Kansat, Cricket and ï¿½Caretakerï¿½: Height of Regression and De-politicization of the Polity Taj Hashmi

Kansat, Cricket and ï¿½Caretakerï¿½: Height of Regression and De-politicization of the Polity

Taj Hashmi

Simon Fraser University, Canada

Published on May 03, 2006

The dust has settled on the cricket pitches in Bangladesh after the humiliating defeats of the home team by Sri Lankans and Australians in a row and the average Bangladeshi has forgotten the brutal massacre of innocent villagers at Kansat by Bangladeshi police in the midst of the ongoing debate on reforming the unique (and absurd) ï¿½Caretaker Governmentï¿½ to hold free and fair elections. This is an attempt to visualize what has gone wrong with the entire polity in every sphere of life through a prismatic compass. This apparently odd prism made of police brutality (and mass apathy), cricket mania and political chaos shows us our not-so-pleasant past, present and future. Witnessing the cricket fiasco and the hyper politicking over reforming the election machinery while Bangladeshi police were killing innocent villagers at Kansat is like visiting a nihilistic world of anarchy and absurdity.

What happened at Kansat, a rural hinterland in northern Bangladesh, during January and April 2006 would have toppled governments or at least brought about months long mammoth mass demonstrations, general strikes and total non-cooperation with the government for the brutal killing of twenty unarmed civilians everywhere in the civilized world. What is interesting that predecessors of these inert Bangladeshis on scores of occasions during the Pakistani period did never shy out from coming out on the street protesting police and eventually military brutalities on unarmed civilians, irrespective of their class and background. One may mention how the killing of less than half a dozen Dhaka University students by police firing on 21st February 1952 kept the millions of Bengalis restive, agitating, assertive and angry for about two decades against Pakistani ruling classes, which eventually led to the creation of Bangladesh. Similarly in 1969, Bengalis took a vow to avenge the killing of Asaduzzaman, Matiur Rahman, Dr Shamsuddoha and a few other Bengalis by Pakistani police and military. Cricket or elite power politics could never divert public attention from the real political issues of mass empowerment, dignity and eventually, freedom.

The Kansat Tragedy reveals most of our problems by turning Bangladesh inside out. Firstly, it reveals how neglected are the peasants and working classes in the psyche of the elites. Peasantsï¿½ getting electricity and fuel to run irrigation pumps seems to be the least important thing to them. Not only had the ruling coalition been indifferent to the Kansat peasantsï¿½ demands for unhindered supply of electricity and fuel, but the main opposition parties and the vast majority of the urban middle and upper classes also been indifferent, if not hostile, to their demands. From the general apathy of the vast majority of Bangladeshi elites across the board during and in the aftermath of the killing it appears that most of the elite never meant what they said about the ï¿½liberation of the peopleï¿½ before and after the creation of Bangladesh.

What was most disgraceful for the entire nation was the celebration of the ï¿½Kansat Victoryï¿½ by the ruling parties and the opposition after the so-called truce between aggrieved villagers and the government. The government did not take any disciplinary action against the killer policemen and yet everything seems to be normal throughout the country. Some intellectuals have even portrayed the peasant agitation and the subsequent brutal massacre of twenty-odd unarmed peasants as a ï¿½peasant revolutionï¿½.

The mass apathy towards the Kansat Tragedy, excepting a few general strikes by not-yet-been-corrupted students, indicates the state of mass de-politicization of the people. The vested interest groups either brain wash and hegemonize mass consciousness in the name of their parties or religion to keep them dormant/next worldly/depoliticized or to activate them politically through phony and divisive non-issues like ï¿½Bengaliï¿½ versus ï¿½Bangladeshiï¿½ or ï¿½pro-ï¿½ versus ï¿½anti-Liberationï¿½. Non-political distractions like playing Bangladesh in test and one-day cricket matches against leading cricket teams of the world have also been very efficacious in depoliticizing the masses. In short, besides being a red herring, cricket in Bangladesh is also a political football of the rival political elites.

One may find the simile, ï¿½political footballï¿½, offensive and unpalatable. However, a look into the history of cricket in the region reveals that contrary to the wrong perception, there is nothing so new about cricket in Bangladesh. Bengali youths have been playing the game at least since the 1860s while the game per se was introduced to Bengal about a hundred years before its arrival into the Punjab and Sri Lanka. So, the moment we see Bangladeshis over-celebrating their extremely few and far between cricket victories, we know something has gone wrong. One does not know how Bangladesh would celebrate a hypothetical victory in series of test and one-day matches against all the leading teams of the world in a year, including its winning the World Cup. We know the abysmal state of the infrastructure ï¿½ shortage of playgrounds, mass poverty and lack of physical fitness of the vast majority of the population due to low calorie intake ï¿½ Bangladesh is most likely to remain an underdog in the arena of games and sports. This, however, does not mean that one undermines the Bangladeshi cricketers for achieving whatever they have achieved during the past few years despite having so many problems and not having at least 500 cricket pitches for such a vast population.

