Civil servants should go by the rulebook alone

Politics has, unfortunately, come to theatrics, tantrums, rewards and retribution. But these mantras are not for the civil servants to practise. No chief secretary would have thought of skipping an official meeting presided over by the PM while in his own state, because there is nothing more important than that for the chief secretary, and if there is something more important than that, surely the PM knows about it and would prioritise accordingly.

PROTOCOL BREACH: Serious aberrations bordering on delinquency would render well-established hierarchical governance into the worst degree of anarchy. PTI

Sarvesh Kaushal

Former Chief Secretary, Punjab

Hierarchical protocol is the bedrock of governance, and its absence is horrendous anarchy. Respect is a voluntary feeling, but adherence to official protocol is not. Protocol is not a private subject, like an individual’s own choice of the quantum of dignity that he has to accord to his family elders and others. It is the basic minimum dignity and respect that is officially prescribed as a hierarchical mandate upon every civil servant.

The recent controversy involving the West Bengal Chief Secretary, who is the custodian and chief watchdog of protocol adherence in his state, shows that whatever may be the political environment, adversarial and acrimonious by any standards, there was no need for the Chief Secretary to take sides on considerations of personal expediency, and it would have been appropriate to go by the rulebook alone.

No one having even an elementary grounding as an IAS officer can imagine a Chief Secretary and the DGP of the state not receiving the prime minister during his official visits in their respective state, except perhaps in case of being off duty, for example with a crippling physical disability, or a personal tragedy, in which case the officiating Chief Secretary or the officiating DGP has to take over as such, with proper prior intimation.

It is very well in the knowledge of any bureaucrat of the rank of Chief Secretary that for him the PM or the CM, when it comes to adherence to protocol, are well-established institutions and not individuals. A Chief Secretary is the Chief Secretary to the government of a state, and not the Chief Secretary to the CM, much less a chief political secretary to the CM.

A different level of maturity as well as of a detached and uncoloured appreciation of every catch-22 situation is called upon from a civil servant who rises to the post of Chief Secretary. In such situations, despite the proclaimed acrimony between the political bosses in the state and those at the Centre, the Chief Secretary has to play a crucial role in rendering the right advice to the CM about protocol and propriety, rather than facilitate a breach in the reverse of it. The proximity of the Chief Secretary in the day-to-day working with the CM should play a positive role, bringing in the right amount of correction in the prevailing thought process, rather than fuelling acrimonious protocol breaches.

The Chief Secretary is supposed to possess a different level of knowledge, maturity and understanding. Even junior and middle-level field officers are well aware of the fact that as per the SPG security drill, air traffic is curtailed within a certain radius of air space for anyone else when the PM is airborne to his destination, which is why usually all relevant functionaries who have to reach at the same venue by air must essentially land almost one hour before the landing time of the PM. When the PM moves, he naturally has the precedence, and the Chief Secretary and the DGP always plan minute-to-minute movement of the state-level VIPs in such a way that they don’t infringe upon the security restrictions meant for the PM’s safety.

Such excuses like delay caused due to air restrictions do not hold good in knowledgeable administrative circles. It is clear that either the Chief Secretary of West Bengal did not plan as he should have, or he successfully planned a breach of the protocol for whatever considerations he may have had.

Politics has, unfortunately, come to theatrics, tantrums, rewards and retribution. But these mantras are not for the civil servants to practise. No Chief Secretary would have thought of skipping an official meeting presided over by the PM while in his own state, because there is nothing more important than that for the Chief Secretary, and if there is something more important than that, surely the PM knows about it and would, surely, prioritise accordingly.

It is just as no deputy commissioner/ collector/district magistrate in a district would even think of missing a meeting presided over by the CM of a state while travelling to his district.

No one can imagine that when the Chief Justice of India visits the state and presides over an official review meeting of judicial officers, the chief justice of the high court of that state decides to abstain, or when the chief of defence forces visits the command headquarters for a review, the army commander decides to walk out and abstain.

Such serious aberrations bordering on delinquency would render well-established hierarchical governance into the worst degree of anarchy.

The West Bengal imbroglio is case study material for the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. The protocol breach that the West Bengal Chief Secretary has indulged in is, perhaps, the worst of its type by a civil servant heading the civil services in the state.

The issue of invoking punitive provisions of the Disaster Management Act against a state Chief Secretary will, most probably, land up in a court of law, being the first of its type, and will have to justify its tenability. Politically motivated commentary is also likely to shroud the transfer of the West Bengal Chief Secretary to the Union Government, which seems to have been rendered redundant after the retirement of the officer.

But the scars of prima facie professional misconduct may remain for posterity to dwell upon. Sardar Patel envisaged the All India Services as the steel frame, and it will remain so only till its members adhere to the basics of propriety. While the civil servants must go all out to carry out the policies framed by their political bosses in public interest without being egotist obstructionists pulled back by negative energy, it is essential to draw a line and not to fall below the fundamental denominator of an impersonal neutrality in observance of the basic minimum professional standards of the All India Services officers.

If the steel frame becomes kinked due to misplaced personal political alignments or lure of rewards, resulting into pliability in issues requiring righteous firmness expected from the officers, the resultant rot cannot be attributed to other stakeholders, who are too eager to exploit the civil services as tools in their political chess games.