LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH has been floated with a view to emancipate 130 Million people of Bangladesh from the self seeker politicians and their parties, who do not have any ideological basis of their politics other than plundering national wealth. Here is formal democracy with multiparty system. Innocent, Illiterate people vote because they have to vote either under coercion or under sheer urge to show that they are politically conscious.
 

The high promises uttered by the demagogue political leaders motivate the people to hope for a bright future. People are being be fooled by these leaders every now and then particularly during election campaign and after. Functional democracy is totally absent in Bangladesh. Social, civil political cultural and economic rights are denied most willingly to perpetuate the oppression on innocent, illiterate, unorganized people.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH, with the noble ideal of liberalism, is trying to arouse the people with the ideal of liberal values and establish functional democracy in Bangladesh. Floated in 1998, Liberal Party Bangladesh has already achieved expected success in forming public opinion. Its registered members now exceed over twenty thousand, 20% of them are active workers of the party under 64 full time paid District Presidents. It has contested in the last three bye- elections and have fetched considerable votes. We hope to reach all of the 460 thanes (intermediate local constituency ) and place ourselves firmly and as a formidable force in the national politics within a very short period.

As a sworn in propagator of Liberalism, LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH proposes, hopes and anticipates that the liberal world including will come forward with every possible assistance that they have in their disposal to start the implementation of its political party strengthening program in Bangladesh for LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH. We need some sustenance and nursing to develop the party and strengthen its wings namely (i) Institute of Liberal Democracy, (ii) Liberal education Society. (iii) Liberal Human Rights Commission. (iv) Liberal Women Commission (v) Liberal Minority Commission, (vi) The Liberal News (Party Newsletter) (vii) Liberal Commission for Freedom of Press of Media (viii) Liberal Commission for Senior Citizens.

Liberalism as a philosophy develops in eighteenth country premised on reason, virtue and common sense. Individual dignity, honor and right forms its core. But the amazing fact is that Liberalism is nothing new in the south Eastern Asian Sub-continent. Ancient sub- continent was a rare combination of muzzled monarchy and social prestige divorced form both wealth and power, compared to the situation then prevailing elsewhere in the world.

PHILOSOPHY

At the margins the belief that underpass political action is the state designed and expounded as above cannot reform itself. The question is, is there a way out to create and sustain a political culture of partnership on the basis of social contract between governments and governed. To answer this critical question, the Liberal Party Bangladesh emerged to gradually educate the people and build up an enlightened political culture and thus develop inspiration and urge among the people towards liberal democracy.

The concept that guide and mould political thought in the subcontinent has undergone through many changes. Yet the fact that pains everybody that no party has no ideological or philosophical framework which can develop and promote policies that are acceptable to everyone in the society. In such a context and harsh reality Liberal party's objective is to profess the liberal idea, its aim and goals are that people can accept and that also command general approval. There is not the slightest doubt in us that people are seeking of a philosophy that accords with present modern time welfare trends keeping in touch the tradition and heritage of the past.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH intends to provide food for thoughts and ides for adoption and incorporation within the policies that run the state. The people of Bangladesh are known for their urge to establish a collective freedom from the shackles of modern oppressive forces. A philosophy that answers and promotes the freedom of the individual is highly aspired by them. What LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH recognizes is that such a philosophy has in fact its root in the subcontinent from long before. And re-emergence of liberalism should cause no surprise. Philosophy evolves keeping continuation of the past and in context of historical, cultural, social and economic aspects.

Its is a predetermined pattern that all these aspects will be ultimately reduced to human relation. Individuals are influenced by the circumstances, but they are not mere witnesses, they aspire to rise above those circumstances in search for a moral and political stand point which is noble and true. As tradition is dominant in Bangladesh, we can derive the liberal point of view from - " A Government that does not respect the rights of its people could justifiable be overthrown" John Lock very well echoed the commandments when he said. “the state has power only for the protection of natural law. Its province ends when it passes beyond those boundaries.

