Sport to you but death to us

"This is no sport", grumbles a senior law maker in the House. He does so because of the absence of ministers in the Jatiya Sangsad (JS). In fact, not one but a number of veteran members of parliament -some of whom held portfolios earlier in the seventh parliament -vented in no uncertain terms their displeasure against ministers skipping deliberations in the House on Thursday. The one who likened the ministerial job with sport bitterly observed that as many as 40-42 ministers cannot be indisposed at the same time. They cannot have important callings together outside the JS. He added that the ministers cannot give the impression that they will attend parliament whenever they feel like and will not attend whenever they do not feel like. The public knew as much until our second stint with democracy began way back in 1991 but apart from a very little time of full House, parliamentary sessions have been partial and mostly without the Opposition. The indifference to parliament is not a monopoly of the ministers either. MPs of the ruling party had to their credit the dubious distinction of leading to quorum crisis of JS sittings at times. So far, two leading parties often with lightweight allies have reversed roles in parliament. And when in opposition, they have religiously boycotted session after session. If this is not sport, what is? What has gone -and still going on - in the name of capturing the treasury bench is even more than a sport; it can very well be called a circus or even a cruel game, if you like. There seems to be no end to this sport or circus. It is quite entertaining for the players but the same cannot be said about the helpless and unwilling audience. Sometimes, a few in the House or outside, though, play the role of a joker which undeniably is entertaining. But the clowns or jokers who entertain others often have to do it at the cost of their pains buried deep inside their bosoms. In this case, however, the subtle bleeding takes place not in the bosoms of the players but of the public who witness how their hopes for a better Bangladesh are dashed disdainfully with promises given to them broken without qualms. Little do the players realize that it is a cruel game they are playing on their countrymen! Remember the fable where the frogs in a small pool had to endure the stones pelted on them by a group of boys. The boys were enjoying the sport all right: but how the frogs felt, let us hear, from the horse's mouth: "What is sport to you is death to us".