Mayoral Elections, BBC Nirbachoni Shonglap, and political musings

Three days after returning to Dhaka from the BBC Nirbachoni Shonglaps, I am finally recovered and settled enough to write about my experiences, and reflect on some realizations that dawned on me during and since my “expedition”.

Before I mention my experience, I must say briefly what it was about, the context within which I decided to take the job, and my objectives for doing so. It was a serendipitous opportunity, thanks to Atif bhai who directed a co-student from BBC towards me. Himika apu, a recent BBC employee herself, was looking for someone to perform a job at the mayoral dialogues to be held at four city corporations before the August 4th Mayoral Elections. Now this is what I call luck! I was already looking for diverse opportunities after deferring my Harvard admission, and this indeed would be something new. It would pay well, and let me get out of my shoes in Dhaka which I desperately needed to resolve some personal dilemmas. Finally, I was also excited to get immersed in the activity centering the elections in four major cities, and be able to see for myself how local elections are shaping up after the post-1/11 changes in Bangladeshi politics.

The job itself was not especially exhilarating – taking care of VIP guests attending the Shonglaps (including the British High Commissioner, DFID Chief and Election Commissioners), handling their queries and needs, and managing them so that they wouldn’t interrupt in the dialogues themselves. This meant that apart from the days of the events, I (and my colleague Sabeth) had little to do. We spent part of that time exploring the cities when it was not raining, a large chunk of it indulging in great food, endless sleep, movie-nights and adda-fication, and the remaining hours in trying to perform other roles and helping out anyone who needed a hand.

My personal interest, however, was elsewhere. I wanted to see how the run-up to the elections was taking shape, and what the people’s perception of it was. I tried talking to a few people when I went to visit the local grocery shops or the hotel’s reception. I tried to watch the Shonglaps as closely as I could. And I attempted to get a sense of the expectations surrounding these elections. How exciting, you might think. Quite to the contrary, I would summarize my entire experience in two words – deeply frustrating!

First and most obvious was the hideous quality of the mayoral candidates themselves. A large majority possessed education only up to secondary level, and then that was what they claimed! Even though there were a few candidates who had bachelor degrees in law and social sciences, many of them were widely known to be of questionable integrity. Some have previously been indicted in murder cases, some others were corrupt commissioners known to have embezzled government funds, and so on. I don’t mean to say that there were no good candidates contesting these elections. But I couldn’t help but feel upset when people told me, “Person X is a good man – he has superior values, is extremely efficient, and has never stolen a single penny – but he won’t get any votes because he is not supported by any party and doesn’t have many people to campaign for him.” I mean, if everyone knew he was a good man, why would they vote a criminal instead??? (UPDATE: In three of the four elections, the elected mayors have skeletons not in their closet but displayed on their living room, and in at least two cases, there was a better competitor in terms of education, background and integrity.)

Anyway, just when you would expect the unworthy candidates to be grilled alive in events like the Nirbachoni Sanglap, another shock awaits you. If you were new to our country, the dialogues might have seemed to be a desperate competition to be superficial, with a Prize-money of 50 million bucks! Each superficial question from the audience was followed by a superficial answer from the candidate, only to be succeeded by an even shallower follow-up query. At times, I was so frustrated and enraged that I had to walk away from the program and regain my cool. At others, I felt like breaching my contract with BBC and shouting out loud a question that would take the discourse a little deeper into the real issues!

Let me apologize for the deeply pessimistic tone of this write up. I don’t mean to say that there was nothing positive in what I saw. In fact, I noticed at least one silver lining among the ominous dark clouds – the fact that some people, if not deeply thoughtful, were at least bold and daring in asking embarrassing and challenging questions to the candidates. In some cases, even the most formidable contenders were made to defend their educational qualifications and corruption history, which was a breath of fresh air in the Bangladeshi political context. It seemed that 1-11 and its subsequent jailing of major national leaders gave the people some courage, and made some realize that the real power – the power of votes – was with them. Of course, this (at least temporary) shift in power dynamics was also largely attributable to the power of information – aided by the laudable decision of the Supreme Court that forced the candidates to disclose seven pieces of information (however honestly) about themselves.

But taking a step back and looking at Bangladeshi politics holistically, I can’t help but wonder – with the present level of consciousness, analytical ability and insight of the masses, how do we even dream of a viable democracy? Do we possess a total system of worthy institutions, leaders, and most importantly, constituents, to make any government perform smoothly?

I don’t think that one, or for that matter, a thousand 1/11s will make any difference in our plight. A government backed by the military will only make things worse, much the same as putting a wild horse in the hands of a sadistic control-freak. Democracy, too, is not a panacea, as it is so often portrayed by donor agencies, foreign ambassadors, and the parties themselves. Democracy has a thousand preconditions that need to be fulfilled before it can function properly. And one of the most important among them is effective mass education. Until we have a conscious and analytical citizenship that knows how to sift the right from the wrong, good from the bad, no phoenix will rise from the ashes of 1/11. If not the same old ravens, at best we might witness the rise of a sparrow.