A Government is not free to do as it please--- the law of nature stands as eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others." Lord Acton very correctly echoed the traditional teaching when he said, “Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end." J.S. Mill pointed out, " all free communities attained more brilliant prosperity than others". Liberal Party Bangladesh strives to bring an urge in the people for social and economic conditions that ensure minimum standards of life for all, so that every person irrespective of religion, sex or color would be able to exercise their liberty. The state shall guarantee the pursuit of certain principals so as to help make freedom more real for everyone".

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH a moral obligation to ensure good government, freedom of individual and social justice. John Maynard Keynes had put it thus, "The political problem of mankind is to combine three things (i) Economic efficiency (ii) Social justice and the third Individual liberty. The first needs criticism, precaution and technical knowledge the second and unselfish enthusiastic spirit that loves the ordinary man and the (iii) tolerance, breadth, appreciation of the excellencies of variety and independence-unhindered opportunity to the exceptional and the aspiring - The party that best combines the three is the Liberal Party.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH provoke peoples inward domain of consciousness demanding liberty of conscience, liberty of though, liberty of expression, of opinions belonging to the conduct of an individual which concerns other people but practically it is inseparable from individual rights. The combining of individual have to take care that it is not forced, derived and involves harm to others. Now the recognition and acceptance of coherent socio- political outlook is vital if the brute challenges of recent past are not to be renewed, because mans emancipation depends on his own realization of truth and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behavior. In no religious scriptures any god has promised such.

From experience LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH knows that the tradition of liberation got suppressed under successive foreign rulers and the forces that came along with the liberation movement were all statists in the sense that they relied on the state to be instrumental in the desired transformation. All of them favored a strong interventionist state. Independent Bangladesh instead of marking first step in the direction of culture and regeneration become a notorious example of a license, permit and coercive regime with all its consequences poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, indebtedness, inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy, criminalization of politics etc.

The last three decades made people to realize what a price they had to pay by remaining silent under heels of all devouring crony-capitalism where everything is banned unless one have the necessary contact before hand. People are caught between the devil and the deep sea. The valiant propaganda warfare unleashed by the LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH since the last quarter of 1998 is gradually making the people aware of the ills of present state of affairs and the possible salvation under liberalism. To hoodwink the people the so called democratic government is advocating welfare programs, protection of the environment and a policy of doles as well as raising its sharp claws to threat any dissenters.

As the economic disillusionment in the public mind about the capacity of any government to do any collective good LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH has a serious program of revitalising liberalism. It wants to make the people believe that restoration of law and order clearing the Aegean stables of economic regulations, dismantling bureaucracy, retention of fundamental right is possible in a liberal polity. History should be revealed to bring out the ample evidence that liberty may blossom even in the most unexpected of places and at seemingly impossible times.
 

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH is urban areas, Local and national elections are not going unchallenged. People are peeping through the wide open window. This just making a lion cub who is being indifferently unconscious of his identity and is being ruled by came to know his true identity. Achieving this objective will take time and patience and extreme hard work.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH has to prepare the field to give liberal democracy a firm footing on the soil of Bangladesh.

The intention and function of LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH is not a one way lecturing but exchange of views from which the people can learn something. We are particularly interested in describing the welfare that liberal politics may usher in and the prevailing situation that ignore individual rights.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH endeavors to dwell in various aspects of liberal philosophy and its contribution in the past its relevance in the present times,. We firmly believe it is time to turn back to remind people of the liberty and individual freedom that they have enjoyed in past ages, and to provoke them to think in terms of liberal values, which is verily equipped to meet the challenges of the present anarchy in Bangladesh and offers the only positive and bright alternative. Liberalism as we see it is nothing but confirmation and subsequent application of human mission to the life of man as a member in a social, national and global sphere. As the earth is growing smaller everyday through technological advances, national state are becoming economically inter dependent and socio- culturally inter linked.

So the nation states have no other alternative but to be politically liberalized. Socio- cultural advancement in global stage through globalization will help them to rediscover their strength, pride and self confidence. Whatever the western world may think the south Asian subcontinent finds in liberalism a strong urge for material prosperity guided by spiritual purity without which degradation of humanity and the emergence of forces of oppression will occur again and again. Prosperity without peace will not make life better and enjoyable. Hence LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH's objective to work and make people realize that economic freedom with full respect to individual right is being drastically curtailed by the vested interest few. Wealth is global in nature and it should be shared by all.

