An appeal: of a bureaucrat
- Leena Mehendale,IAS
It is 25 years since I joined the Indian Administrative Service and was allotted to the comparatively happier cadre of Maharashtra. I did my routine postings as any other IAS officer - that of the SDM and DC and the CEO of the Zilla Parishad, the divisional Commissioner, MD of some corporations, and in various departments, getting my chunk of experiences in various sectors, various districts and various levels of administration.
Myself and many others like me felt that with our entry into a high profile service like this, it was possible to achieve something great and substantive for this country - it was only a matter of few more years of experience - may be just one more year and then one would plunge into action for higher and higher achievements taking the country ahead with great strides.
And suddenly at the close of 25 years, it appears that everything is lost, the time is gone past, achievement is as distant as it was on the day one - but this time not because of inexperieence but because of the sudden realisation that something, somewhere has gone wrong. And the wrong is that we have not nurtured any collective goal or any collective vision for the country.
I have often heard it said as a panacea that if each one of us did one’s job properly, we would be a great nation. Is that true? Which one of us has not worked well in her/his job? Ask anyone if one was successful in one’s job. The anwer will be a chorus of yes-always, because while answering this, each one is thinking of the glorious self assessment one is going to write for oneself at the end of the year. Our self assessment reports ask five questions - what was your post, what was the job chart, what did you perform against it, what were special achievements, what were reasons for non-achievement. What perhaps, should be asked is, what do you consider as the goal for the country! What is your organisation’s goal and how does it fit into country’s goal? What is your achievement, how does it fulfil the goal of your organisation and the goal for the country. Perhaps then some collective vision and goal for the country can be developed.
If I think that with my 25 years of service, not much has been achieved for the country, I am not alone in this critical assessment. I am aware that many officers of my age group have similar feeling. With 8 to 12 years of service ahead of us, it is time to consider if we can pin point some key factors that led to this situation. What are the failures, if we may say so, of the IAS, the bureaucracy and the government? Two prominent points emerge - non-clarity of goal and imbalance in the two wheels of the chariot.
The IAS as a generalist service has not been able to achieve many important goals - it has not been able to coordinate among various sectors, thus failing to provide integrated approach to sectoral developments. The IAS officers who put a natural claim on expertise in public administration have miserably failed to mould the administration and to simplify the labyrinth of bureaucratic rules to reflect the public aspirations. The skill of administration lies in three fold capacity - to provide a standard, uniform, convenient system for nearly eighty percent public who fall in the middle range of the curve, provide special rules and systems for those who are lagging behinf and provide fast track for those who are geneus. Secondly, every system needs systemic corrections from time to time. Both these skills have not been learnt or implemented.
It is strange that whereas management skills have become more and more necessary in industries, the generalist service of IAS which also deals with management has become less and less popular. Individual success can still be seem as in case of Seshan, (Ex-Election Commissioner) or Chandrashekhar, (the present Municipal Commissioner of Thane). But these are successes over a limited issue and over a limited time span. They do not bring success for the country as such. It is like the present world cup cricket - with highest number of centuries by Indian batsmen and the higherst number of wickets by Indian bowlers, the two have not been converted into highest number of team victories for India.
What is the failure of bureaucracy as such? It is often said that bureaucracy and political leadership are like two wheels of the chariet. One wing provides continuity or stability - the other wing provides for the aspirations of people and thus progress. Over the years bureaucrats have abdicted their authority and their responsibility. They have surrendered to the vagaries of individual political bosses. Again what is forgotton is that an individual bureauctat must also know and understand people’s aspirations, and provide ways and means to achieve the same, even though people may not be expressing these through him. Similarly any good political administrtor must know and understand the system, what rules provide and which rules need systemic modifications in accordance with people’s needs and aspirations. They also must understand what rules & systems need to be guarded so that country’s resources are not squandered away. Both the bureaucrats and the politicians have taken very segmented view of their role & their job. Bureaucrats have not been able to convince anyone why a system is good because they have not learned to dispense with the unnecessary rigidities of the system, which are bound to crop up with passage of time.
Where has administration as a whole failed? Again it is a case of imbalance of two wheels of the chariot. In our country of hundred crore people, the administration is really run by a handful of about thousand people (the ratio comes to one per million). These are both the political and the bureaucratic administrators. They decide a whole lot of things for the people. However, together they represent only one wheel. The second wheel it the small small initiatives taken at thousands of places in different of sections of the society. It is these small initiatives by ordinary citizens, or the common man which takes the country ahead (or, by absence, pull it back). The government has not been able to sufficiently encourage, facilitate, promote, sustain or respect these initiatives. Taking advantage or using them in the planning process is a still farther vision. To allow their prticipation in deciding the country’s vision is almost unthinkable.
Let us use all our channels of communication - the notice boards of our offices, the newspapers, the TV channels, the internet, the innumerable govt. ceremonies, the one page advertisements and so on and start stating the five important objectives as visions for our country. Let these visions be shared and let us see if it is possible to generate a commonality of vision and then work for it. I start by stating my five goals as-
· That the women should be able to walk anywhere with no fear or apology for being a women.
· Vocational education for every child so that the child is able to stand on own if & when needed.
· That country achieves excellence in Arts, Science, Technology Industry etc.
· That we are able to preserve our bio-diversity and cultural unity.
· Let there be Peace, Truth and good governance.
It is only when more people join each others efforts for their goals with the good results for the society or the country will be shown. Hence, I appeal to all the IAS, all the bureaucracy, all the members of government and of the public to work out a common vision and a common agenda of action.
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