Political Economy of Janmashtomi, 2017: Perspective Bangladesh
Today Lord Krishna, the supreme figure in Hinduism was born and hundreds of Hindus took to the streets of Dhaka to celebrate his birthday.
The whole program was organized and co-ordinated by Mohanagar Puja Committee. In the inauguration program Mr. Obaidul Quader, Hon'ble Minister of Road, Bridges and Highways and General Secretary of Awami League attended the program as the Chief Guest, whereas Mr. Asaduzzaman Kamal, Hon'ble Minister of Home Affairs was present as the Special Guest. The rally was inaugurated by the Mayor of South Dhaka. Among other guests Police Commissioner of Dhaka City was also present. After reading these names you must be wondering that it was an important program and the Hindus of Bangladesh should be feeling important themselves as well.
You do not need to understand why the Hindus have become so important that two cabinet ministers attended the program! Because the election is ahead and you will need those votes. You will need a lesson of political economy to analyse some other statements of Mr. Quader, since political economy is there to analyze why he has provided the statements.
First of all, he started with the statement that - Hindus are first class citizens. By this statement, you also agree that they along with other religious and ethnic minorities were treated as second class citizens, even worse, if you consider the saga of vested property you will see that curse is still continuing. Deputy Commissioners even after losing the case addresses Law Ministry to know whether they can file Writ Petitions against the verdict of the Vested Property Appeal Tribunals. You may kindly notice Mr. Quader did not mention anything about that curse. Neither did he mention the reasons of downtrodden status of the minorities of Bangladesh, nor did he address about the solutions.
Secondly, he humbly took this opportunity to thank Indian Primier Mr. Narendra Modi for solving border sharing and administering disputes. He also wished that the Tista (a common river) Water Sharing Agreement will be signed between the countries. What did he want to achieve by mentioning this in such a program? The crowd was immediatly whispering- why mention India amongst Hindus? Is it because India is a Hindu majority country and Hindus of Bangladesh love India as their guardian? Or is it because he also wanted to represent to the Indian journalists present in the crowd that Hindus, during the regime of Awami League, live better than the regime of BNP? Or that Awami League is a friend of India and whispering: election is next year. It can be any of them. And the answer? Who knows, at least I don't. At this stage he did ask the crowd: whether they believe in Hon'ble Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for safeguarding their rights and the crowd did respond positively. This proves one more time that Hon'ble Prime Minister is the only person to trust in the question of protecting fundamental rights. She is the guiding star, if people vote, it will be only for the trust and love they have for her, but for no one else.
Thirdly, he raised the issue of recent judgment of 16th Amendment and said whatever, he did (meeting with the Chief Justice and then sharing Awami League's opinion on the judgment with the Hon'ble President of Bangladesh), he did with the advice of the Hon'ble Prime Minister. However, he did not clear about the discussions he had with them. Once again, why here? No answer. But again it had nothing to do with the rights of the minorities.
On a final note, he mentioned one positive things, that is - all the minorities should held their heads high and should always consider them equal. If that is ensured in all aspects of our life, then the wishes of the Father of the Nation will come true.