Democratisation through decentralisation

The next wave of decentralisation hit during President Zia ur Rahman's regime between 1976 and 1981. He was keen to introduce a grassroots administration at the village level called Gram Sarkar (village government). This attempt was also ceased to operate after Zia was killed in a military coup in 1981.

The third attempt of decentralising Bangladesh's administration was made by President H M Ershad by introducing an elected administration at the Upazila (sub-district) level in 1985. The subsequent elected government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia dissolved this system in 1991.

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It appears that, at least three genuine attempts on decentralisation were reversed in the last quarter of a century. The introduction and reversal of decentralisation policies inflicted huge drain to the public funds without brining any change at the local level administration since the independence. This has been a major mark of failure and wastage of scarce resources during various military and elected regimes over the last thirty years.

Decentralisation Bill under 7th Parliament (1996-2001): The Local Government Reform Commission submitted a report to the government in May 1997. The government subsequently passed a legislation to hold elections for the Upazila Parishad (sub-district level) and also a bill was passed by the Parliament on establishing Zila Parishad (district level). The government of Sheikh Hasina pledged to implement elected local government bodies at all four levels: Gram (village), Union (currently in place), Upazila and Zila. While one can understand her government's eagerness to decentralise, but to introduce reforms at four levels in one term was by far an ambitious task, particularly, without having adequate resources and without forming any political consensus on the agenda. At the end, in the life of the 7th Parliament, nothing was implemented due to lack of cooperation from then opposition.

The manifestos of two major parties (AL and BNP) for the 2001 general election have given decentralisation issue a priority agenda. The AL pledged again that the administrative decentralisation in the future was going to be the party's major development goal. In the future, while the party was committed to introduce four tiers of local administration (district, sub-district, union and village), it also committed to make all sub-district towns under municipality law. In addition, all union council centres would be modernised with proper infrastructure and communications facilities making them the core development centres of rural areas and transforming them into little townships. The BNP's manifesto pledged to establish local new administration at all three levels: district, sub-district and village. If one examines the manifestos of both the major parties closely, it is hard to detect any differences in philosophical and institutional terms for bringing a reform at local level.

Decentralisation Bill under 8th Parliament (2001-2006): In early 2003, the BNP coalition government passed a bill to introduce, once again, Zia's Gram Sarkar plan in every village in the country. So far, the majority villages have been brought under this plan. It is, of course, would be a premature attempt now to make any evaluation of the programme. However, one cannot hold a genuine hope on the success of this plan after knowing what is coming out in the media over the last few months.

Moreover, the government has unilaterally implemented the programme with having no political consensus. As a result, this also seems destined to a failure with risking, once again, huge amount of public funds being going into drain. What is desired of a democratic government?

Devolution

To develop a decentralisation strategy for Bangladesh one must first look at the country's ability to fund a reform programme which is likely to attain a meaningful and sustainable outcome. In the past so much money has gone into drain in the name of decentralisation that the nation is not prepared to see this repeated again. A sustainable and practical strategy must be devised by keeping the following outcomes in mind (put forward by the World Development Report 1999): 1) devolution and transfer of power from a centralised to a decentralised administration; 2) devising appropriate functions and resources for a decentralised administration; 3) developing electoral rules and accountability measures for decentralisation; and, 4) drawing an appropriate management plan for decentralised governance.

It is expected that a meaningful devolution and transfer of power from the centre can proceed smoothly if Zila and Upazila Parishads are established in phases. One must remember that the major objective of the decentralised governance is to relieve the centre from governing the local bodies directly. Moreover, the objective is to relinquish some power by the centre and transfer them to local bodies. For example, MPs allowed only the legislative roles and giving development roles to devolved authorities. This measure will also drive the unscrupulous politicians out of politics. This objective can be fulfilled effectively if a local government for a Zila is established in the first phase. In the second phase, further strengthening of the upazila parishad and presently run union parishad will bring the fruits of the decentralised governance to the doorsteps of the vast rural population. Once a consensus on devolution has been reached, rest of the agenda mentioned above can be realised without any difficulty. Is devolution then a wishful thinking or a genuine way forward?

Democratisation

The present political environment cannot be regarded as democracy friendly. The main ruling party (BNP) is in turmoil and the former President (Prof. B Chowdhury) is finally testing the political water after a few months in the wilderness. Once again, Bangladesh's twelve and a half years of political journey with virtually non-functional parliamentary democracy, is stepping into another uncertain future. Why?

The uncertainty began immediately after the last general election (1 October 2001) which was held on a new premise and was not seen before. Let us explain it more clearly. Former US President Bill Clinton paid a state visit to Bangladesh in March 2000. During this visit the Clinton administration branded Bangladesh as a Moderate Muslim Democracy (MMD). Conceptually, there is no place for such a term in the liberal democracy literature. The nation dubbed as Moderate Muslim because, despite being a Muslim majority nation, Bangladesh has been under female leadership for sometime (both Prime Minister and Opposition Leader), which is not only a rare example in the mature democracies but is almost non-existent in Islamic countries. Whatever the cause, since this period, the democratisation process in Bangladesh has taken a non-liberal course with religion beginning to play a major role in nurturing democracy. A major non-religious political party (BNP) made a formal coalition with the religious fundamentalist groups to win the general election. The strategy worked and the BNP formed a government with an alliance of fundamentalist religious parties after the 2001 general election. This transformed Bangladesh's liberal democracy, inadvertently or otherwise, into an MMD.

However, with too many non-liberal features in place, indeed, thinking of decentralisation or devolution now is certainly wishful. Is there any way out?

Conclusion

Given the outcome of a parliamentary democracy over the sixth, seventh and current parliament, it is difficult, if not impossible to find an answer. The path for economic development looks long and hazardous for Bangladesh. The take-off to full economic development has been delayed due to severe turbulence in terms of deteriorating law and order, uncontrolled corruption and political uncertainty, brought about by the unceasing political confrontation and turmoil. Moreover, some politicians and their cronies have been blamed for creating turbulence in the economic front by plundering national wealth over the last quarter of a century. It may be true that a handful of criminals and their aids have been taking part in creating the present polluted socio-economic-political environment, but at the end it rests with the politicians, particularly, with the supreme leaders of both government and opposition parties to provide a solution.

To bring back a genuine liberal democratisation process, the society is least interested to live any more with politicking the destiny of the masses. Many, however, believe that it would take a miracle to change the present political mindset to fix the suffocation that currently exists in the country. Confrontation still makes the call for the politicians' day and it is growing by the hour, by the day and by the week. Bangladesh's destiny is now certainly rests with the two leaders: the PM and the Opposition Leader, to say the least. However, the so-called 'third' force is likely to be a formidable challenge soon. With this prospect, the present environment would not last long in a so-called 'political hot bed' such as Bangladesh.

Finally, how to seek a way out of the present stalemate? It needs an immediate suspension of the MPs' role in development works. This seems to be the centre of all the sources of deals, pilferage and corruption in the society. This is also the major source of obstacle in reaching a consensus for a genuine decentralisation process to begin (recent squabble on holding Upazila election in the cabinet immediately comes to mind). If the MPs settle with legislative roles only, the politics can be re-established as politics of nation-building and mass welfare. If the politicians fail to show any way out, certainly people power will do. That is what the lesson the history provides.

Dr Moazzem Hossain works at the Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.