From better governance to Din Bodol

Rehman Sobhan
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SK. Enamul Haq

The government led by Sheikh Hasina has moved into its second year in office. The honeymoon period, where the electorate is willing to look more indulgently at the sins of omission and commission of a recently elected government, is officially over. If the Nielsen and Prothom Alo polls are to be believed, the government still enjoys the support of close to two thirds of the electorate, which is not bad, given the long list of problems they inherited.

The protestations of complete failure of the government, voiced by the leader of the opposition and her cohorts, appear to be wide off the mark. This reflects their continuing disconnection with the people which cost them so dearly in the last election.

The second tenure of Sheikh Hasina's government began with the BDR mutiny within its first month in office. Such a regime-threatening event would have tested the resolve of the most seasoned regime in any country. The PM tackled this crisis with extraordinary courage and maturity.

In the process she saved the nation from an unprecedented civil war between its two major security establishments, each equipped with the weapons of war which could have not only engulfed the capital city but would have spread throughout the country, where the mutiny had spread.

From that fateful beginning the incumbent prime minister (PM) has assumed a much more hands on approach to governance. She appears to have an understanding of most aspects of governance. She regularly attends ECNEC meetings and takes a close interest in the state of the economy, which is not normally the case with PMs. She is always speaking on the language of change even if initiatives for din bodol seem to be moving somewhat tardily.

She has recently publicly admonished her parliamentary party against "corruption, abuse of power and unruly behaviour." I do not recollect Khaleda Zia talking in such language to her party colleagues even though they were sorely in need of such admonishment. Not a day goes by when the PM is not making some public statement on the need for policy reform or better governance in one area or another.

Moreover, Sheikh Hasina obviously does her homework and has demonstrated a grasp of detail in comprehending the problems facing her government. All this suggests, that at least in her public image, the PM appears to be making a definite effort to leave her mark on Bangladesh. The enthusiasm and energy demonstrated by the PM has, however, not permeated throughout her government or her party.

Many members of her cabinet, chosen for their integrity rather than capacity for governance, have yet to get on top of their portfolios though the record of probity for most of the ministers still appears to be intact.

There are conspicuous exceptions in the cabinet where several ministers have demonstrated imagination and enterprise in attempting to bring about change. Motia Chowdhury, now in her second tenure as minister of agriculture, has acquired a sufficiently detailed grasp of her subject which would qualify her to be appointed a Professor at Bangladesh Agricultural University.

Raj Anikat/drik News

However, unlike university professors, Motia can connect her knowledge with the needs and concerns of the Bangladesh peasantry. Both her tenures have been characterised by conspicuous improvements in farm output. But Motia is conscious that din bodol for the Bangladesh peasantry will not come just by helping them to raise crop output. She realises that she must address such frontier issues as crop diversification, new technology for dealing with such problems as salinity and water scarcity or the need to ensure improved terms of trade to keep farmers incentivised.

She needs all the help she can get if she hopes to realise change. She is here being well supported by an imaginative governor of Bangladesh Bank, Dr. Atiur Rahman, whose emphasis on helping the vulnerable, suggests a commitment for change through such initiatives as channelling agri-credit to small farmers and particularly share-croppers.

Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, the finance minister, has, so far, been quite effective in his stewardship of our finances, steering the economy through a major global crisis without significant deceleration in growth. Unfortunately, he has been less successful in sustaining the initial stabilisation of prices and accelerating private investment. This is hardly his fault but then no government in Bangladesh should oversell its commitment to stabilise prices or even to stimulate investment, which largely originates in forces outside its control in a generally privatised economy.

Muhith has held out the promise for promoting change. In his first budget speech he promised significant changes in the governance of the development process. Since a good part of his projected outcome from the budget is predicated on significant improvements in the process of governance, ranging from improvements in implementation of the ADP to significant enhancement in revenue mobilisation, he will now have to demonstrate conspicuous actions and then visible outcomes in each area.

