The Mindset

THE MINDSET To be human is to engage in relationships with other and with the world. It is to experience the world as an objective reality, independent of oneself capable of being known. Animals submerged in reality, can not relate to it, they are creatures of mere contacts. Human relate to the world in a critical way. They apprehend the objective data of their reality through reflection, not by reflex as do animals. Human are not limited to natural sphere, but can participate in the creative dimension as well, they can intervene in reality in order to change it. Human engage in distinctively human activities of integrating with their context and have the critical capacity to make choices and to transform reality according to the choice. When human are incapable of changing reality he adjusts himself instead, though it is the characteristics of the animal sphere and is symptomatic of his dehumanization. Human think and act and use their creative power to overcome the obstacles which are either naturo-physical or instrumental. The history of human being is a struggle to overcome the factors, which make them accommodate or adjust. This struggle to attain to their full humanity is constantly threatened by oppression. Only by developing a permanently critical attitude can human overcome a posture of adjustment. Yet what in fact happens so often is that the ordinary people is crushed, diminished, converted into spectator, maneuvered by myths created by the powerful social form. In such a state, peoples creative power is impaired and cannot apprehend problems situated outside their sphere of biological necessity. Their interests centre almost totally around survival. Thus they do not fulfill their vocation of becoming human of moving forward into humanity, into a less incomplete state of being. Development is thus development of people as human beings, it is about human growth, and this is something which cannot be done to a person or people, nor can even be done for them, but must be done by them.

Humanity is an integrated system of beliefs, of values, of customs and of institutions which express those beliefs, values and customs which binds a society together and gives it a sense of identity, dignity, security and continuity. Identity is the expression of the being of a person or a group. Humanity is what human beings add to the world as it is by changing it through their free action. It refers to the accepted ways of living, how society is governed and how relations between people are carried on. The world view of any group or individual is the way in which the world, as experienced by them is understood. It deals with major concerns of existence, stages of life, promotion and use of wealth, the physical and natural world and the powers which affect the lives the people. The rites of passage (birth, initiation, marriage and death) and the rules that govern relationships between individuals and groups are all expressive of the world view of the people. As identity is an expression of the being of a person or a group, one must understand his culture and world view. Identity sums up the main characteristic which one would expect to find in members of that group. But the consciousness of a population is rarely consistent and of one piece. Being poor is not just a question of income, diet, shelter, health and security but it also includes consideration of opportunity for personal fulfillment. It is common to think of development as being synonymous with economic growth or the growth of new social institutions. But these economic inputs into society are in fact aspects of the concept of development that centers upon the transformation of the identity of the people. Economic inputs into the community may become a catalyst for development or become part of the fulfillment of the aspiration identified by the people themselves. Thus development implies human development- a process by which the identity of people is transformed by themselves towards ideals and goals which they seek for themselves. It is a holistic concept and not limited to socioeconomic advancement. External resources can be delivered to the people, human development can not. The vocation of people to become human beings is constantly negated and thwarted by injustice, exploitation, oppression and violence by the

oppressors. It is affirmed by the yearning of the oppressed for freedom and justice and by their struggle to recover their humanity. Violence and oppression, in common parlance conjure up extreme situations such as physical abuse and cruel exploitation. Any situation in which one person hinders another's pursuit of self affirmation as responsible person is oppression and it constitute violence. Violence and oppression are structural elements is society, or dehumanizing attitude towards other people. Indeed, violence dehumanizes people, as violence and oppressive acts negate the true vocation of people towards being human. The great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. Every relationship of domination, of exploitation, of oppression, is by definition violent, whether or not the violence is expressed by drastic means. In such a relationship, dominator and dominated alike are reduced to animals. The former dehumanized by an excess of power and the latter by lack of power. When the oppressed legitimately rise up against their oppressor, it is they who are usually labeled violent, barbaric, inhuman terrorists. Among the innumerable rights claimed by the dominating consciousness is the right to define violence and to locate it. Oppressors never see themselves as violent. Violence characterizes all the relationships imposed by oppression upon the oppressed, even when the relationship is supposedly one designed to help the oppressed. Wherever a program brings to the people something which reflects the bringer’s vision of the world, imposing it on those who passively receive it, that is a moral invasion. The bringers have wrought violence upon the people because they have neither invited nor allowed the people to participate in the decision making on the basis of true understanding of reality whether or not they want it. Thus the people are tormented as animals or things by the very people who claim to be working for the development of the oppressed. A truly liberating way of working for human growth among the oppressed is one which places the entire process in the hands of the people themselves. No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by

