Flip side of Pakistani terrorism?
In his attempt to differentiate between Pakistani Muslims and Bangladeshi Muslims, Dr Taj Hashmi asserted (March 10), without any survey or poll data, that ‘Unlike the average Pakistani Muslims, their Bangladeshi counterparts do not regard plunderers and marauders like Muhammad bin Kasim, Mahmud Ghaznavi and Muhammad Ghauri as their heroes and ancestors’.
Probably Dr Hashmi is not aware that even the top-most leaders of the BNP celebrate the so-called ‘Bakhtiar Khilji (a name absent from his list of Muslim invaders) Day’.
It is possible that the editor of the Daily Pakistan confused Dr Hashmi as a journalist only to remind the professor that his response (New Age, January 30) to Eliza Griswold’s New York Times article on Bangladesh, had more of a journalistic tone than the flavour of an expected scholarly response from a professor of Bangladesh studies.
It was confusing to many to see Dr Hashmi, the author of ‘Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia’, could indulge in such a jingoistic diatribe in response to a New York Times article.
Griswold’s article had all the ingredients of a typical sensational journalism, a tendency to over-dramatise and some exaggeration (64,000 madrassah!?), but most of Dr Hashmi’s characterisation of Griswold and her article (‘grossly exaggerated, inaccurate, confusing and misleading’, ‘Griswold’s abysmal ignorance about Islam and Bangladesh’, ‘writer has demonised both Islam and Bangladesh’, ‘factually wrong and analytically bizarre article’, etc.) are grossly inappropriate and far from scholarly.
Like a typical supporter of the present four-party alliance government, Dr Hashmi even questioned the patriotism of the main opposition party and its leaders for cooperating with the foreign ‘conspirators’.
Was Griswold’s article alarmist vis-à-vis Islamic revolution, and was it part of a foreign (Jewish? Hindu?) conspiracy against a ‘moderate Muslim country’? Possible.
But was it full of fictions rather than facts? Not so.
In fact, Dr Hashmi in his voluminous response hardly refuted any significant factual incident or description. His main complain seems to be Griswold’s (and Pakistani editor’s) ignorance about the societal norm and its evolution in Bangladesh — particularly in rural Bangladesh, of which Dr Hashmi is entitled to have a better understanding.
But even in this area, his attempt to dismiss Bangla Bhai/JMJ and other Islamist outfit’s terroristic activities as ‘gang warfare for dominance and extortion—common in the third world’ appears to be an attempt to hide rather than to explore the truth.
When Griswold writes, ‘… Nevertheless, it is possible to travel through Bangladesh and observe the increased political and religious repression in everyday life’ or when the Pakistani editor talks about the direct connections between the Pakistani and Bangladeshi militant Islamic groups, they seem to be more in tune with the present day reality of rural Bangladesh than Dr Hashmi’s description of a sycretic Islamic society that existed decades ago.
Bangladesh had all the prospect of building a moderate secular society if it could have maintained its cultural roots to its proper mooring, in Bengali nationalism. But the core identity of its people have been systematically diluted and derailed by discarding Bengali nationalism and secularism, and by gradual inclusion of Islamic religious ingredients in its constitution and national polity.
Bilayet Hossain
Oklahoma, USA
BCS exams scam
After the liberation of Bangladesh large scale recruitment started in different cadres of the Bangladesh Civil Service. There was vacuum in different services and there was some justification behind such recruitment. But the policy should have been revised after a few years. Due to large scale recruitment in class I cadres, after six seven years of service officers were demanding promotion to senior scale and after twelve thirteen years promotion to the post of Deputy Secretary and after a few more years Joint Secretary and so on. As a result, under pressure from officers the government had to consider large scale promotion to higher posts although vacancies were very few. Last year it so happened that over one hundred officers were promoted to the post of Additional Secretary against much fewer number of vacancies. And now there is intense pressure from the same group of officials for promotion to the post of Secretary. A few days ago over sixty officers were promoted to the post of Joint Secretary and there is immediate pressure for more promotion to the same post. Then again, class I officers with service of nearly twenty years are waiting for being promoted to the post of Deputy Secretary. Their concern is also genuine and press report says that government is contemplating promoting some three hundred officers to the post of Deputy Secretary shortly although there are much fewer vacancies. This has led to a situation where government has to promote for the sake of promotion and not for the need of the government and administration. This is also leading to wastage of public fund. All this resulted due lack of proper planning or no planning or ad hocism in the administration. Another fallout of large scale recruitment to class I post is serious deterioration in quality of officers. Even many senior officers cannot draft a letter in English correctly and sometimes even in Bangla.
Such a situation calls for a serious review of the current recruitment policy of class I- BCS cadres. During the Pakistan time total recruitment in all the central class I cadres of East Pakistan quota was roughly 40 in a year. Total recruitment in erstwhile EPCS class I cadre varied from 30 to 50. EPCS class I officers used to get promotion to senior scale after roughly twenty years and very few of them got promoted to the rank of Deputy Secretary to the central government.
But now there is a rising expectation among officers although the average quality is simply horrible. So to restore efficiency and to prevent impasse it is high time that the government restricted recruitment to class I cadres seriously. Total number of recruitment in BCS class I cadres should be restricted to roughly one hundred in a year by recruiting five to ten class I officers in each cadre. And a class II cadre should be created where larger number of officers may be recruited.
Momtaj Jahan
Fulbari, Sylhet
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