BNP: At what cost Jamaat ties?

The two main political parties have spent the past thirty years or so (certainly the last fifteen years) doing little more than squabble in unseemly fashion with one another for petty partisan political gain and in the meantime have ignored the steady rise of the extremists, the argument goes.

There is certainly more than a modicum of truth to this contention.

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But I have always found this to be a tendentious argument that tries to draw moral equivalence where none really exists.

The fact is that of the two mainstream political parties it is only one which has ever entered into an electoral alliance with the fundamentalist Islamic parties, it is only one which has their leaders sitting with them in the Cabinet, it is only one which has incorporated the rhetoric of the fundamentalists into its own political philosophy and vision for the country.

However, in the spirit of compromise and joining together to combat the extremist menace that the country faces, let us give the BNP the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their commitment to stand firm against the extremists.

But let us put the issue to a test. Let the BNP put its money where its mouth is when it comes to the question of fundamentalists and extremists.

The BNP can convince the country that it stands shoulder to shoulder with the general public against the rising tide of fundamentalism and extremism by severing its connection with the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The time has come for the BNP to acknowledge that the presence of fundamentalists within the government has shielded and emboldened the extremists, and that no credible action against the extremists can be taken until the Jamaat is ushered back to the political wilderness from where the BNP rescued it.

The recent statement made by BNP law-maker Abu Hena, in which he linked the rise of the extremists with his party's alliance partners, merely made concrete an association for which there is abundant credible evidence.

The tired litany of how the fundamentalist parties have established their democratic bona fides and have no connection to the anti-democratic militants has begun to ring hollow in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, and it is past due for the BNP to face up to this reality rather than continue to sacrifice the security and stability of the country for electoral advantage.

Indeed, Mr. Hena is far from the only member of his party to be disturbed by the nexus between the alliance partners and the extremists, and the rising influence of the fundamentalists within the government which has ham-strung efforts to bring the militants to book.

It is worth recalling that Mr. Hena is the MP for Bagmara in Rajshahi, which is where the extremists first rose to prominence, and so he had a front-row seat to witness their rise. In fact it was the victimisation of his own party men by the extremists that has caused Mr. Hena to speak out, and he makes the reasonable point that the extremists' rise to prominence at the expense of the local BNP would not have been possible but for sponsorship from other elements within the government.

Nor is this an isolated case. The take-over of Rajshahi University by the student wing of the Jamaat, who have completely eclipsed the BNP student wing on campus, is only one instance among many of a shift in the balance of power between the alliance partners that many BNP leaders and members have expressed concern over.

Following the spectacular electoral success of the alliance combine in 2001, it has been argued that the alliance between the BNP and Jamaat has now become central to the basic BNP electoral strategy and that the party cannot afford to jettison its key alliance partner, to whom it owes its success in the last election.

However, such an argument does a disservice to the BNP, with the implication that the party's hold on the affections of the general public is so tenuous that it is dependent on its junior partner to return to power. Let us not forget that in 1991 the party received 140 seats on its own steam and in 1996, even at its lowest point in the democratic era, it was able to muster 113 seats in parliament.

There is no question that the electoral alliance entered into with the Jamaat was a crucial component of victory in 2001, but such was the level of voter antipathy to the incumbent AL at the time that it is far from a foregone conclusion that the BNP would have been unable to unseat the then government in the absence of its alliance with the Jamaat.

In any event, politics is not a horse race, and electoral considerations can never be the sole criteria for decisions made. The well-being of the country must be the primary consideration that motivates our politicians in the determinations they make, and there is ample evidence that inducting the Jamaat into the coalition government has been detrimental to the polity.

One final argument made in defence of the alliance is that it is better for elements such as the Jamaat to be co-opted by the political mainstream rather than to remain on the outside, where they may be tempted to resort to undemocratic means of attaining power.

But comparing the past four years when they have been in power with the previous five years when they were out of power, it is quite clear that such thinking is untenable. The Jamaat has used its time in office effectively to populate the administrative services and other state organs with its men, to advance its extreme educational and cultural agenda, and to entrench and expand its influence around the country.

The continuing failure of the law enforcement agencies to bring to book the senior leadership of the banned terrorist outfits and to bring an end to their reign of terror is, as has been widely documented and reported, a direct consequence of the pressure put on the administration by the Jamaat to soft-pedal the investigations.

Similarly, many of the terror suspects now in custody have implicated the senior Jamaat leadership in their machinations and themselves have been revealed to have long-standing connections with the Jamaat or its student front.

On its own the Jamaat would be hard-pressed to muster double-digits, either in terms of parliamentary seats or percentage of the electorate. Its power, such as it is, stems entirely from the electoral alliance with the BNP.

So the time has come for the BNP to show real commitment when it comes to fighting fundamentalism and extremism, and to declare independence from the Jamaat.

If the BNP dissolves its alliance with the Jamaat as a first step in getting to grips with the current threat facing the nation, then I am willing to acknowledge the party's seriousness on the issue.

It is time for the BNP to make its choice and show the nation what it stands for. Many in the BNP would welcome such a move and believe that now is the time to take the party back and show that it can be a progressive force.

As for the AL, this would be a wise issue for it to press in the coming year. Railing exclusively at the BNP qua BNP has indeed given the fundamentalists something of a free pass. Cannot the AL declare that, come what may, it will never pick up the Jamaat as an electoral ally? It needs to have and show the courage of its secular convictions.

It needs to make the Jamaat the issue. Instead of demanding that the democratically elected alliance government resign, a more defensible demand, and one that would tactically be much sounder, would be that the Jamaat be dropped from the coalition.

After all, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the BNP as a party other than those it has chosen to enter into an alliance with. If the BNP were not in alliance with the Jamaat, it would be a perfectly decent right of centre political party (incompetent certainly, but in this it would hardly be unique in Bangladeshi politics) committed, one hopes, to the common good.

If the BNP were to drop the Jamaat, the health of politics in this country would improve immeasurably. Elections could be fought on the issues and the differences between two durable democratically-inclined entities that each command widespread mainstream support and respect. Let the Jamaat sink or swim on its own popularity.

But if the BNP insists on retaining its electoral alliance with the Jamaat, this will call into question -- even among its own party stalwarts -- where it stands on fundamentalism and extremism, and will hand the opposition a very potent issue on which to fight the next election.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.