The battle lines have been drawn?

The answer is a big nay. Her sole objective was to score political points. The stage was skilfully set with all those who were required to meet that end. Score of journalists and TV crews were available on the spot when a very low ranking official from the PM's office came to the house of leader of the opposition to deliver the letter of invitation. It was shown on TV how impolite it was on the part of the opposition leader that a staff person was there in front of the cameras to tell the letter carrier that there was no one in the house to receive the letter. The government was fully successful in devising a successful script and it surely did score a few points.

However, this short-lived vantage of the government ended as soon as her loyal opposition Kader Siddiqui met with the PM and, in line with most of the reliable media reports, squarely pointed his finger, supposedly, towards the most important partner of the BNP in the coalition government as the mastermind of the bomb attacks. This accusation of Kader Siddiqui took the government off guard. The government made sure that in any future dialogue with any opposition political party who chose to respond positively, either through free will or by compulsion, the issue is not raised again. It was rigidly maintained when HM Ershad was instructed by the PM's office not to repeat the accusation similar to the one laid out by Kader Siddiqui. With a dozen corruption cases hanging against him, the fallen dictator chose not risk his freedom at this stage of the dialogue drama.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

If one goes through the opinions and commentaries as published in the country's print news media, two clearly opposing views have emerged vis-a-vis the necessity of a dialogue between the government and the opposition. On the one side, there are views expressed by those who so far were solidly behind the government in denying the media reports. They, in most cases, concurred with the government views in blaming the opposition politicians and the secular intellectuals, both at home and abroad, for collaborating with these reporters with the objective to tarnish the image of the country.

On the home front, the government spared no time in blaming the opposition and taking many of the politicians and freethinking intellectuals into custody following any bomb attacks, notwithstanding the fact that the attacks were targeted towards the opposition rallies, personalities, and secular institutions. Only after the unprecedented and simultaneous bomb attacks, not specifically targeted towards the opposition, on August 17, the government did not directly blame or arrest any of the opposition activists.

However, the speeches of the PM and a few other government leaders still point to "conspiracy to tarnish the image of the country" and "to make the country a failed state" or "to stop the country's progress and development" -- the terms which are exclusively reserved for the main opposition, since the beginning of its inception to the helm of the government.

The militants, who are bent on sacrificing their lives, are not making any bones to hide their intention to transform Bangladesh into an Islamic state. The word "image" is probably the last thing in their vocabulary and they are hardly worried about what the rest of the world would think about their coveted state. It is not only that the bulk of our people despise their objective, they abhor the violent means they are using and want the government to deal with them and to bring them to proper justice.

Does the government need any help from the opposition to deal with the situation, which the government has termed a national crisis? One must distinguish the fact that the crisis is an internal one and has been imposed upon the state by its own citizens, notwithstanding the probable support of some external groups, not of any state. The nation has not been subjected to any external aggression.

Here comes the other school of thoughts. In a working democracy, to deal with an internal crisis, the best forum to discuss the issue is the parliament, where the government can solicit support of the opposition to pass any new law to deal with the crisis. However, with a dysfunctional parliament, where even the carnage of August 21 was not serious enough to warrant any discussions, and a huge numerical strength of the ruling coalition, the government can pass any law and even can amend the constitution, as it desires without the support of the opposition.

Other than criticizing or supporting any enactment of a new law, the opposition has hardly any say or control in any of the three broad steps required to be undertaken to bring any of the perpetrators to justice.

Firstly, it is the members of the law enforcement authority, who decide who to arrest. It is the public prosecutors, who decide whose bail petition has to be opposed. Secondly, it is the investigating team who decides which material and other evidences have to be used to frame a charge. It is only they who decide how strong a charge sheet should be or under which criminal code the charge has to be framed. Although, one of the leading accused disclosed their determination (on TV) to throw away the constitution of the Republic, no sedition charge has been brought against any of them. Finally, it is the judges of the court, who would dispense the justice in accordance with the strength of the charge sheet, validity of the evidences and in line with the demand and argument of the public prosecutors.

Each element of this system has been absolutely politicized under the present administration and, at this time, is under the full control of the chief executive of the state, the PM. In addition, when the PM publicly reaffirmed her determination to keep her four party alliance intact, the whole system gets the message who should not be implicated in the process. The opposition could have scored a few important points by explaining these to the members of the public and by demanding judicial investigations of each case by a tribunal whose members had to be chosen by national consensus and the subsequent public trials of the accused. A case in demand could have been to interrogate publicly the former SP of Rajshahi whose action of providing escort to Bangla Bhai and his entourage in their highly publicised parading of the city street made international headlines.

All these obvious demands would have been a two-way sword for the government. If the media reports and the PM's conversations with the editor of a Bangla daily are to be believed, one would find merit in the opposition's accusation that the PM knew all about the militants since none of these activities was ever directed to BNP and its allies. It was fine with her as long as they were directing their violent activities towards her arch-rivals.

The political points that could have been easily bagged by the opposition without even participating in the dialogue has been given back to the opposition by the PM through her roaring speech of desperation in the public meeting on December 21 at the Paltan Maidan. The fiery speech reflected multiple dimensions.

Firstly, it has exposed the lack of goodwill that was expected from the PM of nation that has fallen into a "national crisis" due to government inaction, if not encouragement. Secondly, it has disappointed the nation that had expected a conciliatory tone from PM to invoke the opposition to reciprocate. Thirdly, it reflected a complete lack of perception of the PM of the history of the democratic struggle of the land, which incidentally she now rules.

It seems that the PM is surrounded by a group of sycophants, not friends. The PM would be well advised to go through the pages of history that was not very kind to the despots who had ever brought sedition charge against any of the popular politicians of this land. All our national heroes from Sher-e-Bangla to Suhrawardy and Bhashani to Bangabandhu have been subjected to such charges more than once without any capitulation by any of them.

However, all the despots have been thrown into the dustbin of history while all the accused remain in the hearts of the millions and would remain so for all time to come. Lastly, by dismissing the demands of the opposition as regard to the proposed reform of the EC and the CTG, and her determination to hold the election even without the opposition's participation, the PM seems to have forgotten the humiliating end she herself had to meet in 1996.

A democratic leader transforms to despotism when he or she fails to listen to the voice of the people. A few months ago, one such choral was sung by the people of a southern city through their verdict in the mayoral election. The similar message was once again loudly delivered by the people of Dinajpur in a recent by-election. The four party alliance was not able to save any of those days for the honourable Prime Minister. Has the PM completely failed to listen to such loud and clear voice of the people? Her speech of despondence, unfortunately, reaffirmed this understanding.

Dr. Mozammel H. Khan is the Convener of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.