A THOUGHT-provoking letter on the subject, published in an English-language daily January 2 made me think. I was brought up under the influence of my maternal uncle, a mechanical engineer of the late 1930s, as my mother was a widow.
He always encouraged me, to be curious and ask, and answered and explained all my maybe silly inquisitive questions at preteen age and he continued to help and guide me till 1959 when he died, after my graduation in engineering in
1954.
Since the early 1950s, Bengali dissatisfaction, centred on national language, with the then Pakistani rulers, and the betrayal by the Muslim League politicians from then East Pakistan, led to the creation of Bangladesh, through bullets and not ballots, as should have been the democratic norm.
Bangladesh was thus born in war and killings; and the trend has till date unfortunately not stopped. Starting from the murder of the founder of Bangladesh, the culture of ‘might is right’, both through the ballot and the violent and greedy politicians that we have, has been established. Democracy has turned into ‘demon-cracy’ that prevails.
Repeated martial laws and autocratic governments have turned democracy as a balloted way to dominate and impose, putting the thinking process behind bars, where it unfortunately dwells.
Today, possibly, free thinking has become a classified crime in our so-called political democracy, which is just a mask for lawlessness with killing and burning being the order of the day, for a political dogma where ‘grab as grab can’ rules the roost despite all pious and lofty ideas being publicly bandied about by all our unfortunate politicians! That seems to be the fact of life in Bangladesh politics today.
SA Mansoor
Dhaka