Reforming the Indian Bureaucracy

Reforming the Indian Bureaucracy
Saumitra Mohan

India’s first Prime Minister Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru had once confessed that the failure to reform the civil services was among his greatest regrets. So, after the findings of the Civil Services Reforms Committee including Mr. T.K.A. Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and Mr. B.K. Chaturvedi, Cabinet Secretary, were made public recently, a debate has been raging for the past few days as to how to how to bell and tame the intractable and much-maligned bureaucracy cat. Copious volumes and reams of papers have been wasted over sundry proposals to reform the bureaucracy without anything concrete still being in sight. Reform definitely do we need but whether we need it of the kind being suggested is a moot point. But before we get down to discuss the proposal threadbare, it is more than advisable to first get down to the brass-tacks and discuss the proposal itself.

In a high-tech age, the idea of specialization surely has an irresistible attraction and as the philosopher Goethe would have said that bureaucratic reform is definitely an idea whose time has come. At least, that is what it feels like given the zeal of the UPA govt. to overhaul the steel frame of the hoary Indian bureaucracy whose functioning, it is often said, is shrouded in mystery. So, if the suggested bouquet of proposals, based on the French model, fructifies, aspirants to the civil services will be put through a specialized, hold-all course instead of banking on tutorial classes for familiarization, the long-term objective being professionalisation of governance instead of approaching it in an ad hoc manner. By reducing the eligibility criteria to class XII level, the proposal envisages holding the all-India entrance examination for central civil services on the pattern of the National Defense Academy, medical and law colleges and IITs. But passing the entrance will not be a guarantee of making it to the civil services.

Students who pass the entrance would join a national academy for a five-year course. At the end of three years, all students who complete the course would get a graduate degree. But only 90 per cent would be given service allotments on the basis of their performance; the remaining 10 per cent at the bottom of the merit list would have to quit. Candidates who get service allotments can then go in for a two-year service-specific professional course designed for the requirements of the service concerned. This course would lead to a degree equivalent to an MBA degree but the government would reserve the right to drop students who ‘are not found good enough’ and those who are not able to cross the set efficiency bar. These students ‘can go out into the market with their MBA-equivalent degrees.’

The proposals being too radical, they have been put in the public domain for a wider and healthy debate. Similar sets of proposals were suggested by Economic Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Mr. L.K. Jha way back in 1982. The Y.K. Alagh Committee had also come forward with many proposals to reform the bureaucracy including the advisability to bring down the age of aspirants to the civil services.

If one takes a peek at the articles and research papers on various socio-economic issues published in national broadsheets and magazines, it does seem that the underdevelopment and other ills that ail this country stem from the various maladies afflicting the Indian bureaucracy and it the prime suspect along with our political class for India not taking off the way it should have like many other contemporary fellow travellers who started their developmental odyssey with us. But because of many ills including the one emanating from our Frankensteinian bureaucracy, India seems to have got stuck in a developmental time warp. Now the point is is that really so? Have we verily lost so much because of this behemoth, the formidable steel-frame bequeathed to us by the Raj when it departed from this country? There was a Hegel, the celebrated German philosopher, who had said that history has its own logic and inherent dialectical force whereby it allows evolution to proceed through the resolution into a synthesis of thesis and anti-thesis and howsoever may one strive, one can not change it as the inherent constraints and logic of a system have already pre-decided the way evolution would chart its course. Karl Marx based his entire expostulations on scientific communism on Hegel’s dialectical materialism but today Marx and Marxism both are maligned words. After all, if everything was really as pre-ordained and pre-decided then we would not have had all this complex life style filled with modern gadgetry and innovations dashed with scientific temper which have come forth due to incessant human innovations and efforts to better the human life . Man has always lusted for better and striven in that direction successfully notwithstanding many hitches and glitches en route. But as they say, those who do not learn from history are foredoomed to repeat it. So, instead of being consigned to the soiled history pages by being its part, it is often advisable to make history, blaze new trail and chart new course while treading cautiously on the sands of time and taking many a leaves out of the history tomes.

