Citizen’s conference
Some of the victors in favour of sustaining discrimination
Speakers at the conference titled ‘People-centric reform for good governance: Aspirations of disadvantaged communities’ on Monday.
Some from the winning forces of the anti-discrimination student movement are in favour of sustaining discrimination. There is no sign of them nurturing the core spirit of anti-discrimination movement. They are trying to implement an agenda with an indoctrination and process that is completely discriminatory.
Speakers said this at a two-day citizen’s conference titled ‘People-centric reform for good governance: aspirations of disadvantaged communities’ on Monday. Citizen’s Platform for SDG had organised the conference at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area in the capital. Monday was the closing day of the conference.
The issue of there being no representations of the non-Muslim communities in all the different reform commissions formed by the interim government came up in the discussions of the speakers at the conference. The discussants say that members of the transgender community have become even more insecure after the mass uprising.
Though it was necessary to form a separate commission for minorities, disadvantaged communities and people with gender diversity, it did not happen. The proposal of forming a new commission for the protection of rights has also come from the conference.
Distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Rounaq Jahan was the chairman of the conference on the closing day. Despite being formed with good intentions, the commissions formed by the interim government are not working, she commented.
Rounaq Jahan raised the question, if commissions are formed afresh how they can be made effective. The politicians, the bureaucrats and the businessmen are being blamed for this failure. However, you cannot function without bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen. It is the responsibility of the citizens to keep an eye on them constantly so that they work, she said.
Mentioning that in the Pakistan period a secretary had committed suicide when the news of his corruption came to light, Rounaq Jahan said that there was a sense of humiliation back then. That means there was a sort of unacceptability then but the situation has changed now.
Chief of the anti-corruption reform commission and executive director of the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB), Iftekharuzzaman believes there should be a minority, disadvantaged and diversity reform commission along with an education reform commission.
We do not see any signs of nurturing the core spirit of anti-discrimination movement among those considering themselves the victors of the July-August movement, those believing that they have come to power already.Iftekharuzzamn, executive director of TIB
The risk of gender diversity was already there but the extension and depth of that has increased a lot more now, believes Iftekharuzzaman. He said, “It’s increasing because, we do not see any signs of nurturing the core spirit of anti-discrimination movement among those considering themselves the victors of the July-August movement, those believing that they have come to power already.”
“Rather they are trying to implement such an agenda, the core conceptualisation, indoctrination and process of which is completely discriminatory. These are absolutely opposite to the spirit of anti-discrimination movement.” The question, why no such steps would be taken to vanquish all the evil forces that have fallen out of the core spirit of anti-discrimination movement, also has to be raised to the government, he commented.
Meanwhile, chief of the election reform commission Badiul Alam Majumdar criticised the role of government officials in the matter of fair election. He said he attended a meeting with senior secretaries, secretaries and other government officials the same day before coming to the conference.
There were discussions on the topic of how to hold a fair and impartial election in that meeting. Mentioning that the issue of last election came up in the meeting, Badiul Alam Majumdar said, “Their mindset is to blame everything on the same thing. They claim, ‘All the decisions came from top down, it has turned into a police state. What can we do?’ That means they don’t want to take any responsibility.” What will be the outcome if the most crucial persons are saying this, he raised this question.
Distinguished fellow of CPD and convener of Citizen’s Platform for SDG Bangladesh, Debapriya Bhattacharya said that bureaucrats are more influential than politicians and businessmen. At one point of moderating the conference he said, “Those who are bureaucrats today, will turn into politician tomorrow and then businessman the day after that. That’s what seems to be a problem that they are appearing before us in different avatars.”
Mentioning that people overthrew the Awami League government being inspired by the anti-discrimination spirit Debapriya Bhattacharya said, “We are noticing that someone or another from among the force nurturing anti-discrimination spirit are presenting arguments in favour of sustaining different types of discriminations. This way they are tarnishing the core value of the anti-discrimination spirit.”
Among others, distinguished fellow at CPD Mustafizur Rahman, professor at the department of government and politics of Jahangirnagar University Nurul Huda, professor at the economics department of American International University, Bangladesh (AIUB) Faria Sultana, professor at the department of development studies of Dhaka University Asif M Shahan, and deputy resident representative of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Sonali Dayaratne also spoke at the conference.