We have just celebrated the fortieth anniversary of our independence. The comparative stability in our political system and the tangible, albeit inadequate, progress in the economic, scientific, technical and educational spheres is something we can be legitimately proud of. And yet why is it that the country has a sullen, sombre and dejected mood with no spark of enthusiasm or hope in the future ? Some of the more recent events typified by the spate of terrorist killing, the recurrent communal clashes as well as the severe drought have no doubt cast their pall of gloom: but disappointment seems to have deeper roots that we are not able or perhaps, not willing to identify and grapple with.
Let us take a look at the country.
Our population has more than doubled since independence, from approximately 34 crores to over 78 crores today, and over 50% of our present population lives the poverty line. In other words the total population at time of independence, today lives below the poverty line – fruits of independence indeed!
The total number registered in the employment exchanges has gone up nearly times from 3 lakhs in 1950 to over 260 lakhs today –an impressive increase, no doubt, but for the fact that we are talking of unemployment, not employment.
The 1960 rupee is worth just around 14 paise today. The independence rupee, in all probability, has disappeared. The whole-sale price index has scaled new heights, recently crossing the 400 mark for the first time (base 1970-100).
Over Rs. 50,000 crores worth of investment in the public sector gives us negligible returns year after year: the profits that are shown coming only from monopolistic units, which can and do resort to unjustified and arbitrary price increases to cover up their inefficiencies but in the process earn for themselves handsome profits for the purpose of deceiving the gullible public.
Undoubtedly there are a few exceptions but. tragically, they only prove the rule that the public sector, as it is constituted and functioning today, is bleeding the nation and driving itself to self destruction.
The private sector, unfortunately, is no model of either efficiency or integrity or innovativeness. The so-called well-run companies are again, like in the case of the public-sector, either in a monopolistic or oligopolistic environment, or are marginally more efficient than their public - sector counterparts (which is really not saying much) but get a disproportionately large leverage because of the government’s pricing policy designed to ‘show’ profits for the public sector, or have succeeded in moulding/ bending the laws (even if it be for a day) to suit their own particular needs at the expense of others.
While corruption in our system is a favourite cause cited for despair and the loudest bemoaners of this are the articulate private sector spokesmen, the truth also is that such corruption is largely, if not solely, fuelled by private sector itself - industrialists, businessmen, traders, professionals, all.
As for the innovativeness in the private sector, the less said the better. For years there was a clamour for a more open import policy for technological upgradation of the Indian industry. Now that has been done, there is a large howl for protecting the domestic industry against the ‘unfair’ superiority of imported or import-collaborated products.
There is talk of health for all by 2000 AD and yet we are better than only Bangladesh & Pakistan (out of a select group of 25 developed and developing nation) in terms of population per hospital bed and better than only Burma, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Bangladesh in terms of population per physician.
We talk of justice for the common man and the list of pending cases in the courts grows every year. The total number of cases pending in various high courts in 1982 was approximately 675000 and in the Supreme Court was around 49000 The situation is only worse now, compounded by the fact, widely known but rarely highlighted or admitted, that a large number of judicial vacancies remain unfilled because the executive is looking for ‘dependable’ judges.
On the hand nation is being prepared to march into the 21st century ; on the other, we are unable even today, to provide clean, drinking water to vast millions of our country.
Every year our people are lashed by the ravages of floods, schools do not have blackboards, hospitals do not have medicines but, of course, our priorities are different. Hundreds of crores are spent to organise extravaganzas like Festivals of India, various international conferences and seminars etc. Thousands of crores are distributed in loan melas to one’s cronies while many needy and deserving are denied a minimum of assistance because they did not have the right patronage or connection.
The litany of problems could go ad infinitum. But let us pause for a moment. What has gone wrong? Who is responsible? A common theme or reaction that seems to run through the country is a feeling of utter helplessness-what’s the point in trying anything? Nothing will change. Nothing works, nothing moves, nothing will improve. It is, as we were all tied up by some invisible chains.
