Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman (Executive Chairman, Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC)): “I’d like to talk about informal institutions. It would be interesting to give you an example from a different world, of the word ‘informal’ in terms of design angles. The micro-credit, which is one of the biggest success stories in Bangladesh, uses the word ‘informal’. The Micro-credit groups are called ‘informal groups’ even though they have more rigorous rules than those of formal ones. They prefer to use the word because if they use the word ‘formal’ it would come under the sway of formal rules and regulations of the Cooperative Department. The word informal is essentially a protective barrier that Prof. Yunus has created to allow the growth of a new space. If the word informal were not used, the micro-credit programme would probably not succeed. So, this is one example why the use of informal is seen as so important to try to open up a new space. I think this is one area where this project can look at”.

“Binayak was mentioning about the regulatory framework and on this issue of regulation, I’d like to say that the government trie to define functions, which they call regulatory functions and they are also called development functions. I don’t know whether it is the case in the developed West. It is interesting that the regulatory functions are kept outside the purview of the democratic discourse. This is something about which people cannot talk. But often it is the regulatory sphere, which has the larger impact on development itself rather than the development departments themselves”.

“On the third issue of assets, I’d like to say that if you are conducting a survey, you can start by exploring people’s views i.e. ‘What assets do they see for the construction of a more democratic order here?’ Are these the very social ethos in South Asia as a whole that we have talked of? Here, there are all sorts of inequalities but there are some sorts of re-distributive ethos at work, where the rich at least show lip service, for example, the guest-control act i.e. if the number of guests in a function exceeds 300, then you have to pay because it’s seen as an ostentatious behaviour. So, is it re-distributive ethos at work or is it the rise in electorates in some sense, which can be regarded as assets? Despite all sorts of political failures people are going along doing their economics and this might be an asset. So, in the survey people can be asked about the assets of democracy”.

Prof. Shawkat Ara Hussain (Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka): “Since morning, I’ve heard a lot about democracy and democratisation process. To me it seems that the theoretical part has been discussed not the practical part. The theoretical part means to me that the state that has democracy must have democratic institutions having such features. And I don’t know whether this is an academic exercise or a research exercise or this paper will go to the policy-makers. To me, the theoretical side is that side, which brings development, uplift-ment and some social justice to the people. And if we take that criterion, we say that in Bangladesh after that so-called democratic revival in 1990, the parties, Awami league and BNP have failed to give the people much social benefit. They have failed because the members of the National Assembly are not the true representatives of the people rather they are businessmen. They spend a lot of money to win the elections and they do so because they think after going to power they would make a lot of money using their status and post. Secondly, I think that after independence, the people have earned materialistic attitudes and the process of globalisation has a definite impact on these materialistic attitudes. Thirdly, in our society, there is no confrontation, no rivalry among the different communities in Bangladesh but in politics we see that there is severe rivalry between the two political parties. Moreover, they cannot bring any kind of social justice to the poor people. If the poor don’t get food, shelter, is there democracy in Bangladesh? And I think that democracy is the government of the majority with the consent of the minority. What happened after the election of 2001?”

Prof. Amena Mohsin (Chairperson, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “I’d like to talk about what Prof. Anwar said about the relation between popular culture and political culture and why popular has not been translated into political culture. And as you’re pointing out that in South Asia the things captured are only about extremism, the intolerance whereas at the popular level one finds a kind of syncretism. Just to elaborate on that I’d like to give an empirical example; along with Imtiaz, I worked with CSDS in the project on the partition. Through our interviews, we have found that even today at the popular level there is syncretism but at moments it gets ruptured because of secular politics and it is fanned by the politicians and we can’t take it for a continuous process. Questions regarding why it doesn’t get translated or why in other countries the image that has been projected of Bangladesh is one of extremism, I think, has also to do with media politics- what they want to capture. And it has also to do with our media. We don’t project a positive Bangladesh rather a negative one. The issue of political economy is also involved here because the sensational coverage is easily saleable”.

