B'desh teetering dangerously on edge

Move on service rules sparked employees' strike paralysing Dhaka; law & order fragile with mobs roaming streets

- MONIDEEPA BANERJEE Senior journalist

WITH the demand for elections roiling Bangladesh, the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus has taken steps that have pushed people into agitation mode and the country into a near dystopian situation.

On Sunday, the government passed an ordinance to tweak service rules for state employees, making it much easier to sack, demote or transfer them for any alleged misconduct. Government employees struck work on Monday and paralysed the secretariat in Dhaka — equivalent to the South Block and North Block in Delhi. Some bureaucrats have stepped in to resolve the issue and there has been a hiatus in the protests but they are likely to re-erupt if the orders are not rolled back.

As it did in the case of the tax department which was one unified unit, the National Board of Revenue, till the government passed orders to break it up into two for "better functioning", protests paralysed the nation's finances till Yunus promised to rescind.

Meanwhile, primary teachers across the country have gone on strike and employees of the rural electrification department and ordinary lives are beginning to feel the pinch. Law and order is fragile with mobs roaming the streets and extorting money from ordinary people. Police forces are thin on the ground; they have been since August last year when they were at the receiving end of the wrath of the students who rebelled against Sheikh Hasina, forcing her to flee.