What is under review here is not the state of cricket in the country but the political rhetoric and the psyche of the nation as developed during the last decades vis-ï¿½-vis the sport. The wild celebrations smacked of only the collective sense of disproportion and inferiority complex of the polity. Did Pakistan celebrate in the similar manner when it defeated India and England in the early 1950s and other leading teams afterwards? Sri Lankans also did not cross the line of decency after winning the World Cup and after so many victories against all the leading teams in the world. Sri Lankan leaders and elites did not nourish (let alone expose) any inferiority complex. One should not miss the not-so-hidden message in the Bangladeshi wild celebrations, which conveys the following: ï¿½Look, even we Bengalis can defeat Pakistan and Australiaï¿½. This is not similar to what the Japanese did after defeating the mighty Russians in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Figuratively, Bangladesh today is not another Japan against Russia. Bangladeshï¿½s defeating Pakistan or Sri Lanka, West Indies or India (let alone the tiny Zimbabwe) should not become such occasions of wild celebrations.

The cricket mania, a calculative distraction by politicians mainly to depoliticize urban youth, has been so successful that after the crushing defeat of non-test playing Kenya by test-playing Bangladesh, Bangladeshi dailies publicized the event (actually a non-event) as a ï¿½White Wash of Kenyaï¿½ in the front page. If this reflects some journalistsï¿½ immaturity and arrogance, a by-word for inferiority complex, then one does not know what is predicting an innings defeat for Australia, as the media did after Bangladesh had scored 400-odd runs in the first innings only to eventually lose the match to Australia.

The ongoing opposition demand for reforming the ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½ is another problematic move to resolve the problematic concept of ï¿½caretaker governmentï¿½, unheard of in the East and the West, to conduct free and fair parliamentary elections in the country. The Awami League-led Fourteen-Party-Alliance (thirteen of them having very negligible to no political clout at all) has been insisting on having a discussion with the ruling coalition to fine tune the ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½, but is adamant not to put their heads together with any member of the Jamaat-i-Islami, which is a part of the ruling coalition. So, apparently there are two tricky problems to resolve. First, fine tuning the ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½ and then doing it without any participation by the Jamaat. The opposition simply insists on not interacting with any War Criminals and collaborators of 1971.

The unaware may surmise: ï¿½So far so goodï¿½. However, those who are familiar with the recent past of Bangladesh during the last twenty-odd years know that top Awami League and Fourteen-Party-Alliance leaders, including Sheikh Hasina and Rashed Khan Menon among others, had absolutely no problem in hobnobbing with some top Jamaat leaders, including Matiur Rahman Nizami. Not only Sheikh Hasina and Nizami were together, holding joint meetings and rallies against the first BNP government of Khaleda Zia during 1991 and 1996, but there are also eye-witness accounts of Rashed Khan Menonï¿½s literally embracing Nizami in public meetings.

One may also point out that on the eve of the Presidential Election of 1991, Justice Badrul Haider Chowdhury, the Awami candidate, went to Ghulam Azamï¿½s residence (the Jamaat patriarch and controversial collaborator of the Pakistani occupation army in 1971) for his ï¿½blessingsï¿½ or political support as the Jamaat had thirty-odd MPs, more than ten per cent of the electorate. What is even more significant that the unheard of concept of an unelected ï¿½care taker governmentï¿½ by the political scientists anywhere to run a democracy for three months and hold the most important elections in a parliamentary system was a brainchild of the controversial Ghulam Azam, who became a pariah to the opposition only in the late 1991 for various other reasons.

Those familiar with Bangladeshi political culture and socio-political history know the opportunism and lack of commitment to any ideology or leader by the bulk of the Bengali (mainly Muslim) politicians. Consequently one has no reason to be surprised by their vacillation. However, what is very unfortunate for the nation is that ï¿½politicsï¿½ (in the pejorative sense) has over-powered economics and common sense, decency, justice and truth. One wonders if Bengalis could successfully elect the right type of representatives in 1937, 1946, 1954, and most importantly, in the 1970ï¿½s Parliamentary Elections in united Pakistan without having this bizarre, peculiar and outlandish ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½, why on earth they need it now.

As we have experienced in the wake of the three parliamentary elections since 1991 held under ï¿½caretaker governmentsï¿½, the outcome of the elections has never been acceptable to those who have to sit in the opposition bench. So, what is the big fuss about the system, which is neither foolproof nor anything to be proud of as a democracy? Having this absurd concept of ï¿½caretakerï¿½ simply implies that the Bangladeshi polity and the voters are in regression, in a state of immaturity and that no body is trust worthy any more to hold free and fair elections in the country. One is not sure if after the next parliamentary elections in 2007, as an alternative to the ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½, the leader of the opposition (whoever she or he will be around) would be asking the UN for International Peacekeeping Force to hold ï¿½free and fairï¿½ elections in the country.

It is really unfortunate that while the rich is getting richer and poor poorer at an alarming rate for the last thirty-odd years, despite all the poverty alleviation programmes through the NGOs and public sector, the bulk of the politicians and members of the civil society, intellectuals, students, bureaucrats and businessmen have been engaged in an unhealthy rat race ï¿½ some to survive and some to get-rich-quick. Consequently the real problems ï¿½such as population growth, lack of health care and education, hunger and poverty, hyper inflation (about 10,000 per cent price hike since 1970), rampant corruption by politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats ï¿½ have receded to the background, as designed by political, business and professional elites. The upshot is the preponderance of non issues and red herrings to distract the masses from the real issues. Hence the celebration of ï¿½Kansat Victoryï¿½ in the wake of the massacre, lunatic exuberance over cricket and the phony war and controversy over the outlandish ï¿½caretaker systemï¿½.