The term “confession” has a dual connotation: you confess your love for someone or for something beautiful and inspiring, but you can also confess to a misdemeanour or to being part of a disreputable group. In writing this piece on the bureaucracy, I feel obliged to confess that for a good part of my active life, I was an insignificant component of a “giant machine run by pygmies”. This is an insider’s analysis of a not-so-honourable segment of government that has precious little to celebrate but much to be ashamed of. Even my dear spouse has figured out our ingrained professional limitations, evident from the fact that in her quiver of insults, the most hurtful is: “You are behaving like a typical bureaucrat!”
The bureaucracy was conceived to promote and safeguard public interest. It has been defined by sociologist Max Weber as the most technically proficient form of organisation that provides specialised expertise; uniform rules and procedures that are impersonal and equitable; continuity through record-keeping and other markers that preserve organisational memory; and cohesion through hierarchical command and control. The universalised application of laws, rules and “due process” ensures against discrimination and partisanship. The sacred mission is to do good by the common man.
India’s Iron Man, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, by far the greatest politician-administrator the country has produced, envisioned a bureaucracy that would be the “steel frame” of good governance in independent India. Speaking to the first batch of Indian Administrative Service officers in 1947, he exhorted them with these memorable words: “Your predecessors were brought up in traditions which kept them aloof from the common run of people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common man as your own.”
The great man believed that fulfilling such an onerous responsibility was possible only if the bureaucrat articulated his views with courage and integrity, as not doing so vitiated the process of decision-making. For him (unlike for the small men at the helm today), the foundational principle of a healthy vibrant administration was a civil service that expressed its opinion without fear or favour. In his words: “Today my secretary can write a note opposed to my views; I have given that freedom to all my secretaries. I have told them, ‘If you do not give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your minister, then you had better go. I will bring another secretary.’ I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion.” In telling civil servants that they were dutybound to express their views without fear, Patel underlined the simple truth that the salary paid to them is not hush money that denies them the right to express their views freely on matters in their charge.
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Patel’s words of wisdom on the basic code of conduct expected of an administrator should make the current lot of civil servants cringe in shame at regressing so far from the professional standards and ethics that he enjoined on them. In the last ten years, instead of safeguarding public interest, they have been contemptible courtiers and underlings, genuflecting without demur before the brute power of a political executive out to remould every institution to correspond to its hard-right creed. Never has the bureaucracy fallen so low! L.K. Advani’s withering denunciation of the media during the Emergency applies with greater force to the current breed of civil servants: “You were only asked to bend but you chose to crawl.”
Today’s civil servants have been subverting established systems to please their political masters. Look at what’s happened to the Election Commission of India (ECI) under the present Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), a dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat if ever there was one. The ECI has come a long way from the halcyon days when T.N. Seshan called the shots or, to be precise, cracked the whip, terrorising politicians into decorum. He took objection to the ECI being treated as an appendage of the Government of India, making it clear that as an independent constitutional body, the ECI would be the ultimate arbiter in all matters relating to elections, keeping equidistant from every political party.
Gore Vidal was spot on when he said that “there is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.” What he meant was that this particular human species is prosaic, insensitive, cautious, without scruples and bereft of empathy. Ironically, the diehard bureaucrat who is the present CEC spouted two-penny Urdu shayiri when announcing the schedule for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, not for love of poetry but to deflect and evade grave questions on the reliability of EVMs, ignoring the legitimate concerns of numerous highly respected bodies such as the Citizens Commission on Elections headed by a former Supreme Court judge.
Not without reason is the ECI viewed as a subservient wing of this autocratic regime. Apart from stonewalling any meaningful discussion on the reliability of EVMs, the ECI delayed announcement of the election schedule until after our lord and master had run the gamut of inaugurations. And then ensured that in pivotal States desperate for the Modi magic to shore up the regime’s prospects, the elections are stretched across seven phases spread over 42 days. The sudden resignation of the EC, Arun Goel, known through his career for his rectitude, would suggest that amid the skulduggery, his conscience had caught up with him.
In this dark period of infamy for the civil services, the most egregious has been the role of the IPS and Income Tax officials in law enforcement who have been zealous hatchet men of this iniquitous regime. The faceless functionaries of the NIA, the CBI and the ED are functioning as vicious instruments of oppression of the ruling party, manipulating the law to terrorise and punish political opponents and dissidents. These guys have blood on their hands.
In the last few years, a shadowy new class of individuals has sneaked into the middle tiers of the bureaucratic framework. Using the pretext of improving ease of governance and bringing fresh talent and perspective in government functioning, this regime has, since 2018, made several appointments of private sector specialists through what is called the ‘lateral entry’ mode. They have been given pivotal positions in key ministries such as finance, power, agriculture, statistics and programme implementation. Although the recruitment is through the UPSC, headed by a chairman with impeccable “Modi bhakt” credentials, nobody is fooled about the selection process being fair and objective.
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Much like the American system – where appointments are made by the incumbent President – but without its checks and balances, this lateral induction, along with engagement of handpicked consultants and advisors, is a most dangerous infiltration of the civil service. Most are indoctrinated individuals who owe allegiance not to the State or the common man but to this regime, its ideology and its corporate interests. There are murmurs in the corridors of the ministries that these lateral inductees are helping in designing policies for the industrial lobbies rather than for the ordinary citizen. The whole business is a veritable can of worms.
In trying to justify their craven professional comportment, civil servants allude to the government rules that restrict the freedom of a public servant from criticising the government or not complying with its orders. Conduct rules as well as convention enjoin silence on the civil servant in matters of political controversy or where security of the state or public order are involved.
But that does not mean that the public servant is obliged to execute the illegitimate orders of the minister. He needs to remind himself that his foremost commitment is to the service of a state that is pledged to the ideals of justice, equality and fraternity. If the public interest demands something other than what the minister asks for, he should record his dissent, and if the orders are illegal or unjust, he is duty bound to refuse compliance. Unfortunately, what’s been happening in the last ten years is a deadly jugalbandi of the political executive and the bureaucracy devoid of concerns with justice or the needs of the people.
Apart from the unremitting propaganda using the official organs of state and the lapdog media to purvey falsehoods, half-truths and misinformation, this government has commandeered all manner of spin doctors to vilify government critics and deflect attention from its own misdeeds. (Last week, a syndicate of lawyers led by the infamous Harish Salve, berated activists and public interest advocates who have been fighting for democracy and freedom, labelling them “vested interest groups” bent on disrupting the functioning of the judiciary.) Even superannuated bureaucrats have been summoned out of the woodwork to defend the regime. One recalls a public statement by a group of retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers led by a former foreign secretary, attacking their former colleagues for indulging in a smear campaign against the present government.
Besides betraying an unashamed majoritarian sensibility, these ex-diplomats stooped to a new low with cheap shots aimed at their erstwhile civil service compatriots, sneering that their criticism of this government stemmed from not receiving recognition post-retirement or was an investment in a “potential political change at the Centre.” Ironically the holier-than-thou former foreign secretary has since been rewarded for his sycophancy with the post of chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Bah!
When the history of this period is written, the harshest judgement will be reserved for the craven professional conduct of civil servants who have let the ‘steel frame’ crumple into putty in the tyrant’s hands. The stark truth is that they have been facilitators in perpetrating injustice – servile abettors of an authoritarian regime. That genius, James Baldwin certainly had bureaucrats in mind when he sounded the dire warning: “A civilisation is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
Mathew John is a former civil servant. The views are personal.
