Rangs Bhaban must go

Rangs Bhaban was built by its owner on someone else’s land. It was built against the objections of Rajuk and CAAB. It was built in defiance to High Court’s order. How could the owner of this infamous building get away by defying so many government authorities? The answer is not far to find. Like many other corrupt businessmen of our country, the owner of Rangs Bhaban found out the prices of heads which mattered in regimes one after another. He paid the price and bought the heads. This illegitimate building stands at the heart of Dhaka city as a Qutub Minar of corruption and absence of good governance. The people of Bangladesh honestly believe that this time its owner will not find a head to buy in the government of Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed and the building will be demolished. That the building is too tall and cannot be demolished by technologies at the moment available in the country is not an acceptable argument. If necessary, bring in new technologies from abroad and make the owner of the building pay for the cost of demolition. If the government fails to do it people will think that laws are only for the poor slumdwellers. The arm of law is not long enough to reach the rich and the privileged. Surely that will not be a positive complement to the present government.

Women and corruption

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has by this time published two lists of persons who are allegedly corrupt. They have been asked by the commission to submit their wealth statements for verification. What surprises me is that these two lists of one hundred persons, or so, include only one woman. (She is Sigma Huda, wife of former minister Barrister Nazmul Huda.) Does that mean that the women in our society are all ‘dhoa tulshipata’ (innocent)? In our society we find most of the working and non-working women, especially the well-to-do ones, want to live their life as luxuriously as possible. We see them in a rat race for more money and more power. They take a kind of perverted pleasure in living beyond means. They suffer from a mental disease called exhibitionism and are fond of showing off their expensive houses, cars, dresses, ornaments etc. If these women could be motivated to live within their means, if the society could openly question and condemn such exhibitionism, I believe, their men would not have run after unearned and ‘haram’ (forbidden by religion) income to meet the insatiable greed of their wives. But the question is: how to motivate these ambitious and exceedingly greedy women and bring them to the path of modest living within the means?

I have two humble suggestions. Firstly, women organisations of our country can initiate a movement to make the women aware of the far-reaching ill-effects of corruption on their families and on the society as a whole. They can tell the women that every married woman must prevail upon her husband to refrain him from acquiring wealth by illegal means by taking bribe or indulging in dishonest business. She must tell her husband that she is happy with his honest income, even if it causes her financial hardship. She can also tell her husband that it will never be good for their children if they are brought up with ‘haram’ money. Moreover, when these children will grow up and learn that their father was a corrupt man they will have no regard for the father. Can we expect to see our senior women social workers starting a movement in this line, or in a better line, by addressing our women through media, meetings, seminars and symposia? Secondly, the wife of a corrupt man, being the main co-beneficiary of the corruption of her husband, should be made a co-accused as an abettor in a corruption case. She may be acquitted by the court if she can prove that she tried her best to refrain her husband from making money by corrupt means. But the husband must be punished if found guilty. If necessary, the existing relevant laws may be amended to involve the wife of a corrupt man in such cases. Before I conclude I must make it clear that I do not write this letter to absolve the corrupt men of their crimes. Under all circumstances they must be punished as per law. They must be condemned by the society every time and everywhere. I write this letter to seek the active support of our mothers and sisters to combat corruption.

Reform is required

In the last 15 years, the two principal ruling parties of Bangladesh, the BNP and the AL, have deliberately destroyed all our organisations, like the national parliament, the Election Commission, the Public Service Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission (formerly bureau), the institutions for higher education, the bureaucracy and, above all, the higher judiciary. Judiciary is one of the three pillars on which the edifice of a state stands, the other two being the executive and the legislature, both of which are run by the politicians. Judiciary, specially the higher judiciary, though not run by politicians, is made by politicians. While making and unmaking the higher judiciary of our country in the last 15 years our politicians have almost destroyed it. Both the BNP and the AL have inducted politically motivated persons with questionable qualification, competence and integrity into judiciary. The performance of the chief justice, who has just retired, is so ignominious that the whole nation is ashamed of it. The present caretaker government is bringing in long awaited reforms in all the vital sectors of our national life. It must reform the Supreme Court now. We have now a new chief justice who is known for his competence and integrity. The government should immediately take necessary actions to make the nation get rid of the judges of the Supreme/High Court who were appointed only on political considerations. It should be done in the same way the government eased out the chairmen and members of the last Election Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission. Laws and rules should be amended to ensure the selection of the right kind of people to fill in the vacancies thus created. Such an important task cannot be entrusted to a political prime minister alone, as it is being done now. The chief justice must be involved in the selection/recommendation process with veto power to reject any candidate. If the present government hands over power to an elected government of the politicians, whenever it may be, without carrying out this reform in the higher judiciary, I am afraid, all the good work it is doing now will be undone by the next political government which will follow with the help and support of the partisan judges.