Why Ishraque Hossain's "Anti Drug Drive" is a dangerous signal  

When politics abandons institutional principle and morality and starts chasing the cheap applause of populism, the heaviest blow falls on the rule of law and the structural foundation of the state. 

The recent anti drug drive led by Ishraque Hossain, former State Minister for Liberation War Affairs and Member of Parliament for Dhaka-6, who raised a pistol and marched with his followers, and the political events that followed, are an extreme and telling example. The widely shared video on social media clearly shows a responsible elected representative of the state, then also a minister, holding a pistol aloft in broad daylight, using force against passersby and locals, and placing his own personal judgment above the courts and the law. A certain section of our emotionally driven society may well applaud such scenes. They believe that where the police are inactive, a leader who steps onto the street himself to curb crime is acting bravely. But behind this emotional applause lies a dangerous path toward the collapse of a modern state, and many fail to see it. 

It is by exploiting this psychological misjudgment among ordinary people that a deadly culture of taking the law into one's own hands is born in politics. Ishraque Hossain's much discussed move is not a mere political mistake or an isolated emotional outburst. Judged through regarding realistic and academic facts , it is clearly a deliberate, or perhaps unconscious, vital blow against the overall sovereignty of a modern state.

The classic and universally accepted definition of the state, given by the German sociologist and political scientist Max Weber, is well worth recalling in today's situation. Weber held that the state is the only social and institutional entity that holds a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force" within a defined geographical territory. In simple terms, this means that no individual has the authority, or the exclusive right, to arrest a citizen, use physical force against them, stop them by pointing a weapon, or decide their punishment, however serious a criminal that citizen may be in the eyes of the law. That right is reserved only for the state's registered, institutional law enforcement bodies, such as the police, the judiciary and the courts.

But when a person at the highest level of government, like Ishraque Hossain, begins to act as judge or law enforcer at street corners, pistol in hand, without any lawful arrest warrant or administrative order, he effectively declares the legitimacy of the state itself void and dissolved. If Ishraque Hossain can today thumb his nose at the law of the state, brand anyone he likes a drug dealer and launch a pistol-wielding raid, then tomorrow any street mob or frenzied crowd will take the law into its own hands, beat another citizen to death, and try to escape blame by claiming they only wanted to rid society of crime. If the state ever directly or indirectly tolerates such mob justice or personal muscle power, society no longer runs on the clear principles of law. It quickly turns into what the seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes called the anarchic state of nature, where there are no rules and every person wages war against every other person, and civic life becomes terrifying, uncertain and bestial. For a Member of Parliament and a minister to become the architect of a mob culture, rather than protect the benefits of the legal framework, is a complete bankruptcy of the institutional idea of the state.

From the viewpoint of political science and criminology, this conspicuous and noisy drive can be called an even bigger deception, because it completely diverts public attention from the main routes of the drug trade. Such sudden, showy personal raids may, at most, temporarily chase away a few retail dealers or users, or smash a few shanties, but they cannot leave even a scratch on the vast international and domestic economic syndicates behind Bangladesh's drug trade. 

Everyone knows that Bangladesh is not itself a drug-producing country. Instead, crores of takas worth of yaba and the deadly, destructive crystal meth, known as ice, enter the country every day through smuggling routes in the neighboring states along our borders. In today's international geopolitical reality, the central government has almost no control over Myanmar's Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh, and the armed group known as the Arakan Army holds dominant power there. The Arakan Army is using Bangladesh as a huge drug market and destination, which has become one of the main sources of money for its large arsenal and military operations. 

Behind this multi-crore drug flow across the border stand organized international smuggling rings, complex money-laundering and hundi networks, and heavy financing from powerful godfathers inside the country. The real fight in the war on drugs is to tighten surveillance at the border, strengthen strategic border protection, cut the international financing channels of the Arakan Army and international drug smugglers, and bring the powerful patrons inside the country under the law. 

But when a politician, instead of walking that long-term, structural path, picks up a pistol himself, makes a surprise raid on a local slum, and tries to show himself off as a hero on television, the real problem is in fact buried. This is, at its core, a cheap populist tactic that capitalizes on the emotions of ordinary people. Such self-promotional episodes prove that he had neither the foresight nor the will to identify the root of the problem and solve it through institutions. What he had was an intense political desire to put himself in the limelight of the media and social media.

The acceptability of any responsible politician or policymaker depends on political maturity, steadiness of speech and firmness of decision. Yet if we look at the whole sequence of events, we find in the former state minister's conduct and statements a strange inconsistency and wavering that is deeply irresponsible. After the incident, when criticism and legal questions mounted from all sides, he defended himself by arguing that he had drawn the weapon only to protect his life and defend himself. Later, when the top levels of government, including the Prime Minister, branded the matter contrary to the state's law and reputation and sent him a clear message to resign, yet another act of the drama played out. At one moment the news said he would not resign and would stand firm in his position, and a little later came word that he was being forced to resign. Finally, he called a press conference at the National Press Club and claimed that he had submitted his resignation letter entirely of his own will, just to protect the government's reputation! This repeated shifting of position by one person, and the lack of any basic consistency in his words, make it plain that he lacked the minimum political prudence and administrative gravity needed to run a state. Right after resigning, he signaled that he would return to the streets with bamboo sticks and his own use of force, which is nothing but a despicable attempt to push the street law-and-order situation into extreme turmoil.

No advanced society or well-governed state can ever be run on one individual's momentary heroism, emotion or pistol display. To uproot the terrible poison tree of drugs from society, the state must build a strong police administration, improve intelligence surveillance technology, ensure an impartial judiciary and tighten state-of-the-art surveillance at the borders. If the police are inactive at the local level or negligent in their duty, then the institutional responsibility of a Member of Parliament or a minister was to stand in Parliament or the ministry and compel departmental and legal action against those police officers, ensuring administrative accountability. Going out onto the street with an illegal pistol instead is no constructive solution. It rather lays out a blueprint for driving the whole state toward a primitive, medieval rule of the jungle. Those who praise this reckless act of Ishraque Hossain as brave or revolutionary must realize deeply that personal heroism displayed by breaking the rule of law only smooths the path to destroying the very foundation of the state. This cheap attempt to build a personal image as a hero by sidelining the state has not only embarrassed the government and the political party; it has also exposed the extreme fragility of our entire democratic culture and institutional system. So if the country is to endure as a truly modern, well-governed and prosperous state, then rejecting, firmly and at any cost, this dangerous mob culture of taking the law into one's own hands and the irresponsible populism of politicians is the greatest demand of our time.

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