For the finance minister, more than most others in the government, 2010 will, therefore, be a defining year when he will have to provide substance to his promises. Muhith has also highlighted his government's commitment towards maintaining integrity in our public finances. But as he moves into his second year in office, he will be severely tested by the predatory impulses of the party faithful whose sense of entitlement, as recompense for past sacrifices for the party, will demand propitiation.

Where Muhith will really need to demonstrate his commitment to din bodol will be in his capacity to initiate a process of structural change which can enhance the opportunities and capacities of the dukhi manush who, his party and PM have identified as the principal beneficiaries of change.

At the end of his tenure, he will need to establish that the conditions of life and the horizons of the bottom 50% of the population have demonstrably begun to change. He will accordingly have to highlight in his annual budget speech not just changes in growth and other macro-economic indicators but also progress in poverty reduction, realisation of MDGs and narrowing of income inequalities.

Other ministers who have shown promise have been Dipu Moni in Foreign Affairs, Razzaq the food minister and Nurul Islam Nahid, who interestingly received the highest rating for ministerial performance in the Nielsen poll. All these first time ministers have demonstrated sincerity, integrity and above all diligence in their work ethic. In the case of Dipu, she has grown with her job but her performance will have to be tested through the outcomes from the recent Indo-Bangladesh summit.

Whilst it would be unfair to attribute its eventual harvest to the foreign minister alone, this critical relationship has traditionally been the touchstone of a foreign minister's performance. Regrettably, few foreign ministers, except in our foundational years, have passed the test.

Both Nahid and Razzaq have performed exceptionally well by any measure. However, they will, in the years ahead, have to graduate from being successful in sectoral governance to emerging as agents of change. For Razzaq it will not be enough to ensure that food stocks are adequate or that the entitlement programmes such as Food for Work or the employment guarantee programme are working well. He will have to address the substantive problem of food security where the poor are provided with in-built opportunities to earn a sufficiency of income to guarantee their own food security. He will at the same time have to ensure that the small and subsistence farmers not only get a fair price for their produce but can enhance their share in the value addition process. To this end he will have to promote small holder cooperatives which can own rice mills and also collectively market their produce rather than surrender their surplus to middlemen.

Sk. Enamul Haq

Nahid, who has performed so well in delivering textbooks to students across the country, will now have to address the more challenging issue of enhancing the quality of public education. Din bodol in the education sector will be realised when the widening gap between a privileged, privately educated (mostly in English) elite and the mass of the poorly educated children can be bridged. Nahid's eventual record will be measured by his ability to ensure that 100% primary education enrollment has been sustained while the quality gap between our rural schools and the elite Dhaka schools has been closed.

He will need to ensure that our public universities, are restored to a level of excellence they once commanded. This means the re-establishment of merit over partisan identity, as the exclusive medium of career advancement in the teaching community and the end of commercially motivated mastaan tyranny in our campuses. In this latter area he will need the full support of the leader of the ruling party, the prime minister as well as an effective home minister.

In other areas of the government the ministers have demonstrated more mixed results. For example, the progammes of providing smart cards to our farmers and overseas migrants holds considerable promise. Attempts are constantly being made to better manage Dhaka's horrendous traffic though with uncertain results. Attempts are also being made to deal with illegal land encroachments and our rampant environmental polluters but positive outcomes will have to now supercede the bold declarations of intent.

Today the energy ministry is showing some imagination in their use of energy rationing and prioritising of farmers in its use. However, at the end of 5 years, the regime will have to deliver on their specific promises and will have to demonstrate that we have indeed added another 5,000mw of electricity capacity to our energy starved grids. Here, the more substantive problem bequeathed to this government by the BNP regime, of minimal investment in the power sector, will have to be addressed with more urgency. This will need to ensure efficient, transparent, and above all rapid decision-making.

These three measures may be mutually inconsistent but this remains the challenge before the Energy ministry. The historic misgovernance of this sector, with its large and unsustainable system loss, will also have to be addressed not just by privatisation but though the drastic reform of the governance of this sector.

