The country of omniscient

Famous Iranian mathematician Al Beruni came to India in the late 10th century. He stayed in this area for many years. Al Beruni wrote an excellent book on this, called 'Tareekh-e-Hind'. In this book he wrote that 'Indian mathematics is very good, But the intellectuals of this country are gifted in another respect, that is, the ability to pretend to be an omniscient about something one knows nothing about. The extraordinary truth that Al Beruni spoke about the people of this subcontinent can be easily found just by looking around Bangladesh. Recently a research of an agricultural scientist was discussed on a television channel in the country. In this discussion, one presenter and two discussants literally insulted the scientist. But none of them have read the research paper properly. By asking strange, silly and irrefutable questions, three of them again proved Al Beruni’s statement. Watching this talk show, I found a strange similarity with the current reality of Bangladesh. This talk show is like a piece of Bangladesh. Just like some people in this country are talking whatever their heart desires without having the minimum knowledge on what they are talking about. Politicians, civil society and some media are now verbally attacking the government like that talk show. That agricultural scientist is like the government of Bangladesh. Like three people on a talk show, the main goal of the three parties is to screw up the government.

From a lawyer to an environmentalist. From an environmentalist to a human rights expert. Lately I noticed that person has also become an economist and continuously talking about the economic crisis in Bangladesh. Just like a discussant was saying 'He (the researcher) has committed a criminal offence', without even reading the research paper on eggplant. That lawyer aka environmentalist aka human rights activist aka economist sees it as a serious crime to ask for a loan from the IMF. He was casually saying, 'The economy is ruined. The economy is in the life support and the government is trying to survive artificially by borrowing from the IMF.' Is that so? Last Wednesday (November 9) through a press release, the IMF officially announced the loan assistance to Bangladesh. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, "The IMF has reached an agreement with the Government of Bangladesh to provide loan assistance to Bangladesh." According to the press release, "$3.2 billion will be provided under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and $1.3 billion under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). This loan will be given for a period of 42 months." The IMF press release said, "This new loan has been agreed upon to restore the country's macroeconomic stability and prevent various disruptive factors." According to the notification, "Bangladesh was moving forward with economic recovery after overcoming the epidemic, but due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the economic recovery of Bangladesh was interrupted." What was being said by the Bangladesh government as the main cause of the current economic crisis, matched with IMF. Bangladesh not bankrupt. Not even in a miserable situation. There are some problems but that because of the current global situation. The whole world is in crisis now. This crisis in Bangladesh has been inflated by three categories of groups to such a point that almost everyone in the country is now an economist. But their mourning started even earlier. Since the economic crisis in Sri Lanka. At that time a respectable civil economist urgently began reading economic storm bulletins to the media. From his words and body language, it seems that Bangladesh becoming Sri Lanka is just a matter of time now. But more than 6 months have passed since the crisis in Sri Lanka, the crisis in Bangladesh is not even close to that of Sri Lanka. According to the IMF, the situation of Bangladesh is much better than that of Sri Lanka or Pakistan. When the global fuel oil market became volatile, load shedding started in Bangladesh. The government started taking various austerity measures. Not all of these initiatives were correct. But the government tried. Meanwhile, some people in the country became fuel experts. Lawyers, economists, human rights experts everybody started giving lecture on fuel crisis. The common people are tired of listening to their complaints about what is wrong in the power sector. There is no reason to deny that there are several international quality experts in the energy sector in Bangladesh. As they rationally criticized some of the decisions of the government regarding power and energy, they also said what the government should do. But soon the real fuel experts went into hiding and the omniscient became energy experts. They began to speak strange and unrealistic things. I saw a civil servant saying 'Actually there has been no improvement in the power sector in the country in the last 13/14 years. We have gone backwards in the power and fuel sector.' After hearing this, many people like me panicked. What was the country's electricity production in 2008? How many people had electricity in their homes? He said these things without having this minimum information, and the reputed media of the country also propagated it. Now that load shedding has come down, they have turned their attention to IMF loan. Now the IMF has agreed to give the loan. Very soon the familiar intellectuals will surely start talking fluently about this new topic.

