Foreign ‘boosters’ work against COVID, not in politics

A man records himself getting vaccinated on his mobile phone at the National Institute of Ear, Nose and Throat in Dhaka's Tejgaon on Feb 13, 2021. Photo: Mostafigur Rahman

In its quest to topple the elected Awami League government, Bangladesh's Islamist opposition has often looked to events in the neighbourhood to boost its case for a regime change.

When the Taliban took over Kabul last August and announced the return to an Islamic Emirate, Bangladesh's homegrown Islamists decided to take up trouble. During the Durga Puja, their mischief-makers planted the Quran on the feet of a Hindu god's idol in Cumilla and used social media to spread the image. Communal violence spread to more than 20 districts. The Sheikh Hasina government took no chances and deployed border guards to beef up security and control the trouble.

But that is the kind of tough and prompt policing that is considered undemocratic. So, Bangladesh was not invited to the US-sponsored Democracy Summit, but Pakistan was. Can hypocrisy be more pronounced?

Now, this same opposition is crying hoarse and trying to draw parallels between the events unfolding in Sri Lanka with what they want to happen in Bangladesh.

The unprecedented financial crisis in Sri Lanka leading to massive mob violence primarily targeting the Rajapaksa family throws up useful lessons for all the neighbours and Bangladesh will do well to learn them, especially, the urgent need for fiscal discipline, controlling corruption and bank defaults, and preventing money laundering — all of which and more that led to the present crisis in Sri Lanka.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has been on the draw, predicting the fate of the Rajpaksas awaiting the Awami League. "The Awami League will never learn from history and so will meet the same fate," he thundered at a recent press conference.

In faraway London, Mirza Fakhrul's leader Tarique Rahman is possibly glued to the TV, eagerly following the developments in the Philippines.

'Bongbong' Marcos Jr, the son of the notorious military dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has swept the presidential polls in the island nation. Apparently, the Filipinos have forgiven the Marcos clan for its two decades of oppressive rule marred by the looting of public assets and horrible human rights violations.

So why can't Tarique, son of Bangladesh's first military dictator who hanged scores of dissidents, expect a repeat in Bangladesh? He may be expecting the country will not merely forget his father's undoing the values of the glorious independence struggle but also forgive his own kleptocratic track record.

So Bangladesh's opposition clearly seems to be dependent on foreign 'boosters' to brighten their political horizons.

Now 'foreign boosters' do work when it comes to tackling COVID.

Despite doomsday predictions by the likes of David Bergman and his sidekicks, Bangladesh did not lose millions to COVID they had predicted. The Hasina government handled the pandemic without producing any vaccine of its own.

Bangladesh has progressed eight steps to now rank first in South Asia in combating COVID-19, according to the latest recovery index by Nikkei. With a score of 80 points, the country ranked 5th out of 121 countries on the Nikkei COVID-19 Recovery Index. In March, Bangladesh was in the 13th position.

The Nikkei's recovery index assesses countries and regions on infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility. The higher the ranking, the closer it is to recovery, characterised by lower infection and death rates, better inoculation coverage, as well as fewer movement restrictions.

Among other South Asian nations, Pakistan ranked 23rd, Sri Lanka 31st and India 70th. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates hold the top spot with 87 points.

So in COVID control, foreign boosters do work. But politics is a different ball game where they have not worked and will not. Why? One may ask.

What happened in Sri Lanka or Afghanistan will and can happen in Bangladesh only if the prevailing conditions are exactly similar. The fact is they are not. And that fact is something the Bangladesh opposition and their enthusiastic cheerleaders fail to see.

Just consider this one bit of statistics. Srilanka's total foreign exchange reserves plummeted from $2.31 billion in February 2022 to $1.93 billion in March 2022 and are now said to have fallen below $50 million.

The unprecedented forex crisis has not led to debt payment defaults but also hindered the import of essentials from food to fuel. The economy has ground to a halt and social temperatures have risen leading to the escalation of mob violence.

And this while in one month alone, April 2022, Bangladesh received $2.09 billion in remittances. So, in one month, Bangladesh received more foreign currency than the entire reserve of Sri Lanka. If someone likes to fool others and themselves by comparing a famished lion with a well-fed tiger, the exercise will not work.

Indian commentators are finally having to swallow their pride and admit that Bangladesh has not merely overtaken their country in per capita income. The IMF actually says this gap will widen and a Bangladeshi will on average earn an annual $200 more than an Indian by 2026. Top Indian editor Shekhar Gupta dedicated one of his popular podcasts "Cut The Clutter" to this theme recently. Indian author Amitav Ghosh was effusive in praise of Bangladesh's effort to combat climate change, describing it as a global leader in this aspect.

So why should practical people like Bangladeshis bring down a performing government when the alternative provided is so ineffective and corrupt? By all indicators of the economy and human development, Bangladesh is a success story, spun largely in the last decade of Awami League rule under Sheikh Hasina.

If Bangladeshis need to learn the right lessons from the neighbourhood, they should look not to Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, but to India. Religious polarisation during BJP rule has today even raised eyebrows amongst foreign investors in India's Silicon Valley state of Karnataka. They have either moved their corporate headquarters to Hyderabad or Chennai where the Hindutva Brigade is not a force to reckon with or pulled out of the country. So if economic and human development is the desired goal, the politics of religious extremism has to be shunned.