The Ershad Curve

Now card, unlike chess, is not an end-game. It is a game of permutation and combination where the guiding principle is to shuffle and move on. That is why there is no last word in politics. Today's words can be swallowed tomorrow so long as it is convenient. Politics is pretty much bait and switch. Bite your tongue! It is a business run on bluffs.

Yet it is difficult to digest the prospect of the speculation that spread last week. A dictator, who was dragged from power and then convicted as a felon, is coming to save a coalition. What about those who once laid down their lives to bring him down from power? It is as embarrassing as licking one's own spit, at least as ludicrous as calling the burglar to pick the lock so that one could get back into the house.

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Frankly speaking, it is an insult to the imagination that Ershad should be part of anything that is important for us. But then democracy has its funny rules. It respects even a tree stump if it is elected by the people. Ershad, however, deserves more credit than that. He has been the longest-serving ruler of this country, nine years at a stretch. He built many roads during his time, invigorated the private sector and managed foreign policy reasonably well. All said and done, he is the only ruler who has showed certain amount of aesthetic sense.

Then he is also responsible for proliferation of vices. Cronyism, appeasement, condoning, womanizing, land grabbing, and most other ills which are still wasting this country, are the proud legacy of his time. One can't deny that the Ershadian era was a period of good times. Thanks to him, many of our industrialists, bureaucrats, leading journalists, intellectuals and society girls made money, got housing plots and enjoyed perks and foreign trips. To be fair, all those vices always existed. But Ershad played Freud to make the abnormal feel normal and altogether destroyed the concept of guilt.

If anything, that is the lasting legacy of the former dictator. He completely eliminated guilt from the society so that there is no dilemma between good and bad so long as end justifies the means. He hardly sent people to jail, never sought revenge on his adversaries (except one man who tried to steal a jewel of his heart), offered gifts (bribes) to win over enemies, encouraged art, culture, literature, and poetry. He successfully created an illusion that right and wrong did not matter. By hook or crook, it was more important to beget and win.

It is an irony of fate that Frankenstein should beat the master at his game. Our modern politics is a creation of the man who went to mosques on Fridays and lied that he was instructed or inspired to come in his dream. Many years ago, I watched a comedy series called The Jeffersons, the story of an African-American dry cleaner who was ready to do anything for the sake of money. He practiced what he called The Jefferson Curve, which, he explained to his store clerk, was his ability to "throw them what they want to know."

Much of our politics stems from that same conviction. Ershad basically introduced this style in our politics, throwing at people what they wanted to hear. He was all things to all people, lover to women, commander-in-chief to the army, president to the people, friend to big business, poet to intellectuals, connoisseur to art, patron to sports, chameleon to turncoat politicians and cult figure to crooks.

In fact, Ershad and his multiple personality took our contentious politics to the next level, where confrontation for principles gave way to contest for power. He never stood up for anything except his grip on power, compromising with compromises to go with the flow, keeping in view nothing but his own ambition to rule. His name ought to be synonymous with political opportunism like Xerox is synonymous with photocopying.

If this man forms a coalition with BNP, one of the parties which had spearheaded the movement to topple him because he was a tyrant, what do we go back to tell the families of those who had died in that struggle? Do we tell them that their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands had died so that our politicians could play their games? Do we tell them that their sacrifices were circumstantial to the emotional adjustments of our politicians? Do we tell the families to reshuffle their grief and forget their loss?

It is shocking to know that the prime minister has asked Ershad to join the coalition, and, given the helter-skelter of last-minute politics, this might happen for real. But it will be sad to watch Frankenstein embrace its master, taking unscrupulous politics to a new height. We know why the prime minister has made her offer. She must have been convinced that it would strengthen her hands in the next election and bring her party back to power.

Once again, the Ershad curve has swerved. This time he told the prime minister what she wanted to hear, that he would not form a coalition with Awami League or another party. Back to the card game, he has done what it takes to get picked up from the discarded cards. It is a vindication of his guile and a proof that every time it works!

Whether it works for the country is another question. May be, the politicians have got it all wrong. A republic is not the place where they should rip off the public coming and going. Only way to challenge the Ershad Curve is to have people come up with their own curve, which would tell those politicians what they must hear!

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.