Value of reciprocity between govt and coordinators

A serious lack of coordination has surfaced between the government and the leaders of anti-discrimination student movement. Nobel Peace Laureate Prof Yunus and his cabinet colleagues came to power through the student-spearheaded anti-quota and subsequent anti-Awami League government movement, which culminated in the ouster of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, most of his cabinet members and senior ruling party leaders.

The coordinators invited Prof Yunus to take over the charge as the chief adviser, or de facto prime minister, with Dr Yunus acknowledging students as the 'primary employers' of the advisers in his first address to the nation.  The incumbency of two advisers from the student coordinators gave the impression that the students were the main force behind the government. Several top coordinators, who are outside the government, criticised the administration on several occasions stating they would point out their faults to help them get on the right track, but their scathing criticism of the government over the induction of two advisors has taken people by surprise. Questioning the role of the two new advisors - filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and entrepreneur Sheikh Bashir Uddin - in the anti-Awami League government movement and their contribution to nation, coordinators Hasnat Abdullah and Sarjis Alam said they have been included in the government without consulting the coordinators.

Activists of almost all anti-Awami League political forces and people from all walks of life joined the movement to oust the Sheikh Hasina government, but the indomitable students, who dared fight the security forces and Awami League activists with many embracing martyrdom, were the orchestrators of the movement. Who knows how long the nation would have to be under the Awami League misrule unless the students waged the movement.

Any misunderstanding between the coordinators and the government is destined to weaken the government. Unlike political party-led governments, this government has no political backing of their own but only the backing of the students and ordinary people. Failing to coordinate with the coordinators will lead to the loss of its main prop rendering it powerless. If the government weakens, the party of deposed Sheikh Hasina will try to get rehabilitated. To prevent that from happening, the government must maintain bonhomie with the top leaders of the anti-discrimination students' movement.

This government also has to make sure that no beneficiaries of the fascist government of Sheikh Hasina get in power and infiltrate this administration. If they are given a chance, they will try to carry out their secret agenda. Given the opportunity, they will take revenge not only on the students but also on the whole nation and leave it more devastated than ever before. So, this government's main concern should be to keep the infiltrators out.

The fall of a government leaves a country in a vulnerable state. It is now incumbent on the interim government to discharge the sacred duty the coordinators and the mass people have given it. Bringing the country's stability back is the prime task. A rift between the government and the coordinators is likely to cause a reversal to the country's journey on course of a cherished goal.

This calls for taking the political parties into confidence and win over them about the merit of the necessary reforms to the system for democracy to prevail. It must lay a proper foundation on which elected representatives will build on with the objective of creating a discrimination-free society.

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