As I See It Column
The Independent, October 20, 2012
M.
Serajul Islam
For
all of us who studied in Dhaka University to earn a degree in the social
sciences or the humanities in the 1960s, the dream job was to join the Civil
Service of Pakistan (CSP) or the Pakistan Foreign Service (PFS) or any of the Central
Class One services. My dream too was to take the CSS Examination and enter one
of these central government services. The jobs paid enough for a young man to
have a decent life and social prestige. In fact if anyone made to the CSP or
the PFS cadres, he did not just gain a decent job but became instantly the most
eligible bachelor around.
The
government services no longer pay enough. The prestige that went to the central
services of Pakistan days became matters of distant past almost immediately
after our independence. In the three years I worked in a leading private bank
and sat on the bank’s recruiting team, I was at first surprised and then
frustrated at the perception of those coming out of the university these days
about government service. They pitied those who joined government service. Many
who I interviewed were engineers , a lot of them coming out of BUET with first
class degrees, who all studied BBA and MBA after their BUET degrees to join the
private banks! When we went to the university, no one who was even average
academically, would join a bank even if one was offered to him on a silver
platter.
This
rush towards a career in the bank among the youth leaving all else is beginning
to affect the future of the country. In a study conducted recently, it has been
revealed that these days, students are showing little inclination to study the
science subjects in the university. In fact, it is now the dream of most of the
students going to the university to study for a BBA and an MBA and join a
private bank. If not already, we would soon have a country of bankers or
university graduates all seeking jobs in the private banks! There is no doubt
that the banking sector is an important one but this one track pursuit of a
dream of a job in the private bank cannot be the signs of a healthy country.
Nevertheless,
making to the top level of the
management in anyone of the 50 or more private banks in the country gives one a
life style immensely better than that of a secretary to the government if the latter is honest. Compared to Taka
40,000 a Secretary is paid, a Managing Director of a private bank is paid 15 to
20 times more. The differences in perks are also significant. But a banking job
is monotonous and requires making many other concessions that we who joined
services when the services carried prestige did not have to make. For instance,
the private banks unless they are politically connected, literally shiver at
the authority of the Bangladesh Bank whose officials even at the low levels
liberally use their regulatory power to pull these banks by their ears and for
personal advantages galore!
Hence,
the pay or the perks of the bankers never made a banking job seem worthwhile to
me. However these days, I would like to dream that if I had a second chance, I
would go into business to earn enough money to own a private television channel
or perhaps an owner-editor of a newspaper. When we had just one TV channel, the
official BTV, it was in such high demand of the President and the Prime
Minister, that many people detested watching it. During Ershad’s long stint in
power in the 1980s, he monopolized the news programmes where a major part of
the time for telecasts was reserved to show him on the TV screen. He was the
butt of sarcastic jokes for his love to see himself on the small screen. His
love for the small screen also reflected a narcissist mindset.
HM
Ershad was the President and despite the jokes, there was very good reason for
him to appear in the national news and news programmes. In fact, whatever he
did as President deserved to be a subject of a news programme on a TV channel
and hence if he monopolized the news programmes, he was entitled to do so.
These days, with an unusually large number of private channels and with no one
inclined to waste his/her time watching BTV, the head of government,
unfortunately for her, does not have the sort of exposure on the private TV
channels as President Ershad took for granted on the BTV where he was also able
to impose his narcissist mindset upon the people who had no choice but to watch
him.
In
fact, a major competition for a head of government these days for TV coverage
is coming from those who own the TV channels. Just recently, a private TV
station distributed computers to its correspondent in the district level. The
TV devoted a good part of its national news to this event and its Managing
Director gave a self-glorifying speech on this computer distribution! He
competed with the Prime Minister who was in New York and out distanced her on
the time devoted to his event as compared to hers. No wonder the Prime Minister
was unable to keep her contempt for these TV stations and her Information
Minister has asked TV journalists to “follow protocol” to cover PM’s news!
One
private TV channel in particular is now into many events of
social/entertainment nature as a “media partner” of those who organize these
events. The channel on its own also organizes many such events. In these
events, its Managing Director and his colleagues are regularly cutting ribbons
or delivering speeches related to these events at home and abroad. These ribbon
cutting or opening ceremonies then become “national” news and receive liberal
coverage in their TV stations. No one in this station ever asks himself one
simple question which is if their ribbon cutting or opening ceremonies are such
important national events, why it is in the other TV stations; these events are
not even mentioned?
The
case of one TV station is strange and mysterious that sets it apart from all
other private TV stations. The Managing Director of this channel openly uses his station to promote himself
and in the process has become controversial where he does not even realize his own
station in life and thinks it fit to question the Prime Minister! To believe in
his TV station, one has to believe that he is a “friend, philosopher and
guide!” to the people of Bangladesh. The fact is, if you take away his TV
station away from him, and he still does all his “great” work, no would know
about any of it because there is no reason to do so.
The
TV stations and their owners manifest what is the problem with us Bangladeshis.
We have no sense of proportion. When we head any organization and that
organization becomes powerful, we cannot help using it for personal
gratification. Our political leaders when they reach the top do it; the big
private sector companies do it and the private TV stations are no exception.
The problem is when the private persons use the public media to project
themselves the way they do it in Bangladesh and do not know their limits, then
they project a shamelessness that does not do credit to our society. Can laws
be enacted to keep some insensible owners of private TV channel owners in rein?
I am not so sure but the time has come
to ask for it as a suffering public. But one thing is sure that though I sometimes dream of owning a private
TV channel; when I wake up I let that dream
vanish into thin air for I would not ever like to project myself
shamelessly. No sensible person should.
The
writer is a former Ambassador to Japan
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