THE Bangladesh Civil service, the biggest and the most prestigious public sector employer in the country, appoints personnel for government bureaucracy under quota system in its cadre category. Currently, 44 per cent vacancies are filled up from merit list while the remaining 56 per cent are filled under various quotas. Out of these quota jobs, 30 per cent are reserved for the freedom fighters and their children and grandchildren. These quotas used to remain vacant if successful candidates were not found in specified categories.
The illogicality and irrationality in this all-important public service recruitment policy is obvious, which has been repeatedly exposed by both expert academic studies and reports prepared by senior government bureaucrats. All these studies/reports have argued that the current quota system weakens the intellectual quality of the government bureaucracy and violates constitutional provisions and strongly recommend for sweeping reforms.
These expert advices have little influence on the minds of our political executives and the prime minister’s speech in Chittagong on March 21 confirms that the present government has no intention to reform the system: ‘We must have a special system for freedom fighters as we’ve got our independence because of their sacrifice … We’ve to give their due honour, we’ve arranged the quota system so that their children and grandchildren could get job … If the freedom fighters had not sacrificed for the independence then there would have been no job for the people of this land’ [1] In her speech, the prime minister underlined the sacrifices made by the freedom fighters during the liberation war.
This administrative apathy to quota reform has made the aspiring youths highly frustrated and impatient. During the past few months, an anti-quota movement has spontaneously developed in the country that brought out demonstrations throughout the country to push home their five-point reform demand, which includes reducing the existing quota allocation to 10 per cent and filling up the reserved posts from the merit list if successful quota candidates are unavailable. The government has accepted the second demand but rejected all others.
The government’s decision was apparently aided by the recent High Court’s verdict, which dismissed a writ petition challenging the constitutionality of the quota system in public services. More specifically, this quota system violates the provisions of articles 19, 28 and 29 of the constitution, which guarantee equal opportunities for all citizens in public services. The High Court justified its verdict with two reasons — the petitioners are not victims of the existing quota system and the writ concerns a government policy, which is not sub judice.
The High Court’s justifications do not appear very convincing, because it is a national issue that has serious implications for both individual rights and national development. Besides being discriminatory to the non-freedom fighters’ descendants, it weakens the quality of government bureaucracy as convincingly argued by many expert studies.
This writ petition and the high court verdict however bring out the most curious question in the debate: Was the introduction of freedom fighter quota system justified?
By an executive order, Bangabandhu’s government introduced the freedom fighter quota system in 1972 shortly after the independence, which reserved 30 per cent vacancies in the BCS cadre selection for freedom fighters and their children and grandchildren. The fundamental purpose for serving this order was to tackle the overwhelming law and order problem by disarming the freedom fighters.
Besides this extraordinary exigency of the time, there were also elements of equity in this policy. At that time, Bangladesh civil service was in a very poor shape due to the Pakistani discriminatory policy. In fact, the founding president of the country was charged with the solemn responsibility of building a new civil service system for a new country based on the principle of equality. The liberation war was mainly fought in rural areas, where about 90 per cent people lived. This suggests the overwhelming majority of freedom fighters were rural residents, who were economically poor and educationally backward. Naturally, the chances of rural youths in BCS cadre section were slimmer than the city ones, if the selection to BCS cadre were entirely based on exam results.
The principle of equality is the foundation of any good policy, such as, is the recognition of the right to work in a professional atmosphere which promotes equal opportunities and prohibits discriminatory practices. However, exceptions are made to this principle when the candidates to be affected by the policy did not have equal opportunities required to acquire necessary qualifications. In the US, for example, the Affirmative Action Plan was introduced to increase the participation of various marginalised groups, including the Blacks and women, in different government services.
The executive order of the founding president thus had sound logic. It is, however, difficult to see that this great man ever wanted to make this special BCS policy perpetual/permanent given the fact that and this policy has a tendency to weaken the national bureaucracy. Besides, it was expected that in independent Bangladesh rural-urban divide will gradually die down, thereby eliminating the fundamental reason for issuing the executive order.
The permanency of the freedom fighter quota system is thus the key issue in this debate. However, to properly examine the issue, it is important to note that the title of the executive order is inappropriate. For, the living freedom fighters are no longer eligible for BCS jobs due to age limitation. Accordingly, the appropriate title of this policy ought to be Quotas for the Freedom Fighters’ Descendants. And the logic of this new policy should be inspected from two perspectives: (i) sacrifices made during the war of liberation and (ii) protecting and promoting the spirit of liberation war. These are reasons that are often used to justify the continuation of the quota system introduced in 1972.
The sufferings and sacrifices that the people of Bangladesh made during the nine month war of liberation are unparalleled in the world history. The founding president of Bangladesh recognised their ordeals shortly after he was freed from the Pakistani prison; he told the world that three million people lost their lives in the war. Additionally, hundreds and thousands of people lost houses and properties, and million others suffered mentally and monetarily during the war. In short, the vast majority of people had made some kinds of sacrifice during the war of liberation.
These sacrifices made by both freedom fighters and ordinary people never came to the point of comparison, because Bangabandhu’s policy was rational and timely. In fact, freedom fighters and ordinary people had mutual respects for one another: The freedom fighters appreciated the contributions and sacrifices ordinary people made for them; they helped them with food, shelter and necessary information; they were their sanctuary. On the other hand, ordinary people helped freedom fighters voluntarily fully knowing the risks.
These mutual appreciations and respects have now been subjected to a kind of awkward test by introducing various monetary and non-monetary privileges for freedom fighters. The quota system in the BCS cadre selection is just one privilege; the other major benefit includes Tk. 10,000 monthly allowance provided to each freedom fighter or their decedents from public treasury.
This policy is undeniably discriminatory. For, ordinary people and their descendants — who made great sacrifices in the liberation war, including giving lives — are not eligible for these special privileges simply because they are not listed as freedom fighters. How could a woman brutally raped during the liberation war accept that her descendants are not eligible for these privileges because she did not take up arms? How could the descendants of the people — who were picked up by the Pak military and their collaborators, and then slaughtered like animals — accept that they are not eligible for these monetary and non-monetary benefits?
The spirit of liberation war is another slogan that is used to justify this policy. This noble perception united us to stand against the mighty and brutal Pak army, which Bangabandhu beautifully inscribed as four fundamental principles of our constitution — democracy, socialism, secularism and nationalism. An in-depth thought would reveal that these principles actually imply two foundational ideas of our liberation war — freedom and justice for all in the independent Bangladesh. Democracy ensures both political and personal freedoms, while socialism and secularism guarantee economic and communal justice. And for achieving all these, we must be true patriots.
No Bangladeshi needs to be a freedom fighter or their descendant to have true feelings about all these state principles. These feelings are natural and therefore cannot be inspired by rewarding monetary or non-monetary benefits, let alone the fact that freedom fighters constitute only a fraction of Bangladeshi citizenry. Understandably, the slogan used to justify the continuation of the freedom fighters’ special privileges is ill-perceived, meaning this policy is inconsistent with the ideals of the founding president of the nation. In fact, this policy has the implication of tarnishing his glorious image by dragging him in the controversy.
Patriotic people of the country expect a critical review of the policy from our prime minister, because she is the daughter of the founding president of the nation. It’s difficult to think that she will pursue a policy that might negatively affect the image of her father. She has been ill-advised.
Khandakar Qudrat-I Elahi
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