Untold Facts

Auspicious 25th January but not without fear

That the 9th parliament convened to meet in its maiden session on the 25th January is undoubtedly an auspicious occasion for Bangladesh. The session has to transact many usual businesses in addition to the unusual and unconstitutional ones of the transition from the ‘Caretaker Government’ to the elected one.

People of Bangladesh though love democratic polity to continue unhindered in the country, sad experience and trauma of painful interruptions had been odd experience in the past and time and again. People would expect that the traumatic past experience of misfortune in the path of democracy would not fall on the nation any more.

The fear generates not without reason. The brute majority established, no matter for whatever reason, in the 9th parliament could be the first evil omen.

Brute majority is nothing new in Bangladesh. We had quite a few that clearly showed that our people represented by voters swung from one extreme end of the pendulum to the other extreme. Why, that’s a different matter for possibly the sociologists and psychologists to venture into in some depth. My hunch as a life long educator for over five decades and an interested onlooker in such socio-psychological matter is that ignorance, poverty, unemployment and immature democratic cultural outlook might have some bearing in such landslides giving in to brute majority.

If we take the sad experience of the brute majority secured in 1973 by the then ruling party in the first general election after independence, incidentally that the same party has secured brute majority in 2009, had had killed pluralism and multi-party democracy in less than two years time in the state power.

On the 25th January 1975, or in about twenty two months after the 1973 ‘landslide’ victory, the ruling party and the leader, in particular, turned himself almost abruptly from the facade of democratically elected leader into an absolute dictator

On the 25th January 1975 the charismatic leader of the time in a duly convened session of the parliament that followed the Constitution of 1972, first of its kind in independent Bangladesh, took the floor of the house all by himself. He continued his speech for only thirteen minutes wherein he announced some measures for the future politics of the country that took almost all members of the parliament of the brute majority by utter surprise. The other surprise was that none other than the leader was permitted to speak anything on the floor.

The leader of the House took not only everybody in surprise but more than that he also drove the last nail into the coffin remnant of democracy and pluralism. Well known for the earlier decades as the ‘champion’ of democracy, people rediscovered him afresh as the brutal killer of democracy by his declaring edict from the floor of the house in those few minutes speech banning of all lawful political parties and remaking his one from the Awami League to the BAKSAL or Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League. The edict further went on for him leaving the position of Prime Minister and then assumed instead the absolute position of the President of the party and of the country for life. The brute majority provided him the tool for being such a brutal killer of pluralism and democracy. None of the brute majority party raised any voice of dissent in the floor that was their sacred duty to do. Whether any one had the courage of conviction for democratic norms remained a matter of mystery of our past history. The two exceptions did not belong to the brute majority party who dared to stay out of the house and resigned but not without risk of being intimidated and hoodwinked.

Fortunately for the people, the draconian BAKSAL did not survive long. Some heroic sons of the soil in about seven months’ life of the absolute dictatorship took up arms and removed the killer of democracy and the absolute dictator that the people obviously rejoiced. That is how multi-party democracy had been restored for the people to enjoy all fruits of pluralism and dignity among civilized nations.

Although the people would wish to see pluralism and multi-party democracy to sustain in Bangladesh, many can not be out of fear that the brute majority would not once again do us the serious harm as before in days to come.

— Prof. M.T. Hussain