presenting for their emancipation "modules" from among the oppressors. Liberation from oppression can not be given to the oppressed, it can only be claimed and achieved by their own action and thus can not take place until they are conscious of the reality in which they live. However, the habits of thoughts and practices of accepting fate, which have evolved over thousands of years, cannot be easily or quickly transformed in an environment where poverty, powerlessness, natural calamity and personal life crises are so common. It is experience which transform belief and behaviors, beliefs supported and encouraged by knowledge and until knowledge and power are experienced by people, the people in the world view are unlikely to became humans. Profoundly religious though, being a Muslim is being a human. In Islam there is no scope to compartmentalize world view. This is why the oppressors, both internal and external are highly concern with what Islam says and so the oppressors leave no stone unturned even to use force to wipe out any real work towards Islamic resurgence that determine behavior of humans in society. Occupation and articulation of alternative explanation of oppression and injustice are ordained to be overthrown and replaced by human well being and justice. The paralyzing belief in fate is a mechanism evolved over the millennium by the oppressors making the oppressed cope with deprivation, a response to the continuing realities of poverty and powerlessness. According to patron-client relationship a man is entitled to subsistence from the rich he is dependent upon. In daily intercourse a person with higher rank is accorded the right to extract labor, service and respect of lower rank. He in turn assumes obligation of patronage. This culture derived from the Vedic Hindu caste system implies indulgent occupation of wealth, abstract goodness and personal aura that stands totally against humane teachings. This system has ancient Vedic Hindu cultural roots that presuppose the acceptance of rank as the basis for ordering society- a social value prescribed by the invader Aryans upon the Dravidians with an ill motivated design to enslave them. In a class society the system of authority and domination corrupts the minds of the people. Those who have authority exert power over those who are below in the class or caste hierarchy and this makes the former feel important. The

person dominated feels humiliated and powerless and to compensate for this he exerts power and authority over those lower to him. As patronage is the main hope of preferment access to credit or protection, it inhibits the development of oppression consciousness and class solidarity, the dialogue between the rich and the powerful and the poor and weak is impeded. Nature, as manifested urges people to throw away the myth of power and orders the fostering of solidarity and brotherhood among the people and provokes them to have faith on their united power to achieve what belong to them as human beings. The different elements of physical poverty-patron-client and gender relationship have to be defined afresh. Present structure of the society consists built-in domination of the rich and undervaluing the women. Beneath the quiet rural beauty of Bangladesh lies a web of conflict and pain contributed to general scarcity of resources, resources unutilized due to lack of education and knowledge and unequal distribution of wealth. Hence the identity of the people is that they are people but identity of human being is not expressed collectively or corporately in any social group. If the people are to achieve an improvement in their physical condition of life they will have to undergo a process of changing their false identity of people to he real identity of human beings and thus change the social structure. Such personal and social upheaval will require creativity. There are so called reactionary intellectuals, when asked about the oppressive social structure, says that yet people survive. These negators and enemies of humanity made 'survival' objective of life and prescribed channeling human creativity and energy to people's survival-and thus killing the human spirit that might rise for humanization some day. The experience of sufferings is the outcome of fear, fear of starvation fear of the violent and the powerful and it affects the self human image of the people and their belief in what they can achieve. The aspiration of the people consist both of material things- food, shelter, security and a host of non-material things- social status, economic justice, equality of opportunity, to participate in civil political and cultural affairs. The sufferings entailed by the non fulfillment of their aspirations are very great and people should be conscientised as to

