The New Nation - Internet Edition

FARMERS must receive agricultural inputs at market prices which again should reflect true value and must not be manipulated ones set by profiteers. Both the subsistence needs of farmers as well as surplus produce for the markets will suffer when such price distortions are rampant telling on agricultural productivity. But reports are being received from different parts of the country about high prices and scarcity of different agricultural inputs. The Boro rice crop, most important of the two main rice crops of the year, is grown in the winter months. Potatoes, wheat and some other food crops are also grown during this season. Seeds and fertilisers at affordable prices are very important for the successful cultivation of these crops.

But reports from various parts of the country suggest that farmers are getting constrained as they cannot apply enough urea fertiliser on their lands due to its high price when the same is indispensable for Boro rice cultivation. Farmers are also in peril for not getting well supplied with other fertilisers. They are similarly suffering from high prices of diesel when about 40 per cent of the power pumps used to irrigate fields for winter time cultivation of different crops, specially Boro rice, are run by diesel. The inability to ensure easy and affordable supply of different agricultural inputs is bound to impact negatively on agricultural output in the coming months and this might create a burden to go for large scale import to make up for the shortfall in produce. For averting such an outcome as well as for the benefit of the farmers and to meet the needs of the economy, it is important to give very urgent attention to the problems of high prices and scarcity of inputs.

Adequate supply of agricultural inputs at affordable prices to farmers has become extremely important in the backdrop of the series of devastating floods and cyclone that battered the country in a row recently. The Aman crop has perished extensively in many parts of the country. The loss of Aman rice is feared to the extent of some 3 million tonnes and even this figure is considered to be a conservative one. Only a very successful production of the Boro rice and other winter crops in the coming months can significantly help the farmers and the country to recover notably from the losses caused by the natural calamities. But full agricultural recovery depends so much on ensuring smooth supply of agricultural inputs to farmers both in terms of quantity and price. The present situation demands the launching of a social campaign to motivate the people not to leave even an inch of land empty and sow any crop ranging from rice, wheat and potato to sweet potato and other legumes with a view to achieving a dramatic change.

ACCORDING to an estimate, about 8,000 educational institutions-primary schools, high schools, colleges and madrasahs-have been damaged by the November 15 super cyclone that swept the south and southwestern coastal belt. Among them about 1,400 structures have been razed to the ground. Now these schools and colleges do not have rooms to hold classes. The tidal bore has also washed away books and education materials and equipment. This situation is in a way horrendous and undoubtedly hampers studies. The students even cannot sit for their final examinations for want of books and chairs, tables and benches. This is likely to hamper education among the students leading to increased dropouts. This might affect several batches of students in the coastal zone.

The government has adopted a massive rehabilitation plan to bring back normalcy, in the cyclone-affected areas. Education particularly remains under sharp focus of this plan. The government is going to repair and rebuild the educational institutes at an estimated cost of Tk 700 crore. In the specific situation of the coastal belts frequently battered by cyclones and tidal surges, these buildings need to be built for the dual purpose of education and using as cyclone shelters. The concept of using these buildings as cyclone shelters already exists. They are built on high columns with the lower part having no rooms or walls. These must be strong so that they can withstand the onslaughts of 20-22 feet high tidal surge. The buildings must also have overhead tanks to meet limited demand for water immediately after calamities. The tensile strength of the construction materials needs to be such as to dissipate any added impact of cyclone or tidal waves on the buildings.

The schools and colleges as well as their students should be supplied with books and necessary equipment free of costs to meet the present demand on an urgent basis. But this should not be confined to primary students only. As the students are not in a position to pay tuition fees, all other charges should, therefore, be written off. The government should also continue with the food for education programme to retain the students at schools. If these measures are taken, they are likely to ensure quality and continuity of education in the cyclone-battered coastal districts. It is hoped that implementation of the government plan on a priority basis would remove uncertainty that looms over education in the areas under distress and bring back confidence among the students and their guardians.

T.A.M. Nurul Basher

Pressure is mounting though slowly upon the interim government to hold early election. While BNP led 4 party coalitions being the aggrieved party at the undesirable (for them) turn of events appears to becoming restless, the Al lead 14 grand alliance is showing patience but asking for early election. The foreign missions while asking for early election are also adding that the election should be credible.

Few things should be considered as to what constitute a credible election. Will participation by all political parties make an election credible? What are the aims and objectives of an election? Do we not need to see how far short we fall from the desired goal of an election by conducting the same in anyway? Our aim is to have an elected government who will deliver good governance. How to ensure good governance and how to ensure free and willing participation by the people? Once these matters are addressed properly we can then go on to think for a credible election?

