Most Bangladeshis might not recognize this quote, but they would recognize the state that Hobbes describes as the direction in which their lives are heading right now. That they are not alone is not much solace, I am certain. The millions in Eastern Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, in much of the Middle East, Somalia, Sudan, parts of Pakistan, and the many other such places, share their feelings of despair and desperation. Hobbes wrote that the society in a state of nature needs a social contract to establish a civil society, a contract in which society surrenders many individual rights to a protective sovereign power—a monarch, a dictator, a military ruler, etc – for protection and order.
This has to be the central message, implicit or explicit, of the present government in Dhaka, as it is dragged along the path of accelerating confrontation and human rights abuses against an opposition that, as I also mentioned two weeks ago, is both feckless and desperate, that perceives at least that it is fighting for survival, and which is also not fully under control of its leaders. Hobbes’ subtle authoritarian message has been persuasive for the millennia of human civilization, and has gained force again in the first two decades of this century as order and stability in various parts of the world deteriorate. The message, in an infinite variety of forms, is heard in all of these places.
Millions in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and parts of Pakistan share the feelings of despair and desperation
In that sense, there is not much to distinguish the exponential rise in instability and violence in Bangladesh over the past year from many of these other troubled spots. But I discern one difference. I stumbled on this idea recently when I read the off-the-cuff remarks of SOAS economist, Mushtaq Khan. Like some other political entities in South Asia, Khan mused, stability and order (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof) has only obtained in Bangladesh when it was an electoral democracy, and when the major party alliances traded off power in each election, ie from 1990 to 2014. The reason he posits: that only in an atmosphere in which each party alliance is assured of its turn at the trough of the economic rents of governance (a euphemism for corruption) is the zero-sum game mentality of Bangladesh politics somewhat (but not entirely) mitigated. In the period in question, parties had an interest in keeping the boat afloat, and though they would rock it to dangerous levels, they did not tip it over (until 2007).
Khan points out that it is during this almost 20-year period that Bangladesh made the fastest and largest economic and social gains ever. If economic growth and social development are connected in some way to stability and order, this bodes ill for Bangladesh unless the present strife is, somehow, halted and resolved before things break down completely.
A brief glance at Bangladesh history bears this out. In 1975, when Sheikh Mujib tried to lock in the Awami League’s access to the resources that governing provides with his one-party state, the fragile stability and order that obtained was shattered, he was killed and the ensuing chaos (truly a Hobbsian state of nature) led to an absolutist ruler, who over time brought about order and stability, with support from the military. (My views on this ruler are much more nuanced that the above sentence would indicate, but you will have to read my book to know them; I don’t have the space here.) He created the BNP, the other major party, as a center-right alternative to the Awami League, and made it the party of government while he ruled. After his assassination, a hybrid, military-backed government ruled for almost a decade using a wily strategy of dividing the opposition (which included the BNP) and luring some independents to join it for patriotic reasons and others for pecuniary ones. This strategy was shredding, and stability and order breaking down by the mid- 1980s. The government remained in power primarily because of increasing repression and because until 1990 the two major parties could not agree on a common front.
That the primary cause of Bangladesh’s zero-sum political mindset and past and present instability is over access to resources in neither new nor surprising. The same is true in many of the unstable areas of the world. Nor is the appeal of a Leviathan when political order and stability break down a surprise. In Hobbes’ mind, however, and almost all authoritarian appeals to quell disorder and instability of the present and the past, the Leviathan was some form of autocratic government, some charismatic ruler, or a person or junta backed by force, usually military, but in the authoritarian heyday of the 1930s by street power.
But in Bangladesh, the Leviathan was a concept, the Caretaker Government to run elections. This concept started as an agreement between the opposition parties in the 1990 movement against the military ruler, so each knew that when Ershad fell, they would be in a free and fair election. Each, obviously, thought it would win that election. In 1996, this was turned into a constitutional amendment. Thus it is fair to call it a paper Leviathan.
The paper leviathan did not change the zero-sum mindset, as many of us hoped. Each government tried to find ways to use the Caretaker Amendment to its advantage in reelection, and each election brought in the opposition because the parties governed so badly, and corruptly. But until the 2009 election, neither won enough seats to junk the amendment. In that election, however, which ended the 2007-2009 military interregnum, the voters overwhelmingly elected Sheikh Hasina and the AL alliance. It was her turn but the voters overdid it and gave the party a majority large enough to amend the constitution. And the AL did what any self-respecting, zero-sum minded, majoritarian party would do—it repealed the Caretaker Government provision. It ripped up the paper Leviathan, and with it, perhaps, the progress and gains of the last 20 years.
Hobbes, if he were still around, might argue that his social contract gave Bangladeshis the right to do away with their paper protection against one party government. But wouldn’t he worry that their doing so has, in fact, taken the country back toward the state of nature, the anarchy that the Leviathan was supposed to prevent. Something is wrong with this picture.