Paramount importance need to be attached to the repair and rebuilding of vital institutions that nourish and nurture a democratic society. Collapse will overtake our country if our institutions, particularly the political ones do not acquire durability through experience and tradition.

We have to remember that the roots of our disarray are in our minds and the erosion of national character could not be checked. Consequently, the quality of public life has almost reached the nadir. Many of us are as careless about public property as we are careful about our own property.

There are many amongst us who would not allow any trespass on our private property but are not at all bothered at the manifest sight of harmful encroachments on public property and destruction of public amenities. We have failed to distinguish humanitarianism from miscarriage of mercy.

We have not appreciated that out democracy cannot survive without law and order and that public interest requires the real professional promotion of the entire criminal justice administration and not its denegation and destruction. We continue to forget that crime is not a problem for the police only but for the whole society.

Successful democratic experience indicates that we cannot be truly free without doing away with ignorance. We have to realise that our leaders have to rebuild and also produce the required institutions for doing the needful. In course of time, those institutions will produce the leaders.

One may reasonably ask as to what has happened to our nation-building institutions, particularly the educational institutions that will generate excellence? Some say that in Bangladesh, instead of establishing excellent educational institutions, we have downgraded and devalued the fine universities which existed when we became a republic. It would only be stating the obvious to comment that meaningful democracy would be impossible without literacy and education and that the absence of earnest efforts in this regard will help the vested quarters to continue to benefit from public ignorance.

One would not be far from reality to say that in Bangladesh we have devalued the judiciary, as we have devalued every other important institution. Instead of defending our judges against political pressures and threats and instead of insisting upon integrity and impartiality in judicial appointments we have permitted the executive to supersede judges of calibre and courage.

The politicians and the media complain that higher judicial appointments have been given to persons who are suspected to subscribe to the notions of the ruling party. Therefore, it would be prudent to recognise the underlying moral, political and constitutional implications of such gross indiscretions. It is perhaps time to initiate corrective measures to effectively halt the irregularities and hold aloft the majesty of judiciary in public interest.

A very vital segment of the governance apparatus where institution building is of supreme importance is the police. Since we no longer want to tinker with the freedom and honourable living of our citizens, we will only be practical to initiate the desired process.

The police in our democracy have to be a provider of service and no longer a force to subdue and subjugate people. The police organisation should be designed to be responsive to the needs of community. However, an inefficient and outmoded administrative legacy is undermining reform. The prime need in this regard is to make the quality of law enforcement a permanent and integral part of the national agenda, regardless of which party is in power. Let us remember that public concern for improved levels of law enforcement has never been higher.

The overawing police set up have to be replaced by a customer friendly outfit by concerted efforts including statutory amendments. The Police Act, 1861 needs to be replaced with new legislation that embraces all the essential elements of reinvention, based on the best models available in the world.

In the foregoing paragraphs, the need of reforms that include institution building in three vital segments of education, judiciary and police has been impressed upon. The urgency of institutional changes in other areas of public activity is by no means secondary. Those areas, too, demand the attention of the government and concerned citizens.

In fact, the present government has already effected key personnel changes in sensitive regulatory institutions. The staffing pattern, entry qualifications, domain of responsibilities and related matters in constitutional posts require scrutiny before formalisation.

What, however, should engage our thoughts in the wake of the present efforts of transformation, is the nearly all pervasive attitude of tentativeness in every establishment effort to innovate or contain or arrest systemic deficiencies. Without doubt, such tentativeness has an adverse impact on the staying power of democracy.

The cynics say that we in Bangladesh do not appreciate that freedom must be taken in moderation and that our misplaced enthusiasm following independence resulted in the unfortunate discarding of the old norms of discipline and decorum, dignity and decency. We are oblivious of the fact that people have risen to great heights when they have basked in the glow of noble kings or leaders. In fact, regimes have been destroyed not by adversity but by abasement.

We have to hope and pray that institution building in Bangladesh, now, would mean that there will be a change from privilege to talent and from accident of birth to accent on calibre. It shall also mean that money is something to be earned rather than to be got or won; it shall mean putting extra effort before extra leisure; it will mean stopping our society from disintegrating into hostile factions; it will mean enabling our leaders to perceive the truth and empowering them with the courage to say it to the people; it shall ensure that there is no substitute for knowledge and integrity in public life and that persons are appointed to high public offices for what they are.

Muhammad Nurul Huda is a DS Columnist.