Servants, not masters

PRIME minister Sheikh Hasina while addressing government officials recently at the silver jubilee celebration of Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre at Savar very rightly reminded them that they are the servants of the people, and not their masters. These words of counsel are often uttered by our political leaders whenever they have an occasion to address any formal gathering of government officials.
Government officials themselves are also much too familiar with such words of exhortation. When they are inducted into government service, the first thing they are told as officers under training to bear in mind is that they are the servants of the people, and not their masters. How many of the government officials groom themselves up and behave as such in their career is a different matter.
However, what all our political leaders have conveniently missed out and will never have told us is that in a democracy, it is the people who alone are their own masters. Any one who is paid from the taxpayers' money is a servant of the people. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina would have earned the gratitude of the people and would have become the first ever elected leader of this country to have acknowledged it if she had said that in this sovereign and independent republic of Bangladesh even the elected leaders like her are also the servants of the people, and not their masters.
Unfortunately for us, no prime minister, ministers and lawmakers have ever acknowledged that politics is the noblest of professions to serve the cause of the people and the country. They have abused and denigrated politics simply as a profession to make a living.
And in sheer arrogance of power they wield and their newly found status which comes with fortunes, most of our elected rulers have behaved in the past and still behave as if they were the uncrowned kings and queens of this country. When they ask government officials to conduct themselves as servants of the people, and not as their masters, they in fact put themselves in the shoes of the masters and demand complete loyalty, obedience and obeisance from all government officials.
If there has been an erosion in the discipline, dignity and moral conduct of our government officials, it is largely because our power hungry and unscrupulous political leaders have forced them either to serve with unstinted personal loyalty and go up the ladder in their career or be defiant for the cause of the interest of the people and the country and suffer.
Has any of our rulers ever said the truth that government officials and functionaries of all national democratic institutions must always uphold the interest and the cause of the people and the country and play their due role to establish truth and justice in our national life?
Has any of our rulers ever said that while it is the duty of government officials to obey all lawful and legitimate orders of the government, they may defy the policy and the order of the government should such policy and order militate against the constitution and the interest of the republic?
No wonder today we have few government officials who conduct themselves with dignity and honour expected of them. Mostly we have placid, cool headed and thoroughly compliant officials with a political tag who would not care for the sufferings and the miseries of the people but would do only what their political masters would ask them to do. A police officer or a magistrate would let a murderer go out of the country because a corrupt minister has asked him to do so.
Educated people with principles and integrity are few and far between not only in the bureaucracy and the police administration but also in most of our national institutions including the judiciary.
It is the duty of the government to ensure that government officials at various tiers of administration work with zeal and efficiency to mitigate the sufferings of the people and to that end help establish genuine democracy and accountability. But how can government officials deliver service to the people, if the government and the ruling party lawmakers and party activists arrogate to themselves the privilege of enjoying the fruits of development meant for the people?
Until and unless genuine democracy is established in the country, we will continue to hear our prime minister counseling government officials to behave as servants of the people, and not their masters because such sham clichés play well to the gallery.

Brig Gen Shamsuddin Ahmed is a retired senior merchant navi officer.