Category Archives: IAS

Is there a conscious design to the IAS?

Amitabh Pande, a 1971-batch officer of IAS, wrote an article in India Today titled “IAS design conducive to graft” on 17 June 2011. Mr. Pande argues that there are three types of entrants in the service: firstly those who are fluent speakers of English by virtue of being exposed to it from birth by their elite parents; secondly, those that learn the language by dint of perseverance and hard work, and whose parents are middle level officers mainly from the service sectors; thirdly, the others who have a love-hate relationship with the English language, and who are more comfortable with their vernaculars, and as a corollary, are more comfortable in the rough and tumble with the local politics. Of course, Mr. Pande’s arguments are very detailed and nuanced, and this succinct reproduction of his points are for the purpose of recounting only.

Later on in his article, Mr. Pande says that the each of these categories have shown different kinds of corrupt tendencies that essentially draw on their upbringing and their natural or native bias. Thus, the vernacular group finds itself comfortable in the hoi polloi of local politics and politicians. This group

rarely sought careers in the central government, saw little benefit in acquiring specialised technical and professional skills, and had very close relationships with provincial political satraps and local traders and contractors ( forests, mines, liquor, cement, kerosene, civil works). All of them displayed a tremendous appetite for acquiring landed property. The economic profiles of most changed dramatically between the beginning and the end of their careers.

On the contrary, the second and first group would be more comfortable in more ‘white collar’ instances of discretionary corruption that can be easily performed from the cooler confines of their rooms. Also in contrast, these bureaucrats would essentially flock with their own kind of politicians – those that have had culturally and intellectually similar upbringings.

Mr. Pande’s tri-partite distribution of bureaucrats makes for interesting reading. I am presuming his thesis is based on anecdotal evidence over his very long service career. And that is a very important type of evidence gathering. Unfortunately, it would be practically impossible to get survey-based evidence, except perception based survey among a peer-group.

However, when Mr. Pande ventures to the issue of the design of the IAS, he seems to be making a claim that can hardly be substantiated. He says that

[a] major part of the problem in the IAS stems from an inherent design flaw. The architecture of the IAS was consciously drawn from the ICS and it was premised on a social and cultural distance between administration and civil society on the one hand and between the political executive and the civil servant on the other. It was self- consciously elitist and relied on creating a kind of Brahmanical mandarinate which was specifically groomed for the task of governance. The critical mass had to consist of people who shared a certain cultural ethos.

Such a design was obviously at variance with the rough and tumble of the Indian democracy where Realpolitik was increasingly emerging as the only ‘ Real’ Politics.

Instead of redesigning the architecture appropriately to the changing socio- political context, the IAS was sought to be retrofitted by tinkering with its basic design.

In other words, Mr. Pande thinks that the IAS suffers from the following design flaws: firstly, that IAS inherits the colonial DNA of the ICS with the master syndrome fairly ingrained in its mind; secondly, that no conscious or strident efforts were made to change this DNA; thirdly that what was done was a kind of ‘retro-fitting’, meaning that only odds and pieces of this integrally faulty machine were replaced.

This is a very old analysis of the civil services we have today. Unfortunately, it has not been made clear as to what are the alternatives. A bureaucracy in most countries refers to  career civil service, almost always selected on the basis of objective, transparent and open competitive process. Even if there is no ostensible exam as a selection criteria, there is a selection mechanism that tries to arrive at the best possible candidates for manning the service. The nature of the tenure – contractual or permanent – is a minor matter of detail. What is essential, however, is the attempt to find the best persons through an open process that is not restricted to any particular section of the society.

