Nazrul Islam's door at the President's Office was closing as 1987 was ending. He had by that time oversubscribed to the President's indulgence with him. He would arrive at the PO at one pretext or another that was too much for the President eventually. In targeting the President's Office, Nazrul Islam had paid too little attention to the Ministry where a significant number of senior officers were grouped against him.
It was also a time when the newspapers often published a lot of things about the Ministry that was not true. These newspaper reports were more personal in nature and failed to focus on serious matters of issues. One story that came out in the papers at that time about Nazrul Islam was particularly sad because not only was it false; it was malicious and meant to humiliate a Foreign Secretary for no fault of his. Nazrul Islam brought home from Kuwait a pistol that he brought to office one day that he showed to a senior officer. The Foreign Secretary had carried the pistol to the office to send it to the authorities for a license. Reports came out in the newspapers later that he had used it to threaten the officer!
In any other country, publishing such false news about a Foreign Secretary would have been a serious crime. In Bangladesh, at that time where the Foreign Ministry had few supporters and was also divided internally, it was quite all right to publish such libellous news without worrying about consequences. In case of Nazrul Islam, it was sad because he was brilliant when he met the media for the weekly news briefings and if the media had been professional, it should have adored him because he gave them the best analytical briefings any Foreign Secretary ever gave to assist them professionally. Except for a few who benefited from his briefings and evaluated him correctly, many of those who covered the Foreign Ministry in those days were interested in gossips and where there were no gossips, they were apt to create a few on their own.
Any Foreign Ministry anywhere functions in the best interest of the country when it is either given the independence to be the master of conducting that country's foreign affairs or the Head of Government himself/herself leads that country in matters of foreign affairs. In India, Jawaharlal Nehru was also the Minister for External Affairs during his entire tenure as Prime Minister, underscoring unequivocally the importance of foreign relations in that country's government. During his tenure from 1947 till his death in 1964, the External Affairs Ministry was headed at the bureaucratic level by a Secretary General where other Ministries had a Secretary. In Pakistan also, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs enjoyed an important position in comparison to the other Ministries of the Government. As a consequence, officers like SAMS Kibria and AKH Morshed who were topers in their respective CSS Examinations had opted for the Foreign Service instead of the erstwhile CSP. Nazrul Islam had also qualified to be a CSP officer but opted for the erstwhile PFS.
Bangladesh Foreign Ministry, that inherited its foreign service from Pakistan, also enjoyed similar importance in the period immediately after it was liberated. The historical need of the time also added to make the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a major ministry of the government. The Ministry was instrumental in getting Bangladesh recognition that was the most important need of the time. The Ministry was also in the leadership role in getting aid and assistance for building a war devastated Bangladesh. Bangabandhu was also positively inclined towards the Foreign Ministry whose officers played an important role during the Liberation War. Many of the ex-Pakistan Foreign Service Officers from erstwhile East Pakistan posted in the Pakistan Embassies defected for Bangladesh that helped create a major international impact in favour of that war. The media that covered the Foreign Ministry in the period I am writing about would have done better had they concentrated on finding the reasons for the decline in the importance of the Foreign Ministry because the institutional deterioration about which the media is focusing in the present times, had taken place during the military rule of Ershad. In an age of globalisation when the Foreign Ministry is playing a crucial role everywhere, our Foreign Ministry is institutionally and otherwise in a very weak position to do so because of the damages done to it in the Ershad era.
Despite his temper, Nazrul Islam was a good man at heart. Unfortunately, the senior officers at the Ministry had neither the inclination nor the time to make any effort to get close to him. As a consequence, the Foreign Ministry was sidelined further. Towards the end of 1987, Harun ur Rashid left the Ministry to join his post as the Permanent Representative in Geneva. He was one sobering influence upon the Foreign Secretary. Mohammad Mohsin who was an Additional Secretary was not made the Additional Foreign Secretary when he was recalled to Dhaka from Bangkok where he was the Ambassador. He was made the Chief of Protocol instead. As Nazrul Islam's access at the President's Office became difficult, he was in a way forced to pay attention on the Ministry. As he came back to the Ministry on the rebound, Mohammad Mohsin was there to help him reach out to the Ministry.
A matter of tennis helped bring Nazrul Islam closer to the senior officers. As the Chief of Protocol, Mohammad Mohsin controlled Megna and Padma, the two State Guest Houses in between which lay a tennis court that was out of use. A tennis player himself, the CP renovated the court, urged by Nazrul Islam who was even a greater tennis enthusiast. By a strange coincidence, there were some good tennis players at that time in the Ministry. There was Reaz Rahman of the 1964 ex-PFS batch; late Khurshid Hamid of 1965 ex-PFS; Ziaus Shams of the 1967 ex-PFS batch, Mohammad Zamir of the 1968 ex-PFS batch; Iftikharul Karim of the 1971 ex-PFS batch. I myself had been a tennis captain in Dhaka University and as Director (FSO), it fell upon me to see that we played tennis at least two to three times a week and ensure that our colleagues from the Embassies supplied us regularly with tennis balls. In the court, Nazrul Islam was a different person altogether, unbelievably friendly and a great competitor. Mohammad Zamir was also a great competitor and a good player too. On a Ramzan day, he was playing singles with the Foreign Secretary and winning.
When iftar time came, the Foreign Secretary would not let him go because he had to win to do so. We kept sending messages to Mohammad Zamir to let the Foreign Secretary win at least one set which he did not do. Everyone suffered that day, most of all the two players but Mohammad Zamir had a laugh at the end because his ego also won that day.
Nazrul Islam was also an enthusiastic chess player and played chess at office occasionally. Mostafa Mohammad Farooq (MMF), then Director General for India and now a Member of Parliament was a frequent player with him. So was Jamil Majid, then Director for India. The games with MMF could go on and on as he would win and the Foreign Secretary would not let him go. Jamil Majid, nicknamed "the encyclopaedia" for his phenomenal memory by AKH Morshed would make his games with him short; win two quick ones and then lose the next three! There was a lesson there; in diplomacy tact should often precede ego.
The regular tennis games created a platform for the Foreign Secretary to reach out towards the senior officers. In fact, tennis at the State Guest House started the second phase of Nazrul Islam's tenure when the power bloc became alive as the Foreign Secretary interacted proactively with his senior officers. It was also the time when the Foreign Secretary had the time to work for the officers of the Ministry. Almost every morning around 10 am, he would often have informal meetings where anyone could walk in. At these informal meetings, he would tell us of all the good things he was doing. In one of these meetings, when his mood was high, I told him that a colleague who had recently come from Brussels and was working as a Senior Assistant Secretary under Director-General Abdul Quayyum was close to resigning under awful pressure that included spending nights at office. When the Foreign Secretary asked me what he could do for the officer, I told him he could give him current charge of a Director, which would help him escape his predicament of that period. Within half an hour, the officer was given the current charge. Although he was promoted substantively years later, that act of Nazrul Islam launched the career of the officer who later became a Foreign Secretary. The officer was Hemayetuddin, a lateral entrant to the Foreign Service from the information service cadre.
Such interaction/action however had little if any impact at all as the fate of the Foreign Ministry continued to fade when it came to dealing with substantive matters of foreign policy formulation and their implementation. At the power bloc, the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Secretary continued to drift apart that further handicapped an already handicapped Ministry.
Published in The Daily Independent, November 27, 2009
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