In Transforming the Steel Frame: Promise and Paradox of Civil Service Reform, Vinod Rai, former IAS officer who served as the 11th Comptroller and Auditor General of India, shares the need for urgent reform in the Indian bureaucracy. Read an excerpt from his sensational work.
The world over, the term ‘bureaucracy’ evokes more negative than positive sentiments. Bureaucracy is usually seen more as a ‘stumbling block’ than a progressively inclined, constructive agency engaged in the task of good governance. While people like Cyril Northcote Parkinson have described a bureaucrat as engaged in ‘wanting to multiply subordinates, not rivals’ and even described how ‘officials make work for each other’; Frank Herbert, the author of Heretics of Dune, a science-fiction novel, has amplified this idea further and gone on to describe bureaucracy in the following words: ‘Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovations that produce better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?’
Indian bureaucracy is no exception.
Barack Obama, in his book A Promised Land, writes of the country’s bureaucracy: ‘Despite its genuine economic progress, though, India remained a chaotic and impoverished place: largely divided by religion and caste, captive to the whims of corrupt local officials and power brokers, hamstrung by a parochial bureaucracy that was resistant to change.’
Indian bureaucracy is often referred to as the ‘steel frame’ for the administration of the country. However, in recent years, it has faced more barbs than accolades for its performance. It is, in fact, pejoratively referred to as ‘babudom’. Its performance over the years, largely because of its rigid attitude and alignment to the party in power, has drawn widespread criticism. How its reputation, from the ‘steel frame’ days to being seen as ‘laidback and laggard’ has undergone a change, needs to be introspected. This has to be analysed and remedied as India aspires to be a leading economic power requiring sustainable economic development. Such consistent economic development can only be premised on the edifice of a transparent, accountable and ethical governance structure. This is the role that the civil service is meant to play.
The Need for Urgent Reform
With the passage of time, cracks have been observed in the quality of the service. Critics feel it has become insensitive and unresponsive to the needs of citizens, for whose welfare the administration functions. The officers are also seen to be functioning from their ‘ivory towers’ without really appreciating grassroots issues. In fact, some even feel that the bureaucracy has become the single dominating entity resisting change to bring about a flexible and people-oriented administration.
Sustainable economic development requires good governance. The quality of administration ensures fulfilment of the stated objectives of any elected government in terms of inclusive development and targeted delivery of specialized schemes, such as guaranteed rural employment, assured primary education programmes and rural health missions. It is recognized that the civilian administration has become far more complex now than in the last century. Considering the fact that bureaucrats do not function in a vacuum and are subject to political interference and regional pressures, their objectivity in functioning has come up for adverse scrutiny at times. This factor, coupled with the deep-seated suspicion that career advancement does not take place only on merit, has created serious motivational issues. The service is often perceived as lacking in competence and professionalism, harbouring political biases and suffering declining independence and, of course, concerns around malfeasance.
We have had Administrative Reforms Commissions provide detailed recommendations to bring in reforms. However, successive governments have either been non-serious about accepting these recommendations or have just not been concerned about them. There have been another set of recommendations which have been advocated by the highest court of the land. These have also been disregarded. Recommendations such as fixed tenure for key posts like the cabinet secretary and the home secretary and a civil services board for postings, stand ignored.
The bureaucracy is the continuous element in administrations. Since governments may change, the framers of the Constitution provided for an impartial and permanent bureaucracy. An impartial, dynamic and accountable civil service can ensure that objectives of rapid and inclusive growth and welfare are actually achieved. The stakes in having such a service are very high—the government and the political executive must work towards ensuring a spirited and impartial civil service structure designed to cater to the needs of the nation. So, is there a felt need for reform in the civil service? If so, we propose to deliberate on a road map for any seriousness that the government may show to address the situation.
Time to Change Gears
The issues that afflict the civil services indicate that piecemeal and peripheral attempts at tinkering will not bring about any perceptible reform in officers’ capability to deliver objectively. Irrespective of the form of government, viz., a monarchy, theocracy, communist regime, dictatorship or parliamentary democracy, there is a permanent bureaucracy which functions below the dominant regime for implementation of government policies. Civilian administration has had to keep pace with the altered models of governance across all geographies and regimes in the world today.
It is well recognized that for economic development to be sustained over the long term, it has to be premised on an edifice of a good governance system. There is thus a need to make the bureaucracy much more effective, independent and efficient. A thorough overhaul of the recruitment norms, training and reskilling, and indemnification from political interference to ensure objectivity, will have to be contemplated urgently for administration to encourage and support rapid economic growth. The government is also seized of the need to reskill and reorient government official’s professional skills and have thus launched Mission Karmayogi3 , in which civil servants will be trained to be more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled.
While widespread consultations have been done by the government for formulating the mission, it was felt that we need to obtain the views of distinguished personalities from the service and others who have either collaborated with the government or watched the functioning of the service from a distance. So, in this volume, we have brought together essays of a galaxy of eminent former civil servants who have connected at different stages of their career as a civil servant, such as recruitment, training and personnel management. Some of these former civil servants have also held constitutional appointments. The attempt is to ascertain their views on the reforms required in the services to ensure a more effective, capable, independent, professional and upright service. We also sought the views of reputable personalities from the corporate sector who have closely functioned with the government to ascertain their impressions of the strengths and weaknesses of officials and how to bring about improvement. We have also received the views of some very illustrious international civil servants who have the distinction of serving in multinational institutions such as the United Nations (UN) or Commonwealth Secretariat.