Restoring political morality

By bringing to book the assassins of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh has demonstrated its commitment to the rule of law, to the spirit of secular politics and to principled societal behaviour.

SYED BADRUL AHSAN

THE assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman marked the successful culmination of a conspiracy which was essentially hatched in the days of the Bengali struggle for liberation from Pakistan in 1971. The political elements that were observed to be reaping the benefits of the 1975 coup were those who had in 1971 held on for long to the belief that despite all the atrocities carried out by the Pakistani military in Bangladesh, it would yet be possible for Dhaka and Islamabad to stay together in the form of a political confederation. The plan, as history has testified, did not succeed, to the relief of the people of Bangladesh.

The August 1975 assassinations, which were followed three months later by the murder in prison of four pre-eminent leaders of the Bangladesh independence movement and members of the Mujibur Rahman Government, were fundamentally a triumph of counter-revolution. Indeed, it was much worse. It was a clear regression, given that the men who usurped power once Bangabandhu had been assassinated lost little time in proclaiming their allegiance to policies which had long defined the nature of politics in pre-1971 Pakistan. The first and by far the most significant casualty of the coup was the set of political principles which had gone into the creation of Bangladesh. Secularism had been beaten black and blue; socialism was on the run; democracy was bloodied; and even nationalism was about to be tampered with. That was how the retreat of Bangladesh began, and in the years which followed 1975, military and quasi-military regimes made certain that Bangladesh politics stayed removed a good distance from what it used to be in the years in which it reflected the ethos of the country.

History remains witness to the many distortions, the varied embarrassments that Bangladesh was put through for 21 years after the killing of Bangabandhu. A sense of the unreal dominated the political arena. Bangabandhu's assassins, protected by a notorious Indemnity Ordinance that was incorporated into the country's Constitution, were rewarded for their dark deeds through absorption in the nation's diplomatic and other services. Internally, the country saw the return to centre-stage, with not a little arrogance, of all those political elements who had vehemently opposed Bangladesh's freedom from Pakistan. Briefly, between 1975 and 1996, at the official level, a degree of Pakistanisation governed Bangladesh politics. But all of that did little to dampen the secular aspirations of the nation. The spontaneity of political support for the Awami League, progress in the arts and an emphasis on liberal, secular education were constant reminders that the mayhem of 1975 had hardly scratched the Bengali nature of the state and society.

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Pro-independence activists stage a demonstration on a Dhaka street on March 23, 1971. This photograph was taken by Asahi Shimbun correspondent Tetsuo Kawamura, who smuggled out the film in the face of strict restrictions but was later expelled by Pakistani authorities from what was then East Pakistan.

That is why, over the years, the demand that the assassinations of 1975 be inquired into gathered momentum. There was a simple case of morality involved here. Here was a group of killers going free, indeed enjoying the bounties of the state, without the administration calling them to account. But - and here comes the sad part - it was not expected that the men and women who found themselves in positions of political power or influence once Mujibur Rahman was killed would undertake the task of correcting the manifest wrong done to the country in 1975. The reason was patent: all the regimes between August 1975 and June 1996 were, directly or otherwise, consciously or unconsciously, beneficiaries of that violent political change.

It thus became necessary for politics to be steered to a course where it would become possible for the state to reverse the negativism that was introduced in 1975. The argument was simple enough: without a trial of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh could not expect to be governed by democracy, for in the end democracy is based on the very broad concept of the rule of law. A nation which allows itself to be pushed into the sidelines by unscrupulous men commandeering politics is not one that looks for rainbows across the horizon. That was the underlying message which was endlessly reinforced in the years after the passing of Bangladesh's founding father from the scene.

NOW that the men accused of having perpetrated the tragedy of August 1975 have been tried and found guilty, it is for the people of Bangladesh to take pride in themselves and in the Government they elected in June 1996 to serve their cause. The essential argument that can be made today is that justice has prevailed in Bangladesh. In a larger perspective, it is the generally held opinion that through a trial of the assassins in an open, regular court of law, Bangladesh has clearly demonstrated to the rest of the world its commitment to the rule of law, to the fundamental spirit of secular politics and, in the end, to principled societal behaviour. The verdict of the judiciary is more than an instance of poetic justice at work. It is, in more ways than one, a reaffirmation of the idea that when evil men strike at decency, the forces of history hold out the assurance that sooner or later, all dark deeds will be investigated and all men who are inclined to rip apart the fabric of society must answer before the law and before public opinion.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination was a precursor to more evil. Hundreds of soldiers died or were killed in coups that were attempted periodically; political leaders began to be carted off to jail on a regular basis; student politics took on a vehemence which could only end in terrible violence. After August 1975, Bangladesh was for years in danger of turning into a banana republic; coups d'etat became fashionable, senior military officers were killed in the repeated struggles for power and bureaucrats and faceless politicians came to dominate the social scene. Political parties began to be born under the guiding hands of dictators, and loyalty and adherence to political principles became an elastic affair. Integrity took a beating once the killings of 1975 came to pass.

The sentences passed on the men who caused the tragedy of 1975 are, therefore, intimations of the Bengali readiness to roll back the forces of anti-history. They are one more reminder of the thought, as true in Bangladesh as elsewhere, that nations survive if they have the courage and the ability to recognise wrong, and then do the right. The people of Bangladesh have done the right thing. It is a particularly happy thought that it was an Awami League Government that ushered in politics of a morally upright kind in 1972, and another Awami League administration that restored the moral high ground to in Bangladesh in 1998.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Minister (Press) at the Bangladesh High Commission in London and a columnist for Bangladesh newspapers.

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