The suicidal 'I-ness' & 'I alone' attitude in politics

Illustration: TBS

"No nation - no country is made of or by one person. If we want to truly live up to the dream of Sonar Bangla as advocated by our Father of the Nation, we must keep ourselves free from this suicidal ambition and addiction to 'I'ness. That only one person or one man did all this, etc."

Ex chief justice SK Sinha had made the above observation in the verdict scrapping the 16th amendment to the constitution in 2017.

Justice Sinha authored the lead verdict and made some critical observations about the sorry state of governance, such as arrogance of the government, rampant corruption etc.

Hasina, who always used to claim that only "she" and "her government", have done everything good and her father liberated bangladesh, denying other's contribution to country's development, could not stand those critical observations.

Soon after the release of the full copy of the verdict in August, Justice Sinha faced the wrath of the Hasina government. He was forced to resign as the chief justice and leave the country in November 2017.

After his departure, a statement was made public alleging that justice Sinha faced "11 charges", which include money laundering, graft and moral turpitude.

The copy of the written allegations against justice Sinha were earlier handed over by then president Abdul Hamid to the other judges of the Appellate Division at Bangabhaban.

Previously Justice Sinha was praised, among other things, for being the first non-Muslim CJ in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country.

But he fell from grace with the powers that be by indicating Hasina's 'I-ness' attitude and making those critical observations about governance.

What was the 16th amendment

A few months after the January 2014 one-sided and stage-managed parliamentary election, boycotted by the BNP-led alliance and other opposition parties, the Hasina government passed the 16th amendment to the constitution empowering parliament to remove apex court judges on grounds of physical incapacity and misconduct, a power previously vested in the Supreme Judicial Council led by the chief justice.

The validity of the amendment was challenged with the High Court that scrapped the change in 2016. The government filed an appeal with the Appellate Division, but it lost the legal battle. In and outside of the parliament, MPs and government policymakers started bashing the apex court for cancellation of the amendment.

'I-ness', 'I alone' 

On 1 August 2017, the Appellate Division released the copy of the full verdict.  

Justice Sinha wrote in the verdict: "If we look at the example from USA's town planning; they recognised the person who worked for their town planning. For abolition of slavery, Mary Todd, wife of 16th President Abraham Lincoln, got recognition. For the establishment of women rights, there are other persons who got the recognition and they also remember with great acknowledgment the four Army Generals.

But in our country, a disease has infected us and the name of that disease is 'myopic politicization'. This is a virus, and unfortunately this has infected our political culture to such a length that many of our policymakers now are hardly able to see or envision a future meant for a nation, not for a person.

Due to this rotting disease, they have personified each and everything. For their narrow and parochial party interest they have established a fake and 'pseudo democracy' taking the shameful unfair advantage of our constitution - a constitution written with the blood ink of our martyrs in 1971.

We must get rid of this obnoxious 'our men' doctrine and suicidal 'I alone' attitude. Not party allegiance or money, but merit alone should be given the highest priority at all levels of national life and institution building.

Person who is making tremendous sacrifice and humongous contribution for development and social progress must be recognised. And in doing so, we must only see his or her contribution to this society, not to his political colour or inclination.

If we cannot get ourselves out of this narrow parochialism and cannot overcome the greed of party nepotisms, then this will be the biggest assault to the very foundation of our liberation war - and the rock solid idea of 'We' which brought us the long cherished independence and to immortalize this momentum, the word 'we' have been put in the very first sentence of our constitution as the very first word of this sagacious document."

SC critical on Hasina govt

In the verdict, ex CJ Sinha made some critical observations on the sorry state of the governance in the country.

He observed: "the government becomes arrogant and uncontrolled in the absence of checks and balances and effective watchdog mechanisms. Human rights are at stake, corruption is rampant, parliament is dysfunctional, crores of people are deprived of basic healthcare and mismanagement in the administration is acute."

He stated that with the development of technology, the dimensions of crimes are changing and the lives and security of citizens are becoming utterly insecure.

"The law enforcing agencies are unable to tackle the situation and the combined result of all this is a crippled society, a society where a good man does not dream of good things at all; but the bad man is all the more restless to grab a few more bounty. In such a situation, the executive becomes arrogant and uncontrolled and the bureaucracy will never opt for efficiency," he said. 

He further states, "Even after forty-six years of independence, we have not been able to institutionalize any public institutions. There are no checks and balances, there is no watchdog mechanism at work, thus the people in the position are being indulged in abuse of power and showing audacity of freehand exercise of power."

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The Hasina government did not face any strong criticism and protest for forcing the chief justice to resign. This apparently boosted her level of confidence. The governance situation however kept deteriorating, let alone any improvement.

Her government in 2018 held another staged-managed parliamentary election, which was known as "midnight election, and retained power.

Hasina promoted a cult culture. Like in North Korea, offices and educational institutions were forced to set up Bangabandhu Corners to promote the memory of her slain father. The year 2020 was declared Mujib Year.

Another election came five years later. She managed it again. But finally Hasina's government collapsed just six months after it was formed through the January election. She was forced to resign and flee the country in face of a strong movement launched by students and people. Her arrogance has now largely been blamed for her downfall.