How the Bureaucracy Harms the National Interests

The Law Member of the Governor-General's Council in India and later Secretary of War in England in the second half of the 19th century, Macaulay, whom the British called as Lord was the draftsman of the  remarkably structured Indian Penal Code. He visualised the civil service as a body of young men with outstanding intellectual abilities and values. He in his report in1864 that paved the way for streamlining the recruitment for and training of the members of the Indian Civil Service. The foundation he laid stressed the qualities of discipline and integrity. In the early years of Independence both Prime Minister Nehru and Home Minister Patel nursed the civil services with reasonable care as they constituted a vital and dependable machinery to push through with the various reforms that India needed at that time. The civil services were kept insulated from the muddy waters of day-to-day politics and played the key role expected of it in maintaining social stability, thereby providing the right atmosphere for nation building and economic growth. In due course of time, the culture that respected the average civil servant flourished. A clear distinction between the policymaking role of the Minister and of the implementation function of the civil servant had come to be established. By and large, the civil servant could argue against a Minister's decision without the peril of being penalised. Once the Minister made up his mind after a discussion, he had the last word, and the Secretary had no alternative but to implement the decision. There was therefore everything in the system that promoted transparency and smooth functioning.   However, the Emergency, declared in 1975 on specious grounds changed all. The emergency became a watershed . The arbitrariness that ensued led to the dilution of many traditional institutions. The civil service just changed forever. Post emergency has seen a major decline in the institution of Civil Services, so much so that they have plotted the demise of many institutions that the country had painstakingly devised and created. The bureaucracy showed a distinct ability to incline towards parties, ideologies, business interests, and above all politicians, show partisan attitude, and waste the money of the infant nation that was struggling hard to get over the three centuries of British loot, humiliate people of their own country on the same lines as the British  humiliated, and that too in their most distressed time.  In the wake of license raj that was ostensibly meant to alter the spatial spread of the fruits of growth of Indian Industrial economy, the civil servants started substituting their role, responsibilities and discretion to armtwist the entrepreneurs and to make money. Once a model of making money by nefarious design was made, other civil servants followed the model and those who were unable to take the advantage, took their anger out on the system of which they were part of, by crippling them with devastating inefficiency. Their inefficiency, rudeness, apathy, ego, wasteful nature became the role model for the entire government machinery to follow. Civil Servants got all the respect, all facilities, all accolades and all the benefits tangible or intangible, but at a heavy price. Probably the biggest non-salary benefit for many civil servants is the opportunity to make money on the side. Rajiv Gandhi, who took over as Prime Minister  from his mother, Indira, in 1984 after she was assassinated, was among the biggest critics of corrupt bureaucracy. He estimated that 85 per cent of all development spending in India was pocketed by bureaucrats. Some accused him of exaggeration, others of misleadingly precise guesswork. But his calculations are not challenged by those who are best acquainted with the system – the civil servants themselves. 'Corruption has reached such proportions in India that I sometimes wonder how much longer we can bear it, ‘Naresh Chandra, a former cabinet secretary, the most senior civil service job in India, told in an interview. Another former cabinet secretary T.S.R. Subramaniam, told: ‘Many people, especially foreigners, do not appreciate the extent of corruption in India. They think it is an additional nuisance to the system. What they do not realise is that in many respects and in many parts of India it is the system. ‘Perhaps the best description comes from Pratap Bhanu Mehra, one of India's most respected political scientists, in New Delhi: ‘At almost every point where citizens are governed, at every transaction where they are noted, registered, taxed, stamped, licensed, authorised or assessed, the impression of being open for negotiation is given’. (Edward Luce). Beginning of the license raj, even and before that the Bureaucracy has devised various ways to harm the national interest. It is more apt to say that the Bureaucracy has devised ingenious method to harm the national interest and manipulate in a manner that the ultimate blame lie on the politicians and the government. 