Civil Service Reforms in INDIA

The argument that the IAS serves to promote the unity and integrity of the Indian nation, transcending cleavages and differences which form the basis for states’ identities, seems much less convincing in the contemporary situation than it might have been at Independence. The contribution of the All-India Services to cementing or safeguarding the Union cannot be reckoned as crucial, compared with the historical, political and cultural factors which make Indians feel that they belong to the same nation, whatever their differences. The efforts to make the higher civil service more representative through reservations are limited to a purely quantitative approach to national integration, and do not transcend the social, religious and ethnic cleavages that divide Indian society. How could an elite administration itself affected by casteism, communalism and regionalism offer the perspective of a collective quest for common goals? Vertical solidarity between bureaucrats and politicians seems to prevail over the horizontal solidarity of a composite body of IAS officers, who align themselves with political parties on a caste basis, or simply for opportunist motives of career advancement.

Some upright IAS officers resist this trend, but they cannot alone change a system which victimizes them through harassment and pressures from local politicians, frequent punitive transfers and threats to their families. To put an end to this abuse of power, the current Manmohan Singh government has decided to limit the prerogatives of Chief Ministers with regard to All-India civil servants. But in a democratic set-up, politicians will continue to be at the helm of affairs. If they do not find political incentives in reforming public service institutions towards achieving good governance, any alternative institution, however well designed in theory, is likely to face similar pressures.

That is why the abolition of the All-India Services, which have not proved efficient in fulfilling national integration policies, does not constitute a solution in itself. It would lead to the preeminence of the State Civil Services, which are considered to be even more parochial in outlook. Reforming the IAS is neither an easy task. Successive commissions for administrative reforms have submitted reports and recommendations over the years, without bringing any fundamental change to the institution. The IAS officers form a powerful lobby at the national level, and they will certainly resist any proposal that threatens their position, even when the objective is to make them more accountable to the public, especially by removing the constitutional protection given to them. The officers who fail in their mission of public service, the openly corrupt, the partisan, still enjoy the security of tenure guaranteed to them by the Constitution, which makes their dismissal very difficult.

The elitist character of the higher civil service was supposed to ensure the probity of its members and to put them above special interests. But today some Indian commentators admit that ‘we have been expecting too much from the bureaucracy because it was elitist. Elitism is not synonymous with neutralism or with fair play (Venkataratnam 2005). The partisanship of high-level civil servants goes against their mission of national integration. If nothing is done to increase the effectiveness of the IAS as a binding force of the country, and if, instead of contributing to national unity, its members deepen even more the existing social cleavages by their partiality, then the whole institution loses its raison d’être.

Posted in: About IAS