What Sheikh Hasina said, and didn't say

Our leaders don't come face-to-face with the media much, they prefer to rattle off their own monologues. Bangladesh's leaders aren't terribly keen to meet the foreign media either. In that sense, prime minister Sheikh Hasina's interview with BBC is quite significant. It can be assessed just how closely, or whether at all, her words reflected the hopes and aspirations of Bangladesh's people.
A large chunk of the interview dealt with the successes and failures of Sheikh Hasina's government in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals. The issue arose in context of the government's contradictory stand concerning child marriage or the marriageable age of girls, in the context of Bangladesh's high ranking in the corruption index, the killing of free thinking bloggers by Islamist extremists in a state that purportedly upheld secularism. Included were the comments by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during his recent Dhaka visit and also the prime minister's niece Tulip Siddiqui being elected to the House of Commons in UK.
Sheikh Hasina described the successes and achievements of her government regarding the millennium development goals. She said, they had done a lot of work in this regard in accordance with Awami League's policies, even before these goals were announced. This was included in their five-year plans. They had gone ahead considerably in implementing eight programmes, including education, health and safe drinking water, but in the 2001-2008 period things slid back because the BNP government halted many of the programmes. Even so, Bangladesh had achieved extraordinary success in education, health and various other social sectors, she claimed.
Without questioning her claims, it must be pointed out that the governments before and after her, certainly must also be given credit for the successes in social development. Other than the union level community clinics, BNP did not stop any significant project initiated by Awami League. In fact, it was during the first government of Khaleda Zia that girls' education surged ahead, for which now the prime minister takes credit. It was at that time that girls began receiving scholarship at the secondary level, which later was extended up till the higher secondary and under-graduate level. As for the allowance for distressed women and elderly people initiated during Sheikh Hasina's rule, it was continued during the government of Khaleda Zia.
At present, 4 crore 70 lac (47 million) people live below the poverty line in Bangladesh. In this connection, the BBC correspondent asked whether Sheikh Hasina felt the need to ensure employment and education for more women. In her reply, the prime minister referred to the 1972 constitution's commitment to universal education, she pointed to 100% enrolment in primary school, free education for girls, free school books for all, food provided in schools, cash for the poor parents and scholarships till the under-grad level.
Despite all this, what was indicated by one-third of the girls marrying under the age of 15, asked the correspondent. The prime minister said, girls are going to school and college. If they are busy with their studies, child marriage will lessen on its own accord. Their safety is being ensured. She said if any girl was harassed, punitive action was taken against them.
The prime minister said, if girls were given the opportunity and environment, their parents would feel that marriage wasn't their ultimate goal. Girls can now earn, they can help their families, they can do so many things. Over 5,000 girls and boys are working in call centres.
There's no denying the prime minister's words, but it is alarming that one third of the girls were marrying under the age of 15.
Does that mean that the programmes of the government and non-government agencies do not reach one third of the girls? Will they remain in the dark patch under the lamp? The prime minister said, 100% of the children are being enrolled in schools. But after that, can all of them continue with their studies? The fact that they cannot is obvious in the fact that we have failed to raise our literacy level about 57%. In Sri Lanka this rate is 92%, In India 61% and in Myanmar 93%. A girl marrying below the age of 15 means an end to her education and the chance to work outside of the home. Becoming a mother at such an early age is a health risk for both mother and child.
Almost all of the prime minister's answers to the questions about the minimum marriage age of girls were contradictory. She said that the minimum age of marriage will remain 18 in accordance with the law. Then she said that England's law would be followed in this regard, where 16 was the accepted age. The prime minister's argument was that if a girl got pregnant before she was 18, she could get married with her parent's permission. Bangladesh and England's social circumstances are not the same. Over there 100% of the children get the opportunity to study. They take their own decisions about marriage. In Bangladesh, not all children get the chance to study. Most marriages are arranged by the families. Not everyone's birth is registered either. Though the law permits marriage to 18, parents lie about their daughters' ages and get them married off younger. If the minimum age is lowered to 16, parents will get their daughters married off at 14.
BBC's question was, so are you thinking of lowering the marriageable age from 18 to 16? The prime minister replied, "No. You are misquoting me." Then she elaborated that illegitimate children were not accepted in the country and so if a girl got pregnant when she was 16 or 17, steps would have to be taken.
Taking steps must not mean lowering the age for marriage. Rather, steps should mean ensuring all girls got education up till at least the higher secondary level. It should mean strengthening social security and establishing the rule of law. Steps should entail ensuring that all girls could be self reliant after education, ensuring their employment.
The prime minister said, the law will hold 18 as the minimum age of marriage, but it will be flexible.
The BBC correspondent wanted to know why it was regarding child marriage that the flexibility was necessary. The prime minister said, this is a social demand. At the girl summit, Sheikh Hasina had pledged to completely prevent girls’ marriage before 15 years old by the year 2021. Lowering the marriageable age would then be suicidal. By lowering the age of marriage, development indicators wouldn't be pushed up. Rather, the socio-economic conditions and education should be such that no guardian would even consider marrying off their girls before 15. Instead of striving for that, the prime minister went off in a tangent. She spoke of 'mishaps'. 'Mishaps' don't make laws. Laws are made in the light of socio-economic reality.
As for corruption, the prime minister blamed the former military rulers. She claimed corruption had gone down during her rule. How has it gone down? Did incidents like the Hall-Mark or Basic Bank scandals happen during the rule of any of the previous government? She claimed, if there was so much corruption in the country, the GDP wouldn't have reached 6 per cent. But if we look at China, Russia and other countries ridden by corruption, their GDP rate is much higher. So this reasoning of the prime minister doesn't hold ground.
She was asked, your father (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) established secularism. Does secularism still exist in Bangladesh?
The prime minister replied, yes, of course. In 1975 after my father was killed and military rulers took over power, they erased secularism from the constitution. Coming to power the second time with a two-third majority, she reestablished secularism again.
But why didn't the prime minister abolish the relevant clauses of the fifth and eighth amendment? She sternly criticised the two military rules, yet she has taken the most despicable of them one to rule along with her.
Next, when asked about Islamic militants, especially the ones that carried out killings, the prime minister said, "BNP encouraged them. They used these militants to kill over 2,000 of our party leaders and workers. They killed two MPs. They carried out an attack on me too. When we came to power, we declared zero tolerance to militancy or any form of terrorism. We have taken measures against them. One or two incidents have occurred in the country and we have taken actions as well. We have arrested them and placed them in jail. We will not allow any terrorist act to take place." She said that special security had been provided for the eminent citizens who have been threatened and those who issued the threats were being caught.
While the prime minister has been lauding the success of her government against militants, ground reality is that three writer-bloggers, Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur and Ananta Bijoy have been killed, and their killers remain at large. Eye witnesses even caught two killers of Oyasiqur Rahman, but the government has failed to find who was behind the killing. Many are suffering from a sense of insecurity now. Annanya Azad, son of famous writer Humayun Azad who was killed by militants a decade ago, told the Diplomat in an interview, "I am leaving the country in fear of my life. I have two choices. Go into exile abroad or be killed. I am choosing the first one, but I cannot stop writing."
What does the prime minister have to say about these words of a young free-thinker? Does the government have nothing to do about the others like Annanya Azad who go around with a threat above their heads?
Sohrab Hassan: Poet, journalist
sohrabhassan55@gmail.com