Session II

Prof. Kalimullah (Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka): “I am involved in Election Monitoring. We formed the Election Monitoring Working Group (EMWG) with the Asia Foundation. We prepared the checklist. At one stage, we realized that we must include a question asking if the marginalized communities are facing any problems to cast their votes. Some of us said that there are no minorities in Bangladesh- we are all equal. Ultimately we found out that the questions on which we were divided appeared as an optional question and the Donor Agencies approved that”.

“The election was peaceful but after that, when we started the post-election monitoring, we saw that the feedback we got from the optional question was alarming. From media monitoring, we found that the intensity of that particular problem was high during the period of the Caretaker Government. There were 378 reported atrocities. After the Election, the present opposition was very much surprised with the result. In our First Pass The Post (FPTP) system, the symbol is very important, not the person. So, there evolved the Dummy Candidates. The polling agents do not know for whom they work or the name of their candidate. This is a grey area. These dummy candidates and their polling agents act as the henchmen for the major candidates. We should bring into light the economic dynamics behind this. They think that if they want to win elections, they should employ and deploy their muscle power”.

“Previously, there was no ceiling for the Campaign Finance. Every candidate is breaking the rules of conduct and the rituals of election. We are compelling the ‘Would be Law-Makers’ to prepare a false statement of returns or expenditure. Their career starts with a lie. We need to follow a system of tracking the source of money. A Total Monitoring System should be implemented. We should develop a kind of professionalism for this. The monitoring groups’ accountability can also be restored. Both the parties were involved in electoral violence. The losing party became emotional and committed violence against the minorities in some cases. Because of the electoral violence, in some cases, migration towards India took place. We have to deal with violence in a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted way”.

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “If we think in terms of religious, linguistic, ethnic, class, social disempowerment in all these levels, then we get a concept of minority, which is totally different from the concept of minority that we otherwise know about. There is a fear syndrome among the minority community”.

Ms. Kabita Chakma (Research Fellow): “We could not file any case on Kalpana Chakma in Baghaichari. Her brothers were threatened. The law also differentiates among the majority and minority. In Mahalchari, only one woman filed a rape case for which she was mentally tortured by the army. She felt insecure. She also became a victim in her private life, as her husband did not accept her anymore. There are many people who are convicted falsely and are still in jail”.

Md. Shahidul Islam (Program Officer, Young Power in Social Action): “We conducted a survey on the distribution of land in Sitakunda. We think that the hill people and we have equal rights in the distribution of land in Sitakunda but when one of our beneficiaries applied to get a possession, the people concerned did not accept his application. After election, there were some incidents. When they came to file a case, the police station did not file their case. Thus, I think the government institutions are creating minorities. We should re-think the entire election process. Why are candidates not abiding by the rules and regulations and why are they not penalized for that? The people who are coming to power do not think about the benefits of the common people, instead they are contributing towards the restoration of the existing corrupted system”.

Mr. Mukta Ranjan Chakma (President, Humanity Welfare Association, Bandarban): “In Merung, a boy drowned. The settlers accused the hill people. The post-mortem report said that the boy drowned but they made it an issue. Their emotions were triggered and the settlers burnt several homes. When the police came, the settlers were given guns by the police and the settlers started to shoot at the hill people. The situation worsened and one Minister had to go there to stop the violence. Small incidents are thus politicised and the politicians take advantage of the emotion of the common people”.

“In Khagrachari, there was no election at all in 2001. One party boycotted and the other party tried to make it a success but actually the election monitoring system is very poor. If proper steps are not taken immediately, the situation will get worse day by day”.

Mr. Shahabuddin Neepu (Assistant Manager, Ghashful): “We work with a minority community, called the Harijan (Untouchables) community. They live in four different areas in Chittagong. Our Schooling Programme is implemented in one of those areas. The conservancy department of the City Corporation deals with this community. We got in touch with the conservancy officer on several occasions. It seems that they don’t want the Harijans to change their profession. The Harijans do not send their children to school. The government is encouraging the people there to have more children though it is officially campaigning for family planning. They are made minorities socially as well. The larger community did not accept them. So, they cannot integrate themselves with the larger community”.

“I think we have to create an acceptance among the larger community so that the ethnic, religious, class, linguistic minority get equal opportunities in choosing their professions”.

