December 19, 2004
REVIEWS: Political witch hunting
Reviewed by Nur Ahmad Shah
The civil service, as an implementing agency for public policies and maintenance of order, is an important pillar on which an edifice of good governance is raised in any country. A distinguishing feature of the British administration in the subcontinent was its civil service which included some outstandingly upright, able and competent officers. They are fondly remembered even to this day for their just, impartial and detached dealings. Because of security and prestige attached to it, the people regarded the Indian Civil Service (ICS) as heaven born. Jawaharlal Nehru, though, found it neither Indian, nor civil nor service.
A.M.M. Shawkat Ali in Bangladesh Civil Service: A Political Administrative Perspective explains how the civil service, starting as a system of patronage in the subcontinent in 1757, in the days of the East India Company, gained virility due to an emphasis on meritocracy, job security and political neutrality. The rot, he argues, started soon after Independence in 1947. Politicization and patronage replaced merit. Neutrality vanished. Politicization, at the level of recruitment, promotion and posting, changed the complexion of civil service. In India, however, it managed to retain, to a large extent, its old ethos. The credit for this, the author gives to India’s mature political leadership and its ability to sustain democracy.
Focusing primarily on the Bangladesh Civil Service, Shawkat Ali draws on examples from other countries including the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. He highlights its different aspects besides his own experience as a member of the once elite Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP). By including a civil servant’s interaction with the judiciary, Parliament and, not the least, the ministers, he has made the study reasonably comprehensive.
The study is based on the empirical evidence collected by the author from Bangladesh. But this, as he himself points out, reflects truly the service conditions in any developing country not least Pakistan. In both the countries, says the author, weak political institutions, military interventions, repeated purges, tampering with civil service as an institution in the guise of administrative reforms or reorganization of services, promulgation of draconian measures like forced removal or retirement sapped the civil servants’ morale and made them vulnerable to the rulers’ whims. Arbitrary appointments to senior positions through lateral entry and induction of military personnel in civil administration in both the countries has distorted the structure of civil service and turned it into a hybrid system.
The author mourns a tendency on the part of political parties in Bangladesh “to enlist support of organized civil service unions of different cadres”, reflected in their desire to fill up important administrative and top management positions by “our men”. It brings in its wake political witch hunting in the shape of “shuffle and reshuffle, forced retirement and prosecution on grounds of alleged corrupt practices”. He castigates the abuse of the noble spirit behind affirmative action which is meant to provide jobs for those suffering from discrimination, by fixing quotas for freedom fighters and their wards in Bangladesh.
The inevitable result of all this, the author concludes, is a bad government. The obsequiousness and servility has made the civil servants akin to party activists if not personal servants. Inefficiency, corruption and maladministration thrive unabated. Few, if any, civil servants engage themselves in the economic development of the area in their charge. Improvement in the lot of the people does not seem to be on their agenda.
While discussing the issue in a comparative perspective with advanced countries such as the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada, the author concedes that there has been an erosion of the high ideals of civil service even in developed nations. There too the civil servants have to contend with political compulsions for their survival. But the system itself continues to remain, by and large, merit based and transparent.
Shawkat Ali is a former civil servant. He belonged to the prestigious and exclusive CSP cadre dubbed by the wags as Central Sultans of Pakistan. He, perhaps, out of class solidarity seems to have shown the civil servants as more sinned against than sinning. He has glossed over their follies which earn them contempt and account for their decline and fall. He has not touched the overweening arrogance and elitism of his compatriots, nor their indifferent and disdainful attitude towards the people. Nor a propensity for lust of power on the part of their opportunistic colleagues found hand in glove with a civilian or military adventurer at the perilous cost of good governance. Thus, the study lacks objectivity and judicious criticism.
Bangladesh Civil Service: A Political-Administrative Perspective
By A.M.M. Shawkat Ali
The University Press, Dhaka Available with Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
Email:
ouppak@theoffice.net Website:
www.oup.com.pk
ISBN 984-05-1702-3
348pp. TK560