In the political history of human civilisation, countries surely have encountered far worse national crises than the one Bangladesh is facing today. But few in today's world have had the misfortune of waging a war against its own people. The Pakistan army unleashed a genocide and in self-defence the country's freedom fighters took the fight to the marauding army. After 44 years now from nowhere else, a political party and its alliance that unfortunately includes an anti-liberation outfit of the ill reputation of collaborating with the Pakistani army in 1971, have made a wrong choice of anti-people stance. At no point have the 20-party jote condemned the heinous arson and petrol bomb attacks on public and private transports including trains. Does the alliance endorse the sabotage and terrorism or, worse, it sponsors the same? If it thinks these are means to achieving its goal, it is a serious mistake. The parties involved will have to pay a heavy price for this political blunder.
All such activities are sending a wrong message to the people, particularly those at the bottom rung of society. Poor and underprivileged, the working class people are the worst sufferers because their means of livelihood is regular day labour. Even farmers producing vegetables, dairy products and other perishable goods have to incur heavy losses on account of non-availability of transports. Political programmes --strikes, blockade or other extreme forms of protest -- cannot be coercive, least of all violent. If the general mass feel the urge to express solidarity with such programmes, well and good; if not, there is no place for forcing them to support such activities. The question of forced participation does not arise at all.
In this case, it is not even violence between the two rival sides, it is outright terror tactics as unleashed by terrorist groups such as Al Quaeda, Taliban, Islamic State (ISIS) and Boko Haram. The petrol bomb attacks on public buses and other transports, sabotage of the rail tracks can be anything but political programme of a regular political party. Sure enough, political parties need space in a country's polity. The question is, was that space totally denied to the aggrieved political party? It surely was denied to a large extent but instead of exploring the remaining avenues, if that party goes for terror tactic and resort to terrorism, it will end up antagonising the common people. No sane political party can embark on such a clandestine mission of murder of the public.
The difference between political violence and plain murder cannot be blurred. When a political party sponsors or takes recourse to arson or petrol bomb attacks on a bus carrying passengers in dire need of travelling, the attackers are no longer 'unknown miscreants'. They are doing so with the sole intention of causing casualties --dead and burning wounds with insufferable pains till one lives or breathes one's last. What is the difference between the deadly armed attack on an army school in Pakistan or on a village by the Boko Haram in Nigeria and such bus attacks on the roads and highways in Bangladesh? People cannot be punished because they have defied the blockade or hartal. And here is an indefinite blockade made further intolerable by occasional hartal calls. All it means is to stay home and no movement on roads and highways. Is it humanly possible. One wonders if the activists of the alliance calling such programmes have postponed all their regular activities such as visiting the kitchen market for daily necessaries. Have they stopped eating or they simply stored such supplies for months? The biological need at least makes people carry on a few normal duties.
And if people in an independent country cannot do so simply because an alliance of some political parties have decided to punish people for not obeying them, the fault lies with the parties involved. They are committing a crime against the people not the other way round. Such activities cannot be accommodated in any democratic dispensation. This is terrorism and it has to be dealt with so unitedly. The pressure on the government to step down will boomerang and the signs are already there. Whoever is in power enjoys some advantage. Sure enough, people are annoyed with the parties in power but their wrath will definitely find a target and no wonder if that target is none other than those responsible for burning people alive. The subtle game of politics using the public as a pawn does not favour those who wage a war on the common people. This has to be realised by the parties carrying on such destructive programmes. Or they will simply facilitate their own annihilation.
Political blunder of outsize proportion
Nilratan Halder | Published: February 07, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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