This post is in response to a comment i saw on a friend's blog. The blog was an unbiased scrutiny of the indian polity and the "i am helpless" attitude of indians. The gist of the comment was something like this-- "Have u seen yes prime minister.. That ll give you an indication of how much power the politicians truly have"...
My first response was one of mirth... I cudnt fathom the rationale of a man comparing the exaggerations in a satirical with the real world... I quickly concluded tat he must be a post modern junkie, belonging to the burger-pizza-coke generation, who is so hooked up on serials tat to him they represent reality more than newspapers n history books...
But further reflection showed tat his views are not at all isolated... Majority of the Indians see the civil servants as a bunch of corrupt, self indulgent n irresponsible bourgeois, in spite of the fact tat they are among the best brains in the country... The politicians play their part to perfection in propagating this image by blaming the officials for every failure of the government... This throws up a couple of questions:
If the officials are responsible for every failure then they must also be the ones behind every success of the government... How come the credit of success is always given to the ministers while every failure is the result of an erring official???
How can officials be blamed for govt policies??? The policies are drafted by the cabinet, the officials are responsible only for implementing them... As such the failure of the policies must be seen as lack of foresight on the part of the govt; the only blame tat can be leveled against the officials is in the delay of implementing the plans... But then bureaucratic red-tape is a well accepted drawback inherent in ne such system...
It is true tat the politicians depend heavily on officials nd take thr advices... This is natural considering the educational qualifications most politicians but these advices are in no way binding... We have so many instances of ministers doing a volte-face blaming only officials for actions which whr started by them... Take the cases in this govts tenure:
The major one was the Munnar eviction drive spearheaded by chief minister's man friday... When things started gettin messy the chief-minister washed his hands off the whole affair... The leader of the team is yet to be given a new post...
The second member of the team got transfered twice after tat once for implicating the kin of the PWD minister (the second one) on a dubious land deal...
The resignation of the former chief secretary resulted from the govt tryin to blame her for their failures... The merchiston land deal n the HMT land deal has both been blamed on the officials...
One final case is tat of valarpadom evicts... The police used force to remove people from their homes... The CM later explained it as the actions of the collector in response to the remarks of PM's principal secretary...
These are very few of the cases that comes immediately to memory... From the time of our independence officials have been made the sacrificial lambs to cover up the failures of the govt... The simple reason is that the politicians need to face the public every five years for elections... To win they need to blame someone else for the miseries of the people... When you are in the opposition u blame the govt; when you are the govt u blame the officials... The officials, on the other hand, neither has to face elections nor do they ve the right to speak out... So ve never learn both sides of the story...
I am in no way tryin to justify the bureaucracy... The system in our country is highly inefficient... The stranglehold of politicians on officials is just one reason... The concept of a bourgeois bureaucracy is however outdated... It was applicable to the Vice-Roys who ruled our country on behalf of her imperial majesty the Queen of England {I love sayin it :)}... What we have now is a complacent bureaucracy, which is happy to neglect the well being of the citizens as long as they can secure their posts by serving their political masters..........
My first response was one of mirth... I cudnt fathom the rationale of a man comparing the exaggerations in a satirical with the real world... I quickly concluded tat he must be a post modern junkie, belonging to the burger-pizza-coke generation, who is so hooked up on serials tat to him they represent reality more than newspapers n history books...
But further reflection showed tat his views are not at all isolated... Majority of the Indians see the civil servants as a bunch of corrupt, self indulgent n irresponsible bourgeois, in spite of the fact tat they are among the best brains in the country... The politicians play their part to perfection in propagating this image by blaming the officials for every failure of the government... This throws up a couple of questions:
If the officials are responsible for every failure then they must also be the ones behind every success of the government... How come the credit of success is always given to the ministers while every failure is the result of an erring official???
How can officials be blamed for govt policies??? The policies are drafted by the cabinet, the officials are responsible only for implementing them... As such the failure of the policies must be seen as lack of foresight on the part of the govt; the only blame tat can be leveled against the officials is in the delay of implementing the plans... But then bureaucratic red-tape is a well accepted drawback inherent in ne such system...
It is true tat the politicians depend heavily on officials nd take thr advices... This is natural considering the educational qualifications most politicians but these advices are in no way binding... We have so many instances of ministers doing a volte-face blaming only officials for actions which whr started by them... Take the cases in this govts tenure:
The major one was the Munnar eviction drive spearheaded by chief minister's man friday... When things started gettin messy the chief-minister washed his hands off the whole affair... The leader of the team is yet to be given a new post...
The second member of the team got transfered twice after tat once for implicating the kin of the PWD minister (the second one) on a dubious land deal...
The resignation of the former chief secretary resulted from the govt tryin to blame her for their failures... The merchiston land deal n the HMT land deal has both been blamed on the officials...
One final case is tat of valarpadom evicts... The police used force to remove people from their homes... The CM later explained it as the actions of the collector in response to the remarks of PM's principal secretary...
These are very few of the cases that comes immediately to memory... From the time of our independence officials have been made the sacrificial lambs to cover up the failures of the govt... The simple reason is that the politicians need to face the public every five years for elections... To win they need to blame someone else for the miseries of the people... When you are in the opposition u blame the govt; when you are the govt u blame the officials... The officials, on the other hand, neither has to face elections nor do they ve the right to speak out... So ve never learn both sides of the story...
I am in no way tryin to justify the bureaucracy... The system in our country is highly inefficient... The stranglehold of politicians on officials is just one reason... The concept of a bourgeois bureaucracy is however outdated... It was applicable to the Vice-Roys who ruled our country on behalf of her imperial majesty the Queen of England {I love sayin it :)}... What we have now is a complacent bureaucracy, which is happy to neglect the well being of the citizens as long as they can secure their posts by serving their political masters..........
3 comments:
You deleted my comment..Why? :-o
no i dint delete ur comment.... it may not have been uploaded....
Evidonnum ile? :)
Quest
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