No doubt, bureaucracy is to blame to some extent along with other usual suspects for many of our problems .But no good student of Indian developmental history would and should deny the credit that Indian bureaucracy deserves. True, many of our time twins have surpassed us in the developmental rat race but is not it also true that many of them have also fallen by the wayside and are almost in tatters. We always look at the successful to criticize and despise our own developmental processes and achievements without also looking at and comprehending the various inherent constraints India is burdened with. Comparing the incomparable is never advisable. Look at Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and many other countries in Africa and Latin America and then we can better appreciate our own achievements. We were fortunate in not only having some selfless, dedicated and committed leaders at the helm at the time of our independence who led us successfully through the many initial teething troubles but we were also fortunate in having this strong institution of Indian bureaucracy which proved to be a great asset, something lacked by many.

I would say given the multilayered complexities of Indian societies, Indian bureaucracy has done pretty well and our development would not and could not have been any different than it has been. Development proceeds as per the logic and genius of the time and place. One can only tinker with it without any avail. Now is one sounding pessimistic and trying to justify the many wrongs committed in the past. The answer is yes and no. Yes because it could have been worse and no because one still has a rainbow future to be built on based on the lessons learnt from those wrongs and mistakes. And that is why the bureaucracy which is said to be so far hiding in a cocoon is itself been frantically trying to come out of it responding again to the logic and genius of time and place which have changed a lot by now. So, you have a slew of initiatives being taken right since the early nineties of the last century to reform the bureaucracy to make its functioning simpler, transparent, accessible and effective. Hence, the concept of a Facilitator Bureaucracy than that of a Provider Bureaucracy intoxicated with the opium of power and consequent feudal obeisance.

While the corruption stems from an uninspiring reward structure compared to what is obtainable in the private sector, the dreaded politico-bureaucratic nexus is predicated on the crucial lever of control given to the elected political class, something which was highly recommended by the German thinker Max Weber. While it is definitely no argument that a poor reward structure and political control resulting in indiscriminate and demoralizing transfers should lead the bureaucracy to justify its sins but is also true that many of us have actually yielded to our carnal desires and hedonistic urges. Here, one would say that a society gets what it deserves. Bureaucracy can not but be a reflection of the society it comes out of and our society so far being someone which puts a lot of value on such menial achievements and on power, many of us enter the service with a misplaced notion of minting money rather than serving the society to which they owe a lot and which has reposed a trust in them by giving them responsibility of bettering the lives of its members. So as the value system of our society changes, so is changing the way people perceive the power and the bureaucracy. Some members of the bureaucracy, hidden behind the veil of Official Secrets Acts and such information which was not so far available to the people, so far could get away with many of their acts of omissions and commissions but no longer so. Not only is there a Right to Information in the offing but there is also a much conscientised civil society ably assisted by a vibrant media and multiple interest groups which have put paid to the continuation of the lordly way in which the bureaucracy has functioned so far. Hence, the need for reform in bureaucracy and reform in the outlook of the people towards the bureaucracy.

As for the recent set of proposals, one feels that the reduction in the age limit is something, which should be seriously pondered over. Having an entrance for civil services at the undergraduate level would not only compromise the future of the innumerable students who have been painstakingly preparing for the present civil services examination but would also have an in-built elitist tinge to it because given the state and standard of our government schools that would mean that only those students who have had a good education in English-medium convent schools and a good family background would have an edge and upper hand in such an examination. Our society where an overwhelming majority is backward and underprivileged still lacks the motivational capital required for making it big in such services as well as the value attached to education itself. So there are many students who are not aware of the many career opportunities available while at undergraduate level and not decided as to what would they do for their career. Their poor and unenlightened family background being another handicap. So such students would actually lose out to the students with good family background resulting in better motivational capital and better schooling. But such underprivileged students have been making do with their hard labour later in life as and when they graduate further in life and education. That is why; one feels that unless and until we are able to provide good school opportunities with reasonable good quality education for all, it is not advisable to lower the age bar. A recent study shows that the social profile of the people selected to civil services in recent times has been heavily in favour of the people from the rural and underprivileged India which is, indeed, a positive sign as that is more reflective of our society than it has been so far. People from such background can better appreciate the various problems of our country than those from comfortable backgrounds.


