Grapes are sour?

But we were shocked because of his 'timid' stance to be a 'gentleman' of worth with no protest at the time of his removal from presidency in an undignified manner. The reason could be that, he might have thought, that anything other than a 'soft stand' would put him in jail, his family in trouble and above all his medical profession in peril. His apprehensions could be correct in a regime where dissent invites assault, truthfulness invites torture. But that should not have been the attitude of Dr B who is, as we can read from his public statements, proud of putting people's cause first. We were sad because Dr B miserably failed to diagnose the disease that was going to kill it called Bangladesh and left the patient unattended. We also reckoned that he should have faced the 'impeachment', the court and all that was required to nullify -- as he appear to have argued -- an 'unjustified' and a 'conspiratorial' move. Had it been so, possibly, it would have created an example, a history and a respect to the norms of business that Bangladesh has, allegedly, lost under Dr B's BNP rule. Now whatever he or his associates tend to say would tantamount to 'grapes are sour'.

Anger and ambivalence

Many of Dr B's comments about the present day Bangladesh are correct but could invite a million questions too. Of course, the complaints are not new either. The opposition parties, leading intellectuals, and the press have been speaking out about the rot reigning since the assumption of power by the present government. He rightly remarked that a reign of terror, a rise in prices of essentials, a sign of suffocation, a demise of democracy -- all sweeping Bangladesh at the moment than ever before. He is, again, a right critic of a big cabinet of 60 or so (even though he was one of them), of constitutional amendments for absorbing "good people" in the cabinet (although some of the "young Turks" are reported to be his recruits), of deviation from democracy (although an ardent admirer of February 15 election without voters!), of nepotism (although his son sat on his vacated seat by his blessings) etc. We should remind the readers that the bracketed observations point to the ambivalences raised by his critics.

BNP basics again?

But with all the allegations on board, Dr. B went back to the basics of BNP and seemingly has been trying to turn the table in his favour by making some confusing comments. His remark that "if people want me, I will not fail them" does not specify who these people could be and where would they come from. Quite obviously, a portion would come from his fellow colleagues in BNP who are sidelined, superseded and suppressed. Dr B perhaps knows it well that not many such people could be in the pipeline as long as Begum Zia and her son carry the flag of BNP. By any standard of judgment, they are likely to lead the sentiment that hovers around the late President Zia.

To justify the argument, we can only recall a picture shown in TV. When Tareq Zia was made joint secretary general of BNP and he was to visit Zia's mazar, senior members of the cabinet like Abdul Mannan Bhuya and Saifur Rahman had to wait there under scorching heat to welcome the leader of the "young Turks". Just imagine! As many as five to ten cabinet members were standing to see that the son of the PM arrive and depart safe and sound. Dr B also, we assume, had to perform almost the same kind of exercise during the whole course of his long political career.

At the end of the day, therefore, Dr B would have to bank on a rather small segment obviously coming from small parties. Besides, Dr B would, probably, be able to bag the sympathy of a section of intellectuals, journalists and politicians who failed to reap home fruits from BNP but blatantly bred anti-Awami League phobia. To this group of people, both sunrise and sunset are equal. They even fail to distinguish between a failure and an utter failure, between bad governance and no governance. The only thing they know is a 'no' to Awami League. In any way, they are likely to be too good to raise any protest even in the face of their own bread being burnt.

Dr B is also likely to get more media coverage than any body else for the simple reason that no past President stood up and got pitted against the party in power, especially his own party. Only on this count, Dr B might get sympathy and support from independent groups. But he has to come up with active plans and platform rather than showering sermons. And active plans and platforms will also need courage to face any kind of consequence for the sake of the people.

Lacking line and length

In the recently held Iftar party hosted by him, Dr. B proposed to go ahead with a civil society platform. While evil-doings are purely political, how can the solutions be civil? Civil society can at best create a pressure group and supply intellectual inputs to the ongoing movements. But it cannot bell the cat first. His anger against the opposition boycotting parliament is opportunistic since his party BNP boycotted parliament under his leadership or deputy leadership during 1996-2001. The allegations about creeping corruption and crimes that he brought are not new to his party. Even when he was Minister or deputy leader of the treasury bench, crimes and corruption were pervasive although, admittedly, things went worst later.

No light!

We therefore see no light at the end of the tunnel through the paths that Dr. B has suggested so far. It is not guaranteed that civil society members are away from all evils. Dr. B should bear in mind that the objective should be to purify politics. To this effect, he will have to float a new political party or join a new one or rejoin the earlier one to press home his ideas.

Or else, he could produce a new documentary called "Sabash, Shabash Bangladesh" based on his present-day observations about government and Bangladesh. At least that would shed some light on what his BNP has been doing for Bangladesh. After all, learning is light and we shall owe a great deal to him for enlightening us not with words only but also with visual documentary.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.