TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
To all those who have been over the years constantly complaining of bureaucrats being treated as blue-eyed boys…with ever hiking pay scales, unending list of perks and privileges, job security etc….. the latest rebuff is that the Government has now proposed to pay for an ailing bureaucrat’s treatment not only in the country’s most expensive corporate hospitals, as has been the practice so far, but hereafter also outside India in the most advanced hospitals abroad. Indeed, there could have been no better way than this for the Government in New Delhi to assert the point that an ailing bureaucrat is a matter of far greater concern than an ailing economy which is constantly drawing flak in the face of a falling Rupee and a series of scams.
Charles Dickens once wrote, the crazier is one, the higher he rises and the craziest becomes the Admiral. To paraphrase same anology, the general trend is that the most meritorious pass-outs at 10+2 level opt for a career in medicine or I.T. or end up getting admission in a prestigious IIT or an All India Medical Institute. The lesser meritorious graduate with a B.A. or B.Sc degree and qualify the entrance for an MBA in a leading IIM. The still lesser meritorious slog for a civil services exam and preside over the earlier two categories as IAS officers. And, the lowest on the merit list often run a fair chance to rule over all the above three categories as Hon’ble Ministers
Amid allegations of non-performance and rampant corruption against bureaucrats, it was none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had, during UPA 1, suggested a monitoring system to assess the performance of an IAS officer at two stages….one on the completion of 15 years of service and another after 25 years. The Manmohan Singh proposal further suggested that those of the IAS officers who failed to qualify the periodic performance review could be given the option to seek voluntary retirement. This could help brush away the general impression that IAS officers rule over their respective official fiefdoms with secure time-bound promotions, enormous perks, privileges and also the prerogative to sit on judgement about the performance of their less fortunate even though at times higher qualified non-IAS peers particularly the ones belonging to professional cadres like, for example, medical or engineering departments.
Indian Civil Service (ICS), the pre-independence predecessor of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) was set up in colonial times when its function was to assert authority on behalf of the British Raj. A British journalist visiting India in 2006 observed that a District Magistrate (DM) in India still lives like a 19th century “Burra Sahib” feudally served by an army of minions in office as well as residence. The misuse of official machinery for private purposes is rampant among India’s bureaucrats and ministers alike. Now, in that context, if a bureaucrat enjoys the power to sack a junior official accepting bribe or to take to task a supposedly inefficient Government engineer or doctor, what is wrong if the bureaucrat himself also sets a personal example by allowing a similar monitoring system over him?
Nevertheless, to be fair to them, one must concede that this apparently elite class of Commissioners and Secretaries is also a part of the same society and hence equally liable to share the good and the evil of the contemporary society. But, that hardly grants the common man the right to grudge the prerogative of a Comm- issioner or a Secretary to pour choicest advice into the ear of his Minister. That, indeed, is the privilege of being an IAS officer, which Umapathy thus sums up in the words of Akbar Allahabadi “Qaum Ke Gham Mein Dinner Khaatey Hain Huk-kam Ke Saath, Ranj Leader Ko Bahut Hai Magar Aaraam Ke Saath!”
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