PM Modi had called for a direct meeting of about 80 senior bureaucrats yesterday as part of empowering bureaucracy. This is very much in line with his style of functioning while being the CM of Gujarat. As you would have noted, even before the swearing in, he had asked the secretaries to prepare a power point presentation on what went wrong in their ministries. Some were bold enough to tell, others just avoided, and a few others made some non-controversial points. I see that also as a part of this exercise, more to identify the bold ones within. In his book Superpower: the amazing race between Chinas hare and Indias tortoise, Raghav Bahl, had observed a key differentiator between both these countries as a decisive administration and a confident bureaucracy in China, perhaps due to the consistent political leadership there. Edward Luce in his book, In spite of the Gods, also observed the Nehruvian legacy in the babu culture of Newdelhi that mostly opts for fence sitting and moves with the direction of how the political wind blows, rather than being decisive, despite being the fact that they clear the toughest of exams to become the IAS officers and are smart brains. For decades, our bureaucracy had always been wimpy-assed, and mostly entangled in red tapes or corruption. The few bold ones often become scape goats or are sidelined. Even the Vajpayee administration found it hard to deal with it, due to the many decades of Congress loyalties and set mentalities. So it is time, that our bureaucracy is shaken up, empowered and emboldened to make them accountable. For that they need a backing from the ultimate boss, who is the PM himself, to stand up and deliver, even if there are pressures from others in between.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 05:58:35 +0000
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