It will take 4-5 years to implement reforms: Rehman Sobhan

Distinguished economist professor Rehman Sobhan remarked that it would require the interim government to remain in power for four or five years to implement the ambitious reform plan it has adopted. However, the current government’s commitment is to handover charges to an elected government within a logical period, probably that period can go up to 18 months or two years.

In this situation, execution of majority of the reform plans will turn into challenge. Therefore, the most important issue right now is who will get responsibility of implementing the reforms that have already been started by the interim government.  

Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Professor Rehman Sobhan, added while speaking on this matter that the reforms that have been started already have to be sustained no matter which party is elected, especially, when it comes to removing discrimination. In that case, if it’s a party that has been in power before, it needs to consider if their commitments and capabilities match their socio-politic support and their past records.

Professor Rehman Sobhan stated this while speaking as the sole speaker at ‘Nehreen Khan Memorial Lecture and Award Ceremony 2024’ organised by East West University in the capital on Wednesday.

In his written speech on ‘Building a just society in Bangladesh’, he urged to place emphasis on removing discrimination in carrying out reforms. He focused on four topics - the discriminatory nature of the market, unequal social opportunities, unjust political process, and injustice of the state. During the hour-long lecture, he stressed on in-depth reforms of the market, politics and administrative structure in order to establish a just society in the country.

Notably, Nehreen Khan was the only child of former caretaker government adviser and cabinet secretary late Akbar Ali Khan and Sunbeams School teacher late Hamim Khan. After completing her studies in the United States she returned to the country and finished her masters in English literature from East West University. Suffering from incurable disease, she died in 2016 at the age of 39 years.

Retired professor of the University of Dhaka, Fakhrul Alam gave the welcome speech at the event while east West University vice-chancellor Shams Rahman spoke as the special guest. Chief adviser of the university and founding vice-chancellor professor Mohammed Farashuddin gave the closing speech.

Treasurer of the university and chairman of the Nehreen Khan Memorial Fund Trustee Board, air commodore (retd) Ishfaq Ilahi Chaudhury thanked everyone. Meanwhile, senior lecturer at the English department of East West University Kaniz Fatema moderated the event. Then professor Rehman Sobhan was honoured with a sash and crest at the end of the lecture.

While reading out the written speech at the lecture, Professor Rehman Sobhan said that the issue of discrimination came into limelight in the context of a historical change of rule through mass solidarity led by the youth on 5 August. The young generation has named this movement the ‘Anti-Discrimination Movement’.

He added that he has shed light on various forms of discrimination through his writings during his professional career. The concept that discrimination is the result of social injustice was the basic foundation of his research. Though there have been various researches on this topic in the last 24 years, unfortunately the source of discrimination or unfairness have rarely been pointed out.

Professor Rehman Sobhan said that the development of democracy is universally recognised today. In many country including the United States, democracy is considered a general right to vote and it is expected that you will be allowed to exercise that right without anyone holding you at gunpoint.

In Bangladesh, that right has been unfairly deprived by the ruling party in the last one decade. They denied that right by abusing the law and by compromising the integrity of electoral institutions instead of organising a free, fair and competitive election.

Rehman sobhan said, "Electoral democracy had gained at least some credibility during the time of the caretaker government. However, the caretaker government had faced some issues as well. The election system gradually turned into a game of the rich people. Year after year we witnessed the role of money growing larger in politics. Rise in politics turned into a tool of growing business. And business turned into the way of entering politics."

"It is no ‘accident’ that business was the primary or secondary profession for three-fourth of the parliament members in the last parliament. The parliament had turned into the chamber of commerce for ‘crony’ capitalists. They used to care about the commercial interests. Without being worried about any matter conflicting with their interest they used their power to grow their businesses," he added. In the absence of an opposite parliamentary obligations were not met either, he commented.

Professor Rehman Sobhan also stated that this relationship between politics and business was not limited to the national parliament only rather, it had spread even to the local government institutions through the people of the ruling community. They had exercised power to create scope of monopoly for their businesses by spending government funds. In this sort of political arrangement, the low income community had been indeed left out.

These institutions had remained undemocratic and extremely discriminative towards majority of the public. As a result these people could never compete in the election. Bangladeshi politics has also been crminalised in this type of condition. ‘Services’ have been bought from criminals with money to win elections on different levels. Wealth and crime ‘coexisted happily’, he said.

Rehman Sobhan also added that the state in this way has appeared as a patroniser of crime. Because, a person can be a criminal and successful at the same time only if they can be outside of the prison. It requires protection from the law enforcement for that. For this reason, it’s important for criminals to be involved with the political process and remaining involved in politics.

Loan defaulters in Bangladesh went after the cover of the parliament this way so that no one can hold them accountable for loan default. According to the law, loan defaulters cannot become election candidates. But, all the finance ministers have relaxed this rule before the elections.

The agendas of decentralisation could never move forward. Neither the bureaucrats nor the parliament members were in favour of decentralisation. Even those parliament members who didn’t perform any duty at the parliament had turned into zamindars or influential people in their constituencies.

According to Professor Rehman Sobhan, the state created injustice on every level of the society and made it permanent. A major portion of the nation’s budget is spent on government officials, the defence sector and to pay off the interest on loans.

There’s not enough allocation on development projects for the poor and for the development of human resources. Wealthy businessmen use assets of the state on monopoly through subsidy, tax rebate and various other facilities. The state often runs on the motivation of personal greed and political interest. The law is being used to make the country lawless and in favour of the rich to suppress the poor.

Professor Rehman Sobhan mentioned the names of the interim government chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus and BRAC founder late Sir Fazle Hasan Abed for distributing microcredit loans to improve the living standards of the poor out of social responsibility. He said that injustice is connected with bad governance of the state.

He expressed his expectations that the reform programmes of the interim government will point out these issues regarding bad governance. He said that an idea about which issues need to be prioritised can be found from the reform commissions that have been formed already. The issues include constitution, judiciary, administration, police election system, corruption, and economy.  

Professor Rehman Sobhan commented that chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus has been working all his life to eliminate poverty and send that (poverty) to the museum. He has presented his ‘Three Zeros’ theory before the world to reduce inequality.

Hopefully the 12 commissions and committees formed by the government will identify the issue of discrimination in the society while formulating the economic white paper. However, there has been no commission yet to provide the religious and ethnic minorities with scope for participating in the society with more equality.

Rehman Sobhan made recommendations for an inclusive election system, ensuring participation of the poor in the election, empowering the democratic institutions on local and national levels, forming cooperatives for increasing access of the poor in data and wealth when it comes to market reforms, ensuring fair-priced market for the micro producers, and ensuring equal rights for data access.

While speaking about the labour market he said that the readymade garments industry workers don’t get fair share of their contribution. The workers lose major portion of their wages for the owners possessing more bargain power. The discrimination in the labour market has to be removed. Mentioning that there is acute discrimination in education and health sectors he urged to increase investment there.

This goal can be brought to the forefront if the political leadership is sincere in creating a fair society, commented professor Rehman Sobhan. He said, “A possibility like that might sound like a part of my romantic imagination. But, who had dreamt that we would have a government led by Professor Yunus today and we would talk about reforms to eradicate discriminations.”