THE GORDIAN KNOT MUST BE CUT( FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY THE 26^TH MARCH 2006) By Kazi Anwarul Masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

An eminent jurist’s observation about whether Bangladeshi psyche totally comprehends the concept of power in its various ramifications is profoundly intriguing. Many patriotic Bangladeshis would take up swords with him for raising such a question when many Bangladeshis have shed blood fighting  for  democratic rights snatched from them by military dictators and autocrats. Such condemnation, however, would only postpone introspection of an issue vital to our national development. In a negative sense power would mean the capacity to say “no” to a request or a demand by an individual or group of individuals or even a majority of the citizens of a country. In a positive sense saying “no”, if the negative response is lawful, then power wielded by a group so chosen freely by the people is to be welcomed. But when power given to a group who later on betrays the people and puts on the garb of a tyrant then their rule not only becomes tyrannical and absolute but also destructive both for the possessor and  also for the people over whom power is exercised.

Great people are those who believe in the dispersal of power, its dissemination up to the smallest possible administrative units so that Alexis Tocqueville’s fear that “unlimited power is itself a bad and dangerous thing (which) human beings are not competent to exercise”, and Lord Acton’s precept that absolute power corrupts absolutely do not come to pass. The concept of power must also embrace French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality which denotes that a set of action affecting free people must at all times have their consent. Unfortunately in countries like ours which despite being blessed with an almost homogeneous population  lacks social cohesion making practice of democracy difficult. Devoid of Kantian sense of morality practicetioners of politics in Bangladesh are more involved with personal aggrandizement than on serving the people in whose name they presume to practice democracy. An eminent economist as an example has raised the question about the ownership of Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan(PRSP) by the marginalized segment of our society. He has reproached the Bretton Woods Institutions’ approach to poverty reduction as being “flawed on both theoretical grounds and based on empirical evidence”, and has raised doubts whether during the consultative process the PRSP authors were advised by the deprived segments of our population that the fertilizer prices be raised, imports further liberalized, State Owned Enterprises should be privatized, and interest should be raised. The PRSP authors’ confidence that the non-elites need not be consulted reflects the arrogance of power and their obsession with Hobbesian solution to the problem of personal security through the construction of a sovereign state ignoring the presage that unless “the whole public action of the state is directed at securing the greatest good of the greatest number”, the edifice of the state would eventually crumble down.

Bangladeshi society is fractured not because of feudalism introduced by Lord Cornwallis through the permanent settlement in the 18^th century British India nor because of casts system practiced by certain religions but because of the widening gap between the rich and the poor since our liberation. That there has been economic development is undeniable. Gross Domestic Product has increased many fold. Population has doubled since liberation yet due to significant improvement in the agricultural sector of the economy famine/starvation on a large scale is unknown. Export earning, particularly of the ready made garment sector has increased so much that in the recently held Hong Kong round of WTO negotiations the impressive growth in Bangladesh of this sector has been cited by the US as a reason to deny Least Developed Countries zero duty facility for export of RMG to the US.

According to the Center for Policy Dialogue (State of Bangladesh Economy in FY 2004-05) compared to the major countries in South Asia Bangladesh’s growth estimate at 6.3% for FY 05 is comparable to 6.5%(India and Pakistan) and 7%( for Sri Lanka.). On poverty situation CPD study points out that between 1999 and 2004 per capita income for the poor increased by about five per cent while it increased by about twenty per cent for the non-poor. The widening income disparity in Bangladesh, adds CPD, is explained convincingly when one sees that between 1999 and 2004 national attributable to the poorest ten percent of the Bangladesh population declined by 1.5%, but the control over national income by the richest ten percent increased to 36.5%( in other words from twenty times in 1999 to about twenty five times in 2004). Such societal stratification based on wealth has effectively imprisoned power and conferred a superior social status to the wealthy without interrogating the process of acquisition of wealth, which more often than not, has been acquired through non-transparent means. Bangladesh civil society worried over the ultimate future of the country is insistent on its demands, among others, on exclusion of money and muscle power from the politics of the country. At the moment such expectation appears utopian. In the present confrontational political environment where first past the post acquires power and uses public office for private gains the race to acquire  power at any cost has the utmost priority. Once political power is acquired the tyranny of the majority is not left far behind. Tyranny of the majority can take the form of economic exploitation of a stable long term identifiable minority, sometimes called “permanent minority”, or due to the threat perception of the majority emanating from cultural, ethnic or ideological behavior of the minority leading to such cruel oppression of minority, suggested by Edmund Burke, that in a democracy majority of the people is capable of inflicting with much greater fury that can ever be apprehended by the dominion of a single scepter. There is no guarantee, Burke argued, that majority, however transient, would be any more concerned with the interest of the minority and democracy itself, therefore, does not take away the problem of tyranny. Similar fear was expressed by John Stuart Mills who questioned the thesis that because the minority can not out vote the majority, therefore, the minority need not be heard. One could easily argue against the efficacy of majoritarian  rule which permits fifty one percent of the population to oppress the remaining forty nine percent in the name of democracy.

If we consider Bangladesh still in the stage of transition from authoritarianism to democratic rule then we have to ask ourselves if democratic culture has been imbibed in our psyche validating Francis Fukuyama’s concern that “even if you have an election or have a democratic transition, whether that will be sustainable in a society that is close to subsistence, that does not have any kind of resources, where you have low levels of education, very severe ethnic and other kind of cleavages”. Albeit Fukuyama’s skepticism would find more relevance in sub-Saharan Africa than in Bangladesh, yet for democracy to work one would need “those kinds of unwritten norms and cultural values, the ability to compromise, the willingness to abide for certain types of rule, (and) respect for law”.

Bangladesh(and for that matter undivided Bengal) has always distinguished herself as uncompromising rebels against foreign domination( during British rule and later Pakistani rule) and injustice. Even if one were to accept Scottish philosopher Robert Owens’s First Principle that it is necessary for the great majority of the population to live in poverty and ignorance for the remaining part of the population to enjoy the standard of living they currently live in, or Nobel laureates Simon Kuznet’s assertion that increase in inequality is inevitable in the early stages of development or Arthur Lewis’ argument that inequality is necessary to generate the savings that growth requires; it is difficult to foresee how Bangladeshis can be asked to be patient when collusion between political and administrative power holders and the corrupt elements in our society dictate the fate of the majority who constitute the disadvantaged in our society.

The initiative taken by the combined opposition to break the political impasse and the government’s response to the initiative are indeed welcome signs. Since the government holds the power to bring about necessary legislative changes making it possible to hold a free and fair election leading to a peaceful transition of power, it would be unwise to resort to political posturing or to kill time. Non-implementation of the reforms proposed by the combined opposition parties would only compound the crisis which Bangladesh is currently passing through. One only hopes that good sense would prevail on the main political actors because power can be a very transient thing.