DURING a heated debate in the Sindh Assembly recently, the chief minister accused an opposition leader of having mental abilities of a lower division clerk (LDC).

Having worked as an LDC myself back in the 1940s, I was shocked by the derogatory remarks. The elected members are there to serve the people. In that task, they are supported by civil servants, including lower division government employees.

The chief minister forgot that his entire secretariat is run by government staff, including assistants and clerks.

In any case, being a clerk is not an indication of someone’s actual worth in intellectual terms. There is a lot more involved in such matters and there is no dearth of seriously learned people working at lower tiers and seriously incompetent people working as bosses; political and otherwise.

I would also like to remind those who may have forgotten that many of the high-ranking civil servants in the past had started their careers at low-level clerical positions, and one of them even became the president of Pakistan.

While politicians are very sensitive about their privilege, I would urge them to refrain from degrading government servants at any level.

Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2021