AL's authoritarian regime thrived on lies, pervasive fear, illusive development: Debapriya 

The ousted Awami League's authoritarian regime thrived on three things, lies, pervasive fear and an illusive development model, Debapriya Bhattacharya said today (18 November).

"On 5 August, the people and the students of Bangladesh brought down the 15-year authoritarian government of the Awami League. Deep lies, pervasive fear and an illusive development – these are the three basic elements of how an authoritarian regime thrives," he said while addressing the "Bay of Bengal Conversation" organised by the Center for Governance Studies at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel.

The head of the committee for the white paper on the state of Bangladesh's economy also said, "So, where does the lie start? It starts from the biography of the leader to create a 'Messiah complex'. It transfers into its family, then it goes into the history of the country and then the lie starts, you know, creating benign, then malicious slanders about your opposition. 

"And the lie doesn't stop there. The lie finally ends up falsifying the numbers on the basis of which the country runs. Those numbers are the election outcomes, your investment figures, employment figures, and finally the GDP and the growth," he said.

Debapriya, also a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said the fear factors are high. "The fear is that one day if you say something, the sage apparatus will pick you up and take you away somewhere your relatives will never find you. It has come to be known as Aynaghar in Bangladesh. So, the fear factor is one of the most potent stools of any authoritarian government."

He also said there are two particular traits of that authoritarian system, the first one being suppression and the second one being exclusion. 

"So you suppress all pluralistic thoughts which might be there in your country and you exclude all the possible stakeholders who could have been more productive in taking the country forward."

Debapriya noted that the illusion of prosperity is such that you have to create some growth in order to distribute the surplus among a certain set of people so that you get to keep them on your side. 

"The problem starts with crony capitalism, but then it ends up with the rise of the oligarchs. And the oligarchs are such a handful of people that politicians think they have created them. But one fine morning they discover the oligarchs are running them, not the other way around." 

The problem with this economic development is that it is not at all inclusive, he said, adding that it thrives on inequality and marginalisation. 

"At the end of the day, you don't have enough resources to support not only investment, but also your public expenditure for health, education, and social security."

He also alleged that previously, government jobs had been given out to the chosen ones who were essentially party catalysts, not the people who were worthy. 

"So, the quality of the education and the dearth of employment was really the ticking time bomb which finally brought the downfall of the authoritarian regime," he said.