“Dr. Binayak and Dr. Zillur Rahman said politics got non-democratic in post 1991era. But Uchimong, an indigenous person from CHT, is just sitting behind us. If we ask him, I’m sure he would say that politics got non-democratic right after the birth of Bangladesh. So, it depends on whose perception one is talking about”.

“Regarding the constitution, I fully agree with Prof. Anwar Hossain while he was saying, the constitution is not democratic. But he only referred to Art. 28 and 153. Adding to them, I’d like to say that Article 9 is also undemocratic. So, these are a few points of reflections that I had in mind. Thank you”.

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “I’d like to focus on the importance of regulatory institutions. It comes from both qualitative and quantitative surveys. I’ll start from the qualitative evidence. When the street-children were asked about principal problems they usually face. They said, ‘We are not able to go to sleep before 12:00 at night and police always wake us up before 5:00 in the morning.’ They also said, ‘They (police) often take us to the shelter centre where there is very bad food and bad treatment etc.’ And from the quantitative side we asked them ‘What were the major sources of income erosion experienced over the last five years?’ Health shock was one of them and next to it was the shock of personal insecurity arising out of police assault, court cases and all kinds of insecurity related issues. I think, in the context of this project those questions can be further probed - the relative importance between regulative institutions and development institutions”.

“I’m sure that this project should be focusing more on perceptions. Even on the issue of political versus popular culture, I’d like to say that this cannot be resolved on the basis of historical and ontological evidence. This also depends on the fact that in whose perspective it is seen. I always say that no body in Bangladesh ever looked into why the Hindu population has declined from about 90 percent in the 1974 population census to just about 8 percent now. No demographic behaviour can explain this decline. So, I’m emphasizing that in this context of indexing democracy, you ask the person, preferably, at the lower tail of income distribution and that can be one of the criteria of selection of respondents for your survey. You may ask the lower castes in the Hindu religion, poor families among the Chakmas etc. because their livelihood can easily be affected, as they have no upward mobility and better connections”.

“I’d also like to mention about democratic deprivations. There can be multiple forms of deprivations since the concept is being broadened from political and electoral democracy to include social justice and other forms of deprivations as constitutive principles of democracy. One needs to look at that”.

Dr. Munim K. Barai (Associate Prof., Leading University): “To the reference of why the Hindu population is declining, I’d like to say that there is a book titled ‘Political Economy of Vested Property Act’ by three Professors of Dhaka University, in which it is pointed out that due to this particular act 538 people are leaving this country every day. And this migration is termed as ‘silent migration’. Well, there might be some other reasons but I’ve mentioned that just to share it with everybody present here”.

Kazi Dilwar Hossain (Student, Department of Law, University of Dhaka): “If we investigate world history and the history of democracy, we can see that there have been a lot of sacrifices for democracy. To me, democracy is nothing where we see the reflection of the desires and demands of the people. It is nothing more, nothing less. Where the people’s dreams are reflected, there is no quarrel so far as the theory is concerned. And in the Bangladeshi perspective, we have to find out the morphological and realist perspective of democracy”.

“My next focus is on the colonial legacy. As we were ruled by the colonial powers for about two hundred years, psychologically we became inferior. So, overnight we cannot develop and we need more time to develop ourselves. A survey shows that 80 percent of the people are peace loving. But the rest 20 percent, who are in a somewhat authoritative position, are grasping power and they are in highly exploitative positions. For these 20 percent, we are termed as the most corrupt country in the world”.

“My next point is the constitution. In many dimensions, our constitution is a modern constitution. There is no constitution in the world that can fully satisfy the demands of the people. So, what we need is that from time to time it should be amended. If we let it function properly it can satisfy the demands of the people. Our problem is not with the constitution rather with the leadership and commitment to the country. If these are met, democracy will function very smoothly in Bangladesh”.

