Ejaz Ahmed Naik - a model public servant

It is not fashionable these days to speak well of civil servants. There was a time when they were regarded as truly representing the intellectual elite of the country and as important pillars of an orderly society.

They lived up to high standards of morality and merit. They spent their lives in public service for modest recompense and, when they left the stage, they were remembered with affection and respect.

All this started to disappear when civil service reforms were introduced in 1973. Thenceforth, loyalty to the party in power rather than merit was to be the yardstick, while uprightness and courage were to become costly defects.

A rapid decline in public service ethics and efficiency set in and continued for nearly 30 years. Then along came a second - rung General of the Pakistan Army to give the final push over the precipice and the concept of an institutionalized civil service was unceremoniously buried forever.

Today, the accepted wisdom is that civilians can never be efficient or honest and their functions are best left to senior Generals. Perhaps it is this disdain for civilians, which explains why one of the country's most distinguished civil servants passed away early in the new year without a word of sympathy, leave alone praise, from high circles.

Ejaz Ahmed Naik, who died on January 2, belonged to that increasingly rare species of bureaucrat who never compromised on his integrity. A small, physically frail man, he had the moral courage of a giant.

He gave more than 40 years of his life to public service and rose to the highest career rank of secretary-general. He was a lifelong bachelor and has left no descendants. Nor did he leave any significant material assets.

As a professional, he did not suffer fools gladly and laid no claim to widespread popularity. But those to whom he gave his confidence and his friendship will always remember his sense of fairness, his objectivity of reasoning, his swift intellect and his impeccable good taste.

Ejaz Naik was selected for the Central Superior Services in 1946 and, after independence, he was among the first to be appointed to the newly created Civil Service of Pakistan.

Like all young entrants, he started his career out in the field as an Assistant Political Agent in Balochistan. It soon became clear that he was not cut out to be a field officer.

There was, so to speak, an excess of brain over brawn and his future clearly lay in policy formulation. Inevitably, he moved to and stayed in the Central Secretariat for most of his career, serving mainly in the economic ministries.

However, an early stint in the Cabinet Secretariat gave him an insight into the functioning of government at the highest level. It also brought him to the notice of the top leadership and, though he never pulled a string in his life, he was repeatedly appointed to key positions on his own merit.

In 1970, he became Chief Secretary of NWFP amid fears that his lack of field experience would prove a major handicap, He soon disproved these fears with his decisiveness and the courage to speak his mind.

There was the added disadvantage of serving a provincial government which was in opposition to an all powerful Bhutto at the Centre. Some of his senior colleagues in Peshawar, with a sharp eye on their career prospects, made it a point of keeping direct, clandestine links with Islamabad and working against the provincial government.

Not so Ejaz Naik. He strictly maintained his objectivity and his abhorrence of intrigue. Bhutto himself appreciated this and when he decided, at Qaiyum Khan's behest, to replace Naik with a loyalist, he did not penalise him but made him Commerce Secretary. From there he went on to higher things.

After retirement, he lived a quiet but always graceful life. He travelled, he maintained old friendships both at home and abroad and he kept abreast of developments and events in the world.

He watched with great dismay the deterioration of both personal and institutional morality in the public services and became very pessimistic about the future of the country.

Plagued with ill-health, the last months of his life were a severe test of his courage and his stoicism. He chose to bear his afflictions alone, much to the sorrow of his friends.

He finally went quietly and almost unnoticed. But to those who knew him, he will always remain the image of a model public servant. - (The writer is a former foreign secretary).

Traders protest property tax

The traders and shopkeepers of the city's main Circular Road have protested against the Excise and Taxation Department for serving them with notices under category 'B' for the payment of property tax.

According to the shopkeepers, Bahawalpur is neither an industrialized city nor a commercial centre. Both commercial and industrial activities are on a very limited scale here. They said Multan was well industrialized, but its shopkeepers had been asked to pay property tax under category 'D'.

The local traders demanded that they should have been served property tax notices under category 'F' or 'G' for the recovery of property tax on lower rates. The number of shopkeepers on the Circular Road could be counted in hundreds.

The department should consider their demand in the light of records and realities, i.e. keeping in view the nature of business and annual income and terms of tenancy or ownership deeds. In case their demand was ignored, they said, they would be forced to take some extreme step.

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Two degree colleges (one for boys and the other for girls), two high schools for boys and a high school for girls are functioning for a population of about 150,000 of Ahmedpur East and its suburbs. These institutions are inadequate for the people of this area.

Shortage of staff is a longstanding issue. The Government Sadiq Abbas College, an old institution, comprises only 12 classrooms. The college has a sanctioned strength of 46 teachers, but there are only 24 teachers.

Teachers for the subjects of mathematics, Arabic, physical education and some other important subjects are not available with the result that students have to depend on private tuition. The college bus is also an old one, which needs replacement.

