Follow on

I was one of the crores of people who heaved a sigh of relief and whooped in happiness when the ridiculous caretaker government formed under the leadership of the BNP puppet Iazuddin was dissolved through military intervention and a new more neutral body of advisors was activated. Well its almost been a year now and I'm not sure whether we're still whooping in joy.

As a lot of people have already commented in editorials, talk shows, blogs and addas, the only thing that the CTG government seems to be doing properly, or at least with some success, is apprehend people and put them in jail. That sounds just about right for a government whose orders come from the military, even though apparently the military are not in power. If that is so, then why is it that the only positive this government can show from the last year is arrests? Whatever good they have done, its related to capturing people who were corrupt.

But its not that easy is it? Anyone who has been in Dhaka for a few months will have an idea of how ridiculous the city planning is. Apparently we do have a city planning commission, who take into account the aesthetics as well as the practicalities when commissioning new buildings to be built. Then how do you explain the Rangs building debacle? Why should only rangs pay for the crime of putting up the building on civil property? What about all those vultures in the City planning commission or whatever that organization is called who took fat bribes to allow rangs to go ahead with the building? Its all well and good to apprehend a few, and yes, it really has only been a few, people and make a hue and cry that we're fighting corruption. But have we made any fundamental difference? Are we on our way towards making any fundamental difference? The entire Secretariat Building is full of crooks. The entire Police and judiciary body is full of crooks. Have we, in the course of this one whole year, formulated any sort of plan which looks at how we can either eradicate or correct these problems?

My complain with any government which comes to power in Bangladesh is that you hardly ever see any long term plans. I remember I actually supported the formation of the Rapid Action Battalion. I mistakenly thought that this was a well thought out plan. I made up my own reasons for why we needed the RAB and my reasoning went like this -- The judiciary and police are too politicized and corrupt to hold on to powerful criminals and so we need a short term vaccine, something that will have a more permanent solution in the short term, instead of the endless cycle of crooks being arrested, the police getting a phone call and then releasing them back to the streets. I thought while RAB is permanently dealing with the crooks in the short term, our esteemed government will take this opportunity to re-structure the judiciary and the police force from within so that in a year or two we won't need RAB. For RAB can never be the solution. It can only be the short term adrenaline injection. But of course, who was I kidding? The BNP government, just like the previous AL government, was too happy with the status quo. Because everything still worked as far as the corrupt were concerned. And when everybody's corrupt, then you just shut up and follow.

I fear the reign of the CTG is really not the start of a brand new innings. Its merely another follow on.