An ambulance ride and Dialogue with Dhaka

Early this morning (I write on Tuesday afternoon, approaching the column’s deadline), just after daybreak, a group of three ambulances made their way from Dhaka University to Dhaka airport in Bangladesh, sirens wailing, speeding at breakneck speed, to avoid the massive and unending traffic jams which cripple this vast city, surging with life, energy, people, vehicles, politics and unending adda.

I was in one of those ambulances, not because I was unwell norwere any of the 10 other Indians with me – it was deemed by conference organizers as the safest way to reach the airport from the city.  The previous evening, at a discussion on river issues and water resources in North East India and Bangladesh in Dhaka University, we were informed that national elections were being announced later and that there would be either a hartal by the Opposition led by Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party or a road blockade.

“Ambulance einiyenen,” remarked our host, the brilliant, diminutive Imtiaz Ahmed of the Department of International Relations of Dhaka University, to his team of organizers.  “Don’t worry,” he said, “we do this all the time, and it’s very safe.”

Many of my young colleagues were naturally concerned by the prospect of a journey in a situation fraught with risk, as we were told and as we read in the media.  Every day, as the confrontation deepened between Bangladesh’s Battling Begums, as Prime Minister Sheik Hasina and Khaleda Zia are known, there were reports of clashes between police and the opposition activists, especially those of the Jamaat who appeared to be in the forefront of street confrontations, well organized and prepared for a fight, Buses, scooter rickshaws, cars and trucks were fair game; crude bombs (bottles filled with petrol or Molotov cocktails), rocks and lathis were widely used.

I was quite looking forward to the drive because I’ve always enjoyed a challenge from my reporting days – I’ve been under fire in a major gun battle between insurgents and the army, covered Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan as well as all parts of the North-east, driven through endless bandhs (as have many reporter colleagues), been stopped at night and daytime by security men and UG (underground) groups.  There are so many stories – but let’s stick to this one.

In the end, it was quite tame; our vehicles were packed with bags and we were squashed between the luggage, on fixed seats with oxygen cylinders and masks for company. However, we were not stopped anywhere although a few hundred meters from the airport where a couple of soldiers waved the car down and barked in Bangla to the driver: ‘Koto passenger?’  No word about whether there were any patients on board. I almost burst out laughing but retrained myself.  He then poked his head inside and said, “India? Air-India?” Both assumptions were correct and we reached the airport without hitch.

So getting to the airport on time in Dhaka in an ambulance appears to be quite standard procedure: everyone was well informed about it. No one tried to stop the vehicles or question the rationale.  It’s a smart way of getting out of the mess that political organizations create for ordinary people as well as for those with a flight or train to catch.  I counted not less than six ambulances taking people around this morning, not just to the airport. It’s one of the several things we can learn from Bangladesh, a nation of 170 million, which has learned to deal with adversity and cope with difficulty all the time, and has innovated constantly in the battle to survive and grow. We would do well to remember that Dhaka is a city of 16 million, or half the population of Assam.

People appeared to be going about their morning chores in a relaxed manner. There were just more police and paramilitary on the streets than normal. But possibly, as in India, things start to heat upas the day progresses,the demonstrators take their morning tea and nashta and grab the predetermined weapon of choice for the chores of the day.

We had been staying that past day at Dhaka University, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in South Asia built by the British (it dates to 1921) for the last day of a discussion on water and environment, where young people from India and Bangladesh came together for a dialogue, away from the hustle of media and the pressure of classrooms, deadlines and rhetoric. There were several from Assam in the discussions. In nearly two weeks of teaching, panel discussions, lectures, films, music, poetry and presentations, in Dhaka and Guwahati, many misunderstandings were cleared, prejudices and stereotypes broken.

It is only when we in the North-east get out of our iron clad notions about Bangladesh and Bangladeshis that we can move forward. If, after decades of rhetoric and agitation, the issue of illegal migration fails to attract the kind of enthusiastic response of the past (and I am not talking about the kind of violence that Assam has seen over the years), then surely there must be a reason to introspect: people are fatigued because they don’t see it going anywhere, they want to lead normal undisturbed lives – surely that is not too much to ask? Perhaps they question the figures and the anger that have been tossed about for decades.

I have been suggesting to our young leaders (and some are not so young anymore) that they should visit Bangladesh and especially Dhaka to understand their other side, to have conversations and put our viewpoints across. Why not a discussion between the top youth debaters of either side on this issue? Many in our region may be surprised to find that what is seen as a life and death question in Assam causes not even the slightest ripple here, because no one even connects to it. They know about migration to the Middle East and SE Asia (on my flight, there were Bangladeshis, with passports and visas, headed for work in London and Japan, and perhaps this is the new reality – that more people are using legal means to get across borders so they can have legitimate incomes, a decent lifestyle).

Unless there is a dialogue how can there be any rational debate or understanding of each other’s perceptions? People from the NE, especially its younger leaders, need to see the progress that Bangladesh has made in the past decades and compare it to our conditions: the country has the best family planning programme in South Asia, barring Sri Lanka; its population growth rate is better than that of India’s; it has one of the best records of putting girl children in schools; child nutrition, maternal mortality and infant mortality rates are better than India’s. The former is almost half of that of Assam’s, which has the dubious distinction despite tremendous efforts this past decade of having the worst MMR in this country.

Bangladesh has many challenges; it is still poor – but it has reached banking (Grameen has changed the lives of tens of millions), connectivity, transportation, health and education services to a majority of its population. We’ve failed to do that even with the huge amounts of funds that the Centre has poured into the region.

A word about Dhaka University: the hub of political activity in Bangladesh, wherenation changing movements have begun – whether it is planting the flag of free Bangladesh even before Mujib raised the voice of revolt against Islamabad in 1970, sacrificing lives to ensure that Bengali and not Urdu prevailed as a language of East Pakistan, which we all celebrate as International Language Day, the place where the Pakistanis massacred students and professors in their dorms and homes during their bloody crackdown. It’s a sprawling concourse of a place with parks, trees lined roads, and a Senate Hall and auditorium that would put most Indian Universities (and definitely Gauhati and Dibrugarh Universities) to shame.

Let’s not forget, there’s a history of sacrifice, innovation and determination here of which they are proud – it’s time we recognized it while retaining determination on the issue of transborder flows. A dialogue with Dhaka at the people to people level is well overdue.

 

By the Brahmaputra / By Sanjoy Hazarika