By Dr. Kalam Shahed 26 June 2024
Source: Pixabay
A few days ago, I came across the book Bangladesh’s Seven Governing Periods, 1972-2022, ‘Constants of Bad Governance’ and Much-need Resets”. The book was published in 2023. The book has been authored by the Australian scholar and academic, Professor M. Adil Khan and published by the South Asian Journal.
After reading the book which I believe has offered an enduring understanding of the evolution of Bangladesh as an independent country and the complex, messy, and yet inspiring the country has traversed since, offered many useful lessons in development and governance and the cogent relationship that exists thereof.
The resets suggested by the author deserve much attention.
I was inspired by the book so much that I decided to summarize the findings and at the same time, share my views with the hope to stimulate discussions and promote solutions that are enduring and inspiring for Bangladesh, a country of great promise and potentials.
The book is composed of ten chapters. Chapters 2 to 8 of the book describe seven distinct periods of governance and politics, their achievements, and failures. The narratives are short and austere; as one leaps from one Chapter into the following, descriptive and analytical details offer quite an amazingly comprehensive picture of the conflictual social and political culture that prevails in Bangladesh even to date.
History suggests that at the time Bangladesh’s liberation from the yolk of Pakistan’s brutal subjugation in December 1971 unleashed an array of popular and progressive social and political ideas and forces, these were brutally suppressed by the founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s autocratic moves, including creating a one-party rule, triggering a horrific the military takeover, and subsequent military regimes that ruled the country for a considerable period. The author concludes and, in its wake, offers a key message that Mujib’s violent exit was unavoidable as he had closed all options for political turnover.
As the book has revealed things do not always move linearly predatorily. Skilled, visionary, and determined leadership can lift countries from falling and moving forward. The author rightly identifies nationalist military leader turned politician Ziaur Rahman as a leader who made epoch-making moves to drag the country out of chaos, poverty, and economic stagnation.
The author then maps out the way Zia navigated the chaotic period of political uncertainty, brought much-needed stability, and laid the foundation for economic growth in the country. At the same time, Zia fostered and expanded engagements with the international community, bringing in much-needed international financial assistance for development.
However, Zia’s brutal handling of mushrooming coups planned and orchestrated by sections of disgruntled freedom fighters of different ideological leanings remains questionable, and Zia himself had to succumb to yet another disgruntled power-seeking military gang. His death opened the way for a greedy and corrupt general, Hussin Muhammad Ershad, to the helms of political reins. The author could have dwelled more extensively on the Bangladesh military’s role in politics but chose to summarize the period as regressive for democratic growth, which also saw rapid economic development.
The book portrays the current Prime Minister, Shiekh Hasina Wazed’s period from 2009 to 2022 as one that reveals significant contributions to development and one that demonstrates key features of a rising autocrat and provides analytical insights into the disjoint between formal and substantive democratic practices with that of her repeating scheming and imbrications that have stifled state structures and democratic institutions. Sheikh Hasina has used patronage and corruption as a policy choice to cozy up and buy the loyalty of the bureaucracy, including that of the law-enforcement agencies. She has also used geopolitics opportunistically and moved across the borders to the Indian Prime Minister Modi and his financial patron, Adani Group, offering them ideological and financial largess through plum contracts in exchange for support for electoral machinations in Bangladesh and grip over state power.
As is evident Shiekh Hasina Wazed has proved herself to be a shrewd and ruthless politician. The carnage of Bangladeshi border forces officers in 2009 and the killing in 2013 the members of the protesting Hefazat-e-Islam, a grass-root Islamic group in Bangladesh surpassed the brutalities of the Pakistani regime under Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. She has bludgeoned opposition, imprisoned, disappeared, and/or murdered hundreds of thousands of opposition politicians to total submission. She has systematically targeted and persecuted the Islamists to woo the West and appease the sectarian anti-Muslim Hindutva-inspired Indian leaders through written and unwritten concordances to satisfy their religious and nationalistic aspirations. To the extent she has succeeded in her none –too-easy-scheming, she stands out as an Asian political maverick.
The author of the book, Professor Khan nonetheless credits the Hasina governing period for fast economic growth and massive infrastructural development. During Hasina’s governing period which persists to date, the per capita GDP grew rapidly.
Yet, thanks to corruption and crony capitalism, the siphoning-off of state resources by patronaged and privileged business groups and her cronies including her supportive law-enforcement agencies led to social and economic inequality that has since fostered the rising phenomenon of what Khan paraphrases as, “development of underdevelopment” in Bangladesh society.
Hasina has practically established a regime of looters who operate under the patronage of the top party leaders. The corrupt Police Chief Benazir Ahmed and Army Chief Aziz Ahmed are the only two members of bureaucratic criminal groups that the media has ventured to expose. As an entrenched, pyromantic leader, Hasina remains unabashed about these known and thriving notorious members of her governing team, as long as they serve her immediate political goals, and she does not have to hold a genuine election to obtain a mandate from the people.
The book summarizes the accomplishments and the challenges of Bangladesh as a phenomenon of “One step forward and two steps back” and unpacks the root causes of social, economic, and political decay that confront Bangladesh these days.
Chapter 10, the concluding chapter of the book offers an array of recommendations for a much-needed corrective “reset”.
This is encouraging though one wonders how these corrective measures are to be adopted, especially in the current destructive pathologies of politics where the nation has been cowed down by the ruling class through violence and intimidation, and where a section of the intellectuals and civil society tend to offer loyal compendiums for the ruling clan while the common masses wobble and suffer under a bureaucratic-autocratic regime.
Notwithstanding the book is rich in research details and elaborates with extensive footnotes supporting observations and findings which painfully reminds us that one cannot import democracy, just as honesty and good governance norms and practices cannot be duplicated unless they grow within through the rising consciousness of the citizens and sociopolitical movements with a bold and educated middle class, leading the movement. Nevertheless, the recommendations in the book present a valuable roadmap for future leadership to consider and act upon when it emerges.
Finally, the book provides a timely, readable, and well-researched analysis, weaving together political, sociological, and economic analysis with deftness and erudition.
As the South Asian region is beset with uncertainties, intolerance, and faith-based sectarian politics that tend to foment hatred and promote division within and across communities, the book, a catalogue of Bangladesh’s ‘Development’ and ‘Underdevelopment’ is a timely reminder that focusing on development while neglecting norms of democratic governance is inimical to the growth of countries as cohesive, just, and prosperous nations.
Dr. Kalam Shahed is a retired geopolitical and security analyst who served the Government of Canada for over two decades and is based in Canada. Before joining the Canadian government, Dr. Shahed taught at two premium Canadian universities, Queen’s, and Carleton Universities.
The book:
“Bangladesh’s Seven Governing Periods, 1972-2022: Accomplishments, ‘Constants of Bad Governance’ and the Much-Needed Resets”; Publisher: South Asia Journal, New Jersey, USA: ISBN 978-0-9995649-2-9 Hardcover; 185 pages; Price: US$ 28.00; BDT 750. To order the book (in Bangladesh and outside), please email: info@southasiajournal.net