Elite capture of Bangladesh's bureaucracy: The enduring legacy of a colonial master-servant dynamic

The bureaucracy in Bangladesh, which is an administrative entity responsible for delivering public services, operates with a hierarchical structure in both the Bangladesh Civil Service positions and local administration. In essence, bureaucrats and administrators are paid from public funds such as revenues, taxes, and other national sources of income. Legally and in spirit, civil and administrative service officials must comply with serving the people, whose revenues and taxes are the source of their remuneration.

During Sheikh Hasina's regime, bureaucrats addressed her as "Sir", continuing the British colonial legacy of addressing higher-ranking officials as "Sir", regardless of gender. Even in the education sector, presumably less hierarchical, we observe the imitation of Hasina's colonial mindset. Jahangirnagar University's former Vice-Chancellor and a loyalist of the Awami regime, Prof. Farzana Islam, also instructed her officials to address her as "Sir".

While "Sir" is a formal term traditionally used to address men of higher social status or rank, including senior officials and military officers, it has evolved into a symbolic term to display superiority in administrative hierarchy and social status. In countries previously part of the British Empire, the practice of addressing senior officials as "Sir" has persisted. On a more social level, even in middle-class households, domestic aides are often instructed to call their employers "Sir/Madam".

While calling seniors "Sir/Madam" is common and generally acceptable within institutional norms of respect and recognition, tension arises during interactions between the public and public servants or administrators. For example, we often see this tension when journalists address ranked government officials in Bangladesh. There is no clear guideline or instruction on how to address someone in a particular position, and as a result, altercations between journalists and civil servants over how they address each other are frequent.

Why do the civil servants, who are meant to serve the people of the Republic, ensure public welfare, facilitate governmental initiatives and projects, exercise power, and create distance from the ordinary people—who are their primary focus? A servant of the Republic serves the public and is accountable for their actions to the people. Bureaucrats, as public servants, are expected to abide by the constitution. However, the politicisation of bureaucracy, the worst of which we have witnessed over the last decade or so, has caused severe damage to the overall bureaucratic culture, including increased corruption, lack of accountability, erosion of professionalism, suppression of dissent, and other economic consequences. We have frequently seen judges calling themselves "sworn politicians", Army generals chanting political slogans, and bureaucrats promising their unquestioned allegiance to the political government, to name a few instances. A confidential letter also went viral on social media about a certain UNO of Ali Kadam Upazila in Bandarban district regarding his unprofessional and arrogant behaviour towards military police when they asked him about his destination in a highly militarised area. Who has not noticed IGP Benzir's arrogance in front of CAS Gen Aziz?! All these phenomena reflect the ever-increasing power of the civil administration in Bangladesh.

The British colonial administration instilled a sense of elitism and centralisation in the civil service. Civil servants who were proficient in English were trained to rule rather than serve, creating a hierarchical and authoritative culture that emphasised control, centralisation, and elitism. The same colonial system fostered a master-subject relationship between civil servants and citizens, which persists in the current administrative ethos. Critics like Forhad Mazhar have even questioned the very name of the country as "Gano Projatontri Bangladesh" (People's Republic of Bangladesh), arguing that juxtaposing "Projatontro" (Proja, meaning subject/enslaved person) as a translation for Republic alongside "Gano" (people) is contradictory and goes against the spirit of people's ownership of the sovereign. On the contrary, civil servants often exhibit behaviours reminiscent of landlords, exercising significant control and authority over their jurisdictions. We can consider the DCs in various districts of Bangladesh.

There have been several attempts in post-independent Bangladesh for structural reforms in the civil service to bridge the gap between civil servants and ordinary people. However, most initiatives failed due to bureaucratic resistance and lack of political will. Before the post-5 August reform commission, the major committees formed to address administrative reforms were the Civil Administration Restoration Committee (1971), Administrative Service Reorganising Committee (1972), Pay and Service Commission (1976), Martial Law Committee (1982), and Public Administration Reform Committee (1997); alas, none of these reform initiatives could establish a pro-people civil service system, and most of their recommendations were shelved.