Will the politicians just sit idly when the civil people of the country are arguing that loudly? Our politicians are like second panelists of that eggplant talk show. Among them, I like a BNP leader who has been voluntarily office imprisoned for a long time. In a speech, he said that the government looted the reserve money and smuggled it abroad. The state treasury has been depleted. Before making such allegations, he must have minimum knowledge about the state, government, state treasury, foreign exchange reserves etc. Reserve money cannot be looted. It is also not possible to smuggle this money. The reserve money was once stolen through hacking in Bangladesh. There was a stir in the whole country. The then Governor of Bangladesh Bank resigned. Therefore, without knowing anything about the state's reserves, is it a good thing for a tested, self-absorbed politician to give such an open speech? A greater leader has said more terrible words. A few days ago, an active leader of BNP said, "The government is looting and now talking about famine in the country." Before this government spoke about famine, the United Nations and the World Bank gave early warnings of famine. The United Nations has officially declared 2023 as the Year of Crisis. The World Bank said, "In the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, next year (2023) there will be a severe food crisis worldwide." Signs of this warnings have already begun in Europe, the United States. There is a severe food crisis in the UK. People are not able to buy the necessary foods. Crisis across the Europe. A dire situation is predicted in Europe this winter. Mid-term elections were held in the United States last Tuesday. Joe-Biden went on the back foot in this election due to issues like economic recession and inflation. Famine is already knocking doors in Africa. In the context of this uncertainty around the world, the Prime Minister has announced an advance warning. She never said that there will be famine in Bangladesh. She said 'we have to be alert as famine is emerging all over the world.' Due to political wisdom, prudence and foresight, the Prime Minister issued 5 point directives to deal with the impending crisis. These are, 1. Food production must increase. So that we can meet our needs by ourselves. 2. Not even an inch of land should remain uncultivated. 3. Reducing unnecessary costs and taking austerity measures. 4. Stop corruption. 5. Responsible behavior by all. The government's strategy is very clear. Ensuring food security. Prime Minister should be thanked for taking such steps in advance. But the way the poor agricultural scientist was humiliated in the eggplant talk show by asking brainless questions like why he did this research? Why published this research? Why researched eggplant, not shrimp? Just like that, why is the Prime Minister repeatedly talking about famine? What did the government do? BNP is now trying to humiliate the government on this issue. No problem with that either. I often imagine and get surprised thinking about what Al Beruni would have written if he saw the way the opposition leaders are talking about the crisis without knowing the minimum data.

When the civil society and politicians are talking without knowing the real knowledge, without investigating the real issues, some of the influential media of the country are encouraging those words. It seems that some media have taken the great responsibility of showing the country's crisis at any cost. The host of that talk show herself was biased. She was behaving like If she could, she would have slapped the agricultural scientist. Now the media is busy worrying the public with dire headlines like 'Crisis deepening and protracting', 'Production down, sales down'. If the people are not concerned than that is not journalism. But if someone analyzes the news of these media well, then it will be seen that there is a terrible manipulation of information. A media reported, “Bangladesh ranks third leaving behind Indonesia in rice production.” As a counter to this, the influential media propagated that there is shortage of rice. Again, the news that Bangladesh has been able to bring wheat from Ukraine to meet the wheat crisis has been suppressed or reluctantly printed by some media. This is how the crisis has deepened in the hands of ignorant omniscient. People's anxiety is increasing.

Of course, these three classes are not the only omniscient. Bureaucrats of Bangladesh are omniscient since time immemorial. Bureaucrats passed from Islamic History gives promotion to the doctors. Teaches medicine to cancer specialists. Takes care of the fish and animal resources, after graduating in political science. Agrarian bureaucrats became the gods of education. Since the time of Corona in 2020, the 'Omniscient' bureaucrats have become 'pundits' in everything. If Al Beruni had lived, he would have seen that speaking confidently without actually having any knowledge has been institutionalized in Bangladesh, through bureaucracy. These bureaucrats have become the god of fate of the nation in all fields including economy, global crisis, health, education, agriculture. Their range of their knowledge is now so vast that they have no time for leisure. A few days ago a very important bureaucrat retired. The day before his retirement he became a member of the Public Service Commission. Even before our bureaucrats retire, the important responsibilities of various constitutional and state institutions are handed over to them. The entire banking sector is now controlled by bureaucrats. Remember the promotion of a bureaucrat involved in Shahed scandal? He became senior secretary from secretary. Now he is the chairman of a state-owned insurance company. Wonderful, right? It is through the bureaucrats that Bangladesh has now become a country omniscient.

Seeing the growth of bureaucrats, it is ok for the ministers to be a little jealous. That is why lately the ministers have also become desperate to be an omniscient. The country is unstable due to dollar crisis. Banks cannot open emergency LCs. Bangladesh Bank has revised the amount of reserves in accordance with IMF's latest foreign exchange reserve calculations. Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves stands at 26 billion according to the latest calculations. In the face of the dollar crisis, the finance department has announced a ban on all foreign travel in government money through a notification on Wednesday. In the meantime, a minister known as an omniscient said, "There is no shortage of dollars in the country. There are enough dollars in reserve than before." Another heavyweight minister of Awami League shouted 'Game is on', 'Game is on' and became a 'Game over' himself. Every day he talks about something casually. The omniscient disease has now become an epidemic in Bangladesh. However, it was only when al-Biruni arrived in the region in the tenth century that he identified the symptoms of the disease. We have also seen the delirium of 'omniscient' sufferers at various times. A few days ago during the corona, an omniscient was saying that there will be dead bodies on the streets during the corona epidemic. Another omniscient said, unemployment will increase and take a dire form. The economy will be destroyed. We know about Bachal's prediction about the Padma Bridge. But now it seems to have permeated in civil, oppositional politics, media, bureaucracy and government. Like Corona, the epidemic of being ignorant is spreading fast.

Bangladesh is under economic pressure. There is uncertainty ahead. Export earnings are falling. There is also growing concern about expatriate income. That's really it. But in all crises, the people of this country have shown an inexhaustible vitality. The people of this country have done everything to overcome the crisis. Even in Corona, our farmers have protected us by growing crops. In the last 14 years, Bangladesh has manifested its strength. People have learned to explore their potential. The scope of dreams has increased manifold. The people of this country will overcome the upcoming crisis with their own individuality. But who will cure the disease that is spreading in the society? These omniscient are increasingly becoming dangerous for the country and the people. They are creating confusion among people by creating noise. Their noise pollution must stop.