Awami Misrule Has Shattered Every Institution: Mushtaq Khan

Mushtaq Khan is a professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He also serves as the executive director of the SOAS-Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) Research Consortium. In an interview with a Bengali daily, he discussed the expectations from an interim government after the fall of Sheikh Hasina's regime, political aspirations, and geopolitics.

Here is the interview in full:

Question: The country has experienced a popular uprising, which some are calling a revolution. There is talk of reforms in various sectors, including state and political reforms. A certain political system has been in place for a long time. How realistic do you think the demands being made are?

Answer: What happened in Bangladesh in July-August was a revolutionary change. The state and government system that collapsed was a form of autocratic, authoritarian regime. Its foundation was based on breaking down, weakening, and crushing every opposition organization, whether it was a bank, a company, or a political party. And instilling a fear among the people that anyone who speaks out against them would disappear. When the student movement turned into a mass uprising, it was overthrown. The success was due to its lack of organized structure. The Awami League tried to reproduce the fear by using bullets, but they failed.

The force that destroyed the government system was the unorganized street power. But they cannot stay on the streets forever. To make our achievements sustainable, we now need to bring them into a system and create organizations capable of enforcing and supporting those systems. We have good rules, but if the powerful organizations or institutions do not want to abide by them, and if there is no counter-organization to stop them, then no matter how good the law is, it will not be effective. We lack that counter-force because the Awami League dismantled every counter-force. To make the demands and achievements of society sustainable, what we need now is a political settlement.

Question: How will this political settlement work? In our country, there are different forces and interests. There are political differences. How can a political settlement be achieved in such a context?

Answer: The way I see political settlement is a balance between organized forces in society and rules. There has to be coordination or harmony between these two. I introduced the concept of political settlement in the 1980s. To understand which laws will be effective in a country and what kind of political and economic development will take place, one must look at the organized organizations in the country in parallel. In Bengali, we call them all institutions. We need to view institutions and organizations separately. The rules of the game are the institutions. On the other hand, organizations are entities—political parties, universities, companies, or banks. The rules control these entities. But those in power do not want to follow the rules. The powerful buy the police, regulatory agencies, and the election commission. If they cannot buy them, they intimidate them. What needs to be done is to create parallel organizations. For example, if one company imports goods, it should not be alone. If 50 companies import goods together, and if one does not follow the law, the others will protest.

The 15 years of Awami misrule have shattered every organization or institution in our society—universities, trade unions, companies, banks—nothing remains. So no matter how beautiful the laws you create now, they will not work. But we must not despair. We need to strengthen control on one side and build organizations on the other. However, everything will not work quickly. Some organizations can be built quickly, while others may take five to six years. This is the practical side of political settlement. If we want to become a country like Norway overnight, everything will collapse. The old forces will then say, "See, they can't do it, only we can." Political settlement is the alignment of power distribution with the law. Political settlement does not mean that we gather all political parties in a room and agree on everything.

Question: After the political upheaval, there is a demand to rewrite the constitution. There are allegations that some provisions of the current constitution give birth to authoritarianism or dictatorship. Many are demanding a flawless constitution after removing all flaws. How prepared is our society for this?

Answer: There is probably no person in Bangladesh who would disagree that our constitution is flawed. Now, I could write a beautiful constitution. But if I don’t have the organizational strength to enforce it, it will be meaningless. Before doing anything, you need to pay attention to this. Citizen organizations, business organizations, political parties, student organizations—if these organizations violate the rules, then similar organizations must be able to restrain them. If that cannot be ensured, then the law has no value.

Question: Should we then ensure this by changing the constitution, or should we first focus on building civic power?

Answer: It must be done simultaneously. I’ll give the example of Nepal. After the popular movement there, a new constitution was adopted based on ideological foundations. On paper, it was quite good. It spoke of central, provincial, and local governments. But later, it was found that the way the forces were organized at these three levels made it difficult to coordinate among them. Now they are saying that this constitution needs to be changed again. Thailand has a new constitution, but it also needs to be changed. The constitution must reflect the real situation. You cannot write the law first and then say that society needs to be arranged accordingly. You must first see how society is organized and then align the constitution with it. There are certain aspects of the current constitution that render it ineffective.

We have some powerful organizations here that suffer no harm even when they break the law. A political party collects money from smugglers, human traffickers, or money launderers like S. Alam. In Britain, the money given to political parties by companies or trade unions comes from legal sources. They do not want these political parties to do anything that questions their legitimacy. At a personal level, everyone wants to break the law. But if a company does not follow the law, no one will enter into a contract with them. The whole system operates on contracts. Here, neither the party nor S. Alam suffers any harm. They only face trouble during these uprisings. Their daily operations need to be disrupted because uprisings do not happen every day. Whatever reforms we undertake now must be aligned with power.

Question: You mentioned reforms. Various reform demands are emerging from different parts of society. Sometimes they even seem contradictory. How feasible is it for an interim government to fulfill these reform demands?

Answer: The source of power may be unorganized, but they are on the streets and are a real force. Based on this, short-term but significant reforms are possible now. Let me give a couple of examples. It is now possible to change the leadership of various government institutions. If this is not done, you will be stuck. Secondly, actions can now be taken against those who have stolen money and taken it abroad—the Governor and the economic advisor have also spoken about it. All their assets should be seized, and international laws should be used. I am involved in anti-corruption work, and I know there are many organizations that would rush to help if asked. The United States, the United Kingdom, or Europe have different kinds of laws, so documents need to be prepared differently. The horrendous contracts we have made in the power and other sectors, where we have already paid 100 taka for something worth 10 taka, must be exposed. People in India are saying that the contract with Adani is unbelievable. Coal is being brought from Australia to Jharkhand, where there is already coal. The previous government secretly looted money through its people by passing laws that prohibit questioning these deals. This law can be repealed immediately because it is illegal. The source of power may be votes or the streets.

Question: Bangladesh is receiving special attention from superpowers, partly due to its geographical location. There is no doubt that Bangladesh’s geographical location holds geopolitical significance. How does this significance influence government formation here?

Answer: If you consider which countries develop authoritarian dictatorships, you will see that many of these governments can accumulate large sums of money. Either they have oil, coal, or gas. We do not have that, but we do have authoritarianism. If you look deeper, you will find that we have a significant resource. That is our geographical location. Bangladesh is in such a strategic position that at least three countries—India, China, and the United States—are competing here. Since their interests are so great, they are willing to spend billions of dollars. Not just the Awami League government, but previous governments also took advantage of this by making secret deals and arrangements for personal gain, which the public does not know about. Candidates in parliamentary elections even say they are India’s candidate, meaning India has made significant investments to keep a particular group in power. If this is not addressed, those who come to power later will also make secret arrangements with China, the U.S., or India for their own interests. Therefore, the demand must now be made that all of Bangladesh’s foreign agreements must be transparent and public. In India, no matter who comes to power, their foreign policy does not change because it is based on public consent. If I make foreign agreements based on everyone’s consent, then those countries will also feel that they do not need to keep a particular party in power, or else everything will collapse.

Question: Let’s look at Bangladesh’s geo-economy. Our export markets are in the West, but most of our goods come from China and India. Our dependence on these two countries has increased. Do you see any possibility of change here?

Answer: If China or India provides us with cheap goods, I will buy them