The critical issue of empowerment
Sunday, 8 July 2007
Qazi Azad
LATELY, some critical views on the reserved quotas in various cadre services are being aired by different quarters. Some of them have been particularly critical about fewer inductions of religious and ethnic minorities in certain batches of the Bangladesh Civil Services. This is a serious matter that deserves informed studies and thorough and dispassionate examinations by all interested quarters.
A recently published article on the subject said, a total of 29,667 persons got BCS jobs through 20 BCS examinations. Among them, a total of 3,164 persons (10.67%) represented the minority population. The highest and the lowest ever percentages of representation from minorities were observed in the 19th (16.9%) and 12th BCS (2.63%) examinations respectively".
It further said "The representation of minorities was found almost consistent from the 5th to 10th BCS examinations, but sharply decreased from the 11th. From the 16th, the representation of minority community again began to increase, and continued till the 19th. The lowest ever representation of minorities in the professional cadre was observed in the 26th (5.35), followed by the 15th (6.01%) and the 24th (7.67%). Representation of the minorities again began to decrease from the 20th and continued till the 26th."
The article mentioned some instances suggestive of machinations by some former PSC members to knock out a few minority candidates in the BCS viva voce. These instances may be called stories as their authenticity is subject to verification. Putting credence in them without verification, which is very difficult, may mean maligning the country for nothing.
The story in the article about a member putting religious questions in the viva voce, even if true, may not raise much of objection. Why? Because, the civil servants at the field level have to know much about the religions practised within this country for being able to preserve and promote social cohesion and tranquillity. They have to know when Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists would feel religiously offended.
While it is completely unacceptable for a PSC selection committee to ask religious questions only and to knock out a brilliant candidate of any religion on consideration of his or her faith, a blanket suggestion of discrimination on account of religion in some BCS examinations seems too unrealistic. In India's West Bengal, Muslims constitute 25.2 per cent of its 80 million people. But Muslim representation in its government services is barely 2.1 per cent, which is less than that in the Indian state of Gujarat where it is said to be 5.4 per cent. Should India be blamed for pursuing veiled communalism on account of it?
One story may be relevant here to understand the problem. A friend who had studied management in a British university in London, once told this scribe, his definition of the third world. He defines it as the cluster of countries where physicians are often employed to do the job of engineers and engineers for doing the job of physicians and then all of them are condemned by their governments for being inefficient and are sent out abroad for training.
On being asked by his British professor in the class to say how he defined the third world, the friend put across his uncommon definition. His teacher, Prof Lim, who previously worked for some years as a professor of management in Singapore's National University, paused for quite a while on hearing this new definition of the third world. Inquisitive students in the class, who were mostly foreigners on British scholarships from the two hemispheres maintained silence awaiting to hear the opinion of the professor on the uncommon view. After about two or three minutes, the grey-haired professor emphatically said, " I agree with this definition".
A tiger's paws grafted on the legs of a small cat to replace its own would not enhance its preying capacity. Rather, the heavy paws of the big cat will make it a prey of any wild dog. Its usual natural enemy will chase it. Unable to run away with the powerful big paws implanted on its legs, the small cat will be an easy catch of the wild dog and it will be grievously harmed, if not killed. A child or someone who has neither seen a cat nor a tiger may not know that a cat with a tiger's paws is no good beast of prey. A recommendation by any of them for grafting a tiger's paws on the legs of the little animal may thus be unwise.
Assign an engineer the responsibility of investigating into the affairs of a hospital for a reliable assessment of its over-all health as a center for healing. The engineer, tasked for, might have been the best student of any of the major departments of our Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, which is still an ideal academic center in this country for which we can legitimately feel proud. In course of the investigation, the engineer may expertly check the calibration of different instruments and determine whether these work as efficiently as claimed by their manufacturers in their literatures. But he is unlikely to interview the physicians of the hospital to check whether they know their jobs perfectly well. Findings of the investigation will be surely flawed and broadly useless.
