Daily Times

Sir: The reshuffling in the top brass of the bureaucracy is decision that has long been shared by many people, as it is in dire need of revolutionary reforms.

The current system in place is old and obsolete, which we inherited from the British, and is based on the ruling class keeping all the decision making powers with themselves.

However, the current moves do lead to the question of whether these transfers and postings alone can reform the current structure of the service, as well as the mechanisms that govern our Bureaucracy? The obvious answer to this question is no. It will take a lot more to change a system that has been in place since our very inception, and has only grown more influential as time has passed. The focus now should be on integrating the bureaucracy with the civil society that can only be done through drastic changes from top to bottom.

Nevertheless, the integration of the bureaucracy with the civil society involves the realignment of the civil services along the lines of the ideals put forth by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In his address to civil servants in Chittagong on March 25, 1948, Jinnah stressed the need to create a welfare state. To understand the message correctly, you need to understand that it points to the following factors: to serve the people as their servants, to treat all citizens equally regardless of cast or creed etc, be free of the influence of politicians as well as to maintain high standards of integrity, dignity and credibility. It also means never being insulting towards people and to treat each citizen with kindness, thereby cultivating a positive and fruitful relationship between civil society and the bureaucracy.

In line with these morals, the pragmatic strategy to integrate civil services with our general society is to revamp the behaviour and working of the bureaucracy. These changes can only be actualised by following certain policy measures, say: the appointments, transfers and postings be apolitical and on merit, and the training of new recruits should be based on the high morals as laid out by Jinnah all those years ago.

I would like to bring it to the attention of the new government that, once again, the mere transfer of certain officials will not accomplish anything, until bureaucratic behaviour is realigned with moral standards suggested by Jinnah. The said realignment can only be actualised by bureaucracy’s integration with the civil society.

MUHAMMED MUSLIM SHAIKH

Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, September 6^th 2018.