Statesmanship: Case of Hasina’s Council of Ministers

[This was published on 20 December 2013 in Dhaka Courier]

This is an enlargement of the article’ Statesmanship: Case of Hasina’s council of Ministers published in the Dhaka Courier on 07 August 2012, abridge of which came to light in the Financial Express under the title ‘Evaluating performance of individual ministers’ on 01 September 2012.

At any system of government, whether it is parliamentary or presidential or mixed one, the very soul is its council of ministers since all the activities of a government get manifested and rolled through and around it. Taking this as the carnal point one may indeed with necessary logics, arts, mathematics and technology safely reach at a conclusion that ‘we the people of Bangladesh are now disappointed to a large extent at the overall performances of the council of ministers, collective or individual, of Hasina-led grand alliance government, despite the fact that few have done well from individual standpoints’. No government is free from errors and blunders while no government can be dubbed as ‘total failures’ since the historical reality notes that a government more or less carries the stock of successes and failures together. Question takes the shape of a flaming one when it is found that a government is getting identified as successful one or unsuccessful one. It is recognized as better one when it carries both successes and failures having the load markedly in favor of successes and vice versa. Therefore, burning asking of the day is ‘At what category does fall the council of ministers, collective or individual, of Hasina-led grand alliance government?’

Truly speaking, there are two fundamental areas of the performance of a government. One is economic precinct covering financial, commercial, trade and industrial sectors while other is governance entailing the regions of administration, democracy and human rights. Further truth is that a government has to keep an eye on all these upholding the overall interests and territorial integrity of the country concerned in the light of national, bi-lateral, regional and international landscapes in particular. Thus, under such state of affairs, long-term or short-term, past or present, challenges, limitations and capabilities of a government in issue arise and stand as the first and foremost barometer for its standing, continuance wherefrom feedbacks of successes or failures or the both start off, inflate and get matured, and then are measured, sorted and determined. Formidably all these take place in a state depending on the statesmanship of the council of ministers in issue.

Perfectly noting, a Council of Ministers in a Parliamentary democracy is a combination of senior and junior members of Parliament of the Majority Party/alliance in Parliament. Sometimes, few members who are not Members of Parliament are also included for the reasons, political or otherwise. When a minister holds full responsibility of a ministry and attends Cabinet meeting regularly from the functional point of view, he is called a ‘Cabinet Minister’. Rest of the ministers are called either state ministers or deputy ministers(although there exists another type of state ministers called ‘State Minister in charge of the Ministry’ who also attend regular Cabinet meetings but they  are not ‘Cabinet Minister’ in the terminology of Cabinet Minister. The very sojourn of a member of a Council of Ministers as a statesman--meaning dealing with the affairs of the government in a state-- starts immediately after his taking oath administered by the President of the state concerned given that the oath itself contains the germs and principles of statesmanship implying to run a ministry efficiently going above parochial, partisan or vested interests or personal gains, open or secret, near or remote.

In a democratic order when a party in power expires its stipulated term determined by the length of Parliament pursuant to the relevant article of the Constitution then, following dissolution of that Parliament, it passes the key of the government to the majority party/alliance in the newly constituted Parliament that comes into being through immediate next elections. This is generally known as transfer of power from one elected government to another elected government. Truly speaking, government is an organic whole and functionally it is composed of three wings namely executive branch, legislative branch and judicial branch. So, in a broad sense there is actually no change of government in full since only the two branches of government meet with such changes, one is the  executive branch at the top called ‘Council of Ministers’ and the other entails Members of Parliament in full while judiciary remains in one piece. Therefore, in plain words change of government implies (a) change of leadership in the executive branch of government in the form of a Council of Ministers (bureaucracies, civil or army, continue in their capacity of being permanent and professional) and (b) change of Members of Parliament, Speaker, Leader of the Opposition, Chief Whip and Whips as a whole. In a narrow sense, these changes of the executive and the legislative branches are called ‘change of government’.