Very recently the honourable Adviser for Law and Parliamentary affairs has said the present government has not come as a catalytic agent to assist one group or the other to capture state power through a hasty election. Election is not only for the political parties and their leaders. Election is for the people and without them there is no election. The honourable Adviser has expressed the mind of the people of the country prevailing today. Our political parties have invented a new kind of engineering course. This course in not taught in any educational institute but taught and practiced within the political parties themselves. The name of this engineering is Election Engineering. The excellence of the engineering lies in the fact wherein popular participation is not required in any election provided the engineering is done right. And our political leaders have destroyed our judiciary, civil service, police service, Election Commissions and Anti Corruption Commission to achieve super success in election engineering. The money for destruction of these institutions has been looted from the people's treasury. Almost all our political parties be that JP of HM Ershad, AL or the 4 party alliance of BNP have contributed to this crime more or less. All of them want a quick election. They need to sit on to the throne of heaven as soon as possible.

But what the people want? Why they need an election?

Democracy has been achieved as a freedom for governance by the people, of the people and for the people and it is the result of bloody struggle of the people all over the globe for centuries starting from the signing of the Magna Carta by King Jhon of England, French Revolution of late 18th century and lastly for us the bloody War of Liberation, 1971. We need to have some fundamental changes from the rules of monarchs and dictators. Through election the people send their representatives to form a government to achieve the following.

- Civil rights for all

- To ensure good governance

- To spend the tax money for the people in a judicious manner

- The representative government will not spend the peoples money for themselves and

nor shall they allow anyone else do as such

- They will provide security to the citizens by curbing crime

- Secure the safety of the country against external aggression and internal subversion

- Ensure equitable distribution of wealth

- Shall open the door for production and thus ensure job creation for the public and thus drive the country towards progress and peace.

By any standard of good governance all our political parties who were in the seat of power have failed miserably. They have lost all credibility to run the country. The 9 years of autocratic rule and 15 years of misgovernance by the so called democratic leaders have brought our life to a choacked condition. They have institutionalised corruption so that they can loot the peoples' wealth in perpetuity. We need to try and punish them for the crime of destruction of state institutions through a tribunal set up for this purpose. The Chief Adviser has rightly said that he desires that the country be run by people of knowledge and capability. To achieve that end he has to remove all hurdles in their path of stepping into national politics. We have to call them to participate in building the nation and preserve the same from enemies both from outside and from within.

Irrespective of the fact whether this government has taken up the present responsibility upon their shoulder willingly or the peoples will have been trust upon them, they have to clean up the mess created through the 24 years of misrule and also they have to clean the country of these undesirable elements who have created the mess. Only when this sacred task has been completed the government can think of the next election. Almost every day the general public and the civil society are voicing the reforms necessary. The interim government has to complete all these before they can think of handing over the state craft to some one else.

Since almost every party is centered on a person and is not established on democratic principles and they run their operation as such, democracy is not practiced in any party. Political party reformation is also required. The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam has rightly said that under the changed circumstances the political parties will have to go into self-criticism and they should cleanse themselves to make themselves credible for next election. The proposal is a good one no doubt. But it is futile to think that they will go into an episode of self correction, within next year or two and make themselves capable to deliver good governance. It may not be right to expect that these parties will be able to keep themselves fit against the onslaught expected to befallen upon them in the cleansing drive about to be taken up by the Emergency government. The government has to regulate the political parties by promulgating a political party's Act so that the parties become democratic, responsible and oriented to public welfare. Subsequently this Ordinance will be included in the Constitution.

Therefore the next election preparation has to be taken in hand by keeping it in mind that the existing parties will not be qualified to participate in the next election. Nor it would be possible to patronise new parties within this 2 years period as the political activities will remain suspended. Therefore the next election has to be on non party basis.

Non party basis election, parliament and government may be a new concept but in no way it is impractical. We have two years time in hand and we can frame out the non party government within this period.

It is true that ultimately we have to handover the state to the hands of the party based elected governments. However we have to prepare the parties in the line of capability to good governance. We must understand that while political parties prepare for election and subsequently run a government, they also have to run the party as an educational institution where new leadership will grow for future.

With all these preparatory work by the interim government and the subsequent non party government we can justly expect that the party based government which will govern the country from the year 2014 onwards will present the nation good governance.

Therefore our proposal is that the next election will be in 2009 and it has to be on non-party basis.

