Nagpal’s victimisation is a new low in a long process of the subversion of bureaucracy. The India Civil Service, modelled on the Westminster model, was always meant to be insulated from politics. Unlike, the US where the entire bureaucracy changes when a Government changes, in India, the same bureaucrats are meant to serve whichever Government is in power. That requires them to give objective advice to politicians (which the latter is free to overrule) and to honestly execute the policy decisions of the Government in power. The only way they can perform these tasks is if they are protected from the sudden whims and opportunist fancies of politicians. To be fair, it was relatively easy for both politicians and bureaucrats in the early decades after independence. At the Centre, it was largely the Congress party which controlled Government so there was no perceived conflict between serving different parties. Still, patronage did exist, but it was mostly in the form of a few chosen bureaucrats getting a select few post-retirement jobs, mostly as Governors or heads of constitutional bodies like the Election Commission and the CAG. The extent of patronage was too small to damage incentives in the whole system. Politicians were likely more decent as well. The collapse of the Congress party’s domination at the Centre in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the rise of the idelogically-different BJP, changed everything. Now, bureaucrats were slotted, in most cases for no fault of theirs, into the camp of one party or the other. In the states, the rise of new regional parties, like the SP and BSP, also saw bureaucrats being drawn into partisan politics. The insulation of the bureaucracy was attacked on two fronts. First, through the distribution of spoils which had grown substantially after the formation of numerous regulatory and quasi-government agencies. Second, and this is more damaging, IAS officers were subject to arbitrary transfers (most famously in Uttar Pradesh) but also at the Centre the moment their political bosses were displeased or if a Government changed. It was at this time that senior officers, like state Chief Secretaries, the Union Personnel Secretary and the Union Cabinet Secretary should have acted to stop the destruction of the ethos of the IAS. Unfortunately, they were too easily tempted by the spoils on offer to even bother about putting up a modicum of resistance.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 00:03:09 +0000
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