Without blinkers
Politics versus justice: Khaleda throws down the gauntlet

N.M. Harun

The odyssey is over. A five-member bench of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Tafazzal Islam, pronounced on November 19 the final judgement on the Bangabandhu murder case. The High Court Division's 2001 judgement, sentencing all the 12 convicts to death on the charge of murdering Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of independent Bangladesh, on August 15, 1975, has been upheld. There is an outpouring of self-congratulatory statements from all quarters, claiming that justice has eventually triumphed. This is, at best, a half-truth.

The truth is: at a favourable turn of events, politics has prevailed over conspiracy and inflicted a body blow on the forces of the August 15 counter-revolution. The Court has played a facilitating role in the implementation of the government's avowed policy of upholding the rule of law and its electoral pledge that the "[HC] judgement of the Bangabandhu murder case will be made effective".

This interplay between politics and justice has been succinctly expressed by Barrister Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh. A grandnephew of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Taposh, whose parents Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni and Arjoo Moni were also murdered on August 15, 1975, was on the government panel of lawyers in the Bangabandhu murder case. At a post-judgement press conference, held on the premises of the Supreme Court on November 19, Taposh said: "Bangabandhu struggled for 24 long years to win the nation independence, and it's a shame that we had to beg from door to door for 34 years for the trial of his killers."

The murder of Sheikh Mujib; the Indemnity Ordinance that barred the trial of his killers for long 21 years from 1975 to 1996; the patronisation of the killers of Mujib by the governments of Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed, General Ziaur Rahman, General H.M. Ershad and Khaleda Zia; the annulment of the Indemnity Ordinance in 1996 by the first government of Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujib, opening up the scope for the trial of the killers of her father; judges of the higher courts feeling 'embarrassed'; the suspension of the trial during Khaleda Zia's third term as prime minister from 2001 to 2006 on the plea of shortage of judges in the Appellate Division; the resumption and completion of the trial in 2009 during Sheikh Hasina's second term in office are all matters of politics.

This contest of politics, overriding the crime and tragedy of August 15, has apparently been the factor which determined the response of BNP Chairperson and Leader of the Opposition Khaleda Zia to the final judgement in the Bangabandhu murder case. She has not joined the chorus, singing praises of the judgement as the vindication of the rule of law or the triumph of justice. She greeted the judgement with deafening silence. This is the loudest statement of her politics: let the killers of Mujib be hanged, long live the Islam-pasand polity.

The August 15 counter-revolution foisted the Islam-pasand polity on the country in 1975. Apparently in pursuance of practical politics, Khaleda has sidetracked the Awami League government's abiding interest in the Bangabandhu murder case, and avoided condemning August 15 counter-revolution and its perpetrators. Khaleda has thus sent a strong message to the votaries of Islam-pasand politics to regroup at a time when they face a moral crisis. The Islam-pasand polity used to respect August 15 with a 'halo of patriotism' and now the judgement in the Bangabandhu murder case has replaced the halo with a badge of shame and crime.

There is a widespread condemnation of the murderous orgies of August 15, 1975. But it is a lie -- a very convenient lie during the resurgence of the Awami League under Mujib's daughter -- to assert that the whole nation is united in punishing the killers of Mujib. And an equally cheap propaganda is that the whole people are eager to re-embrace Mujib's fundamental political legacy: his four principles of Bengali Nationalism, Democracy, Socialism and Secularism. Remember the demonstrative popular enthusiasm with Baksal and juxtapose this with the eagerness of powerful sections among the elites and the common people alike to join the bandwagon of Islam-pasand Bangladeshi nationalism of Zia, Ershad and Khaleda. Also don't forget how many have gone out of the way in accommodating the Jamaat and other Islamist forces in post-'75 Bangladesh and how the Jamaat was welcome to share state power in the name of protecting sovereignty and Islamic values.

National unity, forged by the War of Independence and Liberation of 1971, was torn asunder by the August 15 counter-revolution of 1975. Bangladesh has since been a divided nation -- in a state of virtual civil war. The November 19 Supreme Court judgement is but a step towards the dismantling of the edifice of the counter-revolution. A political battle far more grim than the court battle lies ahead as Khaleda has made it abundantly clear that she will lead the defence of the Islam-pasand polity.

On the morrow of independence in 1971, the victorious secular-socialist-Bengali nationalist forces dropped their guard against the remnants of Islam-pasand political forces. The rest is history. Will that history be averted this time?

Albert Camus made some sobering reflections in The Plague:

"Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperilled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learnt from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and enlightening of men, it roused up its rats again and sent them forth to die in a happy city."



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