Moreover, when it is said that the Prime Minister is the Head of Government it denotes the exercises of his/her overall functions at home and abroad in terms of internal and external sovereignty along with the power of the executive to appoint the Judges of the High Court(s) and Supreme Court and allocation of budget thereto. Hence, the leadership and wheel of a government rest on the council of Ministers.

In fact, statesmanship/statecrafts in a broad sense denotes art of administration and management and it includes a vast area of activities, ranging from micro to macro levels, involving commercial, financial, academic institutions and executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and so forth and the person or persons who is or are skilled, efficient and receptive in such art is or are called statesman or statesmen. In its narrow compact, statesmanship is linked to the art of administration related to the affairs of state.

There are two locations of statesmanship related to the affairs of a state.  One is from the seat of opposition, which further entails (a) from the seat of opposition being in Parliament and from the seat of opposition without being in Parliament and the other is from the seat of government. Focuses of political science as an academic discipline and politics as a field of political activities while dealing with a government in a state rotate mainly around the statesmanship of the position and the opposition(s) in Parliament whether the system is presidential or parliamentary or mixed one. The ambit of the opposition(s) is narrower than that of the party/alliance in power since the latter is voted to power for a stipulated period of time so that it can transform its election pledges into reality. That is why the role of the Council of Ministers in a government is very important because on their overall performances and successes rest the balance-sheet of the achievements of the party/alliance in power. More a party in power is in a formidable standing in running a government being closer to its electoral pledges, more plus points it carries to face the immediate next elections after the dissolution of Parliament. However to suit the very purposes, show and application of statesmanship of the Council of Ministers both individually and collectively are conditions precedents. Focus of this write-up here is on the points linked to the Council of Ministers with a reference to the grand alliance government led by Sheikh Hasina..

To be fair, a member of Council of Ministers becomes a statesman when (a) he is in a position to uphold national interests above partisan or vested pressures and interests (b) he himself remains clean and transparent in almost all respects including ethical and corruption-free standing and(c) he can demonstrate and successfully prove his excellence in the statecraft i.e. in the art of administration. Here comes the question of the person who is appointed a member of the Council of Ministers. This is a very important point and the matter should seriously be taken by the Prime Minister concerned. Because there is lot of instances that incompetent person on political consideration in the offices of the Council of Ministers are not only liabilities for the party and the government but also curse for the nation. Unfortunately, in many cases political consideration is greater than the image of Council of the Ministers.

It was held by Dr. Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and Monarch of diplomats of his time, that ‘the statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision’. To achieve this, she or he needs to be possessed of some extra-ordinary centripetal power by dint of which she or he can put himself in a position of teacher of morality, which was realized long time ago by Aristotle who said, ‘what the statesman is most anxious is to produce a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions’. This is also true that for becoming a statesman of the first water matching circumstances is a condition precedent. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, former President of USA, ‘if there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name’. This is mostly applicable to the case of a Head of Government i.e. Prime Minister under a parliamentary model. Nonetheless, a member of Council of Ministers from his own standing may contribute as well.

Looking at the immediate past Council of Ministers led by Sheikh Hasina one cannot be assured enough about the practicing and nursing of statesmanship, although it carries many a heavy weight taken from AL and alliances. Few of them such as Motia Chowdhury, Air Vice Marshal AK Khondaker, AMA Muhit, Nurul Islam Naheed, GM Quader, Dr. Abdur Razzak, Kondaker Mosharaf Hossain in particular have meanwhile placed themselves at a point of attention and consideration while the others were grappling critically in almost all respects. Of them some performed in a pitiable and disappointing manner. Sheikh Hasina herself being a well-grown stateswoman should be careful of this observable fact. Realistically speaking, the days of running a ministry sitting in a push, well-decorated and air-conditioned room in the Secretariat are over. Now a minster needs to visit the spot, see in his own eyes what exactly are going on, where the loopholes lie and how the bureaucratic mindset, red-tape and complications make the targets of the party in power lethargic, and also foil at times.

