Is Politics Prioritising Environment?

The national poll is knocking at the door. Election anthems and slogans are getting louder, and promises are being more ambitious, but have we heard any major political party leader in Bangladesh present a timeframe-bound, detailed, and clear environmental manifesto? Well, leaders cited it but not how it should be.

Environmental protection is often mentioned in speeches but not in a concrete, time-bound, and accountable way. After 17 months of the July Uprising, the 13th National Poll is approaching with a demand for true democracy, often mentioned as of the people, for the people, and by the people. However, under neoliberalism or market capitalism, the notion of democracy often remains rhetorical. John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff argue in ‘What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know’ that it is always of the capital, for the capital, and by the capital. They have introduced the cycle and claimed that corporates and donors fund the election campaign, and the politicians in return serve the interests of ‘donors’. This is where neoliberal policies come into being. In Bangladesh, the situation is more complex. Most of our political leaders are businessmen themselves. Subsequently, it is also about serving their own interest.

Dhaka, the world’s most populated city, is becoming less inhabitable day by day. One of the major reasons responsible is the crisis of water and sanitation. The four rivers around the city – Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shitalakshya – are being polluted daily due to household, industrial, and various types of waste. In addition, the land grabbing is swallowing the wetlands, such as beels and canals of the city. Wetland grabbing for housing and industrial zones is nothing new to Dhaka dwellers; even in the name of development projects, it is being normalised. Businesspersons and political groups are largely responsible for this accumulation of wetlands and pollution, as per research on ecology and the environment. It is therefore unsurprising that the hot favourite parties are joining the election with most of their party members being businesspersons. It is very unlikely to predict that they will make policies or work for the betterment of the environment, keeping in mind the neoliberal policies to profit. The profit-over-planet scheme seems to work more.

Election promises reflecting this reality, whether it is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) Family Card or Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s Smart Social Security Card welfare, are dominating the political discourse, and the environment is a mere footnote. There is no such global standard environmental pledge like the zero-carbon or river-restoration pledge or anything; it is just a surface word about saving the environment, making their pledge dull and not compromising one. The previous governments failed to save the Buriganga, though the rivers are being considered as a ‘living entity’ by the high court role. BNP came up with 8 big pledges, and the environment is one of them. The National Citizens Party (NCP) also added environment as one of the five major causes.

BNP frequently cite their legacy of the Green Revolution and envision establishing environmentally friendly future development. But to date there is no time-bound plan from the party itself. BNP, in their 31 points, pledge to take effective measures to prevent pollution of rivers and other water reservoirs. Additionally, I am concerned about launch programmes for excavation and re-excavation of rivers and canals to mitigate flood and drought. Even while speaking to the Times Magazine, Tarique Rahman aspires to dig 12,000 miles of canals, plant 50 million trees a year, and seed 50 new green spaces in Dhaka.

NCP, in its 24-point agenda, pledged to work on climate resilience and river-sea protection, which directly emphasises saving the ecology of rivers. Nahid Islam, one of the key coordinators of the July Uprising, in his election campaign also pledged for a better drainage system to combat waterlogging in his constituency. Rampura Canal Reclamation is one of his flagship promises.

These initiatives indicate awareness, but again, execution is the real test. Additionally, without timelines, a cited funding mechanism, and an accountability framework, these pledges are at risk of becoming symbolic and rhetoric. In this election, whether the election is funded by donors or not, our politicians are ready to grab public attention for votes by making promises. As voters are ready to cast their ballots, questions hover: Will the political leaders really dare to resist the neoliberal current, or will they serve the capital at the cost of environmental deterioration?