Political Tolerance and the Dream of Beautiful Bangladesh

Photo: Author

Author

Afroza Sultana Jannat

Student, Department of Local Government and Urban Development

Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University

Many of us dream of a beautiful Bangladesh. But it is not possible to form a beautiful country with few people who cherished this dream. Because most people are busy here making the society ugly and embarrassing.

Forming of a beautiful society will only be possible when our tolerance level will increase. The driving force of a country is politics. Tolerance in politics can change our society in a large scale.

But political tolerance in Bangladesh is declining day by day. Looking at the current situation of Bangladesh there are eligible example of political intolerance.

A recent news shows that on the 11^th parliamentary Election Day at Subornachar Upazila of the district Noakhali a mother of four become victim of gang rape!  She was raped by a gang of 10-12 members including a local leader of ruling party due to voting the opposite party. It's the worst incident I have ever seen in the election eve. In a democratic country such incident cannot be imagined. Physical violence is the worst practice of intolerance. But this is happening because of the narrow mentality of people in the political platform who aren't ready to accept and respect others’ opinion and rights.

Most of time political leaders aren't willing to give space to the opposite parties. They are intolerant to opposite party’s opinions and demands. To ensure a stable and peaceful society political leaders should practice tolerance. Giving people the freedom of expression, freedom of enjoying one's human rights, creating the mentality of accepting open dialogue and opinion are the practices of political tolerance.

Our country is a developing one. We have many problems such as corruption, poverty and so on. But there are a lots of possibilities of development too. We are developing in many sectors. Our per capita income is increasing, we are doing better in EGDI day by day, life expectancy is increasing, and our sanitation coverage is 99% at present. We are doing better in ensuring usages of technology.  

But these are not enough for proper development. Tolerance in politics, tolerance of the political leaders can fulfill the dream of beautiful Bangladesh. With the opinion of every people the ultimate success will come. People can believe in different ideologies. Showing respect to their ideologies is tolerance. Revenge taken by murder, rape or other forms of physical violence due to believe in different ideologies cannot bring any solution. These dirty activities should be stopped at any cost to make the society peaceful a peaceful one.