Khandoker Montasir Hasan

Recently in Rangpur, a university teacher of Begum Rokeya University held a sit-in protest outside the deputy commissioner's building with his daughter claiming that he was forced by the DC to address her as "sir". Later, the DC went to the spot and expressed her regret over the incident. The DC has been receiving criticism from different corners of the country especially on social media. But, the scenario should have been different. Being the first ever woman deputy commissioner in Rangpur, she should receive appreciation as a public servant of the Republic instead of receiving criticism. Unfortunately this didn’t happen.

In fact, the deputy commissioner’s obsession with the title “Sir” is not a rare incident at all. Although, the British left this sub-continent in 1947, in the current bureaucracy of Bangladesh, the British Raj still survives. This obsession with ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ originated during the Colonial era by our late colonial masters, and since then it has deeply been rooted in our culture. For example, the future civil servants of our country are still taught Victorian table manners at the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC).

The British used to consider themselves superior to the so called uncivilized natives of the Indian Sub-continent (including Bangladesh). Today we are an independent nation, and there is no master among us. So why should a civil servant act like he/she is superior to any of us? Interestingly, this obsession is very common not only among the bureaucrats but also among other professionals. It is also prevalent in private and civil society organisations.

On November 7, 2017 a report was published in the Dhaka Tribune: “There were reports in the media last week of a clash at a medical college in Bogra between the intern doctors and relatives of a patient. The patient reportedly died because she was forcibly released from the hospital following the clash, which supposedly escalated from a trivial issue -- over addressing an intern female doctor as sister instead of madam.” How funny?

However, most of us have taken it for granted. It seems we have happily accepted this colonial construct of addressing bosses with the honorific salutations sir/madam. To complicate matters further, there are many who think showing respect reflects on the number of times they address someone as “Sir” or “Madam”. Their each uttered sentence starts and ends with yes Sir/no Sir.

Time has changed, and a time-befitting reformation in this regard is urgently needed. I must appreciate the remark made by the State minister for public administration Mr. Farhad Hossain while addressing the government officials in 2021: “People don’t have to call you ‘sir’, ‘madam’. He added, "I always say that your attitude is important. If you don't have a welcoming attitude, vent your anger or scold [the public], then that is corruption."

The Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) should emphasise on training the new recruits of civil servants to become honest, patriotic and efficient public servants instead of emphasising on the etiquette lessons or Victorian table manners of eating with knives and forks. The government officials of the Republic should understand that the civil servants are the servants of the state, they are not the masters. They should give up that inherited elitist mentality. People like the current DC should realize that respect comes from heart, not by merely addressing as Sir and Madam.

At the same time, there are those opportunists who use the ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ sweetener to engage in flattery and sycophancy should change their mentality. Otherwise “it will take another hundred years or more for Bangladesh's civil service to lose its Britishness and become purely Bangalee.”

The writer is a Director and Associate Professor of English, Institute of Modern Language , Jagannath University, Dhaka