A Dream Job

When it comes to getting a job, academic credentials barely cut it these days; employers want the sun, the moon and the stars: skills in interpersonal communication, problem-solving, writing, and experience - the labyrinth no one knows a way out of. Can't get a job without it and can't get it without a job. 

Employers go through quite a bit of due diligence before they finally make you an offer.  Background checks are a must. Former employers are contacted to verify last designation, salary, dates of employment, job performance - anything you put on the application form. References are consulted to understand more about you. 

After you have cleared all these hurdles and are made an offer, then very often they will give you a test run, formally known as probationary period, during which the employer will observe and evaluate your performance and terminate the employment if you do not meet the standards.  

All this applies to us ordinary folks…but what about ministers, holders of the most coveted jobs of all in most countries of the world? What are the qualifications required for being a minister? A true story from India may be relevant here. A man goes to a Ministry to see the minister. His son needs a job. He has high expectations from the minister who is a childhood friend and hails from the same village. The minister requests the secretary of the ministry, a brilliant IAS officer, to do something. A couple of weeks go by. Nothing happens. So the minister asks the secretary if he has had a chance to look into the matter. The secretary tells him that the young man has studied only up to class three and, therefore, does not qualify for any government job. A little agitated, the minister says, "Are you telling me that there is no government job that he qualifies for?" 

 "The only job he can have is yours," the secretary says calmly. 

The message here is clear enough. To be eligible, ministers do not require any academic qualifications or experience. That's true in most countries including ours. But that's not to say that one has to hold a PhD or a Masters to be a great leader. There are plenty of examples in this country and elsewhere in the world of great men and women who have led their nations to achieve great things - leaders who may not have been to top universities or colleges of the world, or even had very little formal education, but have proven their worth by changing people's lives for the better. They are known for their wisdom, vision and humility. They are humble about their revolutionary success. 

But the recent unruly behaviour of a few cabinet members in this country raises questions about the kind of vetting process they were subject to. How many times are they allowed to breach the confidence of the public before they are called on the carpet?  

For instance, a deputy minister allegedly beat up a sub-inspector of Police earlier this month when the latter offered the minister security following an accident in Savar involving the minister's car. "Are you fit to give me security? Do you want to see how many shots I can fire and how many you can?" he jeered. When the inspector said he was just doing his job, the deputy minister got angry and threatened to dismiss him. Why on earth would a sitting minister want to enter a shooting competition with a policeman? 

Just five months ago, the same deputy minister vandalised the room of a joint secretary of the ministry simply because his name did not appear in a banner put up at a National Youth Day programme. So he went to the joint secretary's room, broke the computer, threw down documents, and kicked the table. The then-secretary of the ministry, a former IGP of Police, reportedly said, "A thing like this had not ever happened in the Secretariat." 

In 2014, in Kalihati of Tangail, a cabinet minister who was later fired and ended up in jail for making derogatory remarks about religion, hit a PDB engineer with a stick to the point where his head started bleeding. 

What kind of examples are these men, tasked with the responsibility of making policy decisions, setting for us? Are they not causing damage to the reputation of other members of the cabinet who are well known for their humility? If ministers start beating up public officials because they have more power than the latter, what will stop public officials from battering the common man? And what will prevent the stronger common man from pounding the lesser common man? What checks the chain reaction? 

 "There should be an attempt to bring about civility in public life including public officials both elected and selected," Dr Mohammad Mohabbat Khan, retired professor of Public Administration at Dhaka University, former member of the PSC and UGC, says.  "There should be some form of training for political persons on civility, morality and ethics. Citizens should also be more selective in choosing candidates. The onus of the burden is also on the citizens to whom politicians are accountable." 

There is a code of conduct that public officials have to abide by. Is there any for ministers?  "There is no code of conduct for ministers as such.  When someone takes the oath as a minster he or she agrees to uphold certain values," says Dr Khan. 

Hot temper in ministers and other elected officials is not uncommon. In 2014, India's Parliament erupted in chaos over a bill to create a new state called Telangana, with angry MPs coming to blows, pulling out a microphone and pepper-spraying the chamber. In 2009, US Congressman Joe Wilson interrupted a speech by US President Barack Obama to the joint session of Congress by shouting, "You lie!" Jim Callaghan, the British Prime Minister, was often called a "thug" and "bully", but later mellowed into amiable "Sunny Jim". Winston Churchill - an exception to the manners of aristocratic men who dominated British politics well into the 20th century - was labelled 'rough, sarcastic and overbearing' by none other than his wife Clementine whose advice to him still holds for VIPs in all countries: "urbanity, kindness and if possible ¬Olympian calm" works better than "irascibility and rudeness [which] will breed either dislike or a slave mentality". 

The point of this article is not to throw mud at ministers, most of whom do their best to serve the public. Why should a few be allowed to give a bad name to politicians in general and set a bad example for the citizens? How can our children learn civility without seeing much in some policymakers? 

The writer is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.