There is much that is positive in the proposals. Professionalisation in any sphere, indubitably, leads to efficiency and accountability. But it needs to be asked what kind of professionalism is needed for which kind of work and how early such professional training should begin. There is much to be said for broad-based general education up to the early twenties, especially since there are numerous young people who do not always know their own minds or cannot assess their aptitudes until they have matured into graduation stage. Administration especially requires a large fund of general understanding. To have a specialized entrance test would also devalue the school-leaving examination; instead of ensuring that it comes up to scratch, this merely introduces a new set of papers to sit for. In fact, we also need to think as to whether moulding our civil service on the pattern of IITs and IIMs is advisable or not just because the entrants to these institutes are said to be efficient and are said to be doing better in their respective profession? We also need to ask as to whether being an efficient executive in a multi-national company or a successful business house is the same as being an efficient civil servant? Are efficiency and profitability the only quality we are looking for in a civil servant, more so in a welfare state like ours?


Should the new system be introduced, it would preempt the civil service from availing the services and talent of all students of specialized disciplines like medicine and engineering as they have to decide right in the beginning as to where do they wish to go, civil services or specialized vocations and once they decide they would have no scope to come back. The truth is still a lot of young people at undergraduate level decide their career on the basis of the suggestions of their elders rather than on their own. While no one is suggesting that the career suggested by elders would be wrong but quite often that may not be the career that they actually wish to go in and that is why today many students from medicine and engineering background are entering the civil services. Once the new system is in place, we would have no way to avail of their services. If country’s administration has to be manned by the best and the brilliant from the country, avenues should be open for talent from all around to enter the civil services. So, thought should also be given to some sort of lateral entry in the civil services at certain levels. The attempt should be to widen the pool of the best and the talented from across the country whose services could be availed for manning the high bureaucratic posts as the army recruitment system in our own country does accepting recruits at various age levels and at various stages. The allegation that the entry of doctors and engineers into civil services mean wastage of resources spent on them. This argument is not very well taken because if the idea is to have the best and the brilliant into the civil services then they should also be welcome as they have proved themselves to be best in their area of selection. The argument that their specialized training is wasted in civil service is also not well-founded as today such specialized training comes very handy at various levels of development. More than that, their success in their specialized field proves that their aptitude and quality for excellence and determination to succeed something they would like to replicate in their new profession of choice.

Also, while discussing the reforms in bureaucracy, we often forget that administration is not simply All India Services or other Class-I services. It is, in fact, the entire machinery of the government at political level, the senior decision-making level and the implementation level. It is not only the District Magistrate at the district level but also the Patwari, the Tehsildar, The Revenue Officer, the Head Clerk, the policeman, the teacher of the government-run school, the doctor in the primary health centre and various elected officials of the panchayati raj institutions. So, it is not only the Secretary, the Joint Secretary and various senior officials but also the section heads, assistants, accountants, auditors, inspector, ticket-checkers, constables and all those at the lower rungs of the bureaucracy whose role is more crucial as it is the latter who come to contact with the hoi polloi on day to day basis. At many places, it has often come to be seen that even though the senior officials are quite honest, it is the lower rung staff which has worsened situation. Here, we would have to think of the whys and wherefores of their negative acts including the various ways to provide them a good career and incentive structure, something which is very much lacking in our system. A motor vehicle section of the government sending ten crores is as equally treated as one sending ten lakhs.

In fine, one feels that merely tinkering with bureaucracy would be of no avail unless and until we do the same for the whole society and the system at various level. If we really wish to translate to goals of the welfare state that India is, we need reforms at ever level, from top to bottom with better incentive and monitoring structure backed by a sound education and value system. More than that we need a conscientised civil society ably assisted by the Fourth Estate to bring about the kind of social revolution and economic revolution which are still pending after the success of our political revolution resulting in the establishment of a democratic government. Now even that democracy’s democratism is often questioned. So, you need a free and true democracy where a conscientised civil society makes informed choices about their elected representative wherefor there is a need of a well-oiled education system backed by a positive value system and a sound top-to-bottom bureaucratic and political structure with proper incentives and an effective system of checks and balances.


*Saumitra Mohan is an Indian Administrative Service officer and presently working as Sub-Divisional Officer, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal.

Address for correspondence: Saumitra Mohan, IAS, SDO, Alipurduar, PO- Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri-736101.
E-mail: saumitra_mohan@hotmail.com.
Phone: 09434242283/03564-255188/03564-256391.