Vision of governance

During the British rule, loyalty factors, socio-economic and family status were the apparent criteria for recruitment to the higher ranks in the civil services. These elites in the changed situation looked superimposed in the populist context of the governing regime. The Constitution of 1972 focused planks of democratic and secular ideologies, domestic tranquillity, peace, equality before law, social justice, adult franchise, respect for diversity, planned economic development and rejection of violence etc. In the new spirit of independence, expectations rose sky-high and beyond the capacity of the government to fulfil them; and this resulted in frustration, and anti-establishment political agitations driving the government to declare emergency which imposed restrictions on many fundamental rights. The government further made constitutional provision to establish one-party Presidential form of government avowedly to consolidate the economic gains achieved during emergency and to accelerate economic independence of the people under a socialist reconstruction process. There was no visible political opposition to this ideological diversion.

The community development programme penetrated the village and aimed at an integrated development of rural Bangladesh involving all aspects of community life, and attempted a synthesis between traditionalism and modernity to ensure a cohesive secular society founded on liberty, social justice and fraternity with its agriculture and allied occupations.

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On the contrary, Bangladesh with its vast population witnessed a high birth rate but tended towards urbanisation. The improvement in rural communication and means of transport that took place during the last three decades, the use of improved methods of farming and diversification of occupations, the various socio-economic programmes of NGOs, social organisations, the penetration of electricity even in the remote villages, and the increased popularity of education changed the aspirations and attitudes of villagers and the massive poverty-stricken people. The desire for education and for a "decent life" became widespread, and vast numbers of people were apparently no longer content to live as their ancestors lived.

The cities and their industrial concentrations increasingly drew in from rural areas the workers whose families generally remained in the villages. Visits were then made in both directions and, thus, the two worlds met. The huge lot of female labour in urban garment industries became spectacular. Those who lived in close proximity to the place of their employment braved the distance everyday to come from villages and go back to villages carrying with them the daily needs, new designs of cloths, utensils and crockery and even newspapers. Yet, the spread-effect of urban life has still remained weak. The urban way of life has been penetrating the countryside slowly and unevenly and, therefore, contrasts between the town and the country have continued to remain not only immense but deep too.

The general attitude of educated youngsters is a profound skepticism about the effectiveness, and inadequacy of government measures to reduce unemployment. This explains to an extent the elements of frustration and attitude of defiance of authority in the youths. In a society in which popular respect for law is not widely developed, aggressiveness manifests itself into various techniques of violence to influence public policy. Much of the violence that occurs is neither sporadic nor anomic but organised and planned and that seems to have been the course of history of the last few decades.

The people of Bangladesh are acutely status-conscious. Cadre service officers, by and large, hardly mix as equals at social level with others down below. No description of a person in Bangladesh in public or private service is complete unless it exhaustively describes him an not only what he currently is but what he had been in the past and even in the remote past. A Member of Parliament becomes former MP, a Vice-Chancellor becomes a "former or ex" Vice-Chancellor after the completion of their tenure. Similar is the case with almost every high-up in the government and elsewhere. Even their nameplates and visiting cards tell the same story. The success of single individual redounds to the status and pride of the community to which he belongs. A national and international award is heralded at home as a recognition of the awardee's community as a whole. Another characteristic of our society is that it is deeply faction-ridden. No institution and even student unions are immune from factions. Even teachers are involved in mutual rivalries. Politics is the hotbed of factions, internecine quarrels, bickerings etc. About two hundred years ago, the British East India Company officers left report on the character traits of the people of Bengal as -- liars, corrupt, cheat, revengeful, quarrelsome, cruel, jealous, exploitative, torturer of women, riotous, unreliable etc. We have not perhaps figured out by now far betters.

Respect to alien authority is a verdict of Indian history. In most of the advanced countries the governing class of politicians and administrators is lost in the large body of the upper and middle classes, whereas the top layers of Bangladesh are remarkably thin and the governing classes constitute an important but small proportion of them. The result is that in those countries, ministers, administrators, legislators and other functionaries that matter are easily accessible and are known persons to those in these layers -- a situation which makes contempt come easily and the retailing of scandal a popular pastime.

The nationalist movement and civil disobedience that we experienced created a spirit of distrust and disobedience of the ruling authority. Civil disobedience is, in fact, coercive and violent in its methods. Even today protests lead to barricading roads and streets, stoning at transport, clashes with police, burning of buses, trains and other public property etc. It may be mentioned that when MK Gandhi started Civil Disobedience movement in 1922, Anne Besant warned him that the seeds he was sowing then in India would reap the harvest after she would win freedom. Her words came true. The coercive, violent methods and behaviour have become not only our political culture but a culture everywhere in schools, colleges, universities, offices and factories also.

Issues related to governance have drawn considerable attention of various national and international quarters closely interested in socio-economic and political development. In fact, the concept of governance has assumed importance as a strategy in development literature. Foreign aid investment and loans are being increasingly linked with the prevailing state of governance in a country. Bangladesh has long since been facing problems in this respect. As such, good governance has become almost a battle-cry against government, with illustrations of failures in quickly prescribing appropriate policy-decisions in important matters and in ensuring quick and effective enforcement of such decisions.

By governance, we generally mean the state of the art of management and performance of prescribed responsibilities of the traditional organs of the state (legislature, judiciary and executive) as well as of non-traditional organs like private sectors, local governments and civil society in matters related to economic, political and social processes through interactions, keeping in view a set of values, policies and institutions, in order to achieve sustainable good for the people at any particular time.

In this view of the matter, governance is looked upon as an evolutionary phenomenon purported to achieve people's welfare and benefit.

For good governance, a lot of criteria has been set forth by researchers, analysts, scholars and think-tanks etc. The hall-marks of good governance have been generally judged by yardsticks, such as constitutional rule, popular consent, people's participation etc. Emphasis has been usually laid on social, political, administrative and economic reforms and activities for sustainable development. Rule of Law, law to protect life, liberty and property, law to eradicate corruption and ensure peace, transparency, accountability, democracy, fundamental rights, political control of bureaucracy, local self-government, free press, women's empowerment, human rights, secularism, protection of different classes of minorities, legal reform etc. have been given special importance.

Emphasis has also been given on people's duties and co-operation toward the effort of the government and other institutions. The human factor and sustainability of progress are indispensable part of good governance along with empowerment of deprived and neglected segments of society and the interaction among government, civil society, NGO, private sector and very many private organisations. Representative government at all tiers of administration, decentralisation, participatory and empowered local governance, it is said, strengthen management capability in administration, investment, business etc.

Abdul Khaleque is a former Inspector General of Police.