26/11 was not a policy failure, it was the failure of the people not to be able to, not to be willing to and not having the capability to implement policies in national interest. It is indeed an irony that the country's economy has grown up, looked up, brightened up and moving forward. Despite all we may not have tasted development, but at least we are tasting growth, and all this despite the bureaucracy. Indian economy is growing at a rate of over 7% despite the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy has not managed the aviation sector despite the enormous inertia being available by way of Air India….. so what ? Aviation sector developed without that. The bureaucracy has almost completely devastated the Shipping Industry……. so what ? Indian exports have picked up. HEC, Ranchi and other public sector units have fallen from grace……. so what ? a lot of state-of-the-art industrial centres have come up that mock HEC. Every road-block the Bureaucracy can put up, despite that the road transport has shown growth – qualitative as well as quantitative. The Indian film industry has grown in universal appeal despite the bureaucracy; the quality of education (read information and literacy) has improved at least quantitatively if not value wise.........despite the bureaucracy. If so many things have shown an improvement inspite of obstacles put by bureaucracy then its left to anyone's imagination what would have happened with a responsive, efficient bureaucracy having a feeling for the country. The country's economy would have shown a progress unparallel in the whole of Asia.   A fall out of the existing corruption and red tapism is very detrimental to the Indian economy in the long run, as foreign investors in a rapidly global, economies of the world view entering into India as a challenge and plagued as it remains both with political and bureaucratic corruption as well systematic inefficiency which leads to long turn around period as project delays cause cost escalations in volatile market economies. Also in the recent years, several corrupt economies of Asia have faced setbacks, after the wave of economic upturn faded, this makes the urgency of corrective measures more than evident, they make it an imperative.       The only asset we have with ourself is our demographic dividend and time to take our country into 21st century with dignity. The bureaucracy with dilatory tactics and tapism more than capable of not only damaging but super damaging the economy. Bureaucracy shows every ability, willingness and zeal to damage the psyche of the people and they have not only reasonably dented it, but are inflicting more and more damage to it. The greatest damage is by way of allowing people they serve to make them perceive as dispensing favours rather than really serving them. They behave as Indian Administrative Masters rather than servants. Given the abject poverty and illiteracy, a culture of exaggerated deference to authority has become the norm.  Obviously, this approach is not citizencentric. The reasons for the government not being  citizencentric is primarily attributed to the attitude and work of the bureaucracy. Of course, there are other factors that are also responsible, such as the deficiencies in the existing institutional structures and also to some citizens. Once selected and also by virtue of training, their company, the pressure by the peer group, not to speak of the constitutional protection, just as they get into the bureaucracy they start feeling superior, and in order to maintain that superiority they start suppressing any new idea, new innovation and consequently the rise of any talent. The emergence of any new talent undermines the brand IAS. The degree and amount of innovation promotion that the government thinks of, hardly gets implemented. Unlikely to appreciate and encourage talent merely by being facilitator, the bureaucracy is often rude and insulting by showing an ignominious attitude. This is not only very derogatory to the citizens, it discourage them to no end. Having not stopped at deriving pleasure out of it, they continue in whatever capacity they can truly mindful of the consequence it is likely to have on the masses. Innovation diffusion and management propels any civilisation toward a new sense of perception, new balance of perception, building new institutions, facilitates new institutions, new fresh thinking as well as prevent the death and decay of old institutions. Institution-building should have been more smooth, more progressive, more global as well as adhering to the roots of preservation of local wisdom, local cultures. Unfortunately this sense of responsibility towards the country and the humanity had not found in the workings of the bureaucrats. This only showed lack of love for the country and/or its people, as well as its past. One pitfall of such a suppression of is the loss of opportunity for the general masses for the citizens. Indeed the bureaucracy wants to scuttle out any existence of opportunity which can allow the citizens to reach some height of success. They simply do not want to facilitate any equality of opportunity. While the laws made by the Legislature may be sound and relevant, very often they are not properly implemented by the bureaucracy. The institutional structure provided at times may be also weak and ill-conceived, and thus, has neither the capacity nor the resource to implement the laws in letter and spirit. "The system often suffers from problems of excessive centralisation and policies and action plans are far removed from the needs of the citizens. This results in a mismatch between what is required and what is being provided." Even the commission observed that the civil services and administration in general had become "wooden, inflexible, self perpetuating and inward looking." "Consequently their attitude is one of indifference and insensitivity to the needs of citizens. This, coupled with the enormous asymmetry in the wielding of power at all levels, has further aggravated the situation. The argument that the IAS serves to promote