Untold Facts

Not Even Two!

Five minutes
The front page news headlines in some of the 14th October Dhaka dailies were that the bill for life long security and VIP treatment of the successive generations of the Mujib’s progeny at home and abroad at the cost of public exchequer presented to the Sangsad (Parliament) on the 5th having gone through the select committee was passed very smartly at the ‘supersonic speed’ in the shortest ever time of five minutes in the Sangsad on the 13th evening (5:15 to 5:20 P.M) in presence of the leader of the House and the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. That should remind older men and women that about 35 years ago in 1975, on the 25th January, another such notorious bill was passed in the still notoriously historic session of 13 minutes of the Bangladesh Sangsad, eight minutes longer than the 14th October time taken by the then Prime Minister turned immediately President (of the State and the party), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s biological father. In both instances the brute majority worked wonders just as the BBC fame retired journalist Mr. Serajur Rahman had coined for them the term, ‘HUQQA HUAR DAL’ (Blind followers).

Repeated notoriety
The notoriety of the 25th January 1975 had little resistance but from among only two dissenting members who resigned from the Sangsad in protest on moral ground. The courage of those two honorable members (one is till alive) in face of the brute majority had been their ethical and moral stance for pluralism and democracy against absolutism and lone party BAKSAL dictatorship. The microscopic minorities of two among three hundred members and against the fascist brute majority were proved soon right in about seven months in mid August 1975 for that brought back pluralism and multi-party democracy in Bangladesh in tune with the common aspirations of the people inter alias national proud heritage and dignity of the historic Muslim nation.

Brute majority
The brute majorities of 2009 Sangsad have not had even two members of guts this time on the unlucky 13th October for rising on moral ground to protest another morally bankrupt matter so far as democracy is concerned. What happened to the few known leftists curiously on this moral issue of national concern? Well, they have only one head above their necks! They could possibly dare had they have two heads above their necks just as the lone independent member tried to seek for elicitation of public opinion but backed down almost immediately for the same fearful reason. There may be another argument too.

Yet to realize
The Bengali Nation as they are used propound is still incomplete one for at least the 80 million Bengalis are still out side the framework of the Bangladeshi Bengali nation. Could any of the left and possible incumbent in immediate future materialize all Bengalis nearly 250 million under one flag in the region and around that remain unfulfilled as yet after 1971, at least one of them would have bright chance to become another father of the whole Bengali nation. A new father of course and his future progeny would then have life long security just as Mujib’s progeny had from the 13th October. Why should the prospective left Bengali Nationalist loose the likely fatherly privileges to accrue from in such case in future ahead?

The left
The left politicians are clever enough and certainly keep themselves up with development taking place around in the open rivalry of China and India in the Arunachal area not far away from the Bengali-speaking people. Should Arunachal fall in the grip of China sometime in near future, the bigger left aligned Bengali nation would be a more likely than the Bangladeshi Bengali speaking nation and so more likely a father from among the left for the total of 250 million or so stronger Bengali nation. The transitory father as is made now by Sheikh Hasina would then obviously vanish in the air. That might have been the argument of the ‘left’ members. They could confirm or may not for political expediency of own choice.

National moral pride doomed
However, for the time being it remains a matter of shame that in moral terms the Sangsad failed to stand up to what the nation would aspire in the matter for Muslim majority people of Bangladesh cannot accept any one as its national ‘Father’. If they could they would better have the Great Prophet in the position, but that is not permissible in the faith of Islam. The rest that followed in the security act based on the premise of the ‘Father’, apart from its financial burden on the poor people, remained here as an worst example against the spirit and norm of democracy that certainly the moral and the sane people anywhere in the world would measure us in the matter very lowly in their fair estimation so long as the act is not rescinded sooner than latter.

Author: Dr.M.T. Hussain