Renowned political scholars like Talukder Maniruzzaman, Emajuddin Ahmed, and Mahbubur Rahman have always characterised Bangladeshi bureaucracy as captured by an elite few who dominate economic policymaking for their group interests. Maniruzzaman adds that the politicisation of Bangladeshi bureaucracy also plays a crucial role in its elite capture. We observed the worst manipulation of the civil service for political ends during Hasina's regime when civil servants, particularly the Divisional Commissioners (DCs), played a significant role in facilitating the manipulation of election results or the system itself. As a result, there was euphoria in promotions within the administrative cadre posts, incentivised with endless benefits and amenities. 

Even though these benefits are purely material, they gradually gave administrative officials more and more impunity and, albeit, power over the political regime. As part of the politicisation of bureaucracy, we have seen political loyalists securing key bureaucratic positions, including Cabinet Secretary and DC, so that instead of serving the public interest, these bureaucrats serve political interests. 

This status quo between the bureaucracy and political parties serves each other's purposes in a symbiotic relationship, benefiting both while comfortably ignoring the public interest in the abyss of elite capture. Police cases were filed against several of the Hasina regime's civil servants, and a few of them fled after the post-5 August mass revolution, a glaring example of how far the civil service has been politicised and, in many ways, become an accomplice of Sheikh Hasina's autocratic political regime. 

Furthermore, the ideological filtering in civil service recruitments has also facilitated the politicisation of the bureaucracy. During this era of political influence on the civil service, meritocracy gently wept, and civil service positions were often filled by inefficient and ineligible candidates.

However, as political scholars maintain, the politicisation of bureaucracy has more harmful structural and economic consequences in a one-party state (which Bangladesh has ideally become over the last decade) than in democratic states. In a democracy, despite political influence on the bureaucracy, there are checks and balances, accountability, and merit-based appointments. In contrast, in a one-party system, political indoctrination and centralised control only create loyalists. In such a system, even independent oversight bodies like the DuDaK ("Anti-Corruption Commission" of Bangladesh) have become corrupted and used as a bureaucratic tool for suppressing political dissidents (read: enemies).

Two clauses in the proposed reforms by the recently formed Election Reform Commission are significant. One is to balance the administrative responsibilities of DCs with their role in the electoral process, ensuring they do not influence election outcomes. The other is the recommendation to make local government elections non-partisan to reduce political interference and ensure fairer representation. These two clauses will at least impose some control over administrative officials' political involvement in government elections. Instead of being the "kingmakers", civil servants would be expected to understand their position and duties.

Though there are 25 different cadres in the BCS, when we talk about elite capture by civil servants, we are inevitably referring to the administration cadre due to their influence on policy development in both local and national matters, their key governance positions, and, most recently, their unprecedented power in national elections. As part of the historical legacy, this cadre is known as the "steel frame" of the British Civil Service. Therefore, inter-cadre hierarchy and disparity remain persistent issues in our civil service. Though the Inter-Cadre Disparity Resolution Council has addressed timely and batch-based promotions and scale upgrades as recommendations for an equitable framework, the deep-rooted politicisation and cultural legacy of elite capture in the admin cadre must be taken seriously.

Public service critics recommend measures such as cultural sensitisation training and awareness-building workshops, public participation in decision-making, decentralisation of power, and merit-based recruitment and promotion to minimise the elitist culture in the civil service. However, changing a pervasive culture requires a shift in the value system cultivated through education, respectability, and, above all, fostering the general public's understanding of how a state functions, the basics of the state revenue system, and the fundamental aspects of state mechanisms. It is crucial to instil the core awareness that a public servant is accountable to the public for their professional actions and that the people-civil servant relationship is not a lord-subject relationship. Ordinary people should be able to challenge constitutional and civil power abuse. Finally, strengthening independent oversight bodies to monitor administrative injustices and hear public grievances is necessary. We do not want to see a senior citizen slapped simply for not addressing the UNO as "Sir" and calling him "bhai".   

Sketch: TBS

Kazi Ashraf Uddin, doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW (Australia)