Our fast depleting gas sector will need to be energized through more urgent investment. Here our public sector agencies such as BAPEX and Petrobangla will have to be given adequate budgetary resources, on a priority basis, to develop and extract gas from the field deposits under their control. This is the quickest way to meet our growing gas deficit. This investment in our public sector should not detract us from seeking external investment, particularly in the area of off shore exploration. But here again we should demonstrate complete transparency in our negotiations and draw on talents available both within and outside the country to ensure that we get the best deal.

Our problem of law enforcement demands urgent redress. Sahera Khatun is well known throughout Bangladesh for her conspicuous integrity, proven dedication to the democratic process, her modesty and her decency. These were perhaps the qualities which distinguished her from her predecessor in the previous elected government and persuaded the PM to appoint her to this critical position where law enforcement had become a marketable commodity. However, it is less clear how effective she has been or will be in confronting the perennial malaise which has undermined law enforcement in Bangladesh over three decades, the crisis posed by patronized criminals and partisan law enforcement.

We have already witnessed the political damage inflicted on the government through the depredation of some ruling party mastaans, whether on various campuses, in tender snatching or extortion from commercial establishments or transport agencies. The Prime Minister has recognized the dangers posed by these hoodlum to her government and her party's credibility. The Home Minister has spoken out on this issue. Some actions have indeed been taken. But this issue needs to be addressed with more conspicuous urgency. We cannot move through 2010 with further displays of violence, often intra-party, on the campuses, illicit occupancy of student halls, or acts of violence and criminality, passing unattended because the perpetrators enjoy political patronage.

The crisis in public administration, including the agencies of law enforcement, remains the millstone hanging around the neck of this regime. This is not its doing but is the legacy of past regimes. As a result, the administration has degenerated beyond belief in its service delivery capacity as well as integrity, because of years of partisanisation over successive regimes. Career advancement has been made contingent on political loyalty. Efficiency has been weakly rewarded whilst incompetence as well as malfeasance have rarely been punished and frequently rewarded. The present government is fully aware of the problems, none more so than the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister who has to pay the bills for this malgovernance. Each elected regime feels it has to cleanse its administrative stables of the partisan bureaucrats bequeathed to them by the outgoing regime. Unfortunately, the outgoing partisans are not always replaced by the best and the brightest talents in the bureaucracy but by a batch of loyalists who cover up their incompetence by professions of political loyality and claims of victimization by the outgoing regime. Din bodol for this administration must mean that the rot has to stop here and now. The governance of Bangladesh cannot afford to pass through another 5 years of administrative degeneration lest the country be rendered irrevocably ungovernable. This matter has to be addressed at source by the PM and a clearly defined, time bound, road map for governance reform if not revolution, will have to be put in place within the next year. Having dwelt largely on issues of governance, which puts the onus of responsibility on the incumbent government, we must keep in mind that it takes two to govern. The opposition, led by Khaleda Zia, has hardly been conducting itself in a responsible way. Its decision to spend the first year of this parliament sitting outside, largely addressing seminars, talk shows and occasional street corner meetings, appears politically incomprehensible.

Sitting in parliament would have given them visibility and voice. Whether such political expression would have been encouraged by the speaker could only have been tested by their presence in the House. To first stay out on account of an inadequacy of front row seats reduces parliamentary democracy to the level of attending a stage show and demonstrates a degree of immaturity inconsistent with the opposition's years in office.

To now come up with an added number of conditions for attending parliament appears to be a further evasion of their democratic responsibilities. It is not the job of a government to induce the opposition to sit in the parliament. The opposition was not elected by Awami League votes but through the votes of their own supporters, who expect to be represented by their MP in parliament.

As far as the ruling party is concerned it never has, before or now, lost much sleep over the absence of the opposition from the house. The absence from the house of an articulate and informed opposition makes life much easier for the government who ends up doing whatever it wants, liberated from the public accountability provided by an active opposition.