People have no other alternative but to flock around liberalism and develop their individual capability to gain that predetermined share. Under the pretext of social justice wealth is being distributed to a few who have no idea of or willing to keep away from performing corresponding duties and honoring their obligations to the human community. They deceive people. Liberal politics is the only salvation. Before resting on some other forms of democratic political philosophy people should ponder over liberalism.

This is made easier as works of LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH drew a very clear picture of the problems of today and the solutions offered by liberal political in south Asian context. LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH bases its arguments on the anti-centralist attitudes of the past and the relevance of liberal politics at present. Individual freedom, basic human rights including the rights of women, children and minorities, democratic politics, traditional socio- cultural values, economic globalization, honoring preservation of environment, thin and strong government, freedom of judiciary and media and social justice are the basic field on which LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH has strong views. If given a careful understanding LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH's objective is clearing about a more efficient and a more humane global political landscape and a more liberal economic frames to give every individual a better life and ensure this globe to be a better place to live in.

LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH is well aware that the challenges are formidable. But LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH believes. and Bangladesh, where the flame of liberalism is gradually becoming brighter is poised to meet these challenges. It is a hard task but not an impossible one. We have to persevere to rekindle the basic traditions of the people here- principle of freedom, tolerance and compassion and love for truth. We believe we have friends in the liberal world, who we hope would live no stone unturned to see the success of liberalism here. It is our success, it is their success, it is the success of entire humanity. It should be lawful for every man to favor and follow what opinion he would maintain. He might do the best he could to bring others to his opinion so that he did it peaceably, gently, quietly and soberly, without lusty and contentious rebuking and inveighing against others.

As we said earlier “the state has power only for the protection of natural law. Its province ends when it passes beyond those boundaries. A Government is not free to do as it pleases. The law of nature (to create and sustain) stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others,” John Lock “The man of system is so often enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different member pieces upon the chessboard. But on the great chessboard of human society every single piece has a principle of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it, If these two principals coincide and act in the same direction the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different the game will go on miserably and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.” (Adam Smith)

“The great political superstition of the past was the divine right of kings. The great political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments”. Herbert Spencer The core objective of constitution is that of safeguarding each member to the political community as a political person possessing a sphere of genuine autonomy. The prime function of a constitutional political order has been and is being accomplished by means of a system of regularized restraints imposed upon those who wield political power. That the government to be instated shall be constrained by the constitution and shall govern only according to its terms and subject to its limitations, only with agreed powers and for agreed purposes.

The formula that all power derives from the people referred not so much the recurrent election of representatives; as to the fact that the people, organized as a constitution making body, have the exclusive right to determine the powers of the representative legislature. The constitution was thus conceived as well as the other branches of government.
 

The present situation is really a case of one democratic institution trying to exert itself over another; it is a case of citizens finding new ways of expressing concern for events occurring at the national level, and exerting their involvement in the democratic process. The court has had to expand its jurisdiction because the incumbents of parliament have become less representation of the will of the people.

The constitution of Bangladesh is not a non-aligned rational charter. It is a document of social revolution which casts an obligation on every instrumentality including the judiciary to transform the status quo ante into a new human order in which justice-social, economic and political, will inform all institutions of national life and there will be equality of status and opportunity for all. The judiciary has, therefore, socio-economic destination and a creative function. The British approach to the judicial function may be all right for a stable and static society, but not for a society like ours, pulsating with urges of gender justice, worker justice, minorities justice, under- privilege justice and equal justice between chronic unequal.

The words 'law and order' have so frequently been misused as an excuse for oppression in Bangladesh that the very phrase has become suspect. Law and order as expressed in official term quiet-crouch -crush-flatten is termed as undesirable state of affairs, with emergence of an alert, energetic, progressive citizenry. There is no intrinsic virtue to law and order unless ' law, is equated with justice and 'order' with the discipline of a people satisfied that justice will done . The concept of law is based on righteousness or virtue, not on the power to impose harsh and inflexible rules on a defenseless people. The true measure of justice of a system is the amount of protection of guarantees to the weakest.