The sad fact, of course, is that we are indeed, tied up in chains and have become victims of the stranglehold of an unobtrusive but assertive class - the bureaucracy.
While, so far, politicians have borne the brunt of the blame for our ills, and there is little doubt that they richly deserve this charge, the one section of our polity that has skillfully remained in the background is the bureaucracy, even though they are equally, if not more, responsible for the sorry pass that we find ourselves in today.
Indeed, the bureaucrats have gone even one better. With their ill-concealed disdain toward politicians they have not only built up the public image of the politician as a crude, bumbling idiot, who is basically corrupt and inefficient and thus deflected all blame from themselves on any administrative failures and shortcomings, they have also succeeded in portraying themselves as untiring martyrs who are at the receiving end of the politicians whims and who have to put up with a lot of inconveniences in the service of the people !
Carefully, cleverly but surely, the bureaucracy has managed to enjoy the power and authority of the politicians, their perks and privileges and yet live in comparative anonymity, secure and protected from public wrath and censure behind the buffer of politicians whom they successfully project as the sole cause of all our failures and disappointments. Verily, our bureaucracy is having its cake and eating it too.
The bureaucracy in India has become one large self-perpetuating machine, that parasitically grows and prospers at the expense of all other sections of society. The press and our self-appointed intellectuals who are forever analysing why India is, what it is, and why it isn’t what it should be, never tire of talking about progress and development being sabotaged by the vested interests, whom they identify as landlords, rich farmers, industrialists, businessmen, traders and suchlike but somehow are unable to comprehend that the biggest vested interest in the country today is the bureaucracy.
Let us consider the various laws, systems policies and procedures which dictate the way our country is run. While politicians, no doubt, give a general thrust to policies (at least so we are led to believe: people who should know better claim that even the formulation, in large part, are the bureaucrat’s personal predilections and fancies which they cleverly convince the relatively unsophisticated and simpleton politician into believing that it is the latter’s own view), it is the bureaucracy that writes the fine print and, more often than not, so ambiguously and with so many provisos that it completely distorts the original intent or purpose of the legislation, leaving scope for discretion at the bureaucratic level so that the desired interpretation can be made for an appropriate consideration.
This is not all. In the name of checks and balances, the tendency always is to increases the number of controls. And the politician, a large number of whom, at any given time, are handling ministerial responsibility for the first time or relatively new to it are told that such multi-controls are necessary for better administration. Seasoned players that they are, the bureaucrats play upon the ego of the gullible politicians and easily manage to convince them that all these restrictions and controls are being introduced to better implement their (the politicians’) policies and programmes. The fact of the matter is that such controls only increase the ‘harassing’ powers of the bureaucracy. A transparent case of ‘Yes Minister - but then, no politician believes it can happen to him.
The net result of all this is that the system puts enormous powers in the hands of the administrative services from the highest level to the lowest echelon. This has resulted in the creation of a huge machinery that has a lot of power but little responsibility and almost no accountability. What is of greater concern is that with the levers of decision-making, or rather delay-making, in their hands, the bureaucrats have an enormous scope for harassment, and consequently, income, simply for not harassing or not delaying.
Politicians are painted as the vilest of all creatures in so far as corruption is concerned and there can hardly be two opinions about that ; but our bureaucrats are no paragons of virtue either. Those that have dealt with bureaucrats - and by now our system is so designed that no one can escape dealing with one -- know only too well what they have to go through, whether they are dealing with a petty clerk or a secretary to the government.
This institutionalisation of the pay-off system has been done in many ways :
1. Confuse the issue, complexify the laws and procedures so that people are forced to come to you for interpretation, disentangling, in short, for getting things done for a consideration.
2. Delay your decision-making ; simply sit on the matter. People will come to you for expediting and would willingly pay for getting things moving.
