Politics has become worse, no escape from it yet: Badiur Rahman

This excerpt is from 'Zero Sum Game', a talk show hosted by TBS Executive Editor Shakhawat Liton. The guest for this edition of the show was Badiur Rahman, former secretary and chairman of NBR, and a political analyst. Reviewing the government's first six months since February's election, Rahman argued that reconciliation, of the kind Begum Khaleda Zia attempted in 2003, is overdue. On the economy, he warned that entrenched syndicates, faltering utilities and an unchanged bureaucracy mean neither relief for households nor fresh investment has yet arrived.

Six months in, is the country better off than before?

If you compare it with the Yunus period, then yes, it is better than before, and people are relatively more at ease. The mob attacks and the sieges of one institution after another have eased somewhat, because an elected government brings an initial sense of relief. But the fear has not gone; I am still living in it myself. For it to lift fully, the political will has to be there, and that is not yet complete. 

At least the mob attacks have eased somewhat now. The habit of surrounding an institution at the slightest pretext, forcing you out, and having people removed, has lessened a little, because a government elected by the people does bring an initial sense of relief.

After the elected government came in, the prime minister was, at the outset, able to put on a charismatic show through his own personal conduct and bearing, and it is not merely a show; he is acting on it. He takes little protocol and comes to the office in a simple dress. 

President Zia used to arrive in a plain safari shirt and canvas pump shoes; I worked directly with him and saw it as a junior officer, and this prime minister has carried that a step further. It does not go quite as far as the T-shirt look of Zelensky, but the plainer, more restrained style is a good thing. He even took his daughter to a cinema hall to watch a film.

But the real question now is how far he can keep the party under his own control while moving forward by reading the public mood. That is the vital question, because people's expectations are very high. When the immediate past has been filled with the most abominable deeds, and then someone new arrives, the expectations placed on him only rise all the higher.

Is our politics still the zero-sum, win-or-lose game it always was?

It has become worse. I call it hawk politics. The hawk watches from high above, swoops, and carries off its prey; and if it cannot seize millions, it settles for a twig. Politics has turned into a business. That is where we are, and there is no escape from it yet.

So over the past six months, has there been no qualitative change in the language of politics, in the body language of the politicians?

No, there has not. Though, to be fair, Tarique Rahman did make an attempt at a qualitative change. He went to Dr Shafiqur Rahman's house, he met Nahid Islam, and he spoke about these things. And what he has been saying ever since is that Dr Shafiqur Rahman keeps crying "fraud, fraud" about the family card and the farmer's card, saying at every turn that these are bogus, that this is just his politics, the sort of thing one is obliged to say.

But he is indeed implementing them, so calling them bogus is beside the point. The real technique is this: at the end of the day, how much of "July" will you take up? Those who now sit as the opposition — I do not call them the opposition; I still will not, because as luck would have it these are the very forces that opposed independence in 1971, and it is only because you kept the Awami League shut out that they have come in on so many seats. 

"A government comes to power and, on the very first night, before it sleeps, it is already calculating what it must do to win the election five years away. Govern that way and you can never do good work. Far better to say: I will serve this single term, I will finish these few tasks whether they make me popular or unpopular, and let the next election follow as the logical consequence."

Have we forgotten Khaleda Zia's last term? Bombs went off on a single day, in one span of time, in 63 of the 64 districts. Bombs went off in the courtrooms of judges. 

Do we not remember a "hero" called Bangla Bhai, men strung up in trees head-down and feet-up, and the arrest of a man named Shaikh Abdur Rahman? Under whose rule did these forces rise, and how?

So now, when some gas-like device or makeshift bomb goes off somewhere — a cocktail bomb turning up here and there, as we saw in the news a day or two ago — why should that be happening? It happens because someone wants to create instability. Those who have crossed over from Jamaat into the opposition will make an all-out push to swallow the BNP itself and seize power. 

Mark my words. Ever since Ziaur Rahman gave Golam Azam back his citizenship and rehabilitated them after 1971, they have advanced step by step, inch by inch. See how they threaded themselves like a needle into Begum Zia's cabinet, and how, slowly, they have now installed themselves as a force within parliament. 

Let us turn to the economy. How much relief has actually reached ordinary people?

Inflation is said to have come down, but prices in the market have not, and no relief has reached people. Only last week I went to buy a sweet toast I have bought for years, always a full kilogram, from a big shop in Mirpur; this time I bought half. The shopkeeper, who has known me for three years, asked why, and I told him: the tin used to say Tk240, and from the first of July you have marked it 260, blaming wages and the electricity bill — so I too will make my little economy and eat less. 

That is the arithmetic ordinary people are being forced into. And the syndicates are still effective — otherwise why does a good that is cheap at source cost so much by the time it reaches the city? Load it onto a van, then a truck, add the cost and a fair margin, and the sums simply do not come to these prices. 

Family cards and safety nets, meanwhile, risk becoming a way to pad the voter rolls. The capacity to control the market is still not there.

Is that not what the falling-inflation figures are supposed to capture?

The figures mean little to the people who matter most. A villager does not understand the word "inflation." What he works out is whether, if he carries a pair of coconuts to the nearby haat and sells them, the money will buy what his household needs and still leave a little to bring home. 

That is the only calculation that counts for him, and relief has not yet reached it. The lower-income and the poor are being pushed hardest, and an entire class risks being made dependent on hand-outs — which is a poor substitute for prices people can actually meet.

Why does no government build a firm administration that could control this?

Because of a habit I have watched throughout our political history. A government comes to power and, on the very first night, before it sleeps, it is already calculating what it must do to win the election five years away. Govern that way and you can never do good work. 

Far better to say: I will serve this single term, I will finish these few tasks whether they make me popular or unpopular, and let the next election follow as the logical consequence. We have not yet learned to govern like that, and until we do, the market and the syndicates will run ahead of the state.

It was said that after the election, stability would bring investment. Do you see it?

I see no investment yet. Anyone putting in money — foreign or domestic — looks first at infrastructure: whether electricity, gas and water are reliable. Then at security — whether a mob will one day seize or smash what cost them crores. Then at political stability. Stability has improved and the fear of mobs is lower, but investors think in the long term, and above all they watch energy, and ours is faltering. 

In the villages the power goes several times a night, and people compare it to the load-shedding of the BNP's last term. Until these factors work, the money will not come.

How have you found the bureaucracy over these six months?

I see no change. The government is occupying the local bodies — taking mayoral posts without a vote, seating its own people across the councils, placing political appointees in institutions on the argument that "political blood" will improve them. 

Slide back into the old politicisation and the civil service simply reads the wind. A minister must know his ministry well enough that the secretary, looking him in the eye, understands he cannot be managed. And people do not want ostentatious honesty without results — they will take the officer who actually gets their work done over the one who prays five times a day but delivers nothing. 

Strong hire-and-fire, and capable officials properly guided: that is what delivers, and it is not yet in place.

What are the major challenges ahead, in politics and in the economy?

In politics, whether you will use genuine political will to guarantee equal rights to every party. That means the Awami League ban and whether you will allow truly non-partisan local elections instead of occupying the councils. 

In the economy, whether you can break the syndicates and the roadside extortion, and finally deliver the good governance we still lack. And find the courage to break up Dhaka: take the one good thing Ershad did — decentralisation, the upazila system, benches of the High Court in the divisions and spread workplaces across the country. 

Do that, and much of the congestion, and much of the trouble, will ease.