PSC has got legal mandate for conducting the BCS examination. Access to civil service is a fundamental right of all citizens, irrespective of sex, religion and ethnicity, region, etc. The Constitution does not prevent the state from making any special provision in favour of the minorities for the purpose of securing their adequate representation in the service of the Republic.

Accordingly, through gazette notifications (1972, 1976, 1985 and 1997), the government reserved the right of the representation of minorities. Today, all first and second class civil service jobs are distributed into five quotas, i.e., merit (45%), freedom fighter (30%), district (10%), women (10%), and tribal (5%) population. Under Article 140 of the Constitution, the PSC has got the mandate to select competent persons through the BCS examination.

Constitutional dilemma
It is a fact that for fulfilling the political interest of the government, Islam and Bangla have been declared as the state religion and state language, respectively. Accordingly, the Constitution has not primarily recognised the diversity of the population in terms of language, religion and ethnicity.

Past governments did not take any initiative to re-established secularism as one fundamental characteristics of our state because they feared that they would lose the support of the Muslim majority population. The use of religious and ethnic sentiments by the leading two political parties has, in fact, endangered the rights of the minorities to a great extent.

No public document on minority since 1972
Since 1972, the PSC and Ministry of Establishment have not published any information on the trend of representation of minorities in the civil service, but there is no valid justification for this. As a result, the successful BCS cadres, policy makers, and general citizens of the country have been in the dark about the trend of the representation of minorities in the civil service.

In this situation, a total of 20 gazette notifications on the new appointments to the BCS cadre (published by the Ministry of Establishment) were gathered. The rest were not collected due to lack of cooperation from the PSC and concerned Ministry.

However, the recruited BCS cadres included in the gazettes were divided into two broad categories i.e., Muslims and minorities (comprised of other religions and tribal communities). Due to lack of specific information on the identity of the tribal community, they were counted under the second category.

Findings
A total of 29,667 persons got BCS job through 20 BCS examinations. Among them, a total of 3,164 persons (10.67%) represented the minority population. The highest and lowest ever percentage of representation from minorities were observed in the 19th (16.09%) and 12th BCS (2.63%) examinations, respectively.

The finding also shows that only one person from the minorities got BCS in 12th BCS examination (Special BCS on Police Cadre). The 12th BCS exam was held in 1992, and a total of only 38 police cadres were recruited through this exam. This particular exam is considered as one of the most politicized and controversial exams.

The representation of minorities in the general cadres (administration, police, foreign affairs, customs and excise, audit and accounts, taxation, postal etc.) fell sharply from 10th BCS and continued till 12th BCS exam. The general cadres are seen as the most powerful and prestigious cadres in Bangladesh Civil Service.

The representation of minorities was found almost consistent from the 5th to 10th BCS examinations, but sharply decreased from the 11th. From 16th, the representation of minority communities again began to increase, and continued till the 19th. The lowest ever representation of minorities in the professional cadre was observed in the 26th (5.35%), followed by the 15th (6.01%) and the 24th (7.67%). Rrepresentation of the minorities again began to decrease from 20th, and continued till the 26th.

Minorities in the civil service by regime
The outstanding finding is that the representation of the minority communities in the general cadre of BCS job was noticeably higher in the Ershad regime (13.22%) than that of BNP (5.05%), and Awami League (6.34%) regimes.

In case of professional cadres, no remarkable difference was observed. The findings also indicate that in examinations held during BNP and Awami League governments, minorities representation in the general cadre was not proportionate to their population (10.3%).

Discrimination by PSC members
PSC members, high officials and BCS examinees have said that unpleasant behaviour with minority candidates, and giving poor marks in the viva voce were the most common incidents during 22nd to 27th BCS exams. A member who resigned from the PSC in 2005 was controversial because of his preference for the Muslim examinees, and for being negligent towards Hindu candidates.

This member used to ask all examinees religious questions in the BCS viva voce. Accordingly, Muslim examinees had to face questions from the Holy Quran. The candidates had to face penalty (i.e, poor marks) if they failed to give satisfactory answers.

Another member, a former civil servant, feared by the examinees because of his offensive behaviour, used to throw certificates on the face of the examinees during viva voce, and disliked the minority examinees. According to a former member, a Hindu examinee stood first in the written test of 22nd BCS examination, but finally this candidate was dropped from the merit list because he failed to get pass marks in the viva voce.

In order to understand the discriminations and irregularities in the BCS examinations, especially since 1991, the written and viva voce marks of the minority examinees who failed may be compared with the successful Muslims examinees.

From PSC members, examiners, externals, and BCS examinees, it is learnt that a number of members of the Commission were not only mentally unfit for the position of member in PSC but were also antagonist towards the minorities. But none of them ever faced any disciplinary action. One of them (retired from PSC) recently got an appointment in an important position of a public bank in Bangladesh.

Policy recommendations

• Appointment of persons, as chairman and members of PSC, with track record of non-communal attitude and behaviour, proven integrity and professional commitment, knowledge and experience of public administration must be ensured. Necessary legal mandate should be made in this regard.
• At least one competent member from religious or ethnic minorities should be appointed. At this moment the present government can do this easily.
• The root causes for the declining number of minorities in BCS general cadre should be explored by an effective inquiry committee.
• The existing quota system should be revised immediately, and emphasis should be given on merit. At least 10% 1st and 2nd class civil service posts may be reserved for the competent minorities.
• The minorities are mainly discriminated in viva voce. A transparent and credible guideline/manual for viva voce should be published immediately, and made available to all. The external and internal members and chairmen of all viva boards should be persons having track record of non-communal attitude, integrity and professional commitment.
• The whole recruitment system should be made equitable, credible, and transparent to all job seekers. The marks of all examinees, and quota of all successful BCS examinees, should be made public through web site and result sheets. Restrictions against challenging the result declared by PSC should be abolished immediately.
• Absence of effective accountability measures is one of the fundamental root causes of discrimination against the minorities in BCS exams. Hence, the chairman, members, officials and staff of PSC should be brought under a specific, effective, and transparent accountability system. PSC should also be made accountable to the Parliamentary Standing Committee or the Ministry of Establishment.
• Removal of corrupt member(s) and chairman is not a sustainable measure. The ACC should investigate all sorts of corruption committed in the past in the PSC. It must also ensure punishment of culprits.
• In order to identify the root causes of the declining trend of representation of minorities in the civil service, one or more diagnostic study (ies) may be carried out by the concerned authorities.
• There should be a complaint box, anti-corruption hotline, code of ethics, citizen's charter and ombudsman for the PSC. These initiatives will certainly enhance the credibly of PSC.

It is the best time to create a level playing field for all citizens of Bangladesh, irrespective of religion, sex, ethnicity and region. The above recommendations may be considered with due emphasis in this regard.

Md. Rezaul Karim is researcher at Transparency International Bangladesh.