Obviously, certain jobs are best understood by competent professionals to be able to offer conclusive views on. That is why police investigating murder cases relies on forensic studies by medical experts. A charge of rape is also referred to physicians by the police for conclusive finding through examination of the apparent victim to establish whether the charge has been concocted to trap the accused or is real. The involvement of non-professionals in offering opinions in these cases may send many innocent people to the gallows while many offenders would walk to freedom to resort to the same offences again. Recruiters in the PSC have to understand and act keeping it in view.
Minorities and women in general in this country, no doubt, deserve equal treatment with others. It should be guaranteed by the state to as far as possible. But reserved quotas in services for their empowerment alone may be at times more fatal for the beneficiaries than grafting a tiger's paws on the legs of a small cat replacing its own. Incompetence leading to misapplication of rules and laws may buy them serious troubles. Opportunity seekers will exploit them if they are inefficient.
Ideally, any candidate, a woman or a member of any minority community, should first meet the minimum requirement in respect of intelligence, education and knowledge, as required under the different BCS cadres' service rules. Someone who does not know English well may not be recruited for being a magistrate, a police officer or a diplomat as many of the British-drafted laws, still in force in this country, are in English and the broad international language is English.
Unless civil servants are intelligent enough to know for sure where and how to apply a rule or a law, there may be many instances of miscarriage of justice as well to annoy and alienate people. We cannot concurrently ask for good governance and for relaxing recruitment standards for purpose of maintenance of service quotas.
Recruitment in civil services barely on consideration of empowering individuals may actually decapacitate the state and its many organs like a ship consigned to uncertainty by putting any of its ordinary deck man or engine man on its bridge to replace its captain. Recruitment on quota basis for empowerment of individuals, without consideration of the minimum required quality, will only burden this country with an ever-increasing number of incompetent civil servants.
Their presence within a system, once recruited, may last for 25 to 35 years and it can only slow down or negate its efforts for faster progress, as their incompetence would affect the speed of work of even the competent officials rendering the system inefficient. Would we actually like to have our country consigned on a course of uncertainty?
LATELY, some critical views on the reserved quotas in various cadre services are being aired by different quarters. Some of them have been particularly critical about fewer inductions of religious and ethnic minorities in certain batches of the Bangladesh Civil Services. This is a serious matter that deserves informed studies and thorough and dispassionate examinations by all interested quarters.
A recently published article on the subject said, a total of 29,667 persons got BCS jobs through 20 BCS examinations. Among them, a total of 3,164 persons (10.67%) represented the minority population. The highest and the lowest ever percentages of representation from minorities were observed in the 19th (16.9%) and 12th BCS (2.63%) examinations respectively".
It further said "The representation of minorities was found almost consistent from the 5th to 10th BCS examinations, but sharply decreased from the 11th. From the 16th, the representation of minority community again began to increase, and continued till the 19th. The lowest ever representation of minorities in the professional cadre was observed in the 26th (5.35), followed by the 15th (6.01%) and the 24th (7.67%). Representation of the minorities again began to decrease from the 20th and continued till the 26th."
The article mentioned some instances suggestive of machinations by some former PSC members to knock out a few minority candidates in the BCS viva voce. These instances may be called stories as their authenticity is subject to verification. Putting credence in them without verification, which is very difficult, may mean maligning the country for nothing.
The story in the article about a member putting religious questions in the viva voce, even if true, may not raise much of objection. Why? Because, the civil servants at the field level have to know much about the religions practised within this country for being able to preserve and promote social cohesion and tranquillity. They have to know when Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists would feel religiously offended.
While it is completely unacceptable for a PSC selection committee to ask religious questions only and to knock out a brilliant candidate of any religion on consideration of his or her faith, a blanket suggestion of discrimination on account of religion in some BCS examinations seems too unrealistic. In India's West Bengal, Muslims constitute 25.2 per cent of its 80 million people. But Muslim representation in its government services is barely 2.1 per cent, which is less than that in the Indian state of Gujarat where it is said to be 5.4 per cent. Should India be blamed for pursuing veiled communalism on account of it?