how these suffering comes about. The process under which the peopleidentity can be transformed to human identity is inextricably tied up both with the world view and with the Bengali and Islamic culture as humans. As for humans the world view is not just a material world and many aspects of behavior and the way in which they experience that world are influenced spiritually. People know what it means to be rejected, powerless, cheated, tortured and they experience it both physically and spiritually. Therefore, to transform to human identity and to be able to transform and fulfill their aspiration in a process of true human growth both material and spiritual elements have to be involved. Materials i.e. external resources will have to become available to the people, and the existing internal resources will have to be redistributed in a way that is consistent with full humanity, which is equal to that of the rich. This cannot be done by outsiders on behalf of the people, but must be achieved primary by their own efforts. Liberation occurs when the reality of oppression is transformed for both the oppressors and the oppressed into a process of becoming human. This transformation to real is a process of action and reflection, i.e. dialogue. This dialogue process contrasts with 'assistencialism of non government social organizations which is that form of social assistance that attracts the symptoms but not the causes of social ills, and therefore vitiates popular participation in the historical process of change. Dialogue is the only way, not only in the vital questions of the political order, but in all expression of human beings. Only by virtue of faith, does a dialogue have power and meaning, by faith in human beings and their possibilities. In the process of dialogue human beings are engaged in allowing relationship, based upon humanity, trust, hope and a critical awareness of reality. Anti dialogue is the basis of loveless, arrogant, helpless, mistrustful and critical people relations. Dialogue is the basis for relation between two or more subjects, anti-dialogue in the basis of relation between the subjects and objects. One very important element in dialogue is trust, which leads to cooperation and solidarity. In true dialogue all are subjects and no one is dominated, where it is possible for the people to trust each other and their initiators who are seen as leaders of social revolution. Thus they are able to move from

consciousness of themselves as people and oppressed to a consciousness of themselves as human beings forced to oppressive system and this open up the way to unity and cooperation. In the initial stage of the struggle for liberation people have to learn and acquire knowledge about their human potential. Self depreciation is the characteristics of the oppressed, which they derive from their internalization of the opinion of the oppressor’s hold of them. So often they are told by the oppressors that they are good for nothing, know nothings and are incapable of learning anything, that they are sick, lazy and unproductive that in the end they become convinced of their own unfitness. Almost never do they realized that they too know and have learned in their relations with the natural world and with other human beings and that they should not lost confidence in themselves. Having internalized the oppressive behavior taught by the oppressors they are dehumanized and need to liberate themselves. When liberation is achieved by acquiring knowledge he becomes a human, neither an oppressed nor an oppressor, instead a human in the process of achieving freedom, i.e. liberty, equality and fraternity. This process of freedom cannot start while the people's understanding of the social structure and the world view is clouded. Reality cannot be transformed and people cannot participate in that transformation in any authentic way unless they develop an authentically critical position. This a person can only do by his own intervention in and integration with his own context. The more accurately people grasp true causality the more critical his understanding will be. In order to surmount the situations of oppression, the oppressed must first critically recognize its causes. People has to be taught the distinction between the world of nature and the world of culture, the active role of human beings in and with reality, culture as defined in nature and what purification they should bring about as crown of creation to a world they did not make; develop human culture by human labor, and make ceaseless efforts to create and recreate. Knowing is the job of human beings. In the learning process he not only really learns, but also appropriates what is learned, apprehends and thereby reinvests the learning and is able to apply the appropriated learning to concrete existential situations.

Knowledge requires transforming thought into action and action into reality. Because a liberating education consists of acts of cognition and not transferals of information, the education adopts a different approach- the dialogue. He presents to the people problematic social political cultural and economic realities, in which people find themselves, for their consideration. Through reflection and action, action and reflection people come to know of humanity and how far they are from it. Dialogue works against hopelessness and fatalism because it challenges the distorted view of reality on which they feed. As critical perception is embodied in action, a climate of hope and confidence develops which leads people to attempt to overcome the limiting situation in which they find themselves. At this point some members of the lower oppressor class finding time is running out develops a strong sense of social responsibility and of engagement in the task of transforming society and start organizing the people for struggle of the oppressed to be more human. Society comes to be seen as a challenge rather than as a hopeless limitation. It is a profound rebirth. These members though act as initiators play a fundamental role, yet it is not proper for them to think of themselves as agents of change. For the task is a two fold one-educational and liberating, those who join them and those whom they are trying to educate and liberate are subjects and not the objects of his action. It is not invasion, manipulating or conquering. It need faith, faith on the vision and on the people that they will hold fast and will not disintegrate. The vision is a revolutionary framework urging the process of transforming society and creating a world in which it is easier to love, to care to establish justice and is seen as both necessitating and working a total change. Leaders from the class of oppressors who have the characteristics of creating temptation to manipulate the people, keeps alienated from the people instead of acting in communion with the people, tend to prescribe to them and to dehumanize them with slogans and obscene cultural activities, to seek to create sycophants and conquer them by dividing into classes and ruling and promoting a section with a view that it were the parts 'that promote the whole and not the whole which,