It is a pledge-bound obligation of a minster to detect where and how so-called lobbyists, pressure and vested groups in the name of the party in power make attempts to influence the authorities at various stages of administration defeating the overall interests of the state as a whole. It is really encouraging when we see that a member of the Council of Ministers is attaching due and proper importance to the expected line of demarcation between a ruling party and the state. It’s a sign of statesmanship in developed form indeed and passes a clear message again that a member of the Council of Ministers is always within the realm of golden opportunities to show and establish his statesmanship if he is truly committed and uncompromising to do so, if he bravely remains stick to the oath which he has taken before taking over the office, if he remains cautiously indifferent to favoritism amounting to preferential treatment  (there are two kinds of favor, one is due favor and the other is undue favor. Therefore, due favor, not favoritism is at all not ignorable for the sake of justice and fairness going above lust and immediate gains at the same being indifferent and reluctant to cronyisms and sycophancies at whatever scales they might be.

And relevantly enough, comes the name of  Obidul Quader, Minister for Communications, who has in the meantime within the short span of the six months of his becoming a minister given birth to a current in the statecraft and in the politics of Bangladesh as a member of the Council of Ministers in this regard. In line with his old style of politics before becoming a minister, he is nowadays also showing courage to say what is right or what is wrong. He does not fell shy of taking a bold stand to confess and recognize his follies and mistakes without putting forward so-called defensive ambiguous terms and sentences that are usually being practiced by his colleagues mostly. He has been able to set before the nation in action that politics or ministerial portfolio is a responsibility, not an opportunity merely. Following the principles of statesmanship of the 21^st century, he is relentlessly making all under him understand that a minister has two chairs one fixed in the ministry and other moves along with him all the time.

The case of Obaidul Quader is just a reference in the mode of reality and encouragement with a view to infusing the current into others in the same fold. Let his colleagues, past or present, not fell otherwise as nothing in the write-up goes against any of them and no attempt has been made here to glorify Obaidul Quader out of the context at all. One may argue that he is not an angel. In that case logic is that what are the wrongs if he makes attempts to enlighten himself with all the possible human qualities that are in a body capable of making him a man leading to statesman--- a valuable asset for Bangladesh, which we have been longing for--- since the position of a human being in true sense is higher than that of an angel?  Sheikh Hasina deserves to be congratulated on her giving birth to such promising pieces in line with Obaidul Quader in the politics of Awami League under her able leadership. But we are also not free from the view ‘will he continue in the end? Therefore, let us encourage him and others in line so that our beloved Bangladesh in course of time may feel free to think that she is also possessed of a multitude of statesmen in running her council of ministers in an uninterrupted away.

Over a period of time a party can make a man or woman a leader of the party but to become a national leader he or she has to go further crossing the four walls of the party. A national leader is he or she who mostly speaks of the national issues and causes for the greater interests of the country instead of the party’s for which a national leader never suffers from a sense of parochial partisan limitations to come forward and shake hands with the leaders in the opposed camps, if a need arises. From this standpoint, statesmanship is a developed form of leadership. Here induction of Tofeal Ahmed and Rashed Khan Menon as members of the Council of Ministers into the poll-time government carries weight significantly as well. Sheikh Hasina also bear in mind that only few members of the Council of Ministers have submitted their records of money, assets and properties to her. Why not all?

Yes, dearth of statesmen in a political party may be minimized at least for a short while but poverty of statesmen can hardly be minimized for a long to keep tempo with time, space and dimension in national, bi-lateral, regional and international perspectives. The matter tends to be a grave one if the party is a major one but it appears to be the gravest one when the party carries a tradition of forming government and sitting in the opposition in Parliament in an alternative course of term. Anxiously enough, the matter takes the shape of torpedo or cyclone when it is found that all the political parties in a country suffer mostly  from the same lacking, which cannot but be dubbed as a kind of ‘political sickness’ of the first water.

Let me pen off with a recent saying from Obaidul Qader that ‘Essentials of a politician get manifested under the standing as follows: a. Mentality while jail; b.courageousness while in movement; c. morality while in election and d. honesty while in power

Yes, all these qualify and fit for practicing and becoming a statesman in the end as well.  May Allah bless Bangladesh and its people so that right people may find right place to stand by and serve them.