Prof. Anwar Hossain (Department of History, University of Dhaka): “I’d like to take you from Quayes’s intervention about the language movement and I’ll try to enlighten the audience here by trying to suggest that the language movement of ours had a sort of underlying democratic component. This is what I want to emphasize. This was a movement initiated, managed largely by the students though there was participation by political elements. At that time, Bangla was the language of 65 percent of the total population of the then Pakistan while Urdu, the state language, was 6 percent of the total population. So, naturally what we should have demanded is that Bangla would be the only state language of Pakistan. What we demanded was that Bangla would be one of the state languages. So, we can see that we had a compromising attitude, which is one of the working principles of democracy”.

“Secondly, Quayes was trying to suggest that it did not have any economic component. Well, apparently not. If you look deep into the event of that language movement and try to compare it with another historical incident back in 1835, I think we can find the economic component. In 1835, English was introduced as the official language in this subcontinent. What happened afterwards? Muslims didn’t learn English. And they lost jobs and couldn’t get jobs. And by 1857, there was the Shipai Mutiny and the colonial government had to go into the causes of the Shipai Mutiny and William Hunter came up with the report on the causes of poverty of the Muslims. So, the language movement that we had between 1947 and 1952 did have an economic component. Bangla being one of the state languages ensured job opportunities as well. So, there is an underlying economic component. Besides this, the movement also had a global perspective. I say that on the basis of a piece written by Khoka Roy, who was a member of the then out-lawed communist party. He had to write that piece under the pen name of Ali Ashraf and the title of that piece was “Shokol Matri Bhashar Soman Morjada” meaning Equal Status to all Mother Languages. If we read between the lines, we would see he argued for equal status not only to all the mother languages of the then Pakistan but also to all the mother languages of the world. This very intention of Khoka Roy was effectuated on November 17th, 1999 in UNESCO’s decision on the International Mother Language Day. Well, this is my reading with which many might not agree. So, the language movement had many dimensions and out of which, democracy is the most important one”.

“Thirdly, I need to add one or two points on my submission on our constitution being undemocratic. Well, this constitution at the moment is undemocratic not only in terms of its many articles and provisions but also in terms of amendments to it over the years that has been mentioned by Mr. Abdul Awal Mintoo in the morning session. In fact, I wrote that in one of my columns in a Bangla daily. The major anti-democratic amendment in our constitution is the 8th Amendment. The 8th Amendment of the constitution in which Islam was declared as a state religion is not only anti-democratic but also anti-Islamic. He said, the Quran or the Hadith did not say anything specifically on how an Islamic polity would be. The only example of the Islamic polity is the ‘Charter of Madina’. In Madina, Prophet Mohammad (SM) set the best example of good governance on the basis of this ‘Charter of Madina’. He ran the administration in a pluralist society. There were Muslims, non-Muslims, Jews and also Muslims from Mecca and this is the kind of polity, which Islam likes. In that constitution, we don’t see any mention about the state-religion. Muslims were the majority of Madina and Islam was the religion of the Majority. We do not find any such prescription either in the Quran or in the Hadith. So, the 8th Amendment of our constitution is anti-Islamic. And keeping an undemocratic constitution, we cannot aspire to be democratic as a polity and as a state”.

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “I just would like to ask you whether this is politically saleable? Because after the 8th Amendment, we have had two political parties in power and one is known of being secular at least publicly and even that party never tried to get rid of the 8th Amendment”.

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “I just want to ask a general question for the South Asian democratic project and that is what Quayes actually mentioned. Although we have said ‘We want Bangla as a State Language’, we didn’t actually demand ‘Education for all’. It is striking that Bangladesh led a movement but didn’t demand any sort of ‘Education for all’. But also in the context of South Asia, say in India there was so much emphasis on Nehruvian socialism, the state sectors, the Soviet model and all that. But they didn’t actually omit one of the central components of the socialist model, which was education for all. In fact, that is what is common for both China and Cuba and Soviet Union. So, it is very striking to see that in South Asia except in Sri Lanka there was not an emphasis on mass education”.

