I had a minister friend who revelled in bantering. He would often come up with funny questions whose answers were bound to be equivocal. In the real life situation he was an extremely intelligent man and a great strategist. He won with a huge margin all the parliamentary elections he contested. His performance as a minister was also reasonably good. The minister once asked, "How many persons really live in Bangladesh?" I told him that it was a silly question and therefore need not be answered. Not to be deterred, he insisted on getting an answer when I replied that population of the country was 130 million (correct for that time). He trashed my answer and retorted that the figure never added up to more than 1300 persons in his reckoning. The other figures were all meaningless zeros which should be ignored for practical calculations. His profound injunction was that it would suffice for any one of us to work with only 1300 appropriately selected persons. He did not anticipate any problem.
The advice of the minister was not hinged on any moral or ideological monocoque. It was, however, pragmatic and effective as well. Ideology or principle per se is often not good enough to realise a grand vision or accomplish a big task. An appropriate juxtaposition and a proper mix of principle and strategy will do the job. Principle and ideology flow the thymotic sphere. They reside in the world of vision, education and culture, values and logic. Individual's values and principles nurtured over years consist of ethics and morality, sense of fair treatment, respect for human rights, patriotism, social development, empathy for fellow citizens, respect for the elders and affection for the younger groups. Once crystallised in him/her s/he is not daunted by big sacrifice necessary to protect these principles. In the struggle to protect and promote ideology and principles the main objective is not to clinch victory over the adversary. The idealist finds it most satisfying to fight for his/her ideology and principle. Apparent defeat does not demoralize him/her. S/he takes defeat as a step forward to higher struggle. S/he does not deviate from the principle ardently cherished by him/her.
Working on strategy is a different ball game. The strength and efficacy are determined through practical result-success or failure. Strategy often reminds us of war where the main purpose of its formulation and use is to defeat the enemy. A few elements of principle and ideology may weigh as constraint in working with strategy; because of practical compulsion strategy, more often than not, tends to be ideology neutral. Lot of misconceptions and romantic ideas are knocked off by the wave of reality-based strategy. We were jolted by a hard reality at the beginning of the war of liberation. During student life we raised high-pitched slogan in the city streets against western imperialism and also martial law regimes. We thought we did our job well. Ayub regime collapsed in the face of our movement. During our agitation against military dictatorship and blatant exploitation by the West Pakistani rulers we were inspired by the thunderous speech of Maulana Bhashani. He said that there were 62000 villages in East Pakistan as against 61000 Pakistani soldiers which meant less than one soldier per village. If an armed clash broke out the Pakistani soldiers would be no where, they would spread too thin to encounter armed resistance in the villages. They would be defeated in no time. Victory of East Pakistani people to be followed by an independent Bangladesh was a cinch. Emboldened by such unqualified assurance I got myself deeply involved in organising liberation war in Narail. Our activities continued in a festive mood for three to four days. We were waiting for the Jessore cantonment to surrender when Sabre Jets started strapping the town. Life was immediately brought to a standstill. People fled the town en masse. A deserted look descended on the habitat. We, the organisers, gradually retreated to a safer area inside the district with the limited arms and ammunitions stored here and there.
The Pakistani army entered the town with their superior fire power and took position in strategic installations to control the occupied sub-divisional headquarter. The Jessore cantonment provided the back-up support. We now realised that the occupation army did not divide themselves thin into thousands of groups to enter the villages all at a time. They moved in viable formations to capture strategic places killing hundreds of innocent people and destroying houses and establishments on their way. The unarmed people either fled away or kowtowed to surrender without faintest resistance. The occupation army went on capturing habitats after habitats to control the country as a whole. Their strategy worked in this case.
The same occupation army suffered an ignominious defeat nine months later. The commander of the Pakistan eastern zone surrendered to the joint command of India and Mukti Bahini with 93000-strong force in Shurawardi Uddyan, Dhaka. The dickheaded Pakistani junta failed to consider such important variables as the geo-physical reality of Bangladesh, India's stand regarding liberation war, India's military strength and resource support and most importantly the commitment of the regrouped freedom fighters to fight tooth and nail for independence in orchestrating their war strategy. Such flawed strategy hinging on erroneous evaluation led them to an inevitable disaster. I remember that in the wake of Pakistan's victory over Indian team in world hockey competition that year one Brigadier, who was Pakistan's former hockey captain, asserted that like hockey team Pakistan's army would defeat Indian army if war ever broke out between the two countries. He forgot that in hockey both sides were in the ground with 11 players and similar resources. In the war the opponent party may field 55 players and huge war equipment, including invincible air coverage. Pakistan will be no match for their opponent in the war field. The situation was completely different not comparable with hockey game. As strategists Pakistani junta proved themselves utterly inadequate for the job and headed towards the brink.
