Ponderosity and Triumph of Loyalty

In (Justice) is Negotiated

I clearly remember the day, 05 January 2014, the day of Tenth National Election. It is known to everyone that there were a lot of questions about vote-rigging in the polling stations in our tenth national election. Outside our voting centre, there was also a hearsay about the double — crossing of ballots. BCL was surrounding the whole centre and there was also police officers and other security agents. The former member of parliament of the opposition of our constituency wanted to enter into the school where voting was going on. It should be mentioned that , the school has 2 gates, one of which is just to protect students from transports run in the main road and from the first gate the main gate of school is about a distance of minimum 5 minutes.

I am still not necessarily sure, why the MP wanted to have an entry there, but at the first gate none but the BCL stopped him . At one stage of their cross talking a member of BCL who was of just 17 years rammed the MP. The MP then conducted a press briefing where he screamed and wept out just saying Allah will judge you which had highly spread through social medias.

I was really shocked hearing that no one from the police and others from BCL even rebuked the boy for his did , let alone any punishment whereas he insulted even if we forget the tag of former MP, he was a senior citizen of our country . I talked about this incident with one of my uncles — a junior statistics assistant of the Upazila who witnessed it . He just said with a sigh , ‘’ I just took a lesson from the incident that, if a former member of parliament can be insulted by a boy of 17 years old, then who we are ? From today, I should keep thyself silent and do my job as I am directed to do. ‘’

After studying different theories in my political science and public administration courses, this incident was revolving around my head. If we focus on the occurrence, there we can find some aspects . Like -

1/ When outsiders were hear saying of double-crossing in ballots why didn’t the security agents bother to come inside the centre and check out what was actually happening?

2/ Why the member of BCL was free even after doing such a severe transgression?

3/The statistics officer was scared and vowed to work according to the incumbent. Is our bureaucracy in a position of survival?

I will open the floor for the readers to find what are the reasons. Is it the politicization of bureaucracy? Absence of justice around the country ? Is it the failure of bureaucracies like police, Election Commission and others ? Or was it because of nepotism or favoritism?

We know Carothers has defined Bangladesh as a country of Feckless Pluralism which is characterized by poor representation of citizens interests , low level of political participation beyond voting , frequent abuse of law by government officials, very low levels of public confidence in state institutions, persisting poor institutional performance by the state.

Historically, our bureaucrats have learnt a lesson that, ‘ the more they are loyal, the more they can gain without facing penalties like punishment, disrespect and OSD-ing the disloyal civil servants. We have studied that although OSD means officer on special duty, in practice , no specific duties are assigned to any such officer. They remain without work enjoying full salary as well as all the facilities which is not expected by any bureaucrats. I think my uncle, was scared because of the existing punishments of bureaucrats for their disobedience. And it is because the bureaucracy of our country has lost it’s discretionary power due to the politicization of bureaucracy .

The fact of BCL, where the delinquent was not even rebuked, it can be Illustrated by the term Nepotism given by Weber and also a shed of light can be given to it through the flare of winning coalition. Where the ruler of the incumbent distributes favours by either selling or giving ‘jobs’, ‘benefices’ or ‘ ignoring crimes ‘ that may be used partly for personal gain but demand loyalty to the ruler throughout their tenure. This ‘web of reciprocities’, as Roth termed it , obliges the ruler and the ruled to be co-dependent . In the case of ‘machine politics’ political coalitions use their influence to reward supporters with public goods, a well-known reflex phenomenon of political parties after an election victory.[http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-368768]

The same has happened here because the BCL is patronized by AL which is loyal to the party and the tool of accountability throughout their activities is ignored because their loyalty towards the incumbent is much more important than their ideology or faithfulness towards party or their responsibility towards the citizens or even the state. This is nepotism definitely because if the boy would from the opposition and if the MP were from the ruling party, the boy would have been arrested instantly and his sufferings would knew no bounds. Here we see, laws are being applied unequally, seeing the tag of which party one do support which reminds us of favoritism.

If this continues, I’m really concerned about the future of Bangladesh.