Few months back the nation was shocked to hear the news about the physical assault of Chief Secretary of Delhi by few elected members of the ruling party in presence of the Chief Minister. Many might have forgotten the news at the arrival of the next sensational news in the media. Knowing the processes through which these finest civil service officers are recruited, I really find it difficult to digest the news till now. Let us have a look at the statistics of UPSC Civil Services Exam 2017. In a country of 132 crore people, 10 lakh people applied for the preliminary exams and 5 lakh people appeared for the exam. Of which 13,366 candidates got qualified for the Mains exam and 2,568 candidates appeared for the interview. Finally 980 of them got selected for the glorious service. Now we can understand what kind of finest brains we have at the helm of our bureaucratic set up. Almost the same goes with the State Civil Service Officers.
Even though it would not be wise to draw conclusions from isolated occurrences, the assault incident is a clear proof of eroding of values in our system of governance. In a democratic country harmonious functioning between the people’s representatives (the policy makers) and bureaucrats (the executives of the polices) is a crucial aspect in the process of governance and any imbalance in this will leads to hindrances towards development. We cannot blame the political class alone for such unpleasant occurrences. To a great extend, a section of officers from the elite class are to be blamed for bringing down their own glory. During abnormal situations such as war, civil unrest, natural calamity etc, officers and all ranks and files are expected to work without looking at the clock. But summoning a Chief Secretary at midnight for an ordinary consultative meeting is really an unhealthy practice and I wonder what prevented the Chief Secretary from expressing his inability to attend such meetings at midnight.
Let me narrate an incident that happened in Tamilnadu in the year 1957 when the legendary leader K Kamaraj was the Chief Minister and the iconic former Chief Election Commissioner of India T N Seshan worked as a young Sub- Collector. A village headman was not remitting the repayment of loans made by farmers to the Govt.( nearly Rs 4000) for several weeks and Seshan ordered initiating disciplinary proceedings against the headman. The wife of the Village headman was president of Taluq Congress Committee and pressures were brought on him to withdraw his order. But Seshan did not relent. Some days later, the then Revenue Minister and another Minister from the State Cabinet arrived at the district and Seshan was asked to join the ministers in their car leaving his jeep behind. The Revenue Minister told Seshan that he was working against the Congress party and asked him to withdraw the notice served on the headman. When Seshan replied that he could do it only after receiving a formal letter from the government, the Revenue Minister got furious and asked him to get down from the car in a God-forsaken place in hot sun and drove off.
A week later the Chief Minister Kamaraj summoned Seshan and asked what had happened. When Seshan explained the matter, the CM said, “Every time this happens to you, continue to stand up,” and then he turned to the Revenue Minister , reprimanded him and said, “Don’t you understand that when you do something like this to an officer, you are not only harming him; you are damaging the very basis of government itself?”
Writing about this incident, Seshan said, “This was a man who had but little schooling. But he understood more than anyone else that there was a sensitive connection between the civil service and the political structure and one side could not ride roughshod over the other without inflicting a crippling blow to the entire system.”
Unfortunately the number of such type of upright officers and CMs are thinning in today’s life. In the recent years our country had witnessed a Chief Minister entering Police Station and forcefully taking out party men who were detained for involving in antisocial acts. We also witnessed offices of serving senior IAS officers searched by CBI in connection with corruption charges. Upright officers getting kicked like foot ball with frequent transfers deter the upcoming young officers and make them to flow along the stream. We cannot blame them; they do have families and punishing all the family members of an individual for being an upright officer may not be acceptable to all. Instances of people knocking the doors of the judiciary for seeking justice in administrative matters are in the rise and in most of the cases the verdicts go against the Govt. It is strange that many decisions taken / approved by Senior Bureaucrats who had served as District Magistrates at the young age of 20- 30 are declared as absurd by the judiciary. I am sure that if senior officers apply their mind without prejudice and render advice to the political masters for adhering to the laid down rules and regulations, majority of the court cases involving service matters will vanish abruptly.
As I stated earlier, generalizations cannot be drawn from isolated unfortunate incidents and the increased awareness and activism among the common man bring us the rays of hope towards a better tomorrow. Our country has been witnessing revolutions in many areas of governance through the dedicated services of officers with innovative ideas and the patronage given by the political masters to such officers really motivate the subordinate officers to strive hard and contribute their best towards development of our country.
Nellayappan B
bnellayappan@gmail.com