Mr. Hossain Dedar (Bureau Chief, The Daily Sangram): “I think there is no such thing as a majority or minority in our country. We are talking about the problems of the hill people but the hill people are given many privileges, which the majority community does not possess. The alliance government did not violate the rights of the minority or adopt aggressive policies towards them. I think we have to be patriots, not politicians. We have to think that when I am in the opposition, I have some particular duties, which I have to do for the sake of my country. We can’t just think of how to go to power or become the head of the government. Who are committing violent activities? I think, the so-called ‘minorities’ are doing that. Among the 4 million people of Chittagong, only 1000 are responsible to make the situation unstable. So, they are the minority. But why are they so powerful? Where do they get the strength? I can also say that the minority is controlling our Democracy”.

Mr. Sunil Kanti Dey (CHT Correspondent, The Daily Sangbad): “During elections, the ethnic minorities violated the voting rights of the ethnic majorities. In the year 2001, 31,000 voters in Baghaichari could not cast their votes and the reason was because of the PCJSS personnel and Shantu Larma, the great leader of the opposing forces. This is a reality. Those of us who are talking about the rights of the minorities should first of all ensure their democratic rights i.e. in an underdeveloped country like Bangladesh, to ensure their voting rights”.

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “We have to consider the structural rigging which is almost 10 percent. In 1970 also, this rigging was present. We cannot deny that. If we fix the ceiling to 5 and a half lakhs, that is very funny because then we can spend only one taka per person. I don’t think that a ceiling is the way out. People spending so much on elections would definitely want a way to earn it again. The Parliament has to be de-centralized. Let there be Divisional Parliament and let there be a Federal Parliament with lesser power and with three to four key subjects like Finance, Defence, Foreign Policy etc. The minority can then be an important issue of the Divisional Parliament. Competences must depart from the centre to the local level. So, devolution of power must take place. The issue of vulnerability and minority is not the same. We have to keep that in mind”.

Md. Tanzimuddin Khan (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “What processes does the state possess to generate good leadership? Democracy has become a ritual, which is limited to the election process; no attention has been given to the process of democratisation. What responsibility does the election commission have in this regard?”

Ms. Jesmina Khanam (President, Nari Oikya Bangladesh): “We have no conflict with the hill people. I think this is a political issue and the political parties are nurturing this issue to fulfil their own interests. If we cannot change our political scenario, we cannot implement democratic rules and regulations in our country and the majority-minority problem will remain unresolved. Sometimes, we, the women, become the minority. We conduct the Micro-Finance Programme among the poor women. We saw there that women are marginalized”.

Mr. Shantanu Majumder (Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka): “We have made the politicians alien. The mind-set we are creating and teaching our future generation is that politics is a nasty thing, and leads us nowhere. Thus we have created an anti-political culture”.

Md. Anisuddin (Project Coordinator, Image): “I think politics in our country is controlling our democracy and the problem of majority-minority is one of its many outcomes. The source of our democracy-our parliament, itself, does not exercise or possess democratic power or structure”.

Md. Kamruzzaman (Project Manager, CDS): “Our democracy depends on our politicians. If they do not want the democratic institutions to function properly, I don’t think anyone possesses the power to do that. We need our intellectuals to come forward and empower our general people. In this way, we can choose the candidate, not the symbol”.

Md. Tanzimuddin Khan (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “We have become individualistic and the collective orientation is missing from our lives. We are more motivated by competition and thus a vacuum in leadership is created by us”.

Mr. Abu Rashed (Project Executive, PPS): “Abraham Lincoln said that Democracy is by the people, of the people and for the people. Hanif Sanket, our comedian said Democracy buy the people, off the people and far the people”.

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “Why do we have to do politics for the 300 seats in the Parliament? Politics has more than one meaning and anti-political itself is political. When there is a crisis, there will be a paradigm shift. We are in the crisis level”.

Day II, 30 ^th July, 2004

Session III

Ms. Sakuntala Kadirgamar-Rajasingham (International-IDEA): “I want to raise some questions. What does it mean to be a woman? What are the experiences of woman in South Asia in respect of Democracy? Though I am drawing references from the larger sub-continent, I think many of these issues are similar and perhaps applicable to Bangladesh as well. I think there are two perceptions of women in South Asia:

•	One is woman as a powerful nurturer, the holder of families and communities;
•	The other of woman as being victims and persons who are disempowered.

If we take these two contradictory images we find both are valid and to some extent further disempower women because one never knows which is really the status of women in the sub-continent. As you know South Asia produced, in fact Sri Lanka produced the first woman Prime Minister and since then all the countries in the region have had women leaders but what has this meant to women’s experiences, empowerment and participation in Democracy. Many of the women who came into politics at that high level came in because of family connections and often they are not the preferred partners in political power. They came into politics because their husbands or fathers had been assassinated and they were the next most available person to take power. However, these women themselves have not really had a feminist or gendered approach to politics because they have done very little to bring in other women into the political process. Whereas every major political party has a women’s wing, they are to mobilize other women to vote for male candidates or they are there to ensure the logistics of organizing events, fund raising and making sure party conventions come on time etc. but they hardly ever shape the political agenda in the party. In fact, at International-IDEA (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) and with the partnership of many South Asian organizations we are looking at how political parties organize and mange internal and external regulations and we think it will bring out some interesting results when you actually interview women who are in the political parties, to find out how they came into the party, how they were recruited, what their status is in the political party or whether they can access higher levels of the party committee etc. So, that would give you some impression about what kind of power they have on the national agenda. Again this is one level of political participation but in Asia again we find the level of women’s participation as active voters but as candidates they are low on the list and there are far less women candidates in winning seats and then there are far less that get into parliament. In spite of many efforts to increase women’s participation at the local level, through special reservations, which India has brought, they have not transferred that to a critical mass at the level of the political parties. Again, it is almost like a structured form of exclusion of confident women in Parliament who can actually shape national agendas. However, women are very active in the non-governmental sectors but it has still not translated into sufficient influence to come into the national level where policies are made”.

“In Sri Lanka, if women are in the Cabinets, they are usually in the Women’s Affairs, Welfare sectors but not in the sectors that have real decision-making authority. Again, I would say, it is interesting to look, at the differences in the ways in which countries in South Asia and the countries, which have a strong social development index, and see how they allocate resources. In Sweden, the most powerful Ministry is, the Social Welfare Ministry because it has the largest budget to socialize its welfare oriented economy. So, the person who manages those resources really has tremendous power but not so in South Asia. So, at the political level, you find that women’s role is declining at the decision-making and the representation level and it is increasing at the participatory level”.

“Our societies depend on the explicit and implicit contributions of women. We see the nurturing communicators’ role of women but it is not translated into a positive recognition, which gives them a more structured role in community affairs. In all the countries of South Asia we refer to our mother tongue, motherland and our birthright, which comes through our mothers, but in all the countries of South Asia, citizenship comes from the father. If a South Asian woman marries a foreigner, she cannot give citizenship to her spouse or children”.

“We also find that one of the contradictions in the ways which women are regarded in South Asia is that women’s economic contribution is very significant whether it is in the plantation sector or the aid sector. The women working abroad are harassed both by the local agents and by the people they work with. The women and men who work as migrant workers do not have voting rights. When they come back as they were out of their country for a significant period of time, there is absolutely no representation for them in parliament. You can think of sectoral representation for youth, women etc. So, they vote entirely for a category. So, again there is an exclusion”.

“In most of the countries of the region, women are about 50% of the population because of the lack of power that women experience in making laws in the political process, in access to education and employment and in decision-making over the resources that they generate or that they need, they are powerless. In that sense, historically, women have always been categorized with youth and children and they are given the legal minority status. This also exists in customary laws. Even the most secular focused government do not feel that customary law can be affected. These customary laws further disempower women. So, democracy has this duality. At all levels, they have a formal legalism under the general law that grants equal citizenship and then there are customary law that doesn’t recognize equal citizenship and then they have social practices that also don’t recognize equality. So, I think women experience democracy in South Asia very differently the way men experience democracy”.

Ms. Kabita Chakma (Research Fellow): “I will talk about the hill women living in the CHT. The majority group often reminds me of my minority status. Our society is based on the patriarchal system. We, the hill women, on the one side are tortured by the army and on the other side we are oppressed by the majority group. There was no such word as rape in our Chakma language. We became familiar with this word after the army was deployed in the CHT. We used to enjoy much freedom but now we don’t have that freedom as the level of insecurity has increased in an enormous level over the years. In 1995, Shumita Rani, a student of class five became a victim of rape. She didn’t get justice. The hill women are the worst victims of the CHT problem, which has become a political issue now. The hill women cannot go to the market, they cannot go to school. We have records of every incident but we cannot demand justice”.

“After the Peace Accord, we can still see such incidents taking place in the CHT. We have to struggle at every step of our lives. We need cooperation and tolerance from the majority group. In the CHT, the army is the guardian of both the settlers and the hill people. The army did not let me conduct my survey. Does it mean that we are less intelligent than the majority people? It is very easy to collect data from the hill people as they don’t hide anything. I think we should conduct a survey on the settlers and the army too”.

Md. Shahidul Islam (Program Officer, Young Power in Social Action): “We have been working in the field of women empowerment for the last three years. I think we should create opportunities for women otherwise we won’t be able to stop domestic violence”.

Ms. Anju Akhter (Chief Executive, SSKS): “We are talking about women empowerment but what is our government thinking about this? If we can ensure financial self-sufficiency and education of women, we can expect some results. In rural areas, women education is free but what about the poor, marginalized women of the urban areas? We should think about that seriously. I think women are oppressed in every society regardless of their ethnic identity, class and religion”.

Ms. Jesmina Khanam (President, Nari Oikya Bangladesh): “We are not getting any support from the government. Gender balance is not visible in our parliament. We have to get ourselves united. We can no longer ornament the parliament. We cannot sit idle. I think we are cursed as we were born in this society”.

Mr. Philip Gain (Society of Environment and Human Development): “In Bangladesh, we have two matrimonial societies – the Garo and the Khashiya. In the Marma society, women do all the work. Women are really dignified in all these societies. They get respect. In our society, this is not so. Women are not less superior to men physically. If women get dignity, it would be beneficial for the broader society. Women are more vulnerable. The number of commercial sex workers is an indicator of what the actual situation of women in that society is. We have 14 red-light zones. We have to build the psyche of our children at the pre-primary level. Family is the primary institution. So, we all have to create our families first”.

Ms. Shiuli Mahmood (Research Officer, Nawjowan): “What can initiate or increase participation at the decision-making level? What can be the immediate action?”

Prof. Amena Mohsin (Chair, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “Our agenda is donor driven. We didn’t find a single protest from any of the women’s movements when many female garment-workers committed suicide as many garment factories were closing down. The women movements themselves have divisions among them. I think decision-making practice should start from the family level. You have to de-masculanize the society. I will also emphasize the role of civil society and the non-governmental sector. Women ethos is very important in South Asia”.

Session IV

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka):

“The recommendations of the Chittagong Dialogue are as follows:

•	Democracy to be effective must be inclusive and ensure proper participation of all communities and segments of society.
•	Processes and institutions of governance must be sensitive to the levels of empowerment of vulnerable groups, including minorities.
•	There should be mechanisms for giving voice to the widest political diversity and this plurality should be reflected in governance.
•	Everyone, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, linguistic or religious identity, should have equal opportunity to seek public office, and gender, ethnicity, linguistic or religious identity of an individual may not be used to deny him or her any public office.
•	Accountability of candidates running for public office must be ensured through disclosure of all sources of funding.
•	Measures must be taken against criminalisation of politics and the political process.
•	Values, objectives and principles recognised as legal obligations must be put in practice. Civil society engagement in this regard may also be promoted.
•	Democracy requires going beyond democracy of the superstructure.
•	Elections are formal rituals of democracy. Democracy must aspire for a democratic society.
•	Shortcomings of the electoral process need to be addressed to ensure inclusive representation.
•	Electoral majorities result in majoritarian tyrannies. Democracies must strive for constitutional remedies for non-discriminatory protection to the electoral and other minorities.
•	Constant review of the electoral system and institutions, basis of representation etc. to ensure inclusiveness by internalising emerging changes.
•	Plurality is a major element of democracy, not only of multiple parties but also, and more importantly, of all communities, especially minorities.

Thank you very much everyone for being with us. We will end our dialogue here. If you have any more recommendations please send it to our email address. Thank you again”.

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