3. Approve higher rates on tenders or recommend (& get approved) price increases and share the difference.
4. Do not do your job -- be it issuing of a licence or permit, forwarding of a file, signing an approval letter or certificate, sanctioning a refund or subsidy. People will soon be begging you to allow them to pay you to do your job for which you are paid a salary any way.
Not only do the bureaucrats, thus, outdo the politician in the number of avenues they have created for themselves for additional earnings but their demands are more fancy and esoteric. According to report in a leading newsmagazine, “higher up the bureaucratic ladder in Delhi, of course, the name of the game is……..perquisites and forbidden fruit. In Udyog Bhavan, almost every civil servant worth his salt has got some hapless public sector company to pay for his creature comforts: an airconditioner in the office, or fancy carpeting or a car for the memsahib…… At the top of the hierarchy in the new class, even officials’ house are furnished and fitted out by public sector companies.”
But such overt corruption is only the tip of the ice-berg. The already massive bureaucracy has systematically set about extending its power and authority, thus increasing its area of influence and scope of reaping favours.
Look at the vast interpretive and discretionary power given to the customs, excise, income-tax and bank officials with the result that all the enforcement, revenue-collection and found-disbursal agencies of the government have become dens of corruption. Who has conceived and perpetuated the permit-licence Raj which has only resulted in a systematic plundering of the nation by the bureaucrats and the politicians ? For every delay, every referral, every approval, palms have to be greased -- bureaucratic palms.
Another time-tested and favourite way of increasing their of influence and creating additional sources of income is to setup committees for all kinds of reasons, mostly no reason at all. Every new committee that is set-up generates its own series of new posts and concomitant expenses of office, office furniture and equipment, subordinate staff, telephone, conveyance, travel etc. But this is not all. For every committee report that is submitted if and when it finally is, there is a scrutinising committee set-up once again with all paraphernalia, followed by a review committee to be topped by a recommending committee to be superseded by a new high-ranking committee to go into the whole question afresh ! And thus the whole game is played out again, with the country being none the wiser for all these efforts, only poorer by the amount of the various committees’ expenses with all its members and staff earning an extra and undeserved income.
Look at the interesting way laws are framed. There is a detailed listing of the time schedule that citizens must follow to comply with the provisions of law ; there is rarely, if ever, a corresponding time schedule for the government machinery to respond to or take decisions on the citizens submissions. In the few cases that such time schedules do exist, they are blatantly ignored and nobody in his right senses dares to hold it against the particular official or department for fear that his case will, then, definitely not see the light of day. For every failure to comply with the provisions of the law, a fine or punishment or rejection awaits the citizen ; no such action awaits the official if he fails to do his job in time or if he fails to do it properly or even if he fails to do it all. And who frames the law ? Why, naturally, that same official and his colleagues and cronies. Could anything be more neat ?
Look at the life these bureaucrats lead and have carved out for themselves, The cuts, commissions, pay-offs they get are legion and common knowledge now. The tragedy is not that they take such bribes ; rather, that it is so easily given now. So much for their ‘other’ income. Everybody knows about it and accepts it. What is not so widely known, or perhaps, realized is the tremendous amount of ‘invisible’ perks these bureaucrats enjoy.
