Pointing to the 'pro-production' politics?

One might not agree with what Dr Chowdhury had to say that day. There are many critics of his prescriptions pertaining to the country's present day ailments. But that is an issue altogether different. Democracy evolves in dissents. Democracy direly demands that every citizen of the country -- from an ex-president to the pedestrian -- reserve the constitutional right to criticise a government. Every political party has the right to hold public meeting -- be it for or against the government. The function of the state machinery is to ensure all those rights for the citizen. Unfortunately, this elementary democratic norm enshrined in our constitution had been denied to the opposition parties by a government that is oath bound to protect the constitution. For example, over the last two years or so, the main opposition Awami League had been facing the axe since it got down to the streets for agitation against price spiral, terrorism, toll collection, rampant corruption etc. Eminent leaders of the party had been tortured by the police and the cadres of the party in power. The state machinery had been devilishly used to contain the criticism by the opposition. Meantime, the axe also fell on the shoulders of others. Dr Kamal Hossain, an eminent lawyer was severely attacked on his way to CHT. Dr Humayn Azad, an eminent writer was driven to the point of death by the miscreants. All these have been happening before the eyes of the government sitting with an aim to contain the opposition.

The bar before B Chowdhury is not the end of the story. In the rampage that followed, few industries of (Maj retired) Mannan -- the front line face on B Chowdhury's new platform who recently resigned from the parliament in protest against misdeeds of the government -- came under heavy attack by the alleged government party backed terrorists. Reportedly, quite a few consignments of exports by his firms were stopped, factories were destroyed. According to the owner, the estimated loss would be more than Tk.300 million. Production of commodities in these industries came to a virtual halt following the heinous attacks. Quite obviously, the victims were the poor employees with falling earnings and rising insecurities.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

More often than not, we hear from the party in power that Hartal is bad because it adversely affects production and export. Opposition parties call hartals because they do not want production and exports for the country. But who would take the responsibility of stopping or slowing down the functioning of the industries owned by Mr Mannan and the consequent adverse effects on exports?. Such an act of vandalism on manufacturing plants also, seemingly, send a signal with a disheartening note to the willing investors of home and abroad. The Finance Minister's fancy words on reforms, liberalisations and good policies on economic fronts are likely to bounce back in the face of a "liberalised" reign of terrorism.

That brings us back to the nexus between democracy and development. Not long ago, Amartya Sen -- the Nobel laureate -- wrote a book titled: Development as Freedom. The ace economist equated freedom with development. In fact, the other name of development is freedom. So any government that talks about politics of development should never bypass the issue of the politics of freedom. These two are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing events. A government that forgets Sen's seminal observation simply tends to put the cart before the horse. Freedom forfeited amounts to development denied. We can only hope that the country should be put on an even keel by putting both freedom and development together.

Thus, the slogan of "pro-production politics" -- so much espoused by the present government -- seemingly sounds to be a fashion rather than a faith. Had it not been so, business community would not be on streets with sticks to demonstrate their hatred against the heightened rate of toll collection, terrorists would not have attacked the industries of Mr. Mannan and the overall law and order situation would not have deteriorated day by day. The party that came to power with the motto of eradicating corruption and terrorism appears to have forgotten its election commitments. The slip between the cup and the lip might cost severely -- realisable only after people in general takes to streets to save themselves. That kind of a scenario could be in evidence very soon unless the government takes terrorists to task. The government should show signs of sympathy to the dissidents. We hope that the politicians ruling the country are not forgetful of the lessons of history: oppressions and repressions only invite rejections by the public.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.