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Bureaucracy’s not the Master but a horse with the rider

EVERY government wants to change the administration for the better. It is a noble ambition, but most of them flounder, as the initial enthusiasm gets overtaken by the day’s pressing problems. It is more so as the compulsion of coalition and the desire to keep the partners happy overtakes every other necessity, however pressing it may be. Manmohan Singh Government is contemplating a number of initiatives aimed at almost re-inventing the administrative system in the country. The latest is to begin the process of Civil Service recruitment right after a student passes her/his Class XII examination, on the pattern of National Defence Academy examination.

The idea is that successful candidates would join a "National Academy" for a five-year course. Two committees, under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary, will study the recommendations of two earlier committees — the Surendranath Committee and P.C. Hota Committee — to suggest systemic changes in the administration as well as consider how to improve probity, efficiency and transparency in the Central and state governments.

The rot started when a late Prime Minister of the country said that what the country needed was a committed bureaucracy. Bureaucracy took it as a call for personal commitment to a leader. Almost all bureaucrats are naturally bothered about their advancement, and every thing else becomes secondary. So from 1970’s onwards, they vied with each other, for being more loyal than the king. Those who showed any resistance or did not fall in line, were left to sulk in insignificant postings. The politician, once having tasted blood, cried for more and more. A commission set up by a former government observed that when bureaucrats were asked to bend, they crawled. A former lady dacoit MP, who was shot dead in July 2001, only represented the larger issue of criminalisation facing the Indian polity. Many criminals, like her, have joined politics and one MLA from Gujarat has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. Such elements have been encouraged by political parties who want strong candidates, who can win by hook or crook. The position has become so bad that some chargesheeted individuals have found berths both in state and Central governments. Another question, which political class has never asked itself, is as to how someone born in poverty, including former chief ministers or Central ministers, have accumulated worth tens of crores (at official valuations) in a short political career. Whatever may be said, about the bureaucracy, it is a glaring truth that both the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of the state have become much worse in the past few decades. From a dribble of complaints about a few criminals entering the legislature in each state, according to an Election Commission study in 1997, 40 sitting members of the Lok Sabha and around 700 of the 4,072 members in the various state assemblies had a criminal record. Even in 14th Lok Sabha, more than 100 MPs are involved in some or the other criminal case.

The bureaucracy is a tool to implement the policies of the government. It is not the master. It is just like a horse, which is to be guided by the horse rider. Here in the present case, the political masters are the horse riders. The horse will go in the direction indicated by the rider. It has no choice. Rules require that bureaucracy cannot and is debarred from criticising the government. It has been specifically debarred from approaching the Press. So whatever be the doing or misdoings of the political masters, the same remain buried in the top secret government files. In his first letter to all chief ministers, the present Prime Minister, in July 2004, had` minced no words in his letter. He has pointed out that the failure of the government to tackle the menace of "transfer and posting industry" will have a "debilitating impact not only on their performance and morale but also on the whole process of governance". This is a right stand, but contrary to the most famous speech, of the then President of the All Indian Congress Committee, Jagjivan Ram, in 1969, in which he argued that ‘the so-called neutral administrative machinery is a hindrance, not a help ‘ and that the philosophy of a neutral administration was ‘hardly relevant to Indian conditions’. His remarks were swiftly replicated by other senior Congress leaders of that time, including the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

If one goes by the reports in the media, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, within 40 days of his taking charge, ordered the transfer of over 650 administrative and police officers, much less than the 1,000 mark in transfers established by his immediate predecessor in office, Mayawati. But it will be unfair to single out, Mayawati or Mulayam Singh. Similar zeal has been displayed by their predecessors in UP as well as in the rest of the states in the country. Mass transfers take place with such regularity all over the country that they have ceased to cause any raised eyebrows. Mass transfers have reduced administration and good governance to an exercise of locating favourites and cronies in strategic position, who not only bend themselves but all rules and laws, to please the political masters. Sardar Patel had said with great force and fervour in the Constituent Assembly in 1947: "You will not have a united India if you have not got a good all India service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has a sense of security. "As a man of experience I tell you," warned Sardar Patel, "do not quarrel with the instruments with which you want to work. It is a bad workman who quarrels with his instruments..." I doubt it, if the teenagers selected after 12 standard will develop the necessary maturity or independence, in a protected atmosphere of government sponsored education and training and will prove a better material than what is available now. In fact, being trainees and not having any security, they will turn out to be only yes men, perhaps better yes men, than the present breed of civil servants. It is impossible for the chief minister or any Central minister, who orders such mass transfers, to have the direct knowledge of the work and worth of most of the transferred officers. It is impractical for any chief minister to know personally the quality and standards of work or the reputation for fairness and honesty of hundreds of transferred civil servants. Such transfers are ordered because an influential MLA or party functionary wants a particular officer in or out, for his own reasons. This pernicious practice forces many officers to seek political patronage to stay where they are, or to get posts or places, which they wish to have. This in turn leads to the notorious politician-civil servant nexus, which is the main cause of corruption and poor governance in public services in our country today and not the method of selection of civil servants.