M.T.Hussain

Yet another new political party is born in Bangladesh on the 4th December (07). The party named Bangladesh Kalyan Party (BKP) is headed by self-appointed for three years all on by himself as President, retired Major General Syed Mohammad Ibrahim.

The party has set many lofty objectives that might attract many aspirants for position and power. Personally, I would say good luck to the retired General. But one thing amused me. The party president has accepted three national heroes- Maolana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and General Ziaur Rahman. I was amused because, some time earlier when another group launched another political party, Bangladesh Progressive Party (PDP), they declared five as their party national heroes of importance. They have these three accepted by the BKP plus Sher E Bangla AK Fazlul Haq and Hossain Shahid Sohawardy. I tried to rationalize their choices for national heroes and wish to make my own observation.

The PDP that accepted the five heroes took their appreciation of past history beginning from 1940s and the BKP further trimmed that down the period to 1971. Such trimming down of past history by these two parties should raise other pertinent question. Is Bangladesh a nation that has no long past? Did the nation have her entity just only sixty or 36 years back? How far is the trimming acceptable to the people of the country? To me trimming down of our past history in the way they made would not be acceptable to the people in their average wisdom.

Modern and advanced nations trace back their history in the past as far as they can have evidence and documents. Even the black Africans who had been slaves in the USA and Europe only about one hundred or so years back have in the recent times looking back into their 'Roots'. Why should we as such forget our well documented past heroes in proud history, if not of thousands years back but at last of some centuries back?

The area that forms post 1971 Bangladesh in geographical term stayed here for several thousands years not as a composite national entity but as peoples' settlements. The concept of nation and national State is not that old a concept. Some rightly maintain that it is only recently that Europe taught us the modern concept of nation and national state in geographical term. Muslims, however, believe differently. Muslims had been a nation from the days of the holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who himself founded the nation state of Medina, not only for the Muslims but also for all other people, believers and non believers alike in the early part of the 7th century A.D.

In the geographical locality of present Bangladesh Muslims had established welfare state almost from the beginning of the 14th century during the reign of Shamsuddin Elias Shah. Despite some ups and downs, the Muslim welfare state, despite feudal framework of society, continued in this area until the debacle of the Battle of Pallassey in 1757 A.D. The British period (1757-1947) had been the most unfortunate one for subjugation when many heroes played important and crucial roles for our liberation and unchaining shackles of our freedom. Some of them are Fakir Maznu Shah, Titumir, Haji Shaiatullah etc. Later on, in the early twentieth century, Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka played still more decisive role for freedom through establishing the All India Muslim League in 1906 that in 1947 gave us the geographical entity as is the present one now known as Bangladesh. Had there been no Muslim League, there would not have been anything of Bangladesh. Well, the geographical entity would now obviously be part of West Bengal of the Indian Union. What then would be our future in the whole Indian context or at least in the united Bengal context of the pre-1947 mode need be pondered little intelligently and in some depth. Muslims representation in higher education and in educated employed jobs in India is not more than 1% having Muslim population at nearly 15%. Muslims in West Bengal (India) constitute 25% of the total population but Muslims' access to higher education and educated employment is just about 2%. A recent poster of the TAMILNADU Muslims (TMMK) published in the weekly Holiday (Dhaka, November 30, 2007) quoted the then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Nehru in 1950 and repeated in 1954 stating, "I am distressed to find declining number of Muslims in services". The same poster has quoted the present seating Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohon Singh repeating after 57 years almost the same saying " I am distressed by the low representation of Muslims in jobs" in 2007. In appreciation of the glaring deprivation of the Muslims, only the Tamilnadu provincial government has recently offered 2.5% reservation of jobs for the minority Muslims in the 30% total quota reserved for all minorities in the state.

A section of the 'educated' (vocational preparation is not education but a narrow training for a paid job) men and women in this country refuse to look back in history, not even sixty years back to 1947, and is interested only in the present for immediate future 'gain'. Whereas, renowned historians maintain that one could see as much ahead of his/her people for if one would go back that far in the past. For any political leader, if one would wish for one's country/nation a bright future in distant ahead, it is only expected that he /she must look back as far as possible to see his/her nation's future ahead beyond one's shortsightedness for grater benefit of the incoming next progeny and after.

I wonder if the two party leaders, one holding a Ph.D. Degree and the other a brilliant student turned Major General (retired) of the Bangladesh Army entering initially though in the Pakistan Army in 1960s would find any logic in the argument I have put forward above. And if so, would they revise and expand their list of national heroes to make them credible and more acceptable to the people of Bangladesh having a long tradition of human values all sensible people rightly take pride in?