Sanjeeb Panigrahi
Liberal democracies are supposed to have a representative system, wherein those elected by the citizens play central roles in deciding policy issues; but in practice, such representatives cannot possibly have detailed knowledge or skills to carry out what they decide. Civil servants stand at the frontier between politics and administration. They have impressive competency based on their job description and administrative framework. India is one of the few developing countries freed from the yoke of British imperialism with a full-grown and mature civil service that had sufficient representation of its nationals.
Since the Montague-Chelmsford reforms (1919), most important positions in Indian Civil Services were transferred from the British to Indian personnel. Post Independence, India inherited a civil services framework supposed to be non-political, neutral, impartial and committed to faithful implementation of government policies.
Indian Civil Services examination conducted by the UPSC is among the toughest in the world to compete and qualify; hence, the society holds the successful candidates in high esteem. It is unparalleled in terms of office vibe, social prestige, leadership, work culture and represented by some incredibly talented personnel.
The politicisation of bureaucracy tends to offer massive scope of misuse of office, which creates a hyper-partisan political environment.
A civil servant is expected to be impartial and apolitical or distanced from ideological affiliations; but he is required to be equally ready to execute government policies even at the cost of disliking certain decisions of the executive. In the Constituent Assembly, Sardar Patel underscored his vision about the civil services thus: “The service must be above party and we should ensure that political considerations, either in its recruitment or in its discipline and control, are reduced to the minimum if not eliminated altogether.”
Recently, however, the nature of the politico-administrative frontier seems to have undergone sea change. The level of political trust appears to be declining which leads to fundamental shift in the citizen’s assessment of the bureaucracy. Similarly, the nature of alleged politico-bureaucracy nexus has cemented to an unprecedented level, which is badly influencing the work culture of civil servants. In fact, the relative weakness in the assertiveness of the civil servants is necessarily a cause for worry.
Nevertheless, the country must run. The politicisation of bureaucracy tends to offer massive scope of misuse of office, which creates a hyper-partisan political environment. The idea of committed bureaucracy of yesteryear is deep-rooted and as a result, civil servants today are joining electoral politics across the political spectrum; it is gradually getting more pronounced. Of course, no rule debars them from joining politics after retirement or resignation, except an ethical boundary.
It is equally true that politics and public life provide bigger canvas and better platform for public service, for a civil servant after retirement or resignation. Indian civil servants wield considerable power, especially at the local level, which is quite inevitable in a vast country like India, with enormous distances, great density of population and frequently unsatisfactory communications. Further, people-centric governance and deep understanding of social issues often endears them with the people and gives them substantive edge over their political counterparts.
History offers numerous examples of retired civil servants joining politics — what is rarer is for serving officers to quit and join politics. Some recent examples of civil servants resigning from job and joining politics are Jayaprakash Narayan (founder of Loksatta party), Aparajita Sarangi and Shah Faesal. There are many successful names in the list of bureaucrats/diplomats-turned-politicians, including Yashwant Sinha, Meira Kumar, Ajit Jogi, MS Gill, Pavan Verma and PL Punia. Their success in politics often attracts many such aspirants.
In 2012, the Election Commission of India recommended to the government that recently-retired or relieved IAS, IPS and all-India services officers must be kept away from electoral politics for two years. Interestingly, the ‘cooling off period’ proposal was rejected by the government, citing that disallowing former bureaucrats to immediately join politics could violate their fundamental right (Article 14) enshrined in the Constitution.
Non-partisanship is essential to both professional public service and responsible democratic government. However, outright partisan behaviour of civil servants is common these days. Today, the post-retirement offers or getting into political party has a supervening motivation to get the civil servants closer to politicians. Just as bureaucrats are debarred from taking up corporate jobs immediately after retirement to prevent conflict of interest, it was thought that they should be barred from joining political parties immediately to prevent conflict of interest.
The civil services are astonishingly homogeneous, characterized by a strong and widespread sense of responsibility. Few civil servants are “colonialists” in the negative sense or uninterested in the development work and untouched by welfarism. In the same vein, many are better “protectors of the poor” than their political masters.
Today, the Indian bureaucracy has been excessively politicized, which is amply reflected in the institutional dynamics typifying the abuse of privileges. Many committed officers are seen to stoop to any low to please their political patrons. The abuse of authority for illegal purposes has become a norm rather than exception. At the same time, India has produced outstanding bureaucrats such as Subramaniam, TN Sheshan, and AK Damodaran. After demitting office they never got attached with any political party.
It is, therefore, imperative that our legislature should perceive the ill-effects of politicisation of bureaucracy that may endanger parliamentary democracy. It must formulate a code of ethics and make it mandatory for civil servants to have a ‘cooling off’ period before they enter electoral politics. Else, the much respected Indian Civil Services would lose its glory and pride.
The writer is an advocate, Supreme Court of India.