Mr. Mijarul Quayes (Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs): “In fact, the point that I wanted to make was that yes, it was central to our national aspirations, economic and all that. And there is an economic reason because otherwise the large pool of Bengalis would remain outside the market”.

“I’d like to focus on the lower tail of income distribution that Sen was mentioning. It is more important to identify the ‘Khudra Jati Satta’ of the tribes or the indigenous. A person belonging to a community is discriminated against for solely being part of that community or religious community or sub-national or smaller ethnic community. As abject poverty and social exclusion are the impediments to full enjoyment of Human Rights and no cultural uniqueness and practices are allowed as a reservation in the human rights context, what’s the logic of focusing on poor Muslims, poor Chakmas, low caste Hindus etc?”

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “I think I should clarify. When we construct the ‘otherness’, we legitimate all kinds of differences, which may be all right at a certain level but that doesn’t take away the heat from recognizing chronic marginality as opposed to other forms of marginalities. That’s why; I underline it is important of not just interviewing a minority Hindu or a minority Chakma or a minority Muslim but look at the perception of the minority Hindus or Chakmas or Muslims at the lower tail of the income distribution. Those who are struck by chronic marginalisation are doubly disadvantaged and they may have completely different notions of social exclusion than their counterparts within the same society. There are many horizontal otherness and within these otherness there is also vertical subordination and that’s why chronic marginality has become an important point of concern”.

Prof. Shawkat Ara Hussain (Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka): “In our constitution, Article 15 has given much emphasis on primary education and education for all”.

Mr. Mijarul Quayes (Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs): “Thank you, Mr. Sen. I just wanted that clarification because obviously, the marginalisation of an ethnic minority would be better read perhaps at the lower tail of income distribution. At the same time, we should not loose sight of the fact that despite this tailpiece, there is an element of marginalisation because every body belongs to a community. That perhaps needs attention. I want to raise two issues that have been raised. One is colonization. There is an interesting literature on the colonization of the mind, which tells about how we have these stereotypes, which have roots in being colonized. Now, I want to refer to the constitution. The constitution in the fundamental rights says that the republic shall not discriminate only on the basis of religion, sex, caste or creed. This constitution provides only one scope for discrimination and that is it says the state language will be Bengali. When the constitution declares Bengali as a state language, then other languages of ethnic minorities may not be recognized at all. Thus, smaller ethnic groups are marginalized”.

“Besides this point, I’d like to proceed further on fundamental rights. There are two sub-paragraphs. Number one says, ‘Any existing law that is contrary to the provisions of this section (fundamental rights) in full or in part shall become invalid on the entry into force of the constitution.’ Therefore any law that discriminates on the ground of sex, religion etc. is no longer valid in this country. The second sub-paragraph says, ‘Any law passed by the Parliament, which is not in conformity with sections of the constitution in full or in part shall be invalid.’ Therefore any law or amendment passed by the Parliament has not become part of the constitution if it is not in conformity with the constitution. Somebody may write it there but it is not there. Once in a conference, I talked to Salma Khan and I told her that in the Kabin Nama (registration form) why is there a provision that states ‘Does the groom delegate power of divorce to the bride?’ Constitutionally, they are both equals. Then why one has the power to delegate to the other. With the constitution coming into force, that law has become invalid. On the question of education, the fundamental principles of state policy are aspirational and they are not justifiable that in the context of planning, the government would be mindful of these objectives. But they are not justifiable or given”.

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “This is related or may not be related but I think this is related to democratic governance. In India, for example, there are certain states like Bihar, which lag behind in terms of development and they lag behind because there has been lack of attention to their development in terms of infrastructure. I was wondering in the context of the Indian framework that this kind of persisting regional unevenness was not seen as anti-democratic; for instance, there was no grievance redressal mechanism within the Indian framework. So, how was that accommodated within the notion of Indian democracy? That has some bearing also on this project because the same regional unevenness is also observed in Bangladesh in terms of many social indicators. For example, some divisions, some districts are advanced and others are not. We’ve started raising these questions in the process of budgeting and about allocating more attention to balanced development. That has a bearing on the quality of overall participation and democracy. I’m really intrigued by the Indian context where there is a clear convergence club at the lower income level. I recently attended a conference, in which a person named Shangha Mitra, who submitted her PhD thesis, showed very clearly this convergence club at the lower income level and convergence club at the higher income level and one of the reasons for this he says is because of the persistent under-investment in those states. Naturally that raises the issue of distributive justice within the context of the central government expenditure in India, which raises the issue of the quality of democracy. So, my question is how legally or democratically that question is resolved or defended”.

