“We,ve something called a non-practicing lawyer”
by Chowdhury Irad Ahmed Siddiky
In Bangladesh, we have something called a non-practicing lawyer (like Barrister Moinul Hosein of Ittefaq). This essentially means that you are a rich kid who went to England by ship like Rabindranath Tagore, obtained your law degree like Mahatma Gandhi to become a Barrister. Returned home by ship again and married a beautiful young lady of fairest complexion from the uppermost stock. Danced Ball, played Bridge, sent your children to International Schools, lived in a bubble of Mahagony shelves full of latest law books and journals but never practiced law. You either had a lawyer father (like late Barrister Ishtiaque Ahmed) who made you (his son) a lazy judge (like Justice Rifat Ahmed), so that you don’t have to work too hard, or, you could hire junior lawyers to run your law firm while you play golf, womanize and become the Governor or the Mayor. This is the typical absentee lifestyle of the colonial upper-classes who are not completely gone but are still around in small numbers.
Now you have someting called a non-practicing academic whose life is similar to the non-practicing lawyer. The only difference is that the sabbatical of the academic is a lifelong paid holiday when he only writes books, goes fishing, visits museums and travels widely. All with the security of a fully paid tenured job. Whatever he writes is published and promptly shelved and he is never answerable to any board or individual. Increasingly such interesting, absentee and idle vocations are becoming quite fashionable while some very hardworking people laboriously work their lives up the ladder of tenure, often with divorces and multiple wives and high blood-pressure. In every profession there is scope for absenteeism. It depends on who is your employer and where you are employed. Reputation and stigma are always imperfect signals and they are never completely credible. So, the absentee lawyers and the absentee academics can continue to enjoy their lives like absentee landlords of yesteryear’s Bengal who were called Zamindars.
Chowdhury Irad Ahmed Siddiky is a Bangladeshi economist, historian, politician and anti-corruption activist. He is also a self–proclaimed Shadow Mayor of Dhaka.