Bangladeshi limbo

It is a rich irony in our political culture that political parties and leaders tend to do best when they do nothing at all, and that everything they do almost invariably paints them in a poor light. It's the reverse Midas touch. The recent unedifying spectacle of Bidisha Ershad's arrest and continuing incarceration is a case in point.

Both the government and HM Ershad have demeaned themselves in the eyes of the public due to their actions in this matter, and just about the only people who have come out of this sorry incident without damage to their reputation are those who have had nothing to do with it.

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The nation remains transfixed by the human interest elements of the farce, but the commentariat has already begun trying to calculate the political fallout of the matter and the effect it might have on the politics of the country.

Let us start with the biggest losers from the affair, HM Ershad and the JP. There can be no question that the astonishing incidents of the past month have damaged what remained of the ex-President's credibility, perhaps irretrievably.

The sordid soap-opera of his marriage playing out under the public eye is something that no one wished to see, and the fact that the couple's marital difficulties have been aired so openly is a severe mark against Ershad. Marriage is a private matter, and the fact that he has apparently chosen to conduct his own personal affairs in the full sight of the public has seriously harmed his image.

That is the first point. The second is that the cases he has filed against Bidisha -- thus precipitating her arrest and mistreatment at the hands of the authorities -- are laughable on their face, and make the ex-President look petty, weak, and small. This is bad news for a man whose reputation among the people -- such that it was -- rested almost exclusively on his image as a tough guy and strong leader.

His motives behind the filing of the cases remain unclear and his explanations incoherent, but whatever his motives may have been, the fact of the matter is that the filings have done further serious damage to his reputation.

If Ershad wished to separate from his wife and to expel her from his political party, then this could have been accomplished behind closed doors, without the accompanying drama that he, and he alone, is responsible for precipitating.

The political fallout from the incident could be dramatic. Last month Ershad had acknowledged that the JP could not hope to come to power by itself and that it would have to form an alliance either with the government or the opposition. This understanding was reiterated at a JP presidium meeting this week. The question, of course, is with whom.

In 2001, the JP won 14 seats and amassed some four million votes, and is thus in a position to significantly effect the outcome of the next election in a number of constituencies, especially if it joins in a tactical alliance with other parties. Ershad, who has 15 cases pending against him, has been under tremendous pressure from the government to not form an alliance with the AL.

Of course, now all the old numbers need to be recalculated in light of recent incidents. The JP can be expected to have lost considerable support in the aftermath of the Bidisha brouhaha, which is still playing itself out, and whether the party now has much to offer an alliance has been thrown into doubt. Ershad's recent conduct will hurt both him and his party at the polls.

But let us not absolve the administration of its own dishonourable role in this whole affair. Ershad may have filed the complaints, but it is the administration who has chosen to have Bidisha arrested, to press criminal charges, to repeatedly refuse her bail, and to interrogate her in a joint interrogation cell.

And this is just the beginning. Sources say that the government believes that Bidisha -- until recently a JP presidium member -- has been working to move the JP into the opposition camp, and that they also believe that she has been conspiring against the government.

If this is indeed the case, and they have any evidence to back up their suspicions, then it would be preferable for the government to bring such a charge against her rather than lock her up on absurdly trumped up charges that are scarcely the basis for arrest, let alone for imprisonment and repeated refusal of bail.

The malicious refusal of bail to political opponents accused of minor infractions when the prison facilities are already bursting at the seams due to overcrowding has been a hallmark of this administration, and one which does it little credit.

Indeed one could argue that in misusing the apparatus of state to harass, humiliate, and intimidate a political opponent, that the government has acted and continues to act in an even more shameful manner than Ershad has in this matter.

So how will this all play out politically?

The first question is what will happen to the JP vote-bank and whether this incident will put a considerable dent in the party's vote-bank of four million. The second question is where will they go?

The next question is how the incident will effect Ershad's decision to join a coalition. Though Ershad maintains that he was not pressured to file the complaints or act as he did, it is hard to interpret recent events as anything other than the flexing of government muscle and indication of the leverage it has over him. The obvious corollary is whether Ershad will emerge from this fiasco so weakened that he will have much to offer a coalition. If that is the outcome then one can count the affair a win for the government.

The final question is whether any of the taint of the incident will attach itself to the government which has now taken the lead role in the affair due to its apparent decision to make an example out of Bidisha. If past history is any guide, then this blatant misuse of authority will not disturb the public too much, though one always hopes to be proved wrong on matters such as these.

I have one last valedictory point for the government. I don't ever again want to have to hear that the media is responsible for the country's image problem overseas. The media? Excuse me? It is what the government has chosen to do over the past month that has reduced us to a laughing stock in the eyes of the world and made Bangladesh look worse than a Banana Republic.

Arresting a public figure on the flimsiest of charges that were filed pursuant to some sordid marital squabble, and then denying her bail for transparently political reasons is the type of thing that gives Bangladesh a bad name.

This is easy enough to verify. Ask anyone.

[Thanks to my niece Karishma Khan for suggesting the title for this piece.]

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.