Fortunately this parliament has been favoured by an exceptionally active and articulate set of Parliamentary Committees, mostly led by a large number of senior and experienced ruling party politicians. These leaders have been able to invest their considerable experience, energy and authority in the Parliamentary Committees (PC), which has kept this government more accountable than its predecessors, even without the presence of an active opposition on the floor of the house.

However, active ruling party dominated PCs are not a substitute for the presence of an effective opposition in parliament. Making due allowance for the irresponsibility of the opposition in staying out of parliament the PM, through the speaker, would be better served by walking the extra mile to not just bring the opposition back into parliament but to keep them there.

The offer of the position of deputy speaker of the parliament to the opposition should be renewed. The privilege of asking the first 50% of questions in the prime minister question hour should be offered to the opposition even though they have a very modest representation in the house. Given the PM's debating skills and capacity for doing homework she should relish taking on the opposition on the floor of the house. Major issues exposed to public controversy, such as the BDR mutiny, the Indo-Bangladesh summit, law and order, or the economic situation should be exposed to debate on the floor of the house. It is to be hoped that such debates will be conducted, on both sides, constructively and soberly, devoid of intemperate rhetoric or frequent walk-outs.

Beyond the issue of governance and parliament there are many other issues which merit address. The most critical of these relate to restoration of justice and the rule of law. It has taken an incredible 35 years to bring at least 5 of the assassins of Bangabandhu who were also responsible for the atrocious massacre of his family, to justice.

The government should be commended for carrying through this process under the prevailing laws of the land, even though these atrocities had inflicted personal pain, beyond human endurance, on the PM. The process took 14 years to reach its denouement and required exceptional patience and self-discipline by the PM to let the due process of law take its course. There are others still to be brought to account before this dark chapter in our history is finally closed.

In contrast to the belief in the rule of law by the PM this act of regicide and indiscriminate murder was immunised in our constitution by the successive regimes of Khondkar Moshtaq, General Zia, General Ershad and Khaleda Zia. Murderers, some of whom also committed mutiny, were not only permitted to roam free, but many were transformed into diplomats paid from the public exchequer.

These killers even contested a presidential election and sat in parliament. After they were convicted and sentenced during the first AL regime the successor BNP regime did not lift a little finger to let justice take its course. Those responsible for this protracted abuse of the law have yet to answer for their conduct.

This contempt for the rule of law has hovered like a malignant disease over our land for nearly three and a half decades. Once political assassination is immunised it encourages further assassins to practice their trade in the expectation that they too may be immunised under appropriate political circumstances.

President Zia, himself, became the first casualty of this contempt for the rule of law. This tradition of immunity for political murder has continued to disfigure our political landscape. Moizuddin, Milon, Aziz Master and Kibria remain the most conspicuous victims of this sickness. Sheikh Hasina and her party high command escaped assassination on August 21, 2004, merely by an act of providence, Ivy Rahman was less blessed. Attempts to investigate let alone bring these assassins to justice were pathetic if not actually distorted to say the least, by the government of the day. This evasion of the law has, extended immunity even to those who participated in the genocide of the Bengali people.

Whilst this present government has initiated a process of enforcing the rule of law they have miles to go before they sleep. Meanwhile, these major challenges will constrain the realisation of din bodol in Bangladesh. Bringing these challenges to a conclusion will, in itself, usher in a process of din bodol where the violators of law, will finally be brought to justice. But bringing these major crimes to justice, also carries major political consequences, which will impinge on the working of our democratic process.

How the government of Sheikh Hasina rises to these challenges, will influence the path to din bodol. But then again, if she is indeed in a position to bring about din bodol, this will bring her not only the undying love of millions of Bangladeshis but will motivate them to come out and defend the system and regime from any usurpation of the democratic process. When a million people can be motivated to occupy the streets of Dhaka to protect a regime, which has ensured din bodol for the masses the threat from those who seek to frustrate the rule of law and to challenge the democratic order, will finally be put to rest.
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Rehman Sobhan is Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue, and the Chairman of Forum's Editorial Board.

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