Is our bureaucracy obstructionist?

AMITABHA BHATTACHARYA
Former IAS officer

Pranab Mukherjee has been one political figure whose opinion counts. Therefore, when media reported his indictment of the bureaucracy as being the biggest obstacle to the nation's development and unduly obstructionist, it appeared unusual. The text of his formal address at IIM, Ahmedabad, on November 17, 2018, does not contain such reference and covers a broad spectrum of issues, from health and education to artificial intelligence, internet and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. His harsh comments, even if off the cuff, hit the headlines but, perhaps, deserve to be ignored as mere pandering to populist media. But his formal observation about the bureaucracy requires examination, since he has had more direct experience of its higher echelons than most others. 

Policy & its Implementation

Pranab contends that ‘A good public policy with poor implementation is of no value and significance to society and nation' and that such poor implementation also arises from the fact that the bureaucracy (permanent executive) and other democratic institutions, including the Election Commission and the judiciary, are perceived to be working at cross-purposes. 

He also believes that 'this tendency of isolationism' and lack of coordination and teamwork between various departments and ministries, each thinking in silos, have contributed to poor implementation of well-intended policies.

Most of these criticisms are, to a large extent, valid. These issues have been raised by different administrative reform commissions since the time of Paul H. Appleby in the fifties. Pranab opines that 'the biggest heritage of British system of governance has been bureaucracy', acknowledges that it 'helped us guide our own future procedures and methods of governance' and rightly pleads for the simplification of procedures using modern technology. But he only addresses the symptoms and does not delve deep into the root causes of our governance crisis. Let us see how.

Causes of governance crisis

1. The standard differentiation between policy and implementation is fundamentally flawed. No policy, however noble sounding it may be, can be considered good enough if it is un-implementable. In reality, a policy and its implementation are but a continuum, and in both cases, the elected leaders and selected civil servants play their roles, maintaining a balance. Without due application of mind on implementation issues, policies, drawn up in a hurry, often under political pressure, in order to impress the gullible public are likely to fail, if not meant to do so. But one has witnessed how the bureaucracy rose to the occasion in controlling AIDS, preventing polio and other diseases, pursuing various other national programmes and tackling natural disasters. And what stellar role it performed in liberalising the economy, during India's short tryst with capitalistic ideas, under the enlightened leadership of PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. None of them quarrelled with the tools.
2. Is the country's political leadership serious about sharpening the instruments of governance? Thanks to visionaries and doers like Sardar Patel, all-India services were set up under a specific constitutional provision. Seven decades after the first batch of regular recruits joined, how have they fulfilled the nation's aspirations? As I have argued elsewhere (The Tribune dated September 27, 2018), for the IAS to be truly professional, changes require to be made from the recruitment level itself. The premier service should attract a fair share of the country's best talent, from all the social groups it is composed of. Is any political leader interested in such crucial but vote-neutral issues?
3. Undue political interference has to be minimised. Even if the selection process is modified to attract the brightest, the officers trained frequently and allowed to specialise in broad sectoral areas with the corrupt weeded out ruthlessly — for the governance process to improve, especially at the field level — minimising political interference is an uphill task. No political executive, at the level of chief minister or higher, whose tenure often depends upon the support of legislators, wants to take the risk. As such, we do not have political will where it is needed, but have political meddling where it should be avoided. How an able and conscientious bureaucrat can be summarily removed by a flick of the pen — how a state chief secretary or a GoI secretary can be publicly humiliated if the political superior is displeased — is well known. The rot introduced during the mid-seventies — one recalls how NK Mukarji of the ICS was summarily removed from the post of home secretary — has left an indelible scar on our civil service system. Officers at the senior levels of the government are often all too busy sticking to their positions and ensuring the 'pleasure' of the superior, a few of them writing 'boss-pasand' notes, hoping for life after retirement. Juniors down the line learn their lessons quickly. More than to the Constitution, commitment to the political leadership is unerringly rewarded, leading to systematic decimation of the services.
4. Bureaucracy, thinking in silos, is a concern. This mentality is developed — especially at the middle and lower rungs — by virtue of their working long years in the same department. Officers' perspective gets bound by the departmental budget and schemes. But the IAS was conceived to play a leadership role at the Union and state governments and its members are made to serve in different ministries, so as to have an integrated view of the government. Therefore, it is indefensible for an IAS officer to display any narrow perspective. Whatever it be, lack of inter-departmental coordination does affect governmental initiatives. 

The bureaucracy, on its part, has to accept the responsibility for its failures on many crucial fronts and introspect deeply how its public image, based on performance and conduct, could be brightened. But whether such failures are more on account of being unduly obstructionist or for being collusively servile to political executives remains a moot question.

Since the bureaucracy is a sub-system of the polity, it can be as professional in its working as the limitations, intentional or otherwise, imposed by the political leadership upon it. To reform the bureaucracy in a real sense, leaders at the helm should be statesmanlike and command universal respect. It would require enormous efforts to strengthen the steel frame, but it is all very easy to systematically tamper with it.