Mao Zedong observed, "War is politics with bloodshed, politics is war without bloodshed." Strategy is an integral part of politics. Principles and ideologies, however lofty they be, cannot survive at least in the short- and mid-term let alone thrive unless protected by the bulwark of effective strategy. Principles and ideologies may triumph in the long run by dint of their intrinsic strength. The dynamics of changing mind may gradually gather enough force to catapult the ideology to final victory in the long run. The process is time consuming and is not equally applicable to every case. It is not unlikely for principles and ideologies to suffer premature demise because of drastically flawed strategy.
The most important aspect in crafting a political strategy is to appreciate the ground reality with utmost care. The political scenario comprises myriad of variables. A particular variable assumes great weight because of special circumstances obtaining in the environment. It can be generally said that variables belonging to social, economic, administrative, psychological, international, geophysical and environmental fields as also those pertaining to technology, military science and strategy, physical infrastructure and logistics are the most important ones in formulating political structure and programmes. The exhaustiveness of the list notwithstanding, other conceivable variables should not be undermined. Variables not mentioned above may assume great importance in a particular context and environment.
A congruence between principles and strategies usually leads to the successful culmination of political programmes. It is not possible to accurately predict the behaviour of variables individually or in group in the system of equations used to characterise the political environment. This will explain the failure to predict the success or failure of political programmes. The more clearly one can visualise the loci of the variables the greater will be one's capacity to project the fate of the programme.
Success of a leader depends on his/her mettle to control the variables in order to meet his/her political end. Variables under his/her control are considered as his/her asset. The most valuable assets are (1) strength of the activists, (2) commitment of the activists and (3) the ability of the leader to galvanise the common people into a tremendous force behind the cause. Correct evaluation and tactful use of the asset will determine the level of success of the programme and the leadership. Pragmatic assessment of adversary's assets and strategies is of great help in clinching victory. Once the political confrontation develops into violent clashes quality of arms and equipment in the arsenal of the parties will dominate the result of the encounter. Babar's victory in the war of Panipath through the use of field guns is an eminent example in this case. The result may drastically change if one side resorts to guerrilla tactics because big hard wares are rendered useless in such warfare. Contour of the struggle may have to be redacted to suit the strength and weakness of the strategy adopted.
An axiomatic statement should be borne in mind while making an effort to reconcile political principles and strategies or to read the dynamics of the variables in order to lead the analysis to a logical conclusion: in its final stage any political confrontation, particularly a confrontation involving power politics, is likely to assume the character of a war. A movement at the national level to realise fundamental human rights or to do away with exploitation and persecution or establish (or restoration of) democracy or to effect self-rule in its culmination stage is prone to turn into a life-and-death struggle between the adversarial groups. The press release of the parties may be articulate and euphemistic in the initial stage. As the confrontation rolls on both the parties start using violence as an instrument to squabash the opponent. Power struggle degenerates into a war with limited bloodshed. Nothing is considered wrong in this game. Killing the members of the opponent group is trumpeted as a heroic job. Loss of life and property comes to be a part of the episode. The defeated group by and large flees away their neighbourhood as if like the defeated group in the ancient Greek elections.
The only way out from such a catastrophic situation is to introduce pristine liberal democratic regime in the country. In this dispensation an inclusive consensus is reached between the parties through intense discussion and debate. The warring groups may prepare a road map to resolve the conflict in the short and long run through mutual understanding and a policy of give and take. It is possible to engender an apparently peaceful environment for a short time by trouncing the adversaries. Such peace is often not enduring because it contains the seed of instability in the core. Lasting peace can only be built on abiding understanding through free and frank discourse. That will augur well for all the citizens.
Dr. Saadat Husain is a former chairman of Public Service Commission. saadathusain@yahoo.com
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