the unity and integrity of the Indian nation, transcending cleavages and differences which form the basis for states' identities, seems much less convincing in the contemporary situation than it might have been at independence. The contribution of the All-India Services to cementing or safeguarding the Union cannot be reckoned as crucial, compared with the historical, political and cultural factors which make Indians feel that they belong to the same nation, whatever their differences. The efforts to make the higher civil service more representative through reservations are limited to a purely quantitative approach to national integration and do not transcend the social, religious and ethnic cleavages that divide Indian society. How could an elite administration itself affected by casteism, communalism and regionalism offer the perspective of a collective quest for common goals? The IAS officers form a powerful lobby at the national level, and they will certainly resist any proposal that threatens their position, even when the objective is to make them more accountable to the public, especially by removing the constitutional protection given to them. The officers who fail in their mission to public service, the openly corrupt, the partisan, still enjoy the security of tenure guaranteed to them by the Constitution, which makes their dismissal very difficult.  The partisanship of high-level civil servants goes against their mission of national integration. If nothing is done to increase the effectiveness of the IAS as a binding force of the country, and if, instead of contributing to national unity, its members deepen even more the existing social cleavages by their partiality, then the whole institution loses its raisond'etre. When George Fernandes was the Defence Minister, he came across a very insensitive response of the bureaucracy. The soldiers of Siachen had applied for snow scooter to have a vigil on the borders in the most hostile atmosphere along the LOC. The request lay with the bureaucracy for five years before it came to the notice of George Fernandes, that too when he himself once had the chance of visiting the region and came to realise the harsh realities. The bureaucracy was debating over the need for snow scooters for the armed forces for five years, and many soldiers lost their lives due to frost biting and cold.   If the Administration Services keeps the progress of the country to ransom, sit over the files catering to the supply of essential snow scooters to the Siachen soldiers, who protect the country, try to humiliate armed forces, reduce the dignity of the country as country's representative on a flight by entering into drunken brawl and trying to molest air hostesses; disrespect country's past and its culture, its people and population, advocate the same British who did not disguise their hatred of the country and its people, and propagate British form of culture by not pressing in censor for the choicest Anglo-Saxon "gaalis" and blanch at a word "saali", meanwhile faithfully allow the enemy countries to encircle India, despite knowing very well of its consequences or totally mindful of its consequences........ Any organisation, any institution, any business-house, or any service, which indulges in such a disrespectable deed, for all of them …….  no other word is more suitable than – ANTI NATIONAL.

By K. SIDDHARTHA Chief Mentor Earth Eduvision Ensemble

Brand IAS

The collector is surrounded by a beehive of peons and never moves anywhere within the district without a phalanx of sidekicks. At every village he (or increasingly she) will be garlanded like a film star with carnations, jasmine or marigolds. A white Ambassador car with a red-light comes to a village. The entire villagers flock to the car. They try to peep into the car, a person alights from the car with an expressionless face, stiff nose, nonsensitive body language. You take a problem to the concerned department. You are made to wait for an hour or two, despite the person you have to meet is engaged nowhere. Finally after being thoroughly irritated you get to meet someone who has been entrusted the task of solving your problem. While you narrate your problem, the person is hardly lend his ears to you, keeps passing judgement off and on and the fag end of the discussion says, "I will see what 'I' can do." Mark the heavy emphasis on ‘I’. Consider the description of this plight "At the state government's home ministry in Bangalore after applying for verification, I was told (even after 3 months of my application) that my marriage certificate verification was stuck in Mysore (where my marriage was earlier registered). I had to go to the Mysore Police Commissioners office who directed me to a local police station; from there I was directed to the Marriage registry office and from there back to the local police station. The cop in-charge in local police station (they were finally able to pin a man whose job this actually was) was on rounds somewhere else, so we were told to go there. On reaching that place the cop sent me back to Police station, after a quite a bit of waiting (in a state of rising blood pressure) I got my work done. I then went to Police Commissioners office with the required document and as per rules was accompanied by a policeman; lest I manipulate the document (I wish they showed this dedication from the start). After a week, I finally picked up the document from Bangalore's home ministry after the mandatory handing in of some 'tea and biscuit money' to a clerk." "A train accident takes place. Scores