A news was
circulated in the media that the Prime Minister is going to be tough with her MPs,
ministers, advisors and also her top and mid-level party leaders. The names of MPs and
ministers who are involved in
corruption and controversies are believed to be on the table of the Prime Minister
Fighting against the enemy within
Abdul Gaffar Choudhury
Britains former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was known as the Iron Lady once said that it is easy to fight enemy from the outside, but difficult to fight the enemy within. She meant the people inside her party or government, who were not honest and efficient in performing their duties. She used to remove them ruthlessly from her cabinet.
The same observation about enemy within was uttered by Pandit Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who was facing enormous difficulties to run the country despite his absolute majority in the-then parliament. Long before Margaret Thatcher he realized that he could deliver the good governance that his countrymen expected from him only if he could remove the corrupt and inefficient people from his party and administration. He also called them enemy within and said that they were more dangerous than enemy from the outside.
Nehru appointed Mr. Kamaraj, then a middle-aged Congress leader, to draw a plan to reform the Congress party in power and make it free from the grip of bad politicians. Accordingly Kamaraj drew a plan in which he suggested that the Prime Minister should ask the leaders, who had become too old and who had too many complaints against their honesty and efficiency to resign from their posts and pave the way for the young leadership to take their place.
Nehru also undertook a difficult task to clean his administration. Still in Nehrus time his son in law Feroze Gandhi (Indiras husband) accused the government in the parliament for a financial bad deal which was known as Mundra corruption case.
Just after the independence of Bangladesh as the first Prime minister of the country, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman realized that he also needed a crackdown in his parliamentary party to clean the administration and the party. More than a dozen MPs and MNAs (the-then members of the provincial and national assemblies) were expelled from the party and Bangabandhu took strong measures to stabilize his administration. Even he asked a senior minister of his cabinet to resign for personal scandal.
When Bangabandhu embarked on introducing a new administrative system in early 1975, he declared in a mammoth gathering in the Suhrawardy Uddayn, I have now found out too many greedy exploiters around me. I will engage red-horses against them. Unfortunately he did not get the time to clean his party and administration. He was killed by the enemies of the country with almost all the members of his family. Among the conspirators who killed him were also included the enemy from within.
After 25 years since Independence, having become the Prime Minister of the country, Sheikh Hasina is now passing a more difficult time than her father. She inherited an administration which was thoroughly corrupted by previous military and autocratic governments. Politics is run by money and muscle power now. These vices infiltrated widely the party presently in power also. Sheikh Hasina had all the intention to clean her party and administration but in democracys slow and hindered process it is difficult for a strong leadership also to clean this Aegean stable.
The military dictator General Ziaur Rahman at least kept his one promise. He made politics extremely difficult for the real politicians. Now innumerable handmade and corruptible politicians produced during military rules have flooded the political field. That flood had contaminated the real pro-people political parties like Awami League also. Hasinas political legacy is a corrupted political and administrative machinery. To free the country from this draconian grip Bangladesh needs a revolution. A slow democratic reform will take a long time and can even be hindered by the conspiracy of anti-people cliques.
I met Sheikh Hasina in London in the first part of this month and saw her determined to fight against the enemy within. I think, perhaps, she has realized that only by economic development she cannot satisfy the people. People expect good governance. Her government cannot deliver good governance not only because of opposition from outside but for the activities of her own men in the party and the administration. She needs to get rid of them to fulfil her promise to make the country a real, prosperous and digital Bangladesh.
After her return to Dhaka a news was circulated in the newspaper that the Prime Minister is going to be rough and tough with her MPs, ministers,
advisors and also her top and mid-level party leaders. The names of MPs and ministers who are involved in corruption and controversies are on the table of the Prime Minister. Her own staff, hired officials and the political appointees in the Foreign missions will also be investigated. Government Intelligence agencies and Prime Ministers separate intelligence wings collected these names in a wide-ranging investigation.
Those who are involved in extortion, tender business and land-grabbing their names have been listed in a file especially for the Prime Minister. The leaders of associated organizations of Awami League were also warned that they will be punished immediately if they indulge in any sorts of corruption. If any influential leader of the party tried to protect their corrupt henchmen, they will have to face expulsion from the party.
This news is encouraging. One Dhaka newspaper reported that government instructed the Anti-Corruption Commission not to spare the Awami MPs if there are corruption cases against them. Abdur Rahman Bodi, an MP from Coxs Bazar is one among those who are already under investigation. The Anti-Corruption Commission has already sued Mahbubur Rahman MP from Patuakhali and former State-minister Abdul Mannan Khan and his wife. The same newspaper reported that under the strict instruction from the PM most leaders and MPs from the party in power are under surveillance.
After waging a successful war against political criminals in the country if this government can root out the social criminals it will be a real progress towards establishing good governance. The fight against money and muscle power should start from within the governing party. It would create an example and encourage people and will work as a severe warning to other criminals hiding in other parties.
In fact social criminals have no real political colour. Whenever they get chance they change their colour and overnight becomes the supporter of the ruling-party. When a political party loses power they also lose a huge number of opportunistic members and supporters. Sheikh Hasina should take strong measures to stop the infiltration of these criminals into her party and recover the previous image of her party.
It is a very difficult task. There is already news flashed in media that hundreds of Jamaat and Shibir leaders and workers are joining Awami League to save their skin and to hide their real identity. Already two partners of the 14-party alliance- Workers Party and Shaymmobadi Dol warned Awami League leaders about the secret infiltration of Jamaat and Shibir leaders in Awami League. Dilip Barua, a former minister of Hasina government said that if this tide of Jamaati infiltration cannot be halted immediately it would be disastrous for both the country and Awami League.
It is unfortunate that some local Awami League leaders are patronizing and protecting some notorious Jamaat and Shibir leaders in their areas to use against their political rivals. This is high time for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take hard-line to defeat the enemies of people in her own party and administration.
If she succeeds, her enemies and opponents from outside-- though maybe more powerful--would not succeed in their conspiracies. But if she cannot defeat the enemy within that may destroy all her achievements and plunge the country into darkness again.
London: Friday 26th June, 2015
