Inequalities can’t be rooted out overnight: Fakhrul

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has said inequalities, rooted in Bangladesh's state structure for decades, cannot be eradicated overnight, though structural reforms are essential, report agencies.

"Instant solutions to long-standing issues of injustice, corruption, authoritarianism and structural discrimination cannot be expected," he said.

The BNP leader made the remarks while speaking at a seminar titled 'How Well is Social Protection Secured', organised by Arpon Alok Songho at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital on Saturday.

Fakhrul said reforms of the state framework and the electoral process are still at a preliminary stage.

Senior journalist Sohrab Hassan, Ganosamhati Andolon's Chief Coordinator Zonayed Saki, Nationalist Democratic Movement (NDM) Chairman Bobby Hajjaj, former BNP MP Rehana Akter Ranu and Policy Exchange Chairman Dr M Masrur Reaz spoke at the event as special guests.

Fakhrul said the recent mass uprising has created a new opportunity for change but cautioned that sustainable reforms require well-defined planning, political sincerity and structural change.

The BNP leader said it is impossible to expect a functional democracy and just society without restructuring the existing state system, which, he added, perpetuates inequalities and corruption.

He highlighted how bureaucratic centralisation forces citizens, including schoolteachers, to come to Dhaka even for minor issues that could be resolved at district level.

This system, he alleged, is designed to sustain bribery and rent-seeking, extending from recruitment in schools to universities.

Zonayed Saki said his party aims to represent working-class demands and criticised successive governments for failing to establish even minimum social balance. Class divisions, especially wealth disparity, have grown under policies shaped over the past five decades, resulting in a plundering-based economy, he added.

Bobby Hajjaj criticised both past and present governments for institutional decline in the financial sector.

Referring to the 'closure of nine non-bank financial institutions' last week, he said looting in the banking sector did not stop even after Sheikh Hasina's departure.

Meanwhile, BNP Standing Committee Member Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan has said it would be a 'serious mistake' to assume that Bangladesh can be built by young people alone.

"The country was not built solely by a handful of students of Dhaka city or Dhaka University, but also through the participation of disadvantaged people from villages, rickshaw-pullers and other ordinary citizens. Their thoughts, aspirations and desire for democracy and economic emancipation cannot be ignored in the process of nation-building," he said.

The BNP leader was speaking at the launching ceremony of a book titled 'Politics of Tarique Rahman: The Sublimity of Mass Uprising ' at the Jatiya Press Club in the capital on Saturday.

He said young people always played a vital role at the forefront of movements but farmers and general people also stood beside them.

The BNP leader said, "People who want democracy are not monsters or demons. We aspire to build a state where good governance, human rights and the fulfillment of basic needs are guaranteed."

About reforms, he said those cannot be achieved by sitting in air-conditioned rooms in Dhaka, nor are they as simple as switching a light on and off; rather it requires a continuous process.

Moyeen Khan said, "What we had expected from this government has not been delivered. However, though delayed, they have now announced election time."

The book's author, Prof Saiful Islam of Dhaka University's Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, along with former Vice-Chancellor of University of Health Sciences and founder of the Centre for Cultural Development Prof Liaquat Ali, Bangladesh Open University Pro-VC Dr Dil Rowshan Jinnat Ara Nazneen, and former Professor of Environmental Sciences at Jahangirnagar University Dr Jamal Uddin Runu also spoke at the event.

Prof Dr Mohammad Amirul Islam, General Secretary of the Nationalist Teachers' Forum at Rajshahi University and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology presided over the event.

BNP Standing Committee Member Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury has said his party will form a commission to ensure free and transparent journalism if it returns to power.

"Journalism in Bangladesh suffered greatly during the fascist era. BNP's Acting Chairman Tarique Rahman has constantly been a vocal advocate for independent journalism. A commission will be formed in the future to ensure press freedom," he said.

He made the remarks while addressing a seminar titled 'Journalism during Fascist Regime and Present Situation' at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU), organised by the Ziaur Rahman Study Circle on Saturday.