India has been a democracy ever since Independence. And it has always selected its bureaucrats on a democratic principle (except those that directly came from the ICS, who were automatically inducted into the IAS based on their experience) – the principle that every citizen of the nation shall have equal access to and equal opportunity to be selected into the civil service – in fact, even citizens of Nepal and subjects of Bhutan can appear for the civil service in India. Measures of positive discrimination have been used – liked relaxed selection norms and reservation. But these practices of discrimination are included to increase the level playing field, rather than to dislodge it. The pattern of exams have been changed from time to time – and each change has helped some people and caused problems to certain others. For instance, there were huge protests against the change in the exam pattern in 2011. Regardless of the politics or the insinuations of conspiracies behind these changes, the exam always affords an open platform of selection to all.

Thus, it is difficult to find any justification given in the reasoning that the pattern of selection is elitist, or that it is not in sync with the democratic spirit of India. With each passing year, more an more candidates are appearing from all geographic area – and also getting selected.

eGovernance in District Administration

Somehow the idea that you are not out of school never leaves you. So many attachments to cover. So many assignments to send in time. So many things to do….so this…so that. This present essay, titled ‘eGovernance in District Administration’ is a miserable fallout of one such endeavour, where I have tried to analyse some aspects of our District Administration. I shall quote from the ending paragraph of this essay, which shall also function as an introduction:

eGovernance proper starts with a proper understanding of its need. It shall be found in many places that computerization is being mistaken for eGovernance. There is no difference between MS Word and Godrej Prima unless you add an email engine. MS Word is the digitisation part; email engine is the System process reengineering part – the first is just cosmetic without the latter.

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This is also the right place to give a definition of eGovernance so that one can appreciate what I am writing on:

eGovernance is the use of electronic and computing media connected through a networked architecture to, primarily, better perform traditional government functions, and secondarily, to perform those functions of modern governance that could not have been achieved otherwise in the tradition format.

Just in case you are wondering, this is my definition, and you won’t find it anywhere else. Hope it helps. You can read this full essay here.

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Vibhishan’s Burden

The White Man’s Burden

Vibhishan’s Burden :

A poem in the making

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to naught.Take up the White Man’s burden–
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper–
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard–
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen feebles
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Have done with childish days–
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers.

-By Rudyard Kipling -By Babu

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What’s the matter, Babu?

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There are many words in and out of the dictionary that are used with a certain passion, while their exact meaning remain confined to the pages of the dictionary. There are various categories of such words. Some sound sophisticated – raunchy, intrepid, serendipity. Some are just fashionable – fag, dude, anti-Semitism, imperialism. Some, with the passage of time, attain layers of grime and ignorance, and through a process of Semantical acrobatics (that’s a new word that I am trying to ‘coin’; once it has attained fringe parlance, it shall be called a ‘neologism’; once it is accepted as everyday parlance, not necessarily respectable as some books would tell you, it shall be inducted into the dictionary. For most words, mind you, that is ceremonial cremation. Once a word enters the portals of a tome, it remains forgotten and surfaces only when researched. A word in the dictionary is like a comatose on life support. Just joking) acquire absolutely new passion, absolutely new colours, absolutely new meaning. I can think of no better word to introduce this development than ‘babu’.

And while we are at it we shall beckon a ‘thought of the day’ and try to understand what someone said about lies.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
–Joseph Goebbels

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Goebbels was the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda during the Nazi regime, and one of the closest advisors of the little genius. Do keep in mind that Goebbels started his life as a journalist. So, how was it that he proceeded to propagate the lie and garner enlightenment for his Chosen People. I would presume he recalled an incident from Medieval history on the shores of Mediterranean.