in being promoted, promotes all the parts' - is but a leader who ultimately becomes oppressor himself. The manipulation by the leadership is sometimes carried out directly by him or indirectly by a group of elites. The populist leader who rises from this process is an ambiguous being, an amphibian who lives in two elements, shuttling back and forth between the people and the oppressive dominant rulers, he bears the marks of both. With enormous problems faced by the people, the day when they can create a truly new society in which human rights, peace and justice reign is a very long way off, and those who lead the work of conscientisation must be content with seeing an identity or regaining the old liberal identity of Islam and liberalism and Bengali slowly develop among the people, that is human identity. This requires two things: (i) a very high degree of personal dedication and a deep change in their own attitudes and (ii) a new vision of human development based upon faith in God, the creator and judge who emphasizes on human equality of basic necessities and supremacy of leadership in merit only. An oppressive leadership hold a distorted view of good and propagates a completely deterministic view of good which implies of events as 'all being the will of God,' but does not go on to elaborate what a true view of God is, yet in the process of humanizing the dehumanized people it is required to have faith on humanity rather than faith in God, who himself do not do anything, but do so through people turned human beings. The dominating oppressors, who have a tendency to sell God are not to be feared or allowed to inhibit the fulfillment of the aspirations of the people to be human. Distinction must be made between the world beyond sight and the natural world that manifests God’s will. The oppressors strictly materialistic concept of existence are dominated by desire to possess and dominate property, means and output of production process and people, reduces all including humans to the state of objects at their disposal. It is the vocation of human beings turned people to become human, yet if the idea to become human is limited to an essentially materialistic concept of humanity, it lacks spiritual dimension causing confusion and unreliability that they may too turn into oppressors being materialistic

monsters. A very materialistic attitude to life, in that the individual pursuit of resources, very often overrides the dictates of what is known to be right or good behavior and not harming to others i.e. individualism. Violence dehumanizes human being into people and so the eradication of violence and the emergence of the oppressed into their true vocation to become human beings, who know things and can control the nature, is what humanity is all about. The idea of humanity must have in it the idea of forming union with human beings and the animals and the rest of creation, that we call environment. The determinants that turn human beings into people are (i) a view of life in which all the ills are the fault of the oppressor alone, and that only by eradicating the oppressor oppression can be cured and (ii) oppressed are more conscious of themselves as individuals rather a class and contributing to the root cause of their problem. The people lack solidarity as a class. They degrade and exploit each other by treating their women folk as things, by quarreling over scarce resources, by joining factions, by discriminating against each other on the basis of birth and caste thinking, and by simply non co-ordination with each other almost all of which, in Islam, against the dictates of humanity, because these prevent the people form growing in brotherhood and solidarity, which is the main need if the structural violence in the society is to be challenged to pave way for liberalism. Identifying the oppressors as the only cause of all social problem, tends to reinforce a feeling of lack of personal responsibility which is a major constituent in the belief in fate and the apathy which can engender dependency attitude and can work against will to work for winning back the norm i.e. the liberalism. Strong emphasis should be given to make people think themselves as subjects and start dialogue. There can be no doubt at all about the truly liberating power of dialogue through which people discover that they can change the world, can participate in their own improvement by taking action, can achieve a measure of justice by acting together, can improve their self esteem, self image and self confidence immeasurably. They can move form a completely hopeless outlook towards one of hope, tomorrow begins to hold out prospects of which many of them could not even

dream or imagine. People cease to be submerged into subjugation by the present and they start to participate in building the solidarity for liberalism and start to form strategy. The leaders’ followers has to be filled by absolutely dedicated, skillful people, prepared to reject all the oppressive tendencies in their education and culture be themselves a true being with the people, rather than being "for them" or a being "over them", that they subscribe to the vision and show it in the way they do their work, so for most of their attitude has be learned and assiduously developed on the job. It is made all the more difficult by the constant need to be affirming, encouraging and questioning people whose behaviour and self image tempt the educated and the skillful to believe in their own superiority. The vision therefore, to develop, calls for a quality of person as human being who really exists, in fact, in this respect it fails to take adequate account of human nature as it really is. These are great vocation of the people as human beings to liberate themselves and the oppressors. Liberation can not be bestowed as a gift, it has to be an act of cognition, a positive achievement of the persons liberated. The vision looks forward in the achievement of a complete liberal resurgence in society where, justice, human rights, individualism, reason replace oppression and violence; where it is easier to love and all people participate in the creation of human culture. Looking towards the inspiring vision of liberalism, liberating the oppressor from the dehumanizing effects upon themselves of oppressing the oppressed is seen as an act of being declassed. Yet there is no worked out theory or hold fast strategy of just violence, organized non violence, passive resistance or self defense. This is a major omission left out to situation. One of the most common reaction to the situation of the people is despair. The more a person thinks about the depth to which the violence is entrenched in society, and the more he experiences the weakness and division of people in the face of such violence, the more he inclines to despair. It is sheer a shameful failure of faith in his power.