The girls degree college also faces staff shortage due to which B.Sc classes could not be started there. Elected representatives have claimed the release of funds for the construction of its new building, but nothing is in sight yet. The school is overcrowded and there is an urgent need to open a new high school for girls in the tehsil.

Urdu trends in Bihar

Dr Talha Rizvi Burq, vice-chancellor of Magdh University, Gaya, India, was the guest at a reception held in his honour by the Fiction Group, a literary body of modernists. Dr Burq, who was on his first visit to Pakistan, spoke on current literary trends in his native province of Bihar.

Earlier, at a meeting of writers, he had talked about the urgency of peace between Pakistan and India. Dr Burq, who is the author of a couple of volumes of critical essays and verses, recalled the '60s when the movement of 'jadeediat', modernism, was at its peak, particularly in Aara and Patna (in Bihar) that produced new writers such as Aleemullah Hali.

The monthly Shab Khoon, an aggressively bold and outspoken mouthpiece of the modernists, defended young writers whose verses and short stories were branded as "downright absurd" by senior critics. Dr Burq, though a progressive, was moderate in his approach, and while welcoming the efforts of the younger writers, wanted them to learn from classical literature.

He quoted Faiz whose poetry is a rich blend of modernism and classicism. Burq said he believed that Aatish and Ghalib were modernists in their universality and command over language. Literature should be 'awami' (close to the common people) but not 'baazari' (low and vulgar), he observed at the Fiction Group seminar.

Urdu in Bihar had made long strides and was producing a cosmopolitan literature and culture. Poetry, particularly the ghazal, was popular and more fiction in all languages including Urdu was being written than before, he said.

Awareness of the nuances of modern times, mostly created by Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri, had brought younger writers close to the realities of the times and the latter's writings reflected society in all its disarray and disintegration, Dr Burq said.

As far as language was concerned, he pointed out that Urdu was the common means of communication and was visible in its own script in Bihar at all places - markets, offices, railway stations, etc.

Since Hindi was taught from the primary classes, those whose mother tongue was Urdu had also become proficient in it. To facilitate day to day working in government offices, 35,000 translators had been hired to translate applications and documents from Urdu into Hindi.

Their knowledge was also often utilized in the courts. These Urdu-speaking persons had even improved Hindi in its expression, use of idioms and pronunciation. In this process, both Urdu and Hindi had come closer, Dr Burq said.

Saba Ikram, representing the Fiction Group, read out a paper on the life and work of the guest, and quoted pieces from his collection of essays - Ghaur-o-Fikr. Shamim Manzar, Yawar Aman, Ahmad Azim, Mohammad Raza Kazmi, Saba Ikram, Eshrat Romani and Muslim Shamim were among those who recited their verses at the function, which was compered by Ali Haider Malik.

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After two days of closure due to Eidul Azha followed by Sunday, the Monday morning papers appeared with the shocking news that M.H. Askari was no more with us. His friends, admirers and colleagues will miss him.

Askari was a chiselled political analyst and columnist. Writers remember Ibne Said for his short stories and essays in the '50s and '60s, when he, along with another stalwart, the late Major Ibnul Hasan, took an active part in the founding of the Pakistan Writers Guild.

Askari's polite manners had won him many friends not only in Karachi and Islamabad but in New Delhi as well where he was brought up and received his early schooling and where he later served as minister, press, with Pakistan's high commission.

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Ghazal is a difficult art form in the sense that fresh ideas hardly ever find place in it. There is practically nothing that has not been said in a ghazal in the past or the present, human feelings remaining unchanged. But how a poet reacts to a particular emotion can make a difference.

This was the view expressed by poet Hemayat Ali Shaer while speaking last week at the launch of a poetry collection, Na-tarashida Harf, by Iqbal Peerzada. He talked about Peerzada's sudden appearance in the forefront of Urdu poetry that had surprised many, although, Shaer said, he had known him since the days he was living in Hyderabad.

Peerzada's father, Shad, after whose name Idara-i-Yadgar-i-Shad was founded, was also a poet and a popular figure. Iqbal Peerzada said his poetry reflected his varied experiences, mostly painful. Yusuf Jamal praised the poet's closeness to social realities.

Among others who spoke were Prof Saher Ansari, Sarshar Siddiqui, Tajdar Adil, and Raashid Noor who compered the proceedings. Two exhaustive papers, one by Shaheeda Tabassum and the other by Rehana Roohi, the latter unscheduled, were presented and both attracted the attention of the audience.

It is pity that our literary functions most often begin late and that too without a valid reason. At the launch of Na-Trashida Harf, around two hours were wasted because two speakers did not arrive on time, being busy elsewhere.

Such guests should realize that those who come to attend these functions suffer from many constraints - long distances, costly transportation and domestic preoccupations. Their time too is precious.