One story may be relevant here to understand the problem. A friend who had studied management in a British university in London, once told this scribe, his definition of the third world. He defines it as the cluster of countries where physicians are often employed to do the job of engineers and engineers for doing the job of physicians and then all of them are condemned by their governments for being inefficient and are sent out abroad for training.
On being asked by his British professor in the class to say how he defined the third world, the friend put across his uncommon definition. His teacher, Prof Lim, who previously worked for some years as a professor of management in Singapore's National University, paused for quite a while on hearing this new definition of the third world. Inquisitive students in the class, who were mostly foreigners on British scholarships from the two hemispheres maintained silence awaiting to hear the opinion of the professor on the uncommon view. After about two or three minutes, the grey-haired professor emphatically said, " I agree with this definition".
A tiger's paws grafted on the legs of a small cat to replace its own would not enhance its preying capacity. Rather, the heavy paws of the big cat will make it a prey of any wild dog. Its usual natural enemy will chase it. Unable to run away with the powerful big paws implanted on its legs, the small cat will be an easy catch of the wild dog and it will be grievously harmed, if not killed. A child or someone who has neither seen a cat nor a tiger may not know that a cat with a tiger's paws is no good beast of prey. A recommendation by any of them for grafting a tiger's paws on the legs of the little animal may thus be unwise.
Assign an engineer the responsibility of investigating into the affairs of a hospital for a reliable assessment of its over-all health as a center for healing. The engineer, tasked for, might have been the best student of any of the major departments of our Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, which is still an ideal academic center in this country for which we can legitimately feel proud. In course of the investigation, the engineer may expertly check the calibration of different instruments and determine whether these work as efficiently as claimed by their manufacturers in their literatures. But he is unlikely to interview the physicians of the hospital to check whether they know their jobs perfectly well. Findings of the investigation will be surely flawed and broadly useless.
Obviously, certain jobs are best understood by competent professionals to be able to offer conclusive views on. That is why police investigating murder cases relies on forensic studies by medical experts. A charge of rape is also referred to physicians by the police for conclusive finding through examination of the apparent victim to establish whether the charge has been concocted to trap the accused or is real. The involvement of non-professionals in offering opinions in these cases may send many innocent people to the gallows while many offenders would walk to freedom to resort to the same offences again. Recruiters in the PSC have to understand and act keeping it in view.
Minorities and women in general in this country, no doubt, deserve equal treatment with others. It should be guaranteed by the state to as far as possible. But reserved quotas in services for their empowerment alone may be at times more fatal for the beneficiaries than grafting a tiger's paws on the legs of a small cat replacing its own. Incompetence leading to misapplication of rules and laws may buy them serious troubles. Opportunity seekers will exploit them if they are inefficient.
Ideally, any candidate, a woman or a member of any minority community, should first meet the minimum requirement in respect of intelligence, education and knowledge, as required under the different BCS cadres' service rules. Someone who does not know English well may not be recruited for being a magistrate, a police officer or a diplomat as many of the British-drafted laws, still in force in this country, are in English and the broad international language is English.
Unless civil servants are intelligent enough to know for sure where and how to apply a rule or a law, there may be many instances of miscarriage of justice as well to annoy and alienate people. We cannot concurrently ask for good governance and for relaxing recruitment standards for purpose of maintenance of service quotas.
Recruitment in civil services barely on consideration of empowering individuals may actually decapacitate the state and its many organs like a ship consigned to uncertainty by putting any of its ordinary deck man or engine man on its bridge to replace its captain. Recruitment on quota basis for empowerment of individuals, without consideration of the minimum required quality, will only burden this country with an ever-increasing number of incompetent civil servants.
Their presence within a system, once recruited, may last for 25 to 35 years and it can only slow down or negate its efforts for faster progress, as their incompetence would affect the speed of work of even the competent officials rendering the system inefficient. Would we actually like to have our country consigned on a course of uncertainty?