Khaleda Zia went to UK for treatment and meeting her son. She went there on an Air Ambulance provided by Qatar Government and for this, the Qatar Government did not take any penny . Basically it was a gift. In Bangladeshi politics, lots of people see this a favorable things for Zia – that a foreign government allow her to use their facilities without any cost. Almost all newspaper and media cover the story.

But no one asked the question of the propriety of the Zia’s decision to accept the ambulance without paying for it (at least I have not seen any discussion on this). Is this a proper and right decision?

In my view, Zia should not have accepted the air ambulance without any payment for two reasons.

First, Qatar is a foreign country, and we have commercial transactions with Qatar. We bought energy from them. Zia, as a former prime minister and probably as the mother of future Prime minister Tarique Rahman, is now indebted to Qatar government and any negotiations between Bangladesh and any BNP government might not be purely commercial anymore and there is a good chance that any decision by BNP government will be influenced by the Zia’s indebtedness to Qatar.

Second, as a former head of Bangladesh, an independent country, she should not have use any government plane of another country for free as this would harm the image of the Bangladesh in the global stage.

I am saddened, but not surprised that there is no discussion on this from the above perspective in Bangladeshi media. After the fall of BAL government, there is less desire among the media to criticize BNP and Jamat as there seems to be a fear that doing so will give them a tag of supporter of the “fascist’ BAL government. Also, these kind of support from any country (other than India) generally gives street cred to the politicians. General people see this things as positive.

We will have to go a long way to reach a stage where people will see these kind of things negatively.