin Ahmad, Khaleda's appointee, who has now resigned. He also combined the post of caretaker government when Justice K.M. Hasan refused to assume the office of chief adviser. Ahmad should have gone to the person who was constitutionally eligible in order of priority.
Ahmad should have at least seen to the revision of electoral rolls which reportedly had 9 million bogus voters. No amount of objection by the Awami League was considered, much less entertained.
If the elections had been held in this situation what message would they have conveyed? Could Khaleda have a credible governance in the absence of the Awami League and other parties? Both sides have to sit across the table and hammer out a settlement. Without that the country is in for an unending trouble. My fear is that the conditions may develop in a way where the military takeover might become inevitable. I wonder if Mohammad Ali Jinnah ever envisaged that the "two independent states" - the Lahore resolution demanded in March 1940 - would one day lose democracy which he said was the cornerstone of Pakistan after having hewn it from India.
Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the UK and a former Rajya Sabha MP.
