Despite these momentous changes, the attitude of civil servants does not seem to have
changed at all. This is because the civil servants still believe in the Hegelian prescription that
they represent the universal interest of the society. Hegel argued that the most important
institution in the state was the bureaucracy which represented “the absolutely universal
interests of the state proper”. To Hegel, the bureaucracy was a transcendent entity, a mind
above individual minds. He regarded the bureaucracy as the universal class, synthesizing
the particularism of the civil society with the general interests of the state. For Hegel, the
exercise of power by the bureaucracy was a mission sanctioned by God.
Nehru in his book Glimpses of world history remarks that the indian civil service is neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service. Why such scathing remarks chacha ji. But wait here is what her daughter for whom the book was made said."B'cy is the biggest obstacle to development"
The ICS men were trusted agents of the British Government even though there were
also many patriots among them. The ICS was the instrument of the imperial power, and
the leaders of the Indian National Congress had made it clear during their struggle for
independence that they wanted to abolish the ICS and all it stood for. Jawaharlal Nehru
was ‘quite sure’ in 1934 that ‘no new order can be built in India so long as the spirit of the
Indian Civil Service pervades our administration and our public services’, it being therefore
‘essential that the ICS and similar services must disappear completely’. Yet in the years
afterwards the ICS tradition not only survived, it prospered. In the spring of 1964, Nehru
was asked at a private meeting by some friends what he considered to be his greatest failure
as India’s first Prime Minister. He reportedly replied, ‘I could not change the administration,
it is still a colonial administration’. Nehru then went on to elaborate his belief that the
continuation of that colonial administration ‘was one of the main causes of India’s inability
to solve the problem of poverty’.
In her convocation address to the University of Roorkee in November 1967, she noted
that, “Administrators sometimes lag behind the situations they are supposed to administer.
If a large proportion of the investment we have made under the plans remains unutilised,
the cause is to be found in administrative shortcomings”.
It is ironical that there has been no sincere attempt to restructure the civil service
although more than six hundred committees and commissions have looked into different
aspects of public administration in the country. Rather, the Indian reform effort has been
unfailingly conservative, with limited impact. While there has been some improvement in
civil service recruitment and training procedures, other incremental reform measures such as
O&M, vigilance committees and commissions, citizens’ grievance organisations, Whitleyism,
manpower planning, and the institutions of Lok Ayukta have achieved very little. Civil
service reform in India has neither enhanced the efficiency nor the accountability of the civil
service in any meaningful manner. As S.R.Maheshwari commented, India’s efforts at reform
have amounted to ‘correction slips to the inherited administrative system’. Maheshwari was
being charitable. The Indian civil service reform efforts were not even correction slips – they
were more in the nature of endorsement slips.
That is why the civil service has to change. But not in the incrementalist manner that
barely touches the basic structure. It has to be a total change, a thorough transformation,
a metamorphosis. It has to be like Avtaras in the Hindu Pantheon, in which a new Avtara
v
takes its form afresh without any correspondence to the persona of its predecessor. For such
a transformation to take place, the old structure has to fall away and the new one created; as
Pablo Picasso said, ‘unless you destroy, you cannot create’. It is like Rajiv Gandhi destroying
the old shibboleths before ushering in modernity or like Manmohan Singh burying the old
system before ringing in the new economic order. There was no continuity, not even the
faint hint of a compromise. The change in the civil service has to be equally transformative:
uncompromising and a clean rupture with the past.
I am encouraged by the fact that transformative structural changes are taking place in
civil service systems across the world. Particularly transformative are the changes brought
about in Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New
Zealand, with whom we have shared a common ancestry of civil service traditions, mores
and structures. The changes in these countries have been brought about in response to the
demand that the civil service should be fully accountable to the community they serve,
reflect the hopes and aspirations of the citizens who pay for its upkeep and be responsive
to democratic ethos.
changed at all. This is because the civil servants still believe in the Hegelian prescription that
they represent the universal interest of the society. Hegel argued that the most important
institution in the state was the bureaucracy which represented “the absolutely universal
interests of the state proper”. To Hegel, the bureaucracy was a transcendent entity, a mind
above individual minds. He regarded the bureaucracy as the universal class, synthesizing
the particularism of the civil society with the general interests of the state. For Hegel, the
exercise of power by the bureaucracy was a mission sanctioned by God.
Nehru in his book Glimpses of world history remarks that the indian civil service is neither Indian, nor civil, nor a service. Why such scathing remarks chacha ji. But wait here is what her daughter for whom the book was made said."B'cy is the biggest obstacle to development"
The ICS men were trusted agents of the British Government even though there were
also many patriots among them. The ICS was the instrument of the imperial power, and
the leaders of the Indian National Congress had made it clear during their struggle for
independence that they wanted to abolish the ICS and all it stood for. Jawaharlal Nehru
was ‘quite sure’ in 1934 that ‘no new order can be built in India so long as the spirit of the
Indian Civil Service pervades our administration and our public services’, it being therefore
‘essential that the ICS and similar services must disappear completely’. Yet in the years
afterwards the ICS tradition not only survived, it prospered. In the spring of 1964, Nehru
was asked at a private meeting by some friends what he considered to be his greatest failure
as India’s first Prime Minister. He reportedly replied, ‘I could not change the administration,
it is still a colonial administration’. Nehru then went on to elaborate his belief that the
continuation of that colonial administration ‘was one of the main causes of India’s inability
to solve the problem of poverty’.
In her convocation address to the University of Roorkee in November 1967, she noted
that, “Administrators sometimes lag behind the situations they are supposed to administer.
If a large proportion of the investment we have made under the plans remains unutilised,
the cause is to be found in administrative shortcomings”.
It is ironical that there has been no sincere attempt to restructure the civil service
although more than six hundred committees and commissions have looked into different
aspects of public administration in the country. Rather, the Indian reform effort has been
unfailingly conservative, with limited impact. While there has been some improvement in
civil service recruitment and training procedures, other incremental reform measures such as
O&M, vigilance committees and commissions, citizens’ grievance organisations, Whitleyism,
manpower planning, and the institutions of Lok Ayukta have achieved very little. Civil
service reform in India has neither enhanced the efficiency nor the accountability of the civil
service in any meaningful manner. As S.R.Maheshwari commented, India’s efforts at reform
have amounted to ‘correction slips to the inherited administrative system’. Maheshwari was
being charitable. The Indian civil service reform efforts were not even correction slips – they
were more in the nature of endorsement slips.
That is why the civil service has to change. But not in the incrementalist manner that
barely touches the basic structure. It has to be a total change, a thorough transformation,
a metamorphosis. It has to be like Avtaras in the Hindu Pantheon, in which a new Avtara
v
takes its form afresh without any correspondence to the persona of its predecessor. For such
a transformation to take place, the old structure has to fall away and the new one created; as
Pablo Picasso said, ‘unless you destroy, you cannot create’. It is like Rajiv Gandhi destroying
the old shibboleths before ushering in modernity or like Manmohan Singh burying the old
system before ringing in the new economic order. There was no continuity, not even the
faint hint of a compromise. The change in the civil service has to be equally transformative:
uncompromising and a clean rupture with the past.
I am encouraged by the fact that transformative structural changes are taking place in
civil service systems across the world. Particularly transformative are the changes brought
about in Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New
Zealand, with whom we have shared a common ancestry of civil service traditions, mores
and structures. The changes in these countries have been brought about in response to the
demand that the civil service should be fully accountable to the community they serve,
reflect the hopes and aspirations of the citizens who pay for its upkeep and be responsive
to democratic ethos.
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