Prof. Suhas Palshikar (SDSA Principal Investigator, Lokniti-CSDS): “You are right. There are perhaps two answers to it. There is a mechanism for the finance commission and for the last couple of years this commission is giving more funds to the weaker states. Now, the richer states are rebelling against it. You are also right when you said that investment in terms of industrial investment by the central government simply did not take place. Unfortunately, there is another side to it that even the so-called developed states have only one region which is a developed one and other regions are relatively backward. For example, Gujarat and Maharastra, which are supposed to be developed states, have only one developed strip each and the others are underdeveloped for which, however, there is a constitutional provision recently invoked known as the regional Development Councils. Separate councils have been created and given certain authority and funds so that the backward regions can be taken care of. In reality, they are not working because they either do not get autonomy or funds and this is the experience of Maharastra. So, a new idea of forming new states within the Indian Union is now coming up in response to the imbalanced or unbalanced development. This is a political response to the socio-economic development policy of the government of India over the last fifty years. Again, there is a demand for separate statehood in Andra Pradesh, in Gujarat and in eastern Maharastra. Wherever certain parts feel that they are backward there is the demand for separate statehood within the Indian Union. So, these are the various responses that are now coming up. I think that this awareness has grown over the last decade only”.

“Now, I’m going to ask you a methodological question, which you have been repeatedly saying that, the lower end of the communities should be taken into consideration for the survey. My question is, ‘How does one do it?’ I mean is there any specific concentration of the lower end of the communities, for example, of lower caste Hindu people or poor Chakma population? If not, if one wants to take a booster sample in order to have a sufficient sample of these communities, how does one select the sample?”

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “There are other quick ways to do this. There are certain expressive indicators, for instance, land and occupation. By these indicators, you may select the respondents. People of the lower tail of income distribution live both in villages and in cities. In the rural context, there are agricultural labourers or landless people or people living in single-room houses and in the context of the cities, street children, rickshaw pullers who pull for over 10 years are some of those people who suffer from chronic marginalisation. But more appropriately, people now do participatory exercises and ask the community and basically find that out. For our age-old schemes the government selects those in rural areas who are excluded from other development programmes”.

Prof. Suhas Palshikar (SDSA Principal Investigator, Lokniti-CSDS): “No, my question was how to ensure that a certain section of the society is adequately represented in the sample”.

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “I think the representative-ness in the economic or statistical sense cannot be probably applied in doing this. That I didn’t have in mind. I have in mind that at least those segments of the population should be prioritised”.

Prof. Peter R deSouza (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi): “On the regional mal-development, we need to look at it in three levels. One is, in terms of the institutional mechanism available within the Indian political system or constitutional order and within it there are several such as: the Federal Institutions under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister and the Interstate Councils and some of these are now being strengthened because we have entered an era of coalition politics. Therefore, institutions like the Finance and Planning Commission have become important. So, there is the federal design where the claims for equalization from central resources can be made and met. There is of course a political aspect to this. At another level it can be seen in terms of the point that Suhas made about the political pressure that is growing within the regions. As we have entered the era of coalitions, states have veto power on national politics. They begin to impact national politics more than they would ordinarily had done because of the demands of economic reasons and number of MPs they control. So, here are the political axes around which it circles”.