Civil liberties are not seen as the measure of the democratic health of society, but as potential threat to the part of the bureaucracy and the judiciary to act independently has been squashed by the capricious exercise of political power. It should however be noted that there are also instances when these institutions have acted independently and prevailed as the custodians of democracy.

Some media organs have functioned as champions of independent and democratic opinion, whilst other have invariably succumbed to state control and patronage .

Throughout this region, journalists have been victimized, arrested abducted and harmed upon physically for their independence.

Consequently, in addition to the imposition of censorship from above, journalists themselves have had to practice self-censorship to placate the powers that be, and as a life insurance policy.

We LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH are convinced that there is only one solution: a radical change to the politics of freedom, a change to and open citizen's society.

Hence our initiative demands first and foremost a fundamental re- education. In this way we hope to campaign for freedom. The citizens must win back their responsibility for themselves. A large party of this responsibility has been delegated to the state or the people have been taken away from them by politics. All the tasks of the state including the complete scope of social politics must be subjected to be very critical supervision. The criterion here must be a rigorously applied principle of subsidies that starts with the individual citizen. Only what the individual cannot achieve on his or her own, be it alone or in voluntary cooperation with others, may be realized by politics and by the state.

The social safety net must be made so secure by a policy of social order that it can support the genuinely disadvantaged. Social policy must help those who cannot help themselves and are helped neither by their fellow citizens nor by the society. In the future only law should lay down a requirement for a basic provision against the risks and vagaries in a person’s life. Anything beyond that is the responsibility of the individual. One can summarize the goal of our campaign as follows:
 

We believe that all people are different. They are equal only in front of the law. This is why we don't want to regulate everything but want to protect only what is essential- freedom and the law. If we want to save the social state in the long term, we must prevent it form collapsing under the ruins of the welfare state. They must perceive the future as an opportunity, not as a threat and they must fight for the citizens’ society.

Present human rights situation in Bangladesh is in deepest crisis. To sum up, Government continued to use national security legislation such as the Special Power Act 1974 and Public Safety Act 2000 to detain citizens, and in maximum cases political opponents, without formal charges. There were credible reports of abuse and death in custody, and those responsible generally went unpunished. Violence against women is a serious problem, but much of it is not reported and reported and goes unpunished. Personal security in Bangladesh is under content threat. There has been a general deterioration of law and order over the past years. With respect to violence on university campuses political parties have been in part responsible for this state of affairs.

The years of Awami League rule has tightened government control over the radio and television. With respect to the press, although relevant special provisions are longer in force Whenever a newspaper tries to publish reports on bad governance, corruption and anti- people policies with-holding government advertisements. The number of cases in which criminal cases are filed against journalists, warrants are issued for their arrest, advertising revenue is used as an instrument to suppress criticism of a the government and newspaper offices are attacked by Government sponsored terrorists has increased dramatically.

Today, all over Bangladesh strains in the democratic functioning of society are visible. Politicians have lost credibility. Their games, inadequacies and corruption are becoming are becoming more transparent with the growth in mass media and the spreads of information technology. There is thus, growing erosion in the confidence levels of the citizens vis- a- vis the government and dangerous trend and could lead to the rending of the social fabric.

If democracy means governance based on popular will, then citizens should be able to influence government on and ongoing basis. A citizen's role cannot be restricted to that of a mere vote bank. Today the entire system of governance needs re- examining. If politics has become business, It is time that some right constructive role in the running of affairs. Deepening political participation, redial decentralization of the government and encouragement of private initiative are some of the liberal measures that can be adopted in promoting democratization. People of Bangladesh are slowly losing faith in respective government to relieve them of their miseries.

The LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH at this juncture seems to signal some hope of salvation. LIBERAL PARTY BANGLADESH is the political for the sake of consolidation democracy. Consolidation of democracy is not and ends in self. The point of democracy is to secure liberty and a good standard of living. Voters do not vote for parties who have policies which undermine liberty by restricting the autonomy and responsibility of the individual in society.

We have strong faith on our ideal, i.e., liberalism & on our friends in the liberal world & on our oppression conscious people.