Everyone loves Alexander. At a young age he did what people thrice his age could only dream of. Across the world people spent the next 23 centuries trying to match his exploits. While not a match, there were quite a few common things between Hitler and Alexander – they were both short, they were both brave, they were both mad, they were both stubborn, they were both ravishers and thrived on rape and rapine and pillage, both came close to conquering the world, and both died rather ingloriously (Alexander died of mosquito bite or whatever, we still don’t quite know; Hitler reportedly took cyanide and simultaneously shot himself – one does not know what hit him first, the poison or the bullet). History, however, looks quite differently at the two. There is a city called Alexandria. There is no city called Adlofia or Hitleria. Hitleristan, anyone? Now for some strange reason we shall overlook, Alexandria had the world’s greatest library. Well, at that time, Alexandria was the greatest city for that matter. Any city that goes either too much towards the sky, or too much towards any other direction, incurs the wrath of gods or people. Sometime back those foolish people in the Middle East (can anyone tell me why is it called Middle East? I mean, there can be a west, there can be a east. If it is in the middle, it is called centre. But Middle East! Don’t much blame Tolkien for that matter. He must have got his Middle Earth designation from present geography only) tried to build a little tower in a city then called Babilu, now called Babylon. What happened? Well, something happened that we are not quite sure of, but the remains looked like the aftermath of some cosmic erectile dysfunction. In another city of a continent that is an accident of history (well, there was this fool who wanted to find India and sailed West when everyone went the other way. He met a few Neanderthals with bananas – he DID NOT find the plains of Punjab) people became vain again. And time and again like in the Biblical times, plagues rain down on New York. Sometimes it is a rather large dinosaur that stampedes across the town. Then come some gorillas. Then some icecaps melt up in the north, and it is flood. Sometimes huge rocks rain down from the sky. See, bible again and again. Then they built a tall tower. Wait, not one, but TWO. Whoever heard of such sacrilege. And see what happened.

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So, on the shores of the Mediterranean, the largest city of the ancient world was built. It was also the site of an ancient wonder, a wonder that withstood the wrath of man and god for more than a thousand years. Close to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, scholars from around the world came and studied everything under the sun and the moon. Every book that passed by the city was taken to the library – a copy was returned back. Of course, it was not the time of copyright yet. Outside of the library the city flourished, enticing traders. With trade comes prosperity. With prosperity come the people looking for a shortcut – marauders and conquerors. Like most cities, Alexandria was conquered not once but many times. But finally it fell to the Muslim army led by Amr ibn al ‘Aas (okay, that is not the origin of IBN!). Message was sent to the Caliph as to what is to be done with the library and its books. Amr received the famous reply:

“If what is written there is in the Koran, they are superfluous. If what is written is not in the Koran, it is blasphemous.”

Amr used the books to heat bathwater for his soldiers. Viru in Sholay got his idea of the coin from this monologue – heads I win, tails you lose. Goebbels got his inspiration to burn books from this example.

Continue reading What’s the matter, Babu?

Sixth Pay Commission cometh…

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Long years back, there was this Russian physician called Pavlov. He really loved his dog. He was especially fond of feeding it. Being grandiose, he would ring the bell each time he would feed his dog. This went on for a long time. Soon, the dog, ever the intelligent creature, learnt what the bell meant – it meant food. The moment the bell would ring, he would know food has arrived.1

One fine day the Indian Government recalled the Russian. The particular problem of Sarkar was that there were too many working for them. Of course Sarkar and the people loved to have so many servants working for them. But when payday came, the Sarkar started to get Parkinson’s.2 So, Sarkar got its own bell, like the Russian. He gave it a fancy name – he called it some pay…pay…pay what..ah…Pay Commission! That’s right. Every ten years, he would need a new bell. So far he has bought five. Sarkar tells us he is getting the sixth one.

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Now, Pay Commission is to the Babus what UPSC is to the civil service aspirants. And Pay Commission recommendation is like the UPSC final results. I recall a line from a short story I had read in my college years – “her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood”3. On the Budget Day the FM promised that the 6PC would bring out its award in about a month. Yeah, can you feel the blood rushing?

No, I don’t intend to bring out my own predictions. I would just like to point interested soul to a website that does a better job of tracking it. Go to:
http://sixpaycommission.blogspot.com/

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  1. Stop. I was just joking. You can read the real story here.
  2. It’s not difficult to understand. Remember Amitabh Bachchan. Well, he was the Sarkar in one movie, and he started having Parkinson’s in another movie. The latter was on payday…Okay, that’s a PJ.
  3. Araby by James Joyce.

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