“I think, again there are two moments - the positive and negative moments. On the one hand positive in the sense that the states that have fed less well over the last fifty-five years and the states that have fed well over the last fifty-five years. An internal debate is taking place why we should subside their bad performance but the third level is equally important, which we often ignored in terms of the human development indicators and it is the movement of capital - both domestic and international. States, which have acquired a sense of good governance. States, which have invested in recreation of human capital and development of infrastructure etc, are the states, which actually are drawing huge foreign direct investment. And that’s why, these states are moving ahead and others are lagging behind. And I’m not sure whether the union government or the central government has the capacity to intervene effectively in the equalization process as it had in the earlier era particularly because of the third factor”.

“I also have a query about the minority issue. Are there any special protections for minority groups in other words; is there any provision, which would concede that, as they are minorities, they must have some privileges? If the constitution does not have this, what’s the public discourse with respect to the position of minorities? Is the majority concerned about the minority?”

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “There are three kinds of minority on the public discourse and they are:

•	Ethnic minority such as the CHT minorities, Garos, Shawtals etc. An agreement was signed during the last regime with the CHT minority.
•	Religious minority such as Hindus. The Hindu minority had a hard time after the last election. Both the major political parties tried to exploit the situation. From 1974 to 2001, the Hindu population is declining and no steps have yet been taken about it. One of the causes might be the vested property act. Again after the 2001 Election, there was violence against Hindus.
•	Women, to some extent, are also minorities because they are not properly represented. There is a debate over the seats in the Parliament reserved for women and about direct election”.

Mr. Mijarul Quayes (Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs): “It’s important to bear in mind that minority was clearly defined in the Pakistan polity. The Pakistan flag had green representing the majority and the white representing the minority. The evolution of Bangladesh looked at an inclusive nation-hood. And, therefore, we find that in the symbol of the states there is a very clear distance from any symbolisms that may be associated with any groups- majority, minority, and religion whatever. The National Flag of Bangladesh has a sun and the National Symbol is the Water Lily. Major festivals of the four religions are national holidays not communal holidays”.

“Is minority a numerical question? If it is then what are the lines we are looking at -religious, linguistics or what? Is the minority discourse one of vulnerability, if we are looking at the vulnerability spectrum? Then women and hizra community would be counted as a minority. Now if you look at it from this perspective, the Bangladesh constitution calls for affirmative action for those who are Poshchadpoda meaning the backward, which actually means the vulnerable segment of the population who are not part of the mainstream. Traditionally speaking, those who are minorities fall into that category. The umbrella for affirmative action percolates in state policy in the form of quotas for ethnic groups. That quota also covers women and there is recognition of smaller communities. There are two institutes for promotion of tribal cultures. I believe there are schools for the ethnic minorities up to the third grade in their own languages. Under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, there are organizations such as the Islamic Foundations for Muslims and other for the Hindus”.

“But in the general discourse, when people talk about minorities, they read Hindus first and then the others. As far as the legal discourse is concerned, I don’t know if we can talk about religious or ethnic minorities in the context of Bangladesh. But I guess, we can talk about the linguistic minority. As our constitution declares Bangla as the state language, other communities with different languages have become linguistic minorities. In the context of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, there is the 1901 Acts, which have always been the framework for the administration of that region. This CHT manual did not address adequately the issues of the communities living there and now, we have a peace accord, which internalizes several principles of this manual. There are also provisions for establishing a Law Commission so that one can address the whole issue of land and ownership etc. The bigger question is that whenever there are issues of violation of the rights of a person belonging to the minority i.e. religious, linguistic whatever, the question arises that is it the religious or linguistic identity of that person or is it part of a general crime that has been done to the individual which usually happensin that community? Last of all, I want to say that the general notion of minority primarily means religious minorities”.

Prof. Anwar Hossain (Department of History, University of Dhaka): “The distinguished Chair has provoked me to talk about whether my argument regarding the 8th Amendment is saleable or not. Well, who is going to sale it? He, the political parties or me? Certainly, he means the political parties, who are in rotation in power on a rotational basis. As far as the Election Commission is concerned we have 80 listed political parties and besides them there are some more making the total number 172. Now, my question to him is ‘Do we have any political parties per se?’”