No bureaucrat has to ever cancel or re-schedule his holiday because he couldn’t get air/hotel reservations ; his counterparts will get it done. The tickets for the Russian ballet or the cricket test match are delivered to his residence ; it is you and I who have to queue up to get it. If there is a marriage in the family, all arrangements for lights, furniture, provisions, cars etc. will be done by his ‘friends and well-wishers’. Even if the bureaucrat pays for these expenses, and admittedly many do, none have to bother about it or run around like we have to. If sugar is scarce his tea is not going to be any the less sweet for it ; a sackful will be delivered at his doorstep by an obliging trader or a sugar mill employee or even a rationing official ! When the bureaucrat or his kith and kin are in a public hospital, it is the medical director and other senior staff that hover around them ; in our case we have to beg and bribe the ward boy to change the bed pan. Whether it is a foreign scholarship or cultural exchange programme involving a trip abroad, or a school admission or a land/house allotment in a prime location or a dealership, the bureaucrat has merely to indicate that that he is interested and the system takes care of the rest -- in these matters it is most efficient. What an ordinary citizen has to undergo, it is hardly necessary to elaborate. If the bureaucrat is going on a holiday, he merely has to let this be known to those who come to him for work and everything from passage, stay, food and sightseeing is taken care of. Indeed, the person extending the hospitalities is actually grateful for having been given such an opportunity while the bureaucrat acts like a benevolent monarch allowing his subjects to show their respects and pay obeisance to him. Naturally, there is a quid pro quo : all these expenses are taken care of several times over when the next tender is opened or the next licence granted -- the poor suckers who pay for it are you and !.
The time has come for us to realize that it is this new class, nay caste which is interested in maintaining the status quo that forces the entire nation to run to them (i.e. the bureaucrats) for even raising their little finger. This is really one of the, if not the major reasons holding back the country’s progress and thwarting the much needed socio-economic changes that are necessary to transform the lives of our vast majority from the misery of perpetual poverty to a modicum of human dignity.
If the laws are complex and confusing, who gains ? The bureaucrats, for we have to keep running to them to interpret it for us, on how to act etc. If there is scarcity, who gains? Yes, blackmarketeers, but you can be sure a cut goes to the bureaucrats (as it certainly does to the politicians) who, therefore avoid or delay creating conditions that will remove such scarcity. Such periodic, artificially created shortages of scarce industrial raw materials are the rule rather than the exception.
The more import restrictions there are, who gains ? Other than the smugglers, who in all probability, also deliver a cut to the bureaucrats, the latter also get their share directly from the beneficiary industrialists/businessmen on the one had as also from the adversely affected parties who have no option but to propitiate the bureaucrat to keep their enterprise running by taking advantage of some technical loopholes in the law which the lawmaker, himself, points out to them (for a price, of course) ! If floods and drought continue to create havoc even after forty years of years of independence, who gains ? The bureaucrats, of course. Relief has become one of our major ‘industries’ with 50%, if not more of the relief money being lapped up and stolen by the distributing officials. Is it any wonder then, that while thousands of crores are spent on providing relief every year, the government just does not act to implement flood and drought prevention measures on a permanent basis which will cost only a fraction of what has been spent on relief so far. Readers will recall the great fanfare with which an announcement was made a few days back that the government is formulating a plan to prevent floods and drought on a long-term basis ! How original, how innovative, how dynamic, how noble and utterly laughable Nay, even that is being charitable. It is not merely laughable but absolutely pathetic for this is what is said every year, dutifully noted, duly acted, upon -- only in terms of ‘drawing up plans’ and then the implementation regularly sabotaged by the bureaucracy so that the relief cake may grow larger every year with a proportionate increase in their cut.
Whether party ‘X’ remains in power or is replaced by party ‘Y’, either at the centre or in the states, no significant improvement or progress will be made in the country’s development because the bureaucrats zealously guard their areas of influence and they are not going to allow some silly consideration like national good or the common man's needs to interfere with or reduce the privileges they have acquired over generations of hard toil.
Unless this stranglehold of the bureaucracy is broken, and the latter accept their role as being instruments of implementing government policy instead of getting into the driver’s seat themselves for the purpose of looting the nation, unless they can be tamed into being responsive servants of the people instead of acting as self- appointed and arrogant masters, it is difficult to visualise anything better than greater misery.
How is this to be done?
First of all, it will require a tremendous amount of political will, courage, determination and astuteness on the part of the politicians, for you can be sure that the entire wiles and guile of the entrenched bureaucracy will be called to the fore to resist any effort to dislodge them from their privileged positions and they will do their utmost to resist and discredit all those who attempt to do so.
