Dhaka road rage

Times are changing, and politicians in our part of the world need to part ways from traditional style of politics

With the Bangladeshi government on its last legs, there have been calls for the Sheikh Hasina administration to go. Reason? A road accident that claimed the lives of two teenagers. The July 29^th accident brought tens of thousands of uniformed students out on the roads calling for a crackdown on reckless drivers amid overall transport sector reforms. The angry crowd went berserk, setting more than 300 buses ablaze, and bringing the city to a standstill. Around 50 people were injured in the violence also featuring clashes with the police, and with transport services on a halt, the capital city of 10 million people remained cut off from the whole country. The students were seen taking up policing role — stopping thousands of vehicles, including those of top officials and judges, demanding to see if the vehicles were registered and the drivers licensed.

The unprecedented numbers on the streets have forced the Awami League government — unable to control the protests in a week — to come to the dialogue table. Alongside calming down the students by accepting some of their demands and assuring legislation in the next parliament session, the government has also warned the opposition against ‘exploiting the situation by inciting the minors’. Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition party, rejects the allegations of meddling and calls for the government’s resignation.

All that sounds too typical of the South Asian politics — the opposition wrangling with the government ‘for the sake of people’, and the government blaming a conspiring opposition for its ever-unfulfilled agendas. And the only thing that suffers like grass in this fight of elephants is the public interest. Times are changing, and politicians in our part of the world need to part ways with their traditional style of politics and focus on public welfare.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 6^th, 2018.

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