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Need for consolidation of democratic culture in Bangladesh
Dr. Taiabur Rahman
After the restoration of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh in 1991, the people expected a better form of governance than the previous semi-military regimes. People at present are bewildered and disenchanted with the rule of democratically elected government and thoughtless politicisation of everything and inability to govern. The elected government has failed to perform the very basic functions of governance i.e. ensuring law and order, establishing social justice and collecting revenue. Bangladesh has achieved electoral democracy through participatory elections but its ambition to elevate herself as a liberal democracy remains a dream.
Although Bangladesh has achieved improvements in socio-economic spheres, law and order deteriorated owing to confrontational politics and rampant corruption persists. Bangladesh has been ranked 17th among 60 weak states. However, this points to the underperformance and many failings of Bangladesh, as a democracy.
But this personal sense of trust is shaky. Low levels of interpersonal trusts also promote factionalism and consolidate hierarchy and formal rules in organizations including political parties.
One of the numerous manifestations of hierarchy in Bangladesh society is patron-client relationship between two parties. Those people who have control over the mode of production, resource accumulation and resource distribution in the state are the patrons and the rest are clients. People of higher rank are accorded the right to extract labour, services and deference from the people of lower rank. People of lower rank in turn can expect material and other forms of support from their patrons. Thus the system is hierarchically structured.
Although Bangladesh is not inflicted with any major socio-economic cleavage, individual and group interest conflicts in its unique mode are present. If someone is convinced that his/her interest achievement is threatened by someone or group, he/she immediately tries to blacken the image of the opponent and tends to form another group for furthering his/her own interests. Rivalry and vulgar in-fighting has become commonplace in every walk of life in Bangladesh, including students’ organizations, political parties, NGOs (non-government organization), teachers’ associations, journalists’ groups, labour unions, lawyers’ forums, chambers of commerce and industries etc.
This situation can be attributed to the interest conflicts of the contending parties and their affinity with politics. This sort of conflicts and factionalism may be attributed mainly to uneven race among numerous contenders. In the political arena, defection of political leaders from one party to another and factionalism are widespread. Likewise, all political parties in Bangladesh are chronically plagued with factionalism. Apart from these explicit factions, there are covert factions and conflicts within parties.
Corruption in the form of nepotism, favouritism, and bribery has become institutionalised in every walk of social life in Bangladesh. Corruption has become so rampant that the Transparency International has branded Bangladesh as the most corrupt nation for five consecutive years. A small elite group, which is intertwined with one another, share the fruit of corruption among themselves at the cost of national advancement. Even the social value system, which once looked down upon corrupt persons, is on the verge of extinction. Inadequate salary is another reason for dishonesty in Bangladesh.
Tadbir is a useful lubricant to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, which accelerates the speed of getting things done. If someone refuses to entertain tadbir he/she is sure to be criticized and abhorred by friends and relatives. People at large do not believe that their fellow citizens are engaged in politics for reason of mutual benefits for society. There are large numbers of professional collective bargaining agents; NGOs are tinged with political pigment. Low interpersonal trust leads to centralization of authority
In general the Bangladeshis do possess a low and declining degree of trust in their political institutions and political leaders. All the political institutions including the bureaucracy, political parties, media, the parliament, the police and the courts to some extent are politicized and hence the common people hold their credibility and performance in low esteem. People rather demonstrate relatively high trust in non-partisan Caretaker Government. No incumbent government enjoys public trust to hold a free and fair election because all the governments invariably have been charged with rigging and irregularities in elections.
In the political arena, compromise hardly takes place between the parties. The relationship between the ruling party and the opposition is characterized by a high degree of animosity and conflict. The party in power looks upon the opposition with suspicion. The major two parties abhor and demonise each other and the chiefs of these parties have not been in talking terms with each other since the restoration of democratic governance in Bangladesh in 1991.
In fact the history of opposition political parties in Bangladesh is the history of oppression, intimidation and police harassment by the incumbent government. Innumerable instances can be given of how laws and the process of justice have been applied to humiliate political opponents. The political oppositions are suppressed, silenced and managed by hard measures like police harassment or threats by mastans. Consequently, the opposition oppose everything proposed by government. National consensus on major national issues i.e. form of local government, foreign policy, appointment of incumbents in constitutional bodies, effective running of parliament etc. between the ruling party and the major opposition is virtually absent.
Each major political party is headed by a person who is all-powerful in the management of the party including the formation of central and executive committee. The party structure and committees are filled by nomination and not by election. The basic qualification to get nomination in the parliamentary election is not party loyalty, political experience and commitment but wealth, influence and blessings of the central leadership. Leaders need the reassurance of admiring followers. The followers are in turn dependent as they seek the security of either an understanding guru. Intra-party dissent is almost prohibited.
The cultural pattern of the notion of accountability is ambiguous and bewildering in society. Patron-client relations profoundly affect the activation of accountability mechanisms in Bangladesh. The relationship between father-children, teacher-student, senior official-subordinate official, landlord-tenant, rich farmer-marginal peasant, educated-uneducated, ruling party-opposition party, the prime minister-the leader of the opposition are based on the key notion of superior-inferior. There remains no viable mechanism for ensuring accountability of the senior or patron and hence no effective sanction is devised for them. This discrimination is prevalent and accepted across the whole society.
A hierarchical system cannot sustain social trust and cooperation for the whole society. Consequently, mutual trust is absent. The politicians, loan-defaulters, businessmen, parliamentarians, bureaucrats belong to a small elite group to serve the interest of one another. There is no capitalist class in the country that can strive to hold a brake on the executive from indulging in corruption.
Bangladesh’s population growth is indeed worrying; her population would double to 280 million at the current rate of growth by 2080 and reach 180 million as early as 2020. The challenge for this country in this area is understandable. But population control has featured not in a suitable manner in the list of priorities of the government. The population problem is bound to cause great damage. Caution requires for effective steps in this area to check growth; or else a huge challenge would counteract the gains of economic development in decades.
Some quarters do not consider the extent of the problem of overpopulation facing Bangladesh. They do it pointing at the agricultural productivity; there are limits to productivity. The country’s mounting land scarcity caused by conflicting demands of housing and industrialisation can make the problem severe. There is no sector that is not being strained by the burden of overpopulation. The stress on the economy would increase if the population grows unrestricted at the current rate of 1.48 per cent a year.
Bangladesh is extremely overpopulated (140 million people inhabit in a land of 144,000 sq. km) and an underdeveloped society where widespread disparity and discrimination coexist in dealing with the seniors/superiors. The tradition of accommodating and sharing power with others is virtually absent. The superior groups/parties on the other hand tend to suffer from losing their predominant positions and thus resort to all sorts of oppressive measures to weaken and destroy the opposition’s strength. The junior parties also take on all sorts of legal or illegal measures to upset the superiors’ position. The ‘winner takes all’ attitude of the superiors is reflected not only in behaviour of the superior towards the juniors but also in setting rules for running all the major institutions in the country. The rules are heavily biased in favour of the powerful/superior parties/groups in the society. Moreover, due to lack of trust across society, relationship remains in a small coterie group made up of politicians, businessmen, parliamentarians, bureaucrats to serve the interest of one another. Thus there is no interested party (barring the opposition) left in the country that can strive to hold a brake on the executive’s indulgence in corruption. Thus the country’s destructive political culture is a serious threat to ushering democratic ethos among the citizenry as well as a serious hindrance to strengthening and consolidation of democratic governance.
The writer is Assistant Professor, Development studies, Dhaka University.
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