Mashiur’s dilemma

Should he or shouldn’t he resign?

Mashiur Rahman, the Prime Minister’s adviser for economic affairs, faces the greatest dilemma of his life. To go or not to go is the question confronting him like a nightmare that does not go away however he wishes it to. If he has not done anything wrong then why should he resign? On the other hand, his legitimate desire to protect his own reputation will, definitely, cost the country a vital bridge on the construction of which the development of a particular region of the country is linked. So, he is damned if he resigns and damned if he does not. Not a pleasant position to be at the fag end of what has been a successful career.

More than I know Mashiur Rahman, I know of him. A life long bureaucrat of substantial repute, never tainted by corruption or even a rumour of it, a quiet technocrat, an adept manipulator of events from behind the scenes, known and respected for his analytical skills, thrown recently into the limelight for his steering but shadowy role in Bangladesh-India relations, a subject of derision for his remark that asking India for transit fees will be uncivilized, seen by many as a counter to the influence of the finance minister, reputed to have the ears of the Prime Minister. He is increasingly seen to wield a lot of power but has no accountability as he is neither a member of parliament nor is he a political leader who has to answer to the press. He is shy, avoids publicity, and prefers, I think correctly, to attend book launches rather than seminars.

Mashiur never expected to be put in such a hot spot. The turn of events, however unexpected, has, and he will have to make a decision soon, in fact within the next couple of days. The question that he must ask himself is: Does he want to be remembered by posterity as the man who cost the country the Padma bridge, the man for whom his party could not fulfill an important election pledge, the man who put his personal interest above that of his government, his country and his people? Or as a man who vindicated his love for the country and sacrificed himself for a public good, without caring about what others thought.

Justice demands that a man be assumed innocent unless proven otherwise. Even though I know him very little I am not willing to believe that he could be implicated in corruption unless proven otherwise. And truly Mashiur has not been proven guilty of any wrongdoing. So why then does the government of a sovereign country need to remove an advisor just to get an essential loan? The answer is simple. A government is a political institution whose raison d’etre is to serve the interest of its people. It is not a court of law and does not pronounce on anyone’s guilt. It takes political decision to serve the best interest of the country. And today the country is best served if we can build the Padma bridge, and as of now, the World Bank provides the cheapest loan and the most effective partnership along with ADB and Jica to do that, and Mashiur Rahman is standing as an obstacle to the government to fulfill that goal.

From the very outset our government fundamentally mistook the World Bank’s(WB) request as a determination of guilt. Its position was that a “corruption conspiracy” has been unearthed and “credible evidence” has been handed over to our government which it wanted our law enforcement agencies to investigate and find the veracity of. It further demanded that some key figures be removed from positions of power so that they cannot influence the process of investigation.

Imagine that our government acted differently from the outset, that it welcomed the WB’s findings, carried out a thorough investigation to everyone’s satisfaction for we ourselves want unearthing of corruption if it has actually occurred and implemented whatever came out. If we are as clean as we claim then everyone’s innocence would have been proven. And if we are not, then isn’t it better to get rid of the rotten eggs? It could have been a win-win situation for both the WB and Bangladesh.

But instead we made a prestige issue out of the case of Abul Hossain. We behaved as if removing him amounted to finding him guilty. Misplaced patriotism was suddenly brought into play as if any aspersion on Abul Hossain made for a slur on the nation itself. We took a simple case of the WB pointing to a “corruption conspiracy” and made it into a WB versus Bangladesh issue. We depicted it as an attempt to insult us, term us as a corrupt nation, denigrate our people and given our proclivity for discovering conspiracies around every corner, termed it as a conspiracy against our sovereignty.

Every so often reputable companies and renowned people, even government leaders, in the US, UK, France, Japan, etc., are found embroiled in corruption. Does it in anyway lower either the prestige or the reputation of the countries concerned? Did the case of 3G scam, where a sitting minister is now behind bars, lower India’s prestige? On the contrary, it enhanced it by showing that the corrupt are punished. So why then are we turning a simple case of “corruption conspiracy”, yet to be proven, into a national prestige issue? In fact by not vigorously investigating the so-called “credible evidence” we are giving an impression of a cover up, which is actually harming the image of the country as a place where corruption is not taken seriously.

Coming back to Mashiur’s case we are again making a simple case of corruption investigation into one of “national self-esteem”. Neither, in our view, it is this a proof of his guilt. We repeat. It is simply a case of investigating possible corruption, during the conduct of which Mashiur has to be away from the position of power he now holds.

The recent case of the former German President Christian Wulff may help Mashiur Rahman make up his mind. On 17 February 2012, being accused of taking some bank loan at a lower rate than the prevailing one, he resigned saying “unproven accusation… has affected the trust and confidence in my ability to serve… and so it is no longer possible for me to continue as President…”. Dignity and honour is not necessarily best protected by demanding proof. It is sometimes far better served by demanding public scrutiny instead, and removing oneself from power when that scrutiny is being done. This vindicates honour and integrity far more robustly.

Mashiur Rahman may choose to resign, announcing that he is doing so only to serve a national purpose, and while doing so demand both of the government and the World Bank to carry out the sternest and fastest possible investigation to clear his name. If he chooses not to, he will always be remembered as a man who stood between our people and their dream bridge, and suffer forever the lingering suspicion as to what a thorough investigation would have revealed.

Source: The Daily Star