The AL's faux pass

The AL's electoral setback in 2001 left the party badly bruised and in the lurch, and for all these years it has been licking its wounds which are yet to be healed. Now with a self-inflicted injury they will only fester and turn into a running sore -- of course, with the spread of miasma. As a matter of fact, the AL never really got over the trauma of the 1975 tragedy and had been on the retreat since then. Thanks to its grassroots organisations and die-hard adherents the party, however, survived the ravages and kept up its existence. Now it seems to be reaching its elastic limit. The symptoms are visible in the irresponsible utterances and conduct of the party's frontline leaders and the backlashes they invite.

It seemed that the AL General Secretary, with his grotesque oust-government project was consciously removing the bricks of credibility, one after another, from the party edifice, and racing to trivialise the great political outfit that was once led by stalwarts like HS Suhrawardy and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and had spearheaded the country's independence. And even now the party's outlook is weird, erratic, and, at times, a veritable enigma to the public. It will take long even if the party can be brought back to its pre-30 April shape.

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Of course, a pioneer as a party in opposition the AL has always been in the line of fire and drew flak from all quarters. Things were not rosy for the party when it came into being in 1949 amidst the worst of adversities and it grew from crisis to crisis. But it never yielded to the browbeating of the authority, and its equation with the people seldom suffered. None ever matched the spontaneity with which it could strike chord with people's hopes, aspirations, and emotions. It constantly moved with people even when it was driven from pillar to post under the country's repressive regime.

The situation obtaining later -- in the sixties -- was even more bleak. As the country was groaning under martial law, Suhrawardy -- the powerful champion of democracy -- died abroad and Ayub Khan, the country's military ruler threatened to speak with the opposition "in the language of weapons". It was indeed a litmus test for the Awami League to tide over those adversities.

After he took the helm of Awami League during those difficult days, Sheikh Mujib, with an unbelievable skill, occupied the entire political space by moving across the country like a messiah. Sheikh Mujib's public contact on that massive scale left no hiatus between him and the mass. Never before could any leader reach so close to the heart of the people. It was no wonder that at the peak of the party's ascendancy, during 1969 mass upsurge, he became a national totem of sorts, again leaving no hiatus between his destiny and theirs'.

Is the AL's tryst with the people's destiny still intact? It did not appear so when the party General Secretary's claims fell flat amidst public nonchalance bringing slur to Awami League's long legacy of populism. Neither did the party have its homework done with earnestness. As a result the AL stratagem became a mockery of itself.

Even though the AL's foolhardiness could be ignored or set aside as one of those gimmicks, it cannot be done so, for what happens to a party of the AL's standing does affect the nation's destiny. A credible AL is a need of the hour because a democratic polity cannot flourish in the absence of a strong sensible opposition. Who would, after all resist the party in power's undemocratic onslaught and contain its imperious impulses? Notwithstanding the damage done to the AL by some of its top leaders in their oxymoronic instinct, the party is a national asset and has to be preserved in the interest of democracy.

However, a long haul, introspection, and starting afresh, are what Awami League needs to do today. There is no magic that can catapult the party to power by skipping the distance it is otherwise required to traverse. What is the guarantee that the party will win in the mid-term poll that it has been insisting on? None of the indicators suggest that they will. Has the party introspected to find out if there is a qualitative change among the people with regard to their choice for AL in the last two and half years? Being a left-leaning party, can AL really stage a comeback during this heady time for the political right?

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.