Those of us who are optimists always thought that something good would happen one day. Thugs and looters would not be able to dominate our politics for long. But, surely, none of us thought that the symptoms of their fading domination would appear so soon. Three cheers for the caretaker government.

No doubt that corrupt politicians and their goons command a lot of influence in the two major political parties, but other parties, including the Jamaat and Jatiyo Party, are not free from such elements. It is expected that the corrupt elements of other parties will also receive the same treatment.

Two Gramscian concepts are useful in explaining the situation created by the caretaker government. Antonio Gramsci was an Italian political thinker, and died in Musolini's prison protesting fascism in Italy. While in jail, he regularly wrote notes about Italian politics and society and social change. His notes had been published long ago as a compendium called Prison Notebooks. Social theorists revere it as a masterpiece of social theory, and political strategists read it as a guide to political activism. In Prison Notebooks, Gramsci talks about two strategies for political change -- war of movement and war of position. The war of movement refers to a sudden forceful move by which a particular social group changes a social practice for common good. And the war of position refers to a long-term effort for social and political change, and such efforts are inculcated by persuading people.

The caretaker government's move to make politics free from corrupt elements should be called a war of movement. But, to build on it, we need a war of position because corruption and lawlessness have made inroads into the every sector of the society during the last few decades. Files in government offices rarely move without a bribe, the police harass innocent people but release criminals for money every now and then, the courts, particularly the lower courts, rarely miss any opportunity to rig judgments for kickbacks, and unscrupulous traders employ every dirty trick to make money. It is not easy to clean such a system where corruption has crept in over the years.

Our state system suffers from two fundamental flaws. First, the apparatuses of governance in our society are yet to stand on their feet. For a democracy to function smoothly some institutions such as an independent judiciary, an independent Election Commission, a free press, and mechanisms to check corruption and ensure equality for the people of all religions, races and ethnicities, need to be built and harnessed. Because of the hard work of thousands of media men and women we have a strong press, but we miserably failed to build the other institutions. Our judiciary is not free from corruption, our Election Commission (EC) is always in controversy, and our infant Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is crying for some room to breathe. The people of the subaltern classes are repressed, many Hindus are suppressed under the enemy property law, and the Paharis are still far from seeing their rights to live with dignity respected. Every political party which ruled the country since independence is more or less responsible for the fragility of our governance system.

Second, quality people in our society are either neglected or suppressed, but inefficient people are promoted. Inefficient superiors in different institutions look for submissive subordinates. Our politicians do it more than anyone else, for their narrow personal and political interests. They can get away with it because our governance institutions are yet to be developed as independent units. One relevant example here would be the official and unofficial clout of the executive, more specifically the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), over state machineries. It has dominance over the judiciary, the EC and ACC. The ruling party utilizes legal loopholes to use the governance institutions in their favour.

The caretaker government is in the process of restructuring them. It has initiated a move to make the judiciary independent. This is certainly progress, but it needs a rigorous mechanisms to deal with the existing corrupt elements in the judiciary. Otherwise, the corrupt elements will continue to corrupt the judiciary. The government is also in the process of reconstituting the EC and ACC. All these are signs of creation of a good governance system. But the caretaker government alone will not be able to establish good governance because it will ultimately transfer power to an elected government. To cash in on the good work of the caretaker government, the role of the civil society is crucial. It is the civil society which can lead the war of position to establish good governance, keeping the future elected governments in check.

People are ready to support, and allow, the caretaker government to finish the good work it has begun. But the government needs to be aware of three sources of influence which can subdue any government, more specifically an unelected government, in a developing country.

First, the army can unseat the government and take over. But the good thing for the present caretaker government is that the army chief has already publicly assured the army's support for its actions.

Second, the international money-lenders like the IMF and World Bank can try to seduce or coerce the government to move ahead with rampant privatization of the economy, since their objective is always to create markets for multinational corporations. Asian success stories like Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan suggest that strong and prudent government control of the market and the economy is a necessity for development.

Finally, the members of the advisory council can get corrupted, if they stay for a long time. The advisers are not accountable to any formal body and enjoy almost absolute power. The remembrance of an old adage -- power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely --may be useful. Moreover, the corrupt elements in the different strata of the society are also in search of mechanisms to cajole the government. The government needs to remain increasingly vigilant against the last two sources of danger.

The provision of a caretaker government is one of the best achievements of our post-independence political struggle. Some questions about the legitimacy of this provision could be raised since the caretaker government is not an elected one. Raising questions against any system is one's fundamental right. With due respect to that right, I would like to remind you that every caretaker government, except the one headed by Professor Iajuddin Ahmed, demonstrated commendable performance. They contributed to the grounding of our democracy, holding three credible elections. The special powers act, which had gagged the media for quite some time, was dismantled by a caretaker government.

The present caretaker government has also gained people's confidence, and raised aspirations for good governance with its non-partisan actions. People will not let it fail. It can only fail if it is ignorant about the sources of danger. If that happens, the whole society will be in shock for losing a golden opportunity to establish good governance.

Let's be patient, and look forward to seeing good things happening.

A.J.M. Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan is a faculty in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka.