There is no denying that in Bangladesh we have scant concern for public good, and far too few citizens are interested in public welfare. Discharging the statutory duty of protecting national assets has not received any priority.

Our legal system has been forced into making life too easy for criminals and too difficult for law-abiding citizens. The once regular and now intermittent killing of persons, often in broad daylight, by state agencies under the garb of so-called crossfire arouses as little public attention as the going down of the sun in the evening.

Our politicians are largely preoccupied in maintaining a system, which is poisoned by collective bad faith and polluted by individual avarice. They are served by deception and craftiness, instead of vision and imagination, while our political institutions have not acquired durability through age and tradition.

Additionally, our economic growth does not make up for the weaknesses of the political institutions. The danger is that we do not have a resilient economy, but are burdened with the handicap of fragile institutions and a constitution, which is looked upon by politicians as being so pliant that it can be bent to any whim or caprice of the ruling clan.

The spirit of moderation has not prevailed in our political discourses and, as a result, our society had degenerated into divisions and hatred has replaced goodwill. We do not realize that we need to do away with that temper which presses a partisan advantage to its bitter end, which does not respect and understand the other side. We are yet to witness the practice of consent and compromise that are attributes of mature political societies.

Our first task is to have leadership at all levels, from the prime minister's to the Union Council's. True leadership is the exact opposite of the concentration of all power and decision making authority in one individual.

In our political arena there are well-dressed foolish ideas, just as there are well-dressed fools. So we should be able to recognize them as such. It is not the members of parliament, dressed in brief authority, who are supreme. It is the constitution, which is supreme. It is the people who are supreme, and it is they who have given the constitution unto themselves.

Moves for effecting internal democracy in our political parties will not succeed if the profligates continue to be rewarded because they flatter the leadership in order to betray them. Talented people must take to public life, however distasteful it may be, if democracy is to survive in Bangladesh. The opting out of the democratic process by the honest and knowledgeable persons should end.

The process of voting ignorant professional politicians to power should be gradually reversed, because the time has come when citizens must wrest the initiative from professional politicians. Simultaneously, there is a pressing need for an intelligent organisation of voters along the line of the initiative demonstrated by the civil society movements and eminent persons in Bangladesh. Public life cannot be cleansed unless individuals of talent and integrity enter politics.

The political party system takes grievous toll of a member's independence, individual judgment and freedom of action, but the system does bring about coherence and unity of purpose in the actual working of democracy. The right man in the wrong party should be preferable to the wrong man in the right party.

Democracy is admittedly the most difficult of all forms of government, as it requires the widest spread of intelligence. It appears that we have forgotten to make ourselves intelligent after we became sovereign. Ignorance has been sustained for too long and, as such, it has been possible to fool enough people to be able to rule a large democracy. We have not progressed in the desired manner because knowledge and power have resided in different compartments in Bangladesh.

We can make some desirable changes in our fundamental laws without amending the constitution. Firstly, the election commission should recognize no political party unless it is willing to maintain audited accounts of all its receipts and expenditure. A mere addition of a section in the Peoples Representation Order will be sufficient for effecting the change.

Secondly, some minimum qualifications should be prescribed for those who seek election to Parliament. The present qualifications of citizenship and age are matters involving accident of birth and the result of inexorable passage of time.

Thirdly, some percentage of parliamentary seats may be reserved for election on the basis of proportional representation. The advantage of proportional representation is that it would enable the voice of the significant segments of the public to be heard in Parliament.

Real democracy, consequent upon substantive political reforms, cannot come by the acquisition of authority by a few. It will come through the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused.

For political reforms in Bangladesh, in so far as the functioning of political parties is concerned, we have to do away with the patron-client relationship. The need of the hour is institutional development, which, indeed, might prove to be very painful.

Habits die-hard. This is so because we have a "rentier culture," where the strongly held belief is that wealth is created through political power.

Instead of focusing all our attention on national and international politics, we should try and find out what is happening in our city and the neighbourhood. Our order of priority should be: local, regional, national, and not the other way round.

With a powerful, effective, and financially viable local government the changes at the national level would not affect people's lives. That, however, is a tall asks requiring large-scale de-feudalization of the mindset of the political class.

A process of reform, and the ability to implement it in a city or in sectors like primary education, public transport, sanitation and basic health care, could be the test of the politicians. Do we have the political will to take bold and far-reaching decisions?

Muhammad Nurul Huda is a columnist of The Daily Star.