Why politics needs to shift its gear and focus

Shamsher Chowdhury There is politics everywhere. Politics at home, politics at cross-roads, politics in educational institutions, politics in the business community, politics of the rich and the poor, politics in the media and so on and so forth. The truth of it all is that we are not only infested with politics but also held hostage to the politicians at state or other levels. Politics is an essential component in the lives of all people but at the same time it can be harmful for a nation when it pollutes its cardinal institutions. A bit of political awareness is indeed necessary for modern-day living for the general members of the public and for smooth functioning of a democratic state. On the other hand, politics should be confined to politicians in general. Today, politics at the state level and with political parties known and unknown not only stink but also to a great extent is criminalised. What is most disconcerting is the fact that our teachers are also into politics of different dimensions. Our teaching community is more interested in individual advancement than teaching their pupils. The same is the story with the business community. The tentacles of this octopus -- politics Bangladesh-style -- have also spread into the rural areas under sponsorship of all major political parties including the ruling party and the main opposition party. One often hears about the politicians themselves inviting new blood in our politics. But there are a number of instances when many good men were driven out of the system by the very people who advocated for the change. When some people say complacently that we should not be disheartened and matters would certainly improve and things cannot go on like this, perhaps they are right but to us it is like saying we shall all die some day, so why should we worry. We must brace up to the fact that, for things in Bangladesh to turn around for better we would require more than mere good wishes, lofty slogans and empty rhetoric. It is our feeling that we, too, have given up and are not willing to change our future for the better. We have now begun to treat the prevailing state of affairs as a fait accompli. The situation is indeed alarming for the comparatively older people of the country. They continue to be deeply concerned about the future of their siblings belonging to the second and the third generation. Alongside some of our politicians who are polluted, we too have lost our focus. There are two things that we find quite related to the character and content of politics that we pursue. First we must not forget that 'Mirjafors' too are a part and parcel of our legacy. Second, a careful look into our politics at work will also reveal to us that we have more politicians than patriots and that our political managers including planners and strategists are dreadfully inefficient. On the other hand, our civil service, too, is politicized more than ever before. We still remember the day when a large number of officers and officials of our civil bureaucracy came out of their offices to greet a number of newly inducted ministers of the ruling party. They chanted slogans and garlanded them right in the passage inside the Secretariat compound where the seat of the civil bureaucracy is located. No wonder from there onwards, we have been experiencing politicizing of the entire administration every step of the way. It was evident right from the beginning, what things will follow. So bad is the situation that the common man has unfortunately developed a profound dislike of the politics and our politicians. People are of late praying for a benevolent dictator than an elected government to run the affairs of the country. The reason for this is that they are most apprehensive of being under the rule of either of the two existing main political parties; both of them have been tried at their dismay, hence they are not ready to go through that experience once again. This is indeed, a place of bad news. Frankly if we do not undertake to replace bad politics with sane one, our administration and those of our cardinal instruments of the state machinery like the Election Commission, the Public Service Commission and other statutory organisations, our future is bleak, no matter how many mega agreements or deals we may conclude with multilateral capital donors or countries including our big neighbor. Our politicians must realize that the more a country is internally stabilised, the chances are more about successes with its development initiatives. Having made the observations above, we do realize that, in the final analysis, politics is politics. But then one would do well to ask: what is bad politics and what is good politics? The reason politics in Bangladesh is poor is the fact that our politicians have continually failed to attend to the welfare of the people at large. It would be a sheer wastage of time to go into the operational techniques of our political leaderships. To be truthful, we badly need today leaders like Suhrawardy, Bhashani or Tajuddin. Email: chowdhury.shamsher@yahoo.com