This present oppressive world view of the people needs to be presented to them as a problem, as inhibitions to the meeting of their aspirations and to their becoming closer to their destiny as human beings. Theistic understandings of humanity affirm the concept of human responsibility. Problem of lack of trust and mutual solidarity gives rise to mutual exploitation and cheating among the people themselves. This is attributed to corruption in all levels of societywhich is so endemic and so deep that its presence is felt by the people in almost all activities. Favor is dispensed to the clients by executive against the prescription of impartiality, justice for the people or the activities of the law enforcing agencies is not available as there is corrupt practices, business is completely riddled with corruption, marriage is happy where the bridegroom has additional income, loan taken from financial institutions are granted with mutual agreement between the borrower and the lending institutions and much more. There is a strong desire on the part of the people to follow some one, and they will follow a person, not a vision. So leadership is connected with a concept of personal aura. It is built in charisma, and therefore, a strong and deeply felt cultural norm that a leader is a part of a wider set of relationships carrying its own rights and obligations. In the dialogue agenda to abandon the idea of accommodating local leaders as a means of promoting the people would be to abandon one of the most powerful forces for unity in society. A local leadership can be encouraged which sees itself as leading not by patronage but by communion with the people, an attack will be made on patronage as a system, while at the same time prescribing and utilizing the social norm which the people want to follow. The attack on patronage must have three processes (i) the emergence of the new local leadership motivated by the desire to serve the people (ii) the self denial and self subordination of the leader and (iii) the presentation of class thinking to the people as a problem which inhibits the fulfillment of their aspirations. The non-government organisation are not the ones whose programs aim at a transformation of the structures in the society, which bind the people and keep them down, it does not address the structural causes of poverty.

The road to a new society based on liberalism, in which all people are able to participate irrespective of religion, caste, creed and sex and grow as human beings is very long and hard. The prospect for any large-scale success in the near future is not that much bright. But it is the most fertile ground where seeds germinate very swift and easily. Concentrating on the vision of liberalism and work with the people to transform their identity, casting aside centuries of dependence, fear and self doubt and discover that people themselves can grow closer to each other and bring in a better way to live, and it is possible for them if only they take the road together, something infinitely beautiful must happen. It would be worthy of external funding to let the steps of the liberals here in Bangladesh move faster, learn on the way, continue to critically examine the success and amend in the light of study, knowledge and experience and interaction between liberals, in Bangladesh and liberals world over. When a social trend develops into a conscious state in certain individual it assumes a thousand fold intensity. The nation evolving in a gradual manner suddenly undergoes an instantaneous and intensive transformation. It drives forward with a historical jump and puts an end to what Nietzsche called 'social rumination.' They are movements for resurgence of political, social, economic and cultural nature. The leader of social consciousness and moral conscience move by visionary inspiration that enhance his social effectiveness and that constitute the creative imagination of the nation. Their inspiration, derived from collective consciousness, appear only at the inspired moments of ingenious nations. He makes his own soul a reflecting surface to the ingenious power concealed in a nation. Social condition thoroughly examined by an analytical and critical mind is expressed in a leader. Genius is the spontaneous realization of the changes taking place in society unconsciously. Leader is not to impose and institute, but to discover the elements of national conscience in the unconscious level and to bring them up to the conscious level. A leader should have clear understanding of the laws governing the order and progress of societies and try to ameliorate the pathological factors that have arrested the growth of the nation. The complex of rules of religion,

