Ground Realities
The case of the missing Vishnus . . . and more
NOW that the scandal of the stolen artefacts has come to pass, there are some heads which need to roll. Let there be no question here of who is to blame and who ought to be hauled in for questioning. When Adviser Ayub Quadri acknowledged in so many words that he bore responsibility for the theft of the two Vishnu artefacts from the cargo space at the Zia International Airport the other day, he, in effect, admitted before the country that it was a sloppy job that people under his supervision had done.
And when such an admission of responsibility over a bad happening is there before the country, it is only fair that the one making the admission take the graceful way out.
You might suggest here that on-going investigations into the affair preclude such an exit on the part of the individual at the top of the entire program of despatching our artefacts to the Guimet Museum in France.
That would be a misplaced suggestion, for investigations can be carried on and, indeed, in more purposeful manner once those responsible for having created the mess are safely out of the way. And it is not just the adviser in question who needs to consider, seriously, his position at this time.
There is also a need for other individuals in the Ministry of Culture and airport customs to be made to answer for the criminality that has already taken place.
At this particular point in our political life, there is hardly any need for men on the higher rungs of an organisation that has been remiss in its work to continue being there. This country needs to move away from the legacy left behind by such men as the late Akbar Hossain.
If you recall, despite all the allegations of corruption levelled at him even as he served as minister for shipping, despite the innumerable disasters on our rivers, Akbar Hossain remained steadfast in his refusal to take responsibility through voluntarily giving up his job.
It is such a tradition that needs to be broken in Bangladesh today. The fact that the present administration happens to be a purely caretaker, or an interim, one hardly matters.
Anyone who is in a position of responsibility and yet fails, consciously or otherwise, to carry out that responsibility to the satisfaction of the nation should call forth in himself or herself the moral courage of calling it a day in the larger interest of the country.
Given the terrible exigencies of the situation arising out of the theft of the artefacts, as also the discovery of some other artefacts outside our frontiers, it is only natural to ask that those who failed to ensure the safety and wholesomeness of the items beings sent to France now do us all a favour by walking away from their jobs.
It is all a question of trust. And trust has now been broken, which is why some heads ought to roll. Some people should be paying the price for indiscretion. Meanwhile, let the investigations into the missing artefacts be carried on relentlessly and strenuously.
And now, let us try to come to terms with the indignation the charge d'affaires of the embassy of France in Bangladesh demonstrated on Monday over the stolen artefacts. He appeared keen to hold those gentle, conscious citizens of Bangladesh who have long argued against sending the artefacts to Paris responsible for what has happened. That was an extraordinary thing coming from a diplomat based in Dhaka.
It is not the job of a diplomat to come up publicly with a picture of his pique at what citizens concerned about their national interests often do, indeed must do. And count among those citizens some of the very best of our men, the voices of our conscience, whose sole motivation in carrying on their long struggle against the transfer of the relics of our history to Guimet was aimed at preventing any damage being done to them, or the possibility of some of them not getting back to Bangladesh once the exhibition in Paris was over.
And their worries were based on a number of incidents earlier, when quite a few countries found their artefacts stolen or missing once they had made their way abroad.
No one is even remotely suggesting that the French authorities will not return, or would not have safely returned, our artefacts to us. But the real worry has been about the slapdash manner in which the Bangladesh government sought to have the items transported to Paris. And then came the legal arguments over the issue, before the higher judiciary.
Once the Supreme Court decided, though, that the artefacts, 187 in all, could after all go to Paris, no one questioned the judgement. And no one will. But what has now occurred appears to have justified the fears of those who have all along been opposed to the whole Guimet Museum exhibition.
In a most bizarre manner, the fear that something would go wrong once the artefacts landed in France has now been overtaken by the shame of two of the items going missing even before they left Bangladesh.
It ought to have been for the French charge d'affaires to commiserate with the people of the Bangladesh over the loss of the Vishnu artefacts, which job he did. But then to try telling the people of the host country that it was the opposition of those unhappy with the Guimet experiment that was responsible for what has happened is not just unfortunate but appalling as well.
No man who considers himself part of the cosmopolitanism that today underlines life will be willing to live in isolation from the rest of the world. Bengalis, especially since the early part of the nineteenth century, have been going places and coming back home to tell their compatriots of the wider, culturally sophisticated world out there. That Paris has been, and remains, the world's cultural capital is a truism the people of Bangladesh have happily acknowledged and, indeed, celebrated.
But where the entire matter of the Guimet exhibition is concerned, Bengali worries centred on the pretty laid-back approach that both the Bangladesh and French authorities appeared to adopt on the despatch of our artefacts to Paris.
Questions were raised about the insurance covering the departure and return of the artefacts. Besides, with reports of some of our artefacts sent abroad earlier having gone missing, it was legitimate to argue that foolproof measures be taken about the Guimet exhibition if at all the artefacts were to be sent to Paris.
And then, of course, there was a bigger concern. Over the past two decades, a good number of items relating to the various periods of Bangladesh's history have been pilfered or destroyed or smuggled out.
Our security forces, with little to show for efficiency and expertise in protecting the evidence that substantiates our history, have naturally failed to make much headway in recovering the artefacts that have regularly gone missing. Small wonder then that our defensive instincts about our historical objects going abroad arouse our sensitivities.
And, mark you; being sensitive is not always a bad thing. There are times when sensitivities prevent countries from losing their self-esteem or their precious historical possessions.
And now we have an administration gone red in the face and a nation angry at the sight of an empty, broken box where the two Vishnus should have been. Let no one tell us that we are being unduly sensitive here.
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