GOOD GOVERNANCE-ARE
CIVIL SERVANTS ACCOUNTABLE?
India is
certainly at cross roads. When the country needs the most capable Ministers and
a very professional bunch of civil servants to realize her true potential, we
appear to be running aground on all fronts. We adopted the Westminster model
along with the infamous White Hall system from the British. The British, from
time to time, have tried to reform the structure of administration and decision
making; with little success thus far.
Our own
efforts to reform the administration has addressed some components, including
the induction and training pattern of our Civil Services; paradoxically called
the Steel Frame of India. The steel in it has virtually disappeared while the
frame keeps expanding horizontally and vertically. The more it expands, the
more hollow it becomes.
The system
that we inherited from the British was sound ,adequate then to meet our needs
and it was perhaps assumed that administrative reforms would follow even as we grew. However, the British system was predicated
upon certain axioms- that the politician would be driven by short term and
selfish pressures and that common good of the people or public interest may not
always be his objective.
The Civil
Servant was to remain apolitical or politically neutral with a high degree of
pecuniary and moral integrity. More importantly, he was not to be motivated by the desire to
make money .Integrity honesty ,objectivity and impartiality were to be his
guiding principles. These checks and balances were meant to keep the system on
a straight and narrow path, solely to defend the interest of the common man.
The entire administrative apparatus was to ensure that they focus on the common
good or public interest, which in turn would send out a powerful message that
the Government was always right.
As happened in
other democracies, with changing aspirations of the people, the fundamentals on
which this edifice was built began to cave in. The British model saw an
increasing convergence of interest between the greedy politician and the pliant
Civil Servant. The latter may not have always had his hand in the till but
often chose to remain silent or look the other way just to survive. This was
captured powerfully and euphemistically in the famous BBC serial, "Yes
Minister' and "Yes Prime Minister". Reportedly, Maggie Thatcher,
often called the Iron Lady of UK, was assertive but patient in execution of
programmes, which allowed space for the Civil Servant to adhere to established
norms. More recently, the Tony Blair-Sir
Robin Butler controversy and David Cameron--Sir Guss O'Donnel- episode, when
the Civil servant chose to remain, assertive or silent respectively, are good
examples. These exemplify the nature of conflict between the desire of the
Politician to push his programmes and the duty of the Civil Servant to protect
public interest. In the Indian context, particularly in the State Governments
there are scores of incidents in which Civil Servants chose to turn a blind eye
to the wrong doings of their Political Masters. Worse, they were willing consorts.
The existing
decision making process in India, is based on files that move from the lowest
rung of the ladder ,vertically within departments and thereafter horizontally
to gather views of other departments. This system is open to manipulation. Decisions
can be delayed or expedited on the pretext of awaiting return of files to the
originator. Internal dissensions or disagreements can be overcome by arm
twisting the dissenter to change his noting as if it is his own, so the
superior with mala fide intentions, is seen to be in agreement with the wisdom of the
department. There are numerous loop holes waiting to be exploited. What is
worse, a scrutiny of files by investigators/auditors in most cases cannot
establish any accountability of individuals in a chain, due to subversion of
the process in use.
Attempts
have been made by some wings of the Government, both at the centre and State,
to reform the process through Management Information System(MIS). The
essentials of file work, especially its integrity depends on ensuring that the
basic principles of promoting and accepting contrary views are valued and
protected. Insufficient understanding of value of professional discussions and
hasty introduction of E- governance with emphasis only on tracking of files
without equal emphasis on contents, may damage the decision making process even
more.
The Indian
scene is well known. Those of us who have seen the degeneration of
administration over six decades and the compelling desire of the Civil Servant
to either share the booty or just survive, know the root causes. Money and muscle
power continue to play an important role in the electoral process of India.
Efforts made by successive CECs to cleanse the system through legislation for
electoral reforms, remain unattended due to lack of will of Governments of the
day. Thanks to more assertive citizens, a less deferential media and freedom of
information, the scene has begun to change ,albeit, rather slowly.
Given the
above scenario, on one hand, though paradoxically ,the interest of the
citizen(who refuses to vote due to apathy) and those of enlightened politicians
who are smart enough to sense the mood of the country, are bound to converge .
On the other, economic reforms have the potential of resulting in chaotic
administration. The Administration, if not reformed to meet the complex challenges of a knowledge based society,
would lead to more chaos and not less. The civil servant of today, cannot
assume to be part of a vibrant democracy unless the process of selection, grooming
and lateral induction to fill the gap in vertical specialization is addressed
as an inextricable part of good administration. Without that good governance
would remain a distant dream.
Judge for
yourself, is Administrative Reforms( with radical changes) any less important
than Economic Reforms?
