Shilpakala DG’s resignation 

The resignation of Syed Jamil Ahmed, Director General of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, has opened up a Pandora's box. An acclaimed theatre personality and academic, Syed Jamil was the right choice for leading the country's highest organisation nurturing its art and culture, particularly after the July-August uprising. The insistence was to usher in a change in every sphere of national life reflecting the vision of establishing a discrimination-free and just society.

Clearly, the contentious point here is the bureaucratic bossiness that any person of independent mindset can hardly bear with. The DG is no product of the bureaucratic system under which the name of the game to survive and sustain is subservience to the higher authorities. Any man of personality and integrity is unlikely to be suppliant to the public servants who consider themselves the lord of all that they survey. Syed Jamil did not mince words when he complained that bureaucratic interferences have become pervasive in recent times although before taking over the responsibility of the academy he made it clear that in matters of art and culture any nosiness would be undesirable.

He went further to reveal that his is not a job to request again and again for release of funds for the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. If the job he is supposed to do at the academy cannot be done because of the impediments created by the bureaucracy, there is no point for him to hang on to the position. Clearly, his straightforwardness cannot be dismissed as an outburst of personal impatience or ego. His swipe at the bureaucracy point to an endemic malaise this country is suffering from. Civil servants consider themselves a class apart following the legacy of the colonial masters of the British Raj.

But Mostafa Sarwar Farooki, Adviser to the Cultural Affairs Ministry, has termed his resignation dramatic, reports a contemporary quoting the adviser's post on the facebook. He has remarked that Syed Jamil's ineptitude to handle the situation is responsible for the unpleasant development. To be an artist par excellence and to manage an institution by taking the bureaucracy into confidence are different forms of art or mastery. Then mentioning his respect for 'Jamil Bhai', the adviser went so far as to call some of the accusations are half truth and some are white lies. Some of those were vented out of frustration, he observes. 

So far as lies are concerned, no one else outside of the circle involved can have any knowledge of. Syed Jamil will be the right person to respond to this accusation. Yes, it is quite possible the septuagenarian theatre personality was not accustomed to the bureaucratic tangles that create hurdles rather than facilitate the working process. The below par execution of annual development programmes (ADP) by bureaucrats year after year corroborates this fact. There was a need for doing away with such dilly-dallying in the new reality of Bangladesh. But the bureaucratic behemoth is unlikely to budge and others have to submit to it. This is what implies from adviser Farooki's statement. With rare exceptions civil servants are far too protective of their outdated system. 

Or, else how could they raise the issue of dearness allowance at a time when the country is in an economic conundrum with the lower segments of society fighting a losing battle against hunger and poverty? The interim government also appears to have gone for appeasement of the bureaucracy. It was incumbent upon bureaucrats to change themselves to be equal to the fresh challenges facing the nation, courtesy of the August 5 political changeover. But they selfishly tried to advance their own interests to the neglect of the rest of the population. Thankfully, the issue of dearness allowance was stalled at the last moment.

Through his resignation, Syed Jamil has made a point that bureaucratic control is overbearing and stands in the way of taking ahead the national interests by people highly competent and talented in their special domains. Civil servants would not accept their limitations but to prove who the boss is would apply their administrative power to approve of projects or not or block release of funds. No wonder, the more talented and ambitious young people leave the country in search of placements abroad where they get the right environment to contribute to human knowledge, particularly scientific and technological. Without a paradigm shift in the bureaucratic system, the country cannot get the best out of the creative and inventive minds.       

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