There is a debate about whether politics is the king’s policy or the king of policies, although the grammar of the Bengali language describes it as the ‘king of policies’. This may be an attempt to glorify politics. Although the word ‘Dharshara’ is derived from, it is described as the policy of running a city or a state, in our region it has been associated with the concept of ‘king’.
Since in a democracy, the people are the source of political power, it is very natural for politics that is isolated from the people to suffer from an existential crisis. This has also happened in the case of the politics of the two major parties in Bangladesh, which are isolated from the people. The attempt to strongly deny and erase each other during the change of power is a sign of their existential fear. To overcome this existential fear, various special forces of chamchas, dalals, mosahebs, and flatterers are bred. There are also the Rakshi Bahini of the past to the modern pistols, ramdas, chapatis, rods, chains, hammers, stamps, and helmets.
They want to uproot each other. Simultaneously, behind this is their own root crisis and in front of them is their authoritarian desire. Only by erasing the opponent can they establish themselves as the ‘Maharajadhiraj’ forever. That is why they have practiced the politics of opposing, denying, and erasing the opponent’s name. And the political culture of denying or erasing forever gives birth to new fascists.
Both parties have tried to do these things in the name of the people during their tenure. Each party has a flock of blind followers (read-not-readers) who are fed with their own slop. They are brainwashed, they keep the field hot by chanting slogans and showdowns in the name of the party and party leader like robots day and night. And all the parties try to show that the people are with them. What exactly is meant by the word ‘people’ in this country is also a good omen. There is a large section of the population of the state who are generally ‘politically neutral’, who never bother about conventional politics, and who are not the vote bank of any particular party. Whether these working people without party identity and the voters of the opposition parties are considered ‘the people’ by any party is a question of crores of taka.
In the country, both the Awami League and the BNP have come to power several times in succession, but they have never been able to overcome this political existential fear. Just as they have risen up desperately to establish their own existence to overcome this existential fear, they have also made a desperate attempt to erase the opposition. They have changed names, renamed or established name institutions in their favor.
The recent Awami League government has done this very horribly. They have made the state a playground for familization, and made state institutions a stage for celebrating Family Day. They have forced the state machinery to establish neo-sutivism in exercising political and government power. They have installed thousands upon thousands of murals and sculptures at every intersection, coldly squandering billions of people’s money.
Needless to say, all this has happened with the intention of perpetuating themselves. They have forgotten that just as the fear of existence cannot be overcome by separating from the masses, similarly, their existence cannot be perpetuated by force. Due to which, within a few hours from the afternoon of August 5, 2024, all their efforts to preserve their existence and all the Himalayan-like pillars of existence have instantly turned to dust. The slogan from Satyajit Ray’s movie ‘Hirak Rajar Desh’ has been heard all around, “…Dare Dhar Mar Tan, Raja Hobe Khan Khan…”.
The Hasina government, by permanently erecting devotion and respect for Sheikh Mujib in the form of a sculpture, has pulled out the innate love of people for him from the hearts of people. They have forgotten that eternal devotion and existence reside in the hearts of people in the love of people. When they try to establish and display him outside in the form of a sculpture, devotion and existence are lost from the hearts of people.
While the Awami League was in power, no one other than Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was acknowledged, as if there was no one before or after him. On the other hand, the BNP, while in power, has tried its best to deny Sheikh Mujib, hide him and replace him with Zia. That is why the BNP leader was seen celebrating her fictitious birthday by cutting a cake on August 15. They want to reject Mujib and make Zia exist in his place. By glorifying the concept of the ‘declarer’ of independence, they are actually trying to destroy the glory and influence of the ‘father of the nation’. They are trying to make the concept of ‘Bangladeshi nationalism’ a fierce competitor to Bengali nationalism. They want to erase Mujib, so they want Zia. They consider the country as their personal farmland and want to cultivate Mujibism and Ziaism.
In this game of erasure and denial, they have divided the entire population, the nation, in the push and pull of ‘Joy Bangla’ and ‘Bangladesh Zindabad’. The point is that to be Mujib’s people, you have to hate and reject Zia, and to be Zia’s people, you have to hate and reject Mujib. They also waste the precious time of the National Assembly in this hatred, this abuse and bitterness towards each other. It also affects the state’s textbooks and the minds of children over and over again. The people of the country fall face down again and again under the pressure of the imposed one-sided history! The vast wealth and money of the state are being wasted on this nonsense.
Basically, the two big parties want to keep the nation divided into opposites and exploit it, just like the “divide and rule” of the British. And a divided nation cannot move forward, it only starts fighting among itself. To move forward in today’s competitive world, ethnic unity and political stability are necessary. But they do not want national unity, they want to continue the business of politics by keeping the nation divided. According to the declaration of both parties, “they do politics for the people”, this is a complete deception of the people. The purpose of their politics can be easily understood by observing the financial condition of their leaders before and after they were elected.
They climb the stage of power with the slogan of changing the fate of the people and changing the day, and get addicted to the game of changing names. They start erasing and rewriting names to shorten the life span of others or to give their own people a long life. They do not think that power is never permanent in one hand! They discard everything from the previous government’s term and start anew. Falling into this vicious cycle of making a new journey after term, the country can no longer move forward, it wanders in the same place. In this sick cycle, Chandrima Udyan becomes Zia Udyan, another group comes and breaks the nameplate of Zia Udyan again. The name of the country’s main airport has also been changed time and again.
Erasing history and culture in political intoxication is on the one hand political childishness, and on the other hand it is a kind of banditry. The nation has been divided here repeatedly while trying to partisanize history. Great leaders will live on in their historical role in building the country and the nation. Why do we have to save them by naming them so many times! In the sick competition of naming, some take turns grabbing the father, some the husband, and start such a tug-of-war that the veil of honor is torn off and the fathers and husbands are left naked. The politics of seeing the opposition as an enemy and eliminating it with this naked joy of changing names and denying it, which these two parties have practiced in turn after coming to power, actually bears evidence of the pitiful state of the overall political culture, ridiculous shambles and ultimately political bankruptcy.
The most unfortunate aspect of Bangladeshi politics is that it has not created politically aware citizens, but has created blind support groups. Politics here puts such glasses on the eyes of party followers that the darkness of the supported party and the light of the opposition party cannot be seen. If someone supports BNP, it means that he cannot see any faults of BNP and any virtues of Awami League even in his short life. On the other hand, if someone supports Awami League, he will not see any bad things about Awami League and any good things about BNP until the Day of Judgment. The evil cycle of our sick political culture has not tried to make the citizens patriotic here – it has only made them party-goers, party slaves and neo-slaves. The history of people here is the history of slavery, the political forces have made the people slaves. Political devotion here is blind and ridiculous at the same time. While showing devotion to boats, rice ears, plows, and scales, the ability to call right justice and wrong injustice is lost here; people lose the courage to call white white and black black!
However, people have awakened in the July Revolution, the entire country is now looking towards the interim government. Everyone wants an end to this sick politics of denial, bitterness and division. However, is there any scope for ignoring or denying Bangabandhu’s historical role because of his daughter’s crime? Does this government consider Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the father of the nation? Recently, in response to a question, an advisor to the government said, “Of course not.” After such a life-saving mass uprising, the nation’s aspirations are high for the interim government. The tone of denial in their voices, like that of the aforementioned political governments, is not desirable. Our dream of freedom has been robbed repeatedly, and let it not happen again.
