During the last 15 years in power, Sheikh Hasina and Awami League (AL) have had a lot of achievements. Bangladesh’s global image has also been upped in some respects. She has also earned a good number of global accolades. Undeniably, she has worked hard for earning these recognitions.

During the last 15 years, I have written a good number of articles, basically in Daily Sun, in appreciation of Sheikh Hasina’s plans, policies and success stories. However, today’s piece of mine will not be a rave review of her and party leaders’ recent utterances. As a conscious human being, it is my bounden duty to express my sheer disbelief.

In fact, the utterances of Sheikh Hasina on 14th July at a press conference and reactions of hundreds of students in the Dhaka University campus was more than a revelation for me. It was beyond my apprehension that Dhaka University students would react so spontaneously and furiously.

And, direct threat of AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader to crush the student movement through BCL and the latter movements of students in which even private university, college and school students got engaged in unexpected numbers, bring forth a totally new scenario that the new generation, which remains mostly glued to mobile and mobile games, is not at all unaware of what is happening around.

More revealing is that they are not ready to take harsh words and bullying lightly. It does clearly indicate that, despite being in power for around 15 years, Sheikh Hasina and Awami League have miserably failed to comprehend that the new generation is not to be pressurised into digesting even oblique references. Their sense of dignity has grown so sharp.

The Liberation War is a great and unforgettable event for Bangladesh. Freedom Fighters are golden sons of the land. Unfortunately, however, motivated overkill of the terms, that is, ‘spirit of liberation war’ and ‘freedom fighters’ by the ruling party for around one and half decades, seem to have led to the lessening of the appeal of the terms to the new generation.

Moreover, through persistent intimidation, the ruling party guys and boys seems to have antagonised the new generation beyond measure. I was surprised by an answer of an HSC examinee that he did not write the essay on ‘spirit of liberation war’ because it is cheap.

Why does he and others of the new generation find it cheap? Who has made it cheap? This is a serious failure of the party in power which has failed to infuse true ‘spirit of liberation war’ despite trading on it constantly. It is indeed more than an irony. It has badly exposed an inherent lacuna of the regime, more interested in suppression than persuasion.

The situation has come to such a passe that veteran freedom fighters now publicly say that they do not want any quota. They just want honour. Why should they be so plaintive? Are they responsible for this sorry state of affairs? ‘Spirit of liberation war’ was nothing more than having a country free from exploitation, corruption and democratic values.

To be honest, during the last 15 years of Awami League in power, governance has hardly been up to the mark. If governance was good enough, let alone other issues, how can a peon of the Prime Minister earn 400 crore taka which was disclosed by the PM herself in the said press conference. How can government officers like Benazir, Motiur and so on earn hordes of money?

How can a driver of Public Service Commission earn so much money by just leaking questions? Where are his powerful accomplices? In fact, these are just the tips of the iceberg of the corruption that took place. Sheikh Hasina’s government deserves kudos for letting these scams come to the light.

However, these will have no impact whatsoever if the corrupt ones are not brought to book and if unabated surge of corruption does not ebb. Anyway, however, it is quite clear that the state has gone terribly sick.

In fact, some powerful AL leaders of the time tend to find it their favourite pastime to trivialise the general people.  Some of them seem to live in an ivory tower with an air of invincibility.

Terrible mishandling of the quota issue by Awami League is a testimony to the bare fact that a political party having a lineage of 75 years have completely failed to feel the pulse of the new generation. A party, that is, Awami League which had come to being from the soil of the land and, arduously promoted by Bangabandhu, cannot act like a group of nouveau riche and make light of others’ dignity and emotions.

The bottom line is that, if the party continues to antagonise the new generation and trivialise the general people, it may have to face unsavoury days in future. New policy of clampdown will distance itself further from the new generation and apparent impregnability may crumble someday.

_____________________________________

The writer is Professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Chittagong. Email: [email protected]