politics, morality, law, economics and even aesthetics exist on an unconscious level in the life of a nation. Life is a creative evolution, a moving vision that takes shape on the way and amends itself to accommodate diversity and changes for development perpetually, keeping the superstructure, intact. Tradition means creativity and progress. Because, it has a past which knits the discrete moments to one another and a movement which pushes forward as a motivating force. Thus traditions always create new developments and new orientations, i.e. something growing and creating by itself giving life to borrowed innovations grafted on it. Tradition constitutes the spirit of ambition, the social norms that rule its body. The traditionalist nation lives in the freedom of history, the formalist in the bondage of geography. Tradition not only establishes continuity and harmony between the forces that an institution assumes at various times, but it also shows how all of them are derived from the same origin, thus serving to cement them together. Institution like politics, law, economics, culture, logic, and aesthetics are all derived from religion. They gain a living force and a dynamic life only by deriving their roots from a religious origin. The history of civilization shows that, the philosopher is not men who merely puts together and organize the discrete truth which others have discovered. The real philosopher is one who know the methods of seeking the truth and actually applies them. They were fought not for their idealism but for their realism. Their success rests not one what they taught but on how they faced and fought the evil. Properties originate from physical nature and values are natural products of social reality. The effectiveness of man over society depends on value derived from social beliefs and laws of nature and place of human being in natural domain. The leaders in a developing country always try to seek political support from the people through intensive political campaigns by making a lot of realistic and unrealistic promises that arouse peoples emotion rather than judgement. They build up powerful militant organisation like youth front, student front, women front and labour front who do not hesitate to use force to hush up any opposition that dare to term their policies anti people or try to organise pockets of

realistic politics. In Bangladesh charisma is achieve by continuous political propaganda by demagogue politician and their workers in different levels who tirelessly profess the greatness of the leader. Even then, the leader may not be always successful in mastering the peoples minds. So, he needs a strong power base and builds up that by money, muscle, manipulation and mastermind to ensure that his power is not actively challenged by opposing forces sooner or later. Remaining popular for a long time, depends on the political consciousness of the people and their willingness to take active part in politics and their intellectual ability to counter the leader demagogue and the large group of sycophant powerful forces. People all over the earth have shown considerable urge to be free from political suppression, economic exploitation, social seclusion and cultural aggression. But to be free they need to participate actively in the political decision making process. 99% percent of people are too poor to afford that, they have immediate business to take care of such as working for food, clothing and shelter, medical attendance in ill health, and direct oppression from government officials, village headman, nongovernment organizations’ money lending business with high interest rate, education of their children etc. Citizens might is unknown to them, democracy means only voting right in elections. Poverty and illiteracy contribute much to the unabated exploitation that they suffer in every day life. This forcible unconsciousness of the people pushes the leader to loose political active support from the people and the power base that he has build up gradually and that weakens because of corruption, rent seeking and overzealous organization. Continuation of their role is threatened when a new political group surfaces, and the much needed people's support is nowhere in sight. People can not be aroused without coercion. No spontaneous strikes, demonstration can be organized. The new group of political interests with support form urban and middle class gradually gains strength. This vicious cycle makes it impossible to build up a reliable and strong lasting power base in the people. This is elitist politics that takes with it politicians, bureaucrats, unscrupulous business men and industrialists and a tiny

group of self seeking reactionary intellectuals, none of whom can command & master support. The opposition political parties are also constituted thus. So, it is a quarrel of two or more vested interests to gain the authority and power to exploit and subjugate the people and rule over them to get rich to richer and turn to demi gods. Thus a class of people should emerge from the middle class, well educated and politically trained to overrule traditional tendencies, economically sound and possess genuine interest in individual liberty, equality in political participation, equality of opportunity with the assurance that they will be supported by the state to be provided with means to avail that opportunity, gender indiscrimination in every sphere of life, tolerance of diverse opinion, acknowledge unity in cultural diversity, guarantee of education as right regardless of opportunity and means, and provision of economic opportunity and means only can ensure personal freedom and democracy and vice versa. A people oriented party serves the cause of development, motivate the masses, develop leadership and politically organize and mobilize illiterate and ignorant masses. It can be a tool for developing democratic institutions, of leadership and of motivating popular participation at the grass root levels. A party should be an organization crystallizing the political views of large portions of the population and also as instrument, dedicated emit to organize and activate the masses towards liberal democracy. It is a natural tendency of all rulers or ruling elites to perpetuate their reign. Strong internal objection to hand over political power is there, because to rule also means to retain power, status and ever increasing wealth. Besides, there lie in the core of the heart of the rulers fear that the new regime may be inclined to victimize them to avenge the repressive measures that the former have adopted against the latter. While in power the ruler made himself the sole authority to determine what the national interest is and anybody suggesting otherwise is termed as agents of foreign hatched conspiracy. The oppositions also behave in such an irresponsible way and adopts foul playing that the

