'Disagreement with Adviser Farooki over quota': Why did Afsana Begum lose her Grantha Kendra post?

The interim government last week announced the removal of writer Afsana Begum from her post as director of the Jatiya Grantha Kendra, also known as the National Book Centre (NBC), ending her contract several months early.

On Tuesday (21 January), the Ministry of Public Administration issued a notification formally cancelling the remainder of her contract, which began on 5 September 2024.

"This was done without any explanation," she told an online media outlet that she received no prior notice of the decision.

Mohammad Shibli Mamun, a senior official at the Ministry of Public Administration, told The Business Standard that the order was implemented following a letter from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs under the office of Cultural Affairs Adviser Mostofa Sarwar Farooki.

The Business Standard could not reach Adviser Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and Afsana Begum for comment on the matter.

While TBS could not independently verify the exact reason for her dismissal, the issue drew widespread attention from netizens, with her Facebook post circulating widely. Her sudden removal has sparked debate over political influence and reform within cultural institutions.

So, what led to this decision?

According to Afsana, the decision stemmed from her firm opposition to a controversial 20% "minister-secretary quota" in the NBC's book procurement policy, which she had sought to abolish.

In a Facebook post on 22 January, Afsana Begum said she learned of her dismissal through a gazette notification while attending a government training programme in Cox's Bazar.

The dispute centred on reforming the National Book Centre's book selection and procurement policy. According to Afsana Begum, with the support of then cultural affairs adviser Asif Nazrul, she drafted a revised policy proposing the removal of the 20% quota that allowed book purchases based on recommendations from ministers and secretaries.

She argued that the quota had long facilitated the procurement of substandard, unreadable, and politically motivated books, resulting in significant waste of public funds. 

In her Facebook post, she wrote that books procured under this quota were not required to undergo catalogue review, inspection reports, or quality assessments.

"As a result, anyone who managed to please those in power could secure grants and sell thousands of copies in the name of libraries," she wrote. 

As an example, she cited a book titled 50 Poems Written on the occasion of My Wife's Birthday by an additional secretary, of which the National Book Centre purchased 1,000 copies.

Under the proposed reforms, all book selections would have been made through committees, with an emphasis on genuine literature and research. However, after a change in the cultural affairs adviser, the policy process stalled.

The issue came to a head during a meeting with Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, according to Afsana Begum, when she argued for abolishing the quota, and the adviser rejected the proposal.

"Let the quota remain. The next government will come and use it. They will need it," she quoted him as saying.

She said she responded by asking, "Are we here to implement the next government's agenda? Don't we have our own agenda?"

Following the meeting, instead of scrapping the quota, the adviser reportedly suggested replacing the word "quota" with a term such as "reserved benefit."

Afsana Begum described the episode as deeply humiliating – particularly within a government formed through a mass uprising – and said it left her disillusioned about the prospects for reformist thinking.

Her post also criticised bureaucratic culture, which she said leaves no room for dissent beyond "Yes, sir" and "Right, sir," describing this mindset as a major obstacle to meaningful reform.

Shortly before her removal, she had been organising a seminar titled Reform, Potential, and Expectations from the Next Government at the National Book Centre. 

A hall had already been booked at CIDAP, but the seminar was cancelled following her dismissal.

Afsana Begum completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Jahangirnagar University before earning a master's degree in International Development Management from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

She authored 24 books, including children's and young adult titles such as Protichhaya, Bedonar Amra Shontan, Ami Athoba Amar Chhaya, and Din-goto Kopotota. 

She has also translated works by Nadine Gordimer, William Faulkner, Julio Cortázar, Alice Munro, Isaac Asimov, and Fidel Castro.

In 2014, she received the GEMCON Literary Award.