“We have many definitions of political parties. Until 18th century, good people like us considered politics and political parties in Britain very pejorative and divisive. But Edmund Burke popularised the notion of political parties and politics. In 1777, he wrote a book titled “Thoughts and Present Discontent”. In that book he suggested politics is on the way, which can cure Britain from many other problems. By paraphrasing his definition, I’d like to say, ‘Political party is a group of people united on the basis of a principle to advance national interest or interests.’ Now, I’d like to say, ‘Do we have a party united on the basis of a principle except the principle of getting into the power in Bangladesh?’ The answer is ‘No’. If the parties are like these, can they represent and reflect democratic aspiration or popular aspiration? In 1971, we fought for statehood; we had a conception of state, which was almost similar to the concept of a Hegelian state. In 1821, he wrote a book titled ‘ Philosophy of Rights’, where he considered states as institutions that represented the collective aspirations of the people. And in 1971, we did have an aspiration like this. Statehood reflected the collective aspirations of the people of Bangladesh. What we now see at the moment is that this state is almost like the state considered in the Marxist paradigm to be exploitative. So, we, the people of Bangladesh have been hovering between the Hegelian concept of state and the Marxist paradigm of state. In this situation, Democracy - the major component of our aspiration of 1971, has become meaningless”.

“Now, I’d like to talk about two issues raised here. One is how to make democracy work better. To me, the best type of democracy we can place against the majoritarian democracy both politically and anthropologically is that what we have seen in Bangladesh which is a pluralist democracy. That gives space to each and every section of the citizens. I am using the word community because this is anathema to democracy”. “Secondly, the majority-minority discourse and dichotomy is a complete anathema to democratic ethos and in democracy what we have are only citizens and nothing else. Article 11 of our constitution adjoins upon the government to protect the life and property of all the citizens of the state. And since 1972 the government is rarely found to be doing this duty properly. We have seen what happened after the last election in 2001. So, I wrote an article on this violence against the minority, where I argued that the government breached Article 11 of the Constitution”.

Mr. Mijarul Quayes (Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs): “I’d like to have some clarifications on two issues. One is the centre-state relationship in the context of the Indian Union. I want to know more about the Raj Mannar Committee. The second is public policy, for example, the standardization of retail price. If you have standardization of retail price, of course it factors in transportation cost. With that, what happens in several states is that industries have moved on to the centre. It is much more rational to have industries in central India factoring the cost. What impact does it have on the interstate relationship?”

Prof. Suhas Palshikar (SDSA Principal Investigator, Lokniti-CSDS): “I think there are two stages to this. One is roughly up to 1991. Till 1991 the centre-state relationship is more biased to the centre and the controversy is more not about resource allocation but about political interference of the Union government in the affairs of the states. The Raj Mannar Committee is part of that discourse. And a non-Congress government at the state level, which came up with some recommendations, which did not have any legal standing, incidentally established that. By the 1990s the political situation has changed because most of the parties were sharing power at some levels of the government. And also then by the mid 1990s, India entered the era of coalition politics. So, more than 10 states shared power in the centre. So, the question of central intervention has become less important. On the other hand, since 1990 the whole framework of the Indian Economic Policy has changed. As a result, the states have more initiative in attracting the investments. So, the scholars think that it is the post-1990 period in which the centre-state relations have become more balanced. But at the same time, I have to admit that this does not address the backwardness of some states, which was discussed earlier”.

Dr. Binayak Sen (Senior Research Fellow, BIDS): “I just want to know why did you call women a minority?”

Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed (Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka): “The reason why I said that is because there is a discourse, which states that women want to be in that category, and they are trying to reach out to the general population in getting some special privileges and special conditions. For example, they want direct election of 100 seats for women only. But to consider women a minority is a debatable issue”.

“Thank you very much to those of you who had patience of continuing such a long time discussion. See you tomorrow”.