rulers find no other alternative but to strengthening their belief that rigid and ruthless suppression of the opposition will ensure their survival. In most developing countries stability and legitimacy is too fragile. Everything depends on the farsightedness and the ability of the leader in balancing the difficult real actors who are contending for power. Only then, inherent instability, one of the characteristics of developing countries can be tackled. Bangladesh has witnessed in pre 20th century, liberal rule where the ruler changed but not the system' but after that it had a succession of new leaders bringing his own principles and ideas as well as his personal style of government. Even the most people oriented leader can hardly avoid taking care of the paramount interests of the ruling elites or the groups on whose support his own survival depends, the bureaucracy and the unscrupulous businessmen, the reactionary civil society and cultural forces. Any reform measure that contravenes the interest of the upper class are withheld or delayed and the general masses are totally ignored. Any ruler, seriously attempting to redress the plight of the people may be compelled to face rebellion form among the bureaucracy and the intermediary power bases and even the foreign funded self seeker civil society. Being in power there grows all around a group of sycophants. The ruler loses connection with the underprivileged rural and even urban people and has very little knowledge about the real needs and aspirations of the people. Facts are misrepresented to him or not at all presented leading to gradual wane of popularity. Before independence, most of the political leaders of this part of South Asia firmly believed in the ideals of freedom, equality and popular participation in Government, as well as in democratic institutions such as party system, parliament, a free press, a neutral judiciary and civil service. They believed then, once independence is achieved, shared views and democratic institutions could be taken over and maintained. Liberty and equality become the cry against the colonial powers and democratic means were successfully practiced in gaining independence from the alien regimes. By forming nationalist political parties and by using freedom of speech and right to organize and

demonstrate they effectively raised agitation and ultimately were given independence. After gaining independence, the original euphoria for democracy fade away very soon. New realities became evident in its vicious shape (i) that democracy can not be easily established when there is illiteracy and ignorance in the grassroots level and poverty preventing people from realizing democratic virtues (ii) that the game of politics is confined to a very small group of real actors and even then there are factions (iii) that a democratic constitution is helpless against easy procedure to amend and thus depriving a firm legal basis for democratic stability (iv) that politics is a dangerous game and that no politicians can afford being replaced and (v) that in the political arena survival of the strongest, most ruthless is the order of the day. All these mean that the basic premises for sustaining democracy and its institutions are absent in Bangladesh. Formal democracy i.e. multiparty system and regular election and orderly constitutional transfer of power from one rival political group to another is there, but functional democracy that guarantees life and living in total absent.. Although to the superficial observer it would appear that total chaos has dominated the political scene in Bangladesh in the past decades, the truth is that a new political pattern based on liberalism professed by a small group of intellectuals, politicians and professionals has evolved with its own logic and dynamics and suited to the present particular stage of socio-economic development. The fact is that almost nowhere has the call for greater democratic Freedom and popular participation in Government died down altogether. It is being increasingly heard among the large middle class. Eventual reappearance of liberal democracy is almost inevitable. The demands of the developed countries that the developing nations prove their legitimacy and that the same time follow there prescription for economic development without caring for the recipient countries moral, choice, culture and the choice of the people are but oppressive. They should understand the realities in the power structure in

developing countries like Bangladesh. Popularity and legitimacy are the result of good governance. The new elite have already adopted, apparently without much hesitation, the materialistic culture and the value system of the west. Once a beginning has been made in introducing western administration, education, institution, the new ideas began to question old beliefs and tradition of service for others. It has also found expression in official policies. But a deliberate attempt to censure old traditions or a particular national life style or to introduce a new one considered more appropriate to a particular stage of development is unlikely to succeed. Democracy can only be ensured where old civilization be incorporated into the modern development and political process. There is always a provision for renaissance, re-discovery of old tradition and values at a later date. There seems to be a host of factors, some superficial, others more profound, that constitute a peoples national character. But most of them tend to share liberalism based on human values which form an integral part of all major religion and philosophies that embodies most important of all our common cultural and critical values which development and modernization could not altogether destroy till today. What people should endeavor to achieve is the ability to enjoy the benefits of modern age and yet remain the human beings that they are with all their human rights intact. The mindset has to go back to norm for the resurgence of humanity with all its mighty forces for standing erect in the commune of the world of nations.

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