Staff Correspondent

Distinguished Professor of Illinois State University in US, Prof Dr Ali Riaz, on Thursday emphasised the need for rewriting Bangladesh’s constitution to break free from the cycle of centralised power and its misuse.

“It is not possible at all to get out of this circle of politicisation without rewriting the constitution,” he said, adding that a hastily conducted election would neither reflect the people’s needs nor serve as the right path for national reconstruction.

The Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) hosted an informative session at a Dhaka hotel, announcing a series of dialogues to discuss the priority areas of reform for the interim government.

Responding to a question, Prof Riaz said that the media needs to play a vital role to amplify the voices of the people from all walks of life.

He laid emphasis on telling the true story. Giving information accurately is the best way to reply to “misinformation and disinformation campaigns by the Indian media,” he added.

“We all have a role. Let’s play our role,” Prof Riaz said.

He said coming out of the culture of fear is vital for establishing democracy and the will of the people, and the media along with everyone else plays a pivotal role in this time.

Executive Director of CGS, Zillur Rahman, said that there have been a lot of wins by the people of Bangladesh but those wins did not last long.

He said he remains cautiously optimistic, and termed the recent turn of events as a mass uprising.

In Addition, he said, terms like “liberation” and “revolution” should not be thrown around lightly. He said the democratic system needs to be reconstructed from the ground up. The previous regime has damaged every institution, politicised it to the extreme, he observed.

Prof Riaz said that he believes strongly that the reconstruction of constitutional institutions and decentralisation of the government’s power in different sectors are necessary.

He emphasised that if these changes are not made there will be room for another autocratic regime to rear its ugly head.

Prof Riaz quoted the Chief Adviser, saying the key issues that are going to be focused on in the dialogues organised by CGS are going to be on constitution; human rights; and unlawful use of justice system, civil administration, constitutional bodies, law enforcement and intelligence agencies; financial policies, bank loans and foreign loans; and media.

These dialogues are going to be held at both national and regional levels in four different divisional cities.

CGS will create reports extracted from these dialogues and present them to the interim government.

Prof Riaz, an advisory board member of CGS, emphasised that the civil society is not enough for change; all citizens must come together in order to make significant change.