[This was published in Dhaka Courier
on 18 September 2014]
Sheikh Hasina is Sheikh Hasina.
Nobody can think of competing her even in a dream. So fortunate and unique is
she that even the office of the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh did not feel embarrassed to embrace her for the third time. It does
not matter whether it is approving or not from the standpoint of multi-party democracy.
She is the darling child of the Constitution of Bangladesh and, therefore, it’s
a Hobson’s choice for the constitution to save, defend and protect her. Nobody
dares to oppose her entrenched standing as a statesman of high magnitude and
altitude in the ranks and files of the statesmen in the world. Both in politics
and statecrafts after spirit of Koutilla, Machiavelli and Hobbes, she is, as
if, a loadstar and silver lining giving birth to a new line of thoughts to
survive, continue and last. Is it true that she has mathematically been in
a position to apply her acumen and statesmanship while presenting the nation
her 3rd council of ministers? Hence, the matter may necessarily be viewed
and looked into in right mood and mode with germane velocity and vehemence.
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. Here our concern is the latter.
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 a discipline and of 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.
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 are oodles of instances that incompetent person(s) 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.
Therefore, 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.
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 3rd Council of
Ministers under Sheikh Hasina one cannot be confident in practice about the
practicing and nursing of statesmanship, even though it carries many heavy
weights drawn from AL and alliances. After the so-called elections to the 10th
parliament on 05 January 2014, there was a belief in the minds of the people,
think-tanks, well-wishers and interested quarters close to AL that Sheikh
Hasina, being chary of the feedbacks of the immediate past government under her
leadership, would be guarded as much as necessary in selecting and appointing
members of her council of ministers in 2014. 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, adjunct or not, make the targets of the party in power
lethargic, and also foil at times. But as ill luck would have it, what she
finally did was not in tune with the expectations of the nation. Allegiance and
cronyism in the most tainted nature, form and dimension gained over merits,
honesty, dedication and experience. Such trends and currents are still on in a full
swing. Bangladesh is witnessing a great celebration of the rise of incompetent(s)
and fall of competent(s).
However, inclusion of Motia Chowdhury, AMA
Muhit, Nurul Islam Naheed, Tofael Ahmed, Kondaker Mosharaf Hossain, Rashed Khan
Menon, Obaidul Quader as ministers in particular in the Sheikh Hasina’s 3rd
council of ministers is remarkably appreciable since they have in the meantime
placed themselves at a point of attention and consideration while the others,
old or new, are grappling critically in almost all respects. Few have been
performing in a pitiable and disappointing manner. Some have clouded their
statesmanship with sycophancies while several are leaning towards corruptions
and philistinism. On all counts,
majority of the Council of Ministers are still below the point of reference.
The most controversial personality in the cabinet is LGRD Minister Syed
Ashraful Islam, also holding the chair of SG of AL. He is known as a ‘minister
and leader without having a sense of responsibility and responsiveness’.
Notwithstanding anything he does, .still he is coveted activist to Sheikh
Hasina for the reasons known to her alone. Alongside is getting added
escalating burdens of shattered bureaucracy mainly due to siding and
sidetracking the promising, honest, dedicated and patriotic civil servants from
top to the bottom. In every sector a reign of coterie n the name of soldiers of
Bangabandhu and Awami League is on unremittingly. Needless to say that it is
too much, which rather ousts the best ones by the worst ones from the fields.
As a result, good governance is currently faced with so many grave bottlenecks.
Sheikh Hasina herself being a well-grown statesman should/ must have to take
pragmatic note of this observable fact.
Yes, shortage 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. May
Allah bless Bangladesh and its people so that right people may find right place
to stand by and serve them.
Further reality is that the matter of
statesmanship is nowadays also acutely important for the members in the fold of
developing countries in particular including those in the continents of Africa and
Asia. Let them all, with all sorts of opportunities, potentialities and
limitations, feel free to pay due attention to it with utmost commitment and
sincerity and fairness. What Obaidul Quader is, for instance, doing as a member
of Hasina’s Council of Ministers in Bangladesh perspective should as well be a
source of inspiration for others in the developing countries. Above all, let
Nelsen Mandela, known as voice of the people, be shinning as a loadstar of the
time, space and dimension. Because it is he who rightly put into practice the
great saying of Zarathustra
(628-551 B.C) that ‘when you are at the peak of anything then without a delay
pray to the Creator of universe for your safe departure or death but instead,
if you want to cling to power anyhow certainty is the fall with dishonor and
disgrace’.
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