of people have died. There is chaos all around. Everyone running here and there. If immediate action is not taken even more people will lose their life and lose it well. Ultimately army is called to aid administration. The Administration cannot manage it…….." Now consider -- China recently completed the final section of the pan-Himalayan Golmud-Lhasa railway (1956 kilometres) at 5072 metres above sea level. The final section of 1142 kilometres, running across Tibet's snow-covered plateau-dubbed the roof of the world--presented some unusual difficulties. The engineers had to contend with building on a 550-kilometre frozen belt, with the snow alternately melting and freezing in summer and winter. Workers had to breathe bottled oxygen to cope with the high altitudes and there was not a single death due to this. This stretch of 1142 kilometres was completed in a mere four years.Or consider Phase I of Shanghai's Pu Dong Airport. A four kilometre runway, two parallel taxiways, an 800,000-square-metre apron, twenty-eight boarding bridges, 280,000 square metres of terminal building and 50,000 square metres of cargo warehouse space designed to fly twenty million passengers, 750,000 tonnes of cargo and 126,000 flights a year- all these were completed between October 1997 and September 1999. This gave the Chinese technicians eight international patents in the manufacturing of high-tech girders. The economic development, political integration and social pride that projects such as these engender for China and its far-flung people are all too obvious to elucidate. Cut to India. Impressive as the completion of the Konkan Railway or the Delhi Metro Railway have been, they pale in comparison to the Chinese projects, especially where implementation skills and political will are concerned. Consider the statistics. It took seven to ten years to complete the 760-kilometre Konkan Railway. As for the Delhi Metro, between 1950 and 1990, some thirty feasibility studies were carried out by various bodies to evaluate an alternative transportation system for Delhi. The final go-ahead came in 1990 after a long gap of forty years. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited was established in 1995 and it took the first phase of eleven kilometres to be completed in 2004 after a long span of nine years. The eighteen-kilometre Calcutta Metro took a good twenty-four years to complete, from 1971 to 1995. Our new expressways, the golden Quadrilateral included, are perennially in a state of half-finish. One or the other side of the throughways is being laid or else under litigation at any given time. It is common for us to see a part of a road dug up one fine morning. And it is actually common to see that road in exactly the same state even after we return from our summer vacation, when in most other countries such works are carried out practically overnight. A private organisation planned, prepared, executed the modernisation of the Chhatrapati Shivaji airport in Mumbai with the type of difficulty unimaginable. The modernisation process of the fully functioning and very congested airport was like, "performing an open heart surgery on a running person in the midst of his marathon. The government cannot perform, or replicate this, can only feel jealous of the performance. The one common in all the failures is IAS, the one common in all obstacles in the IAS, the one problem in all of them IAS…….Say hello to the IAS, the epitome of inefficiency, apathy corruption, arrogance and mental sickness. A district magistrate and a junior engineer both are abducted by Maoists. Both are treated well. The entire limelight is hogged by the District Magistrate, no one is concerned about the fate of junior engineer at all. That is the Brand IAS…..  Brand IAS: A superbrand, that is supercorrupt, superarrogant, superapathetic superinsensitive brand value of IAS. The name itself evokes all hatred, and all exclusivity. How this brand is made, what makes it run, what type of awe and aura it weilds, its a lesson in itself and can put some of the best superbrands to shame. The IAS are a breed apart. The IAS are a part of All India Services created by the Constitution of India under the previsions of Article 311 & 312. Article 311(1) provides that no person who is a member of a civil service of the Union or an all-India service or a civil service of a State or holds a civil post under the Union or a State shall be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed. According to Article 311(2) no such person as aforesaid shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank except after an inquiry in which he has been informed of the charges against him and given a reasonable opportunity of being heard in respect of those charges. Provided ………..and a series of conditions for that. The Politician come and go….. politician go back to the people every five years to get a mandate to represent the people…… if at all they can get the mandate. But the bureaucracy once inducted become permanent entity. They have no accountability, responsibility, no love for people, for country. One action of politician can cost their image may be their rejection, as well, in re-election but no such penalty is awarded to the bureaucracy. They can do everything without being answerable at all to anyone.  