Cross Talk
Mutiny of the magistrates
Power, however it has evolved, whatever its origins, will not be given up without a struggle. -- Shulamith Firestone, Canadian-born feminist
The administrative cadre was upset last week because the government was going ahead with the separation of judiciary. Why? Well, it is common knowledge that when that happens, these people are going to lose their judicial power, some of them some of it, now that there has been a compromise with the government. They will still be able to conduct mobile courts, and do the likes of taking actions against public nuisance. Yet they are sad like the Wizard of Oz bereft of his wonder machine. They are worried that the magistracy may not remain the same.
But why are they giving their reactions so late in the day? It is like trying to abort a bomb after the fuse has burned out. Then again you never know. The bureaucracy has the power to do miracles. They might reverse the whole thing. Still the question remains why now, why not before when it was still cooking? I know the answer. They never believed it was going to happen. They thought it was one of those things which would be easier said than done.
When that optimism looked vulnerable, the administrative guys were in a state of denial, and I was not surprised that in their last ditch effort, they got together to make some noise. Some of the names have shocked me. I thought they were to know better. But in their tribal passion for solidarity, they couldn't see beyond their noses.
Mind it, nobody is going to lose their jobs here. The perks will not be affected, neither the size of their office nor the scope of their jurisdictions. It is only the power, that also not all of it but a portion which belonged to the judicial service and should not have gone to them in the first place. But this power must have meant a lot to them. It decorated them with authority and gave them a sense of fulfillment.
So, the inordinate reaction last week from the administrative cadre was a natural outburst of their deepening frustration. They had taken it for granted and wanted to cling to the power which never belonged to them. One of the magistrates, who launched drives against food adulteration, tried to abuse his newfound fame. He called for a boycott of the government from November 1, which should continue even after he was taken to jail. Gee!
If we were to believe in what he said, then we also need to ask why he didn't show that courage at the beginning. And then the same thing goes for others who showed concern that the separation of judiciary was being implemented before the country was ready. In fact, we the human beings are immensely imaginative when it comes to being jealous. We find excuses to hide the fact that we don't want others to be better than us.
And that fact is as old as the human race. In the Roman days, Sextus had become all powerful in Gabii and sent a messenger to his father, the tyrannical king named Lucius Tarquinius the Arrogant, asking what he should do next. The king said nothing to the messenger, but swept a stick across his garden and cut off the heads of the tallest poppies. The messenger returned to Sextus who got the hint. He put to death the most eminent people of Gabii.
This went in history as the Tall Poppy Syndrome, which simply means intolerance for others when they begin to outgrow us. Take, for example, the service condition, which has been cited as one of the reasons. The administrative guys require satisfactory service records of 8, 12 and 15 years, while judicial officers require shorter service records for absorption.
That means under the calm sheet of noble intentions, there was a churning sea of envy. I am going to repeat it again that I was shocked to read some of the names who had gathered on that day to protest against the separation of judiciary. I always believed that at any rate they would put the country above self-interest. Needless to say, I was wrong. For the first time they were put to test, which they failed.
It is interesting that when the enlightened minds are benighted, there is no light to dispel that darkness. One can get into politics without much education. One can get into business without being learned. But who can get into administrative service without scaling a few competitive heights?
There is a Japanese proverb, which comes to haunt us. It says that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. It applies to the row between the administrative cadre and the judiciary as the former wants to hammer down the latter. Looked from another angle, it also applies to those who stick out amongst us. They prick and scratch us until we bleed instead of using their talents to serve us.
One of the stalwarts of our bureaucracy said on TV that magistrates, deprived of their judicial power, are reduced to minions to their superiors. But what about the judiciary whose power they had misappropriated? Year after year, they have been deprived of their rightful place and treated like junior partners in the government. While I know the bureaucracy suffered from excess of power, the judiciary was anemic.
No doubt it was a showdown last week, a mutiny of the magistrates who wanted to flex their muscles in a desperate bid to maintain their stranglehold on the slipping powers. But it was also something more, a symbolic illustration of a larger truth. The sun, which went down on the British Empire still shines over its splinters which reign over the hidden recesses inside our minds!
There is also a smack of class struggle, which bothers me most. If it's so tough to wrestle out one educated class from the grip of another, how long will it take before the millions of illiterate people in this country are saved from exploitation and liberated from oppression?
ohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.
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