For the latter reason, such an effort will also call for a great deal of understanding, patience and demonstratable support by the people to the politicians in their attempt to tame the bureaucracy -- it is only the vocal the vocal and articulate support of the citizenry that can act as a shield against the assaults the bureaucracy is sure to unleash, the moment they sense that their wings are about to be clipped.
Finally, a radical change has to be made in the selection procedure for the allied services which only will strike at the roots of the entrenched bureaucracy.
Towards securing the above objective, the following steps may be considered :
1. Reduce, drastically, the discretionary powers of the enforcement authorities by (a) simplifying the language of the laws to make them easily comprehensible and less vague and ambiguous and (b) recasting the laws so that written permission is not required for every small thing from the government authorities.
2. All laws, rules procedures related to granting of government/municipal/civic permission or approval should have a ‘time deadline’ for the granting of such permission/approval and if such period has elapsed from date of the application, then such permission will be deemed to have been granted as applied for whether or not the formal permission has been issued.
3. Review all committees and commissions that are more than 6 months old and disband all those that have outlived their usefulness or relevance or are merely duplicating/complicating the work of others. This review should be done by a committee that will automatically get wound-up in three moths, irrespective of whether it finishes the ‘entire’ task or not !
4. All committees/commissions that continue to exist after the weeding out exercise proposed in (3) above should have a specific ‘life’ and will stand automatically wound up after the ‘expiry’ date. Their life can be extended only after the elapse of at least three months beyond ‘expiry’ date in such exceptional cases where the need is still felt for continuing its work. There cannot be a second extension period.
5. No new committee or commissions should be set up, whatsoever, for the next two years except in case of riot or war or to supervise relief.
6. Selection to the bureaucracy through competitive examinations should only be open to those who have completed 28 years of age and acquired a minimum of 5 years of working experience in any organisation. The rationale behind this suggestion is that we will then get a maturer and humbler breed, tempered by life’s realities who will, hopefully, show a greater degree of understanding and compassion in their dealings with people than hitherto. Further a person who has worked for five years would be known to a large number of people in the work situation: they can thus be tapped as referees for his competence and more important, for his integrity. Today, it is mostly boys and girls, fresh from college, who enter the services and nobody really knows how they will shape up. With the power and authority they wield from their very first posting, not only do they become arrogant but are easily tempted to indulge in dishonesty.
7. The selection board for the allied services should be made more broad-based to reduce the dominance of the entrenched bureaucracy who have a propensity to in breed by selecting people of their ‘own class and ilk’ and rejecting all such candidates who they feel are not of ‘their kind’. Directors of IITs and IIMs and representatives of apex bodies of trade and industry are amongst some of the people that may be considered for inclusion in the selection board.
8. There should be three more, formally inbuilt, entry levels for the various services like IAS, IFS, IPS, IRS etc. wherein outsiders with requisite skills and qualifications are inducted laterally. They will serve to provide the much needed fresh blood that the services so acutely lack today.
The above suggested steps, for overhauling the bureaucracy and reducing their number and reach of authority are only the beginnings of a major task to correct the distortions that have crept into our socio-political system. It would be an over-simplification to state or assume that the bureaucracy would get reformed by these steps alone.
It would be an even greater simplification to believe that reforming the bureaucracy would solve all the country’s problems. All sections of our society, be it politicians, bureaucrats, educationists, industrialists/businessmen and, above all, we lethargic citizens are jointly responsible for the present state of affairs. The task of nation-building is that of the entire nation and unless we all pull together in (more or less) the same direction, we cannot expect any real progress.
In such a situation, the bureaucracy, which is entrusted with the task of administering the nation on behalf of the people, is required to keep the national good above their own narrow interests: the position, today, unfortunately is not quite that and unless the bureaucrats are checked and controlled now, they may well become a state within a state and then it will be too late for any corrective measures.
Ranchi
October 1987
