Has interim govt been up to public's expectation?

The interim government inherited the virtual wreckage of a state left by the autocracy toppled in the popular upsurge. The financial sector, especially the banks were in a shambles. The ousted autocracy would like to portray a rosy picture of the economy with the help of manufactured data that the pliable government agencies of the time like the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) and so on were ready to supply for the asking. However, the post-upsurge interim government was under no such obligation to meet and produce fictitious figures and present those before the nation as a proof of its success. Neither has it any obligation to answer to any quarters except for the abstract authority of the people which brought it to power. But politicians and critics, who have been demanding everything under the sun from the interim government did not prove to be vocal or bold enough during the past one and a half decades of autocracy. However, the real stakeholders, the distraught ordinary people, have so far remained the silent observers of the post-upsurge madness among the traditional quarters in society who always grab and enjoy the fruits of any change, revolutionary or otherwise, in society

However, now, only a month and a couple of weeks left till the election day scheduled for February 12, 2026, the performance of the interim government so far would obviously be subjected to scrutiny by different quarters, inimical or friendly. Performance on the law-and-order front over the past 17 months that the interim government has been in office can ideally be a measure of how it fared. Now, had the government been an elected one, the answer would obviously be in the negative, because the constituents of the elected parities in the government would expect that their leaders would make good on their election promises. But the interim government formed after the mass upsurge was not an elected one. Then who is it answerable to? It was rather the product of an abnormal situation in which the past government was overthrown in a popular uprising. The uprising was a bloody one as the autocracy in power tried to crush the revolution with brutal force costing the lives of, according to an estimate, over 1,400 young men, women and children and causing grievous wounds to thousands of others. The most important aspect of the uprising was that it was one led by the students of universities, colleges and even schools and in which the common people participated spontaneously in large numbers. But when the autocratic government suddenly fell and its top leadership fled the country, a power vacuum was created which was required to be urgently filled up. The students and the masses who spearheaded the upsurge had no experience on how to form a government and that too, in such an unforeseen emergency. Neither had they any clue to what would be the nature of such a government. However, the major and minor political parties, who had just been sitting on the fence during the days of the students' and common people's bloody street battles in July last year, did not wait long to stake their claim as a shareholder of the pie of power. Though the stopgap interim government was formed to meet an emergency, they still went on haranguing it on issues of propriety. They even raised the question of if its creation followed the standard formula according to convention. Similarly, those who claimed to be experts on the issues of governance and constitutionality came up with a welter of formulae and recommendations. But all those suggestions were applicable for governments formed under normal and predictable circumstances.

The armchair revolutionaries, too, started to lecture the government from the safe distance of talk shows on television channels or the social media. But no one was ready to help the interim government, which was grappling with the void and the volatile situation left by the fallen government. In fact, the country was a complete basket case when the interim government took office after the fall of the autocratic regime. So, the expectations from interim government could not be very high, despite all the cacophony of various clamouring quarters to the contrary. If there is any quarter it is answerable to, it is the faceless masses of the people who made supreme sacrifices to bring it to power. But since the masses have no institutional shape to which a government might be accountable to, the interim government, in the ultimate analysis, is answerable to its own conscience.

So, one should not be surprised by the recent developments in which a section of the students who did not share power in the interim government are now questioning it if the government's performance so far had been up to the expectation of the students and the common people who had laid down their lives before it came to power, or if it betrayed the very cause it was supposed to serve. Especially, after Sharif Osman Hadi , a leader of the 'Inqilab Moncho', a political and cultural platform of a section of students who led the anti-autocracy upsurge, was shot dead in broad daylight while he was on the campaign trail. Notably, late Hadi was a candidate from his Inqilab Manch in the upcoming general election. The Namaz-e-Janaja (funeral prayer) of assassinated Hadi saw an extraordinarily large attendance by the shocked members of the public. So, the interim government needs to show its seriousness not just in words, but in action about bringing Hadi's assassins to justice.

Also, questions are being raised about the integrity of the members of the advisory council that run the interim government. One may excuse the interim government for the many instances of failures that go to its credit during the seventeen months that it has been in office. But what cannot be excused is the failure to remain incorruptible that was expected of it. Could it fulfill that requirement, if it is not to fail the cause of the martyrs of the July upsurge?

sfalim.ds@gmail.com