Are Civil Servants Accountable?

            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?