Editorial
Awami League at sixty
Party must fulfill people's expectations
The Awami League observed the 60th anniversary of its founding on June 23 with enthusiasm as people's expectations of its maturity and experience to deliver grow. It has traversed a tortuous path through the decades and played a significant role in shaping the destiny of the country. Indeed, the Awami League, as a truly mass-based political organization, can legitimately lay claim to glory, given that it has itself been instrumental in the making of history.
Any deliberation on the Awami League necessarily brings to mind the pioneering role played in its formation and initial growth by such stalwarts as Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani. Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq became part of the Jukta Front that won the historic election of 1954. And with them came the younger crop of leaders, such as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Tajuddin Ahmed, Syed Nazrul Islam, et al, who would in subsequent years leave a historically lasting imprint on not only the party but also the people of Bangladesh. But such a recapitulation of the Awami League's past cannot be complete without recalling the repression it was subjected to in the days of Pakistan right up to the genocide of 1971.
The best years for the party were surely the period between 1966 and 1971, when its seminal Six Point plan for regional autonomy in Pakistan gradually but surely broadened out into a wider struggle for Bengali freedom once its triumph at the general elections of 1970 was subverted by Pakistan's ruling military junta. The party, made the target of a vicious assault by the army, proved itself equal to the task of forging mass resistance through forming the Mujibnagar government in April 1971 in conjunction with its allies and initiating war of liberation against Pakistan.
Yet there have been the moments when it veered away from its democratic ideals. Such a tragic turn in its political course occurred in January 1975, when the party, being in government, swiftly moved to replace multi-party democracy with one-party Baksal rule, in the process banning all but four newspapers and placing those in the control of the government
That said, however, in the years since 1975, when its entire top leadership was eliminated through assassination, the Awami League has come a long way, enough to have gained public support (in 1996 and 2008) in order to become once more the party of government. The credit for the achievement goes to its leaders and its workers across the country.
In the times ahead, popular expectations of the Awami League will expand and diversify. The party can satisfy those expectations through ensuring a continued growth and expansion of internal party democracy. Happily, at the last elections, such a trend was noticeable when it was the party grassroots which played a leading role in selecting candidates for parliament. Such transparency must be reflected at all tiers of the party. At the same time, the party must remember that its overwhelming victory at the December 2008 elections has devolved upon it a huge responsibility in that it will be expected to implement its promises and policies. It must carefully guard against even any hint of arrogance of power that political parties with overwhelming electoral majorities have often been susceptible to. Again, the Awami League can bring about a wholesale transformation within itself through utilizing the abilities of its senior politicians and at the same time going for an infusion of new, young blood in the organisation.
Finally, now that it is in government, its leaders must be able to distinguish between the party and the government -- in the interest of democratic politics.
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