Civil service

Apropos Mr. Ziauddin Choudhury's letter "Professional conduct" published in DS on October 28. He wrote, "We cannot expect professional conduct from officials who have no tradition to follow, no training in what professionalism entails, and who have been reared in an environment of self promotion".
It was not always the case. In a way events in the early days of our independence were turning points in the history of civil servants. Overnight the bureaucracy was divided into "freedom fighters" and (by implication) non-freedom fighters. The latter although a vast majority was superceded by the other group in promotions, postings etc. It led to an unhealthy competition among civil servants to gain favour of political masters, regardless of quality and merit. Jockeying for position and status, extension of service on considerations other than public interest, flouting of rules of service and inferior quality of political masters led to deterioration of the civil service. The high point of which was probably forcing all civil servants to join the BAKSAL.
What is regrettable is that the division still continues, 36 years after independence.