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| Masters, not servants | | Bureaucrats serve politicians — usually | |
EXPECTING bureaucrats to “think out of the box” or be bold in decision-making — as the Prime Minister has done — may be a little too much. Most in the country's steel frame like to flow with the current and fall in line, if challenged. Afraid of consequences, they sit on files and delay decisions since that attracts no punishment. Red tape has become the bane of the administration — from top to bottom. The implementation of the Citizens’ Charter has started in some states but here too well-connected IAS officers get away lightly while those below are sometimes held accountable for delays.
An interesting point the Prime Minister made on the Civil Services Day on Sunday was that the best of civil officers should be posted in the agriculture sector. Actually, this is hardly an area of priority for officers. Only those sensitive to difficulties faced by villagers may opt for such postings and try to do something to improve their lot. In fact, there is a need to bridge the divide between the bureaucracy and the citizenry, and shake off the colonial legacy. Dr Manmohan Singh also observed that "there is a growing perception, right or wrong, that the moral fibre of civil servants and public servants in general is not as strong as it used to be some decades back and that the civil servants are more likely to succumb to extraneous pressures in their work".
This is quite true. Instances of officers being hand in glove with powerful interests inside and outside the system are not rare. There is a relationship of mutual convenience between representatives of people and the bureaucracy. For getting plum posts IAS officers often kowtow to ruling politicians. Quite rare are officers who say "no" to a motivated decision. Anyone who questions political corruption or extravagance is either sidelined or posted out of the state. Political neutrality of the civil servants, for which they once were widely acclaimed, has diminished, if not disappeared altogether. Still, there are honest, public-spirited and efficient officers who keep up public faith in the system. |
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