Should we call poor women fakirni, sir?

You said this in a public place obviously reacting to the news of Prof Yunus and Grameen Bank getting the Nobel Peace Prize. You may have a point in your argument, but what distressed this writer and many more like him was the disparaging use of the word fakirni (beggar woman) to actually mean the hard working, poor but honest women of this country who borrow money from Grameen Bank.

By calling them fakirni you have made a condescending allusion to their economic condition; yourself sitting at a socially and economically advantageous position. The choice of word clearly exposed your feudal mindset and deliberate division of our society along the economic front.

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Such use of words, such disdainful equivalence, would be condemned by a socially and economically powerful group as blatant insinuation, and it would not go unchallenged. But our poor women are powerless having no voice to challenge big people. Through using the word in question you have proved once again that poor women get little respect in society from the high and mighty ones.

Our question to you is: are all poor women in Bangladesh beggars? It does not seem so. All around us we see them doing menial work, like breaking stones under a scorching sun, cutting earth, working in the paddy fields, working in brick kilns, and so on.

They work from dawn to dusk to earn an honest living and at the same time take care of the family.

Don't you see them, sir? Maybe you don't because you travel in a car with tinted windows. Maybe their collective earning does not help you in inflating the GDP to suit your purpose. Ah, it reminds us that you once called the garments workers mere darjees (tailors). But that's all forgotten and forgiven by the people.

To go back to our point, even if a poor woman is forced to beg, shouldn't you, as a people's representative and as a senior and respected citizen, call her a poor or destitute woman rather than a fakirni? Don't poor women deserve some respect? We know politicians of the present genre have foul mouth and engage in rampant tui-tokari in front of their children and supporters, and talk in extremely derogatory language about others.

But all along we were under the impression that you were different from them. Occasionally we have heard words of wisdom coming from your mouth and we have also seen you becoming critical of your own party policies and policy makers. But your oblique reference to our poor women who virtually have snatched the Nobel Prize this year has shocked us profoundly.

We have few more questions to ask you, sir. Are fakirnis, or women beggars, sent by the Creator from above, or are they created by societies created by the politicians? Are they not victims of a flawed economic system that ends up creating numerous fakirnis every year? So, who is at fault here, sir?

The hapless poor women whom people like you never look at with respectful eyes, or you and I who have connived to build a patriarchal society where we would limit the role of women? And where we would draw a line for the women across the economic turf so that most of them cannot reach above the fakirni level?

The other question is: what have you and your government done in last five years to help the poor women come out of the poverty cycle? To quote your good self: "You cannot alleviate poverty by giving a goat or some ducks." How true. But that's exactly what your government did in the past five years. Evidently, nothing better could come out of the planning table of your government. You have claimed some success in addressing the issue of women in poverty but most of it is on paper rather than in real life. As the finance minister you have prepared budget every year, which has only helped the rich become filthy rich.

In Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries of the world, we see cars worth one crore taka each on our badly maintained roads. We see millions in black money being whitened and millions being siphoned away under various names. We see thugs, drug dealers, professional killers, and black-marketers finding safe haven in political parties. But we do not hear you utter any derogatory words about them. You do not question how those "sons of fakirni" became millionaires overnight.

It is unfortunate that our politicians never care to impose censorship on their own tongue when they speak about people they do not like. They indulge in verbal invectives of the worst kind, thereby setting examples of deplorable crassness before the nation, especially the young generation. Unless politicians learn to respect the people, irrespective of their economic condition, they will never become sincere about their welfare. Their feudal attitude will surface every now and then despite all the pro-poor slogans.

Shahnoor Wahid is Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.