The bureaucracy is an extension of the British rule in India. The bureaucracy was an instrument to control India from Britain, consequently variety of rules and laws that were framed, were framed essentially for perpetuating the Britain interests. These rules, these provisions that were exploitative in nature still persists. The bureaucracy have  the best of both worlds-- one side illiterate poor citizens on whom they have to apply and implement themselves and at the other side their representative-gullible, ill-informed and who can be easily fooled. Protected by a constitutional provision and supported by the same provision that were made for the colonial civil servants, from the beginning of their training period onwards they move with their colonial mindset of looking down upon everything. And, if they don't look down upon they are elevated, praised, eulogised, made a hero, publicised, composed   a song….. what not. Always a win win situation. If they do not do anything (delay their job), don't respect people, country law, protocols, they satisfy their ego; if they do something that is their valid, legal duty, for which they are paid, they are elevated to demi God status, as if they have done something by sacrificing their entire career, their entire family, have been completely selfless. Brand IAS as you call it... by virtue of the constitutional position they control finance they sign the cheques, they delegate the govt work. Obviously they decide who has to share the Govt's responsibility, so it will not suit them if they are not judgemental and if they do not follow their whims and fancies. Agreed, one has to be judgemental to dispense the finance, provided one is capable of being judgemental in the present world with specialisation and super specialisation. Whims, fancies don't have a place in a rational world, and in an age of dialogued where do we stand for being judgemental. The Indian administrative service is meant to serve the society. They are civil servants not civil masters, they are not for dispensing favours which is the true right of the citizens, bestowed by the constitution. Brand IAS never serves only dispenses favours but only from where they can get a favour back. The favour is always a favour in favour of favouring ? To hell with the country, people or the image of the country. By virtue of their position and the constitutional provision they have, Brand IAS is identified  by a very specific set of work culture. They are world leaders in inefficiency, a symbol of   inactivity, overjealous of every thing and highly prejudiced. Despite their main job being co-ordination, they will be the last people in the earth to do so. They may have to swallow a lot of their pride in asking for the best of services despite the fact that they know the quality of service one can obtain. The fact that the Govt has to withdraw from the IAS a good amount of money which they have kept for either investment or for public welfare at that last moment because it has remained unused, unutilised, speaks highly of the inefficiency. To imagine that the government has earmarked funds for some provision that lies utilised and utilised in the most hurried manner possible, with total disregard to the priority the management and work culture is known to be believed. Brand IAS spends the hard earned money of the exchequer not because they have to be spend on something that was earmarked but because it has to be somehow spent. If there can be any parallel of this type in the entire world, one can rate the Indian Administrative System as the best in inefficiency. Apart from the inefficient work culture, they promote brand IAS which has a very distinct set of identity, with the help of which they set them apart from the rest of ‘Indians’. They portray themselves as if they are aliens brought from a planet, which is out of our solar system, milky way and this universe. The qualities that set them apart is their arrogance, ego, overjealous nature and loads of sycophants for this ego massage. They can't behave like normal people because they consider themselves as 'supernormal' (read abnormal). They programme their entire software in a very mechanical manner, they have set for themselves a specific set of protocol which they follow in order to make themselves different from others. The public perception of IAS is very well managed (read manipulated). The subordinates help their masters in 'awe', "Hamare sahab bahut paisa kamate hain", general public perceives "kitna Achha chor hai, paisa bhi kamata lekin  kam bhi karata hai." The media is so awe struck by these immortal people. India today came out with an issue on some achievers. More than 70% of which were IAS officers. It is a very queer situation to eulogise IAS offers. Imagine a person with all authority in the world, with all money and funds at their disposal want to do some work, want to innovate, which, if fails won't be held accountable, consequently can take infinite risks. Out of 20,000 old officers if some 10-11 of them became successful, will that be considered an achievement? And the media raises enormous hooplah on the transfer of the bureaucracy. And what a publicity have they done over Anil Verma, Alok Ranjan Jha and S.V. Krishna. No one ever enquired about the whereabouts of the junior engineer who was also abducted along with R.V. Krishna, as if junior engineers are no human beings or their life is less costly than IAS officers. Brand IAS that is its value! Superbrand IAS, if they have to describe themselves will say I am super because I am in Indian Arabpati Service and despite doing everything nefarious and evil I Am Safe. Despite the fact that I wreck the country from within by doing wrong work and no work, I will never feel that I Am Sorry.

By K. SIDDHARTHA Chief Mentor Earth Eduvision Ensemble