Some Aspects of Complex Governance of Modern India!
How do you consider a man having a big head, large eyes, small hands, bent legs, long tongue, closed ears and a big belly? Perhaps he has a big brain and he is very intelligent. He can see well with his large eyes. He can talk well and taste well with his long tongue. But he cannot do any thing properly as he has small hands. With his bent legs he cannot run or walk properly. He cannot hear what others say because his ears are closed. Of course he eats well.
No doubt no one would like to have such an individual in their home. The man is ugly and imperfect from our viewpoint.
In a similar way, a government having various ministries and departments which are disproportionate to their normal functions, would obviously be a monstrous organization which would not do its functions in a balanced manner. Obviously, the people of the country with such a monster governing it could not expect anything good from it. In such governments some ministries would be placed at higher prominence than really required marring the other ministries to practical negligence and insignificance. It is like giving importance to one's mouth only always because it is the one which speaks!
In a family too, the parents often neglect their wise children who are more mature and harmless and give undue importance to the kids who are noisy and quarrelsome making the family ruin later. This is because of the human weakness of fear. Humans fear noisy fellows!
In politics too, such a situation prevail. The more noisy and illogical a leader is, the more he or she is likely to garner support and benefits. The wise advises of the less noisy ones often go unconsidered. This happens everywhere.
If a country needs to progress, it needs to develop in all fronts in an equitable basis. The practice of pleasing the talking big mouth always need to be moderated. All parts of the administration should get equal importance and all should get the care and support they actually need to function. So if the defense ministry getting pampered more at the cost of the home ministry would make the country fail in some aspects of its security. If telecom ministry is pampered more than the postal ministry, the country would again fail to achieve progress in some areas.
Unfortunately, this kind of a situation arises from the improper selection, training and placement of the officers who are supposed to man these departments. Though many wise people have pointed out to the flaws in the system of recruitment and placement of officers of the governmental systems of India, nothing has changed much from the pre-independence era. The system continues without much change.
The government officers in India are selected by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) at the central, all India level , by the various Public Service Commissions (PSC) of the states and the Staff Selection Boards (SSB). The UPSC selects fresh candidates for various all India services by a highly competitive examination. The top ranking candidates are normally absorbed in the so called elite services of India called the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). Members of these three services are conventionally given higher prominence in the Indian governmental system and the IAS now has established their indisputable place as compared to all other services. This is because the manner in which the IAS officers are selected and placed to head any type of organization in India without any consideration to their expertise or knowledge in that field. It has now become an established practice in India that an IAS officer could be the chief executive or head of any field regardless of it being a ministry, an public sector industry, a government university, a training institute, a government department, a government sponsored society or any autonomous institution.
Though the IPS officers are trained for law and order and policing, they too could be placed in a similar fashion in any non policing department or organization. However, they get such opportunities to head 'offices of profit' less than their IAS brothers and sisters.
There are other services which the Indian public are less acquainted with. But that does not mean that they are unimportant. They too could be placed to head any organization at the will of their political and senior bureaucratic patrons even while they know pretty nothing about the functions of such organizations. Such services are called the Indian Forest Service, the Indian Audit and Accounts Service, the Indian Railway Service, the Indian Postal Service, the Indian Engineering Service, the Indian Telecom Service, etc. etc. It is not necessary that the UPSC conduct all India examinations for all these services always. The UPSC also inducts other specialists like geologists, doctors, etc to be posted as specialist government service officers in various departments and ministries. However, such officers often do not get opportunities to head top posts even while some of them might be much more suitable with respect to their knowledge and competency. They are often made subordinate to those from the elite cadres.
The military officers are selected by an entirely different procedure. Though the military officers are better trained, disciplined and with required managerial and functional skills, the services of their experienced senior levels are not very much used in the governmental organizations just as their counterparts from the elite administrative services.
Often experienced experts in various governmental departments like doctors, engineers, etc find some not so trained generalist having much lower length of service from the so-called elite services becoming their bosses who are less capable of understanding certain aspects of their jobs. Consequently, such bosses would be miserable failures in making effective decisions for the good of the country in the long run or getting any long term policy decisions which are justified and correct. Since political bosses are not experienced experts, the inexperienced bureaucrats immediately below the levels of the political bosses would make up a system which is not competent to handle complex issues of governance in a knowledge driven manner.
It is also important to consider the educational qualifications of the candidates who are selected to the elite services. The direct recruits need only a bachelor's degree in any discipline to appear in the all India civil service examinations. Graduates , post graduates or even PhD holders in medicine, engineering , arts, science, etc are all treated at par. While writing their examinations, they are at liberty to chose options of subjects at their choice regardless of the formal educational qualifications. This makes the civil service examination a kind of screening test and not some thing to evaluate the specific field of knowledge of the candidate for a specific job. These candidates are selected for various cadres based on their choices based on the ranks they obtained in the civil service examination. Such choices essentially do not give much credence to the aptitude of a candidate for the job. For example, a person could become a senior police officer of the country, even if he or she does not possess some of the essential physical and mental attributes that are needed for such a job. Even the selected candidates have any common educational backgrounds in common!
The freshers may get a few months' training for induction in to the elite cadre of officers of the government. But once the cadre is allotted they remain in that cadre till retirement. They cannot escape the brand once they are branded.
In addition to the fresh candidates selected this manner, an equivalent numbers are promoted from the staff cadres. In short, the government officials of the class one government services of India does not have any commonality among them except their branding. This often creates interpersonal rivalries and envies. Superiority and inferiority complexes are generated among these people. While they are trained to treat themselves as superior to the common citizens, within their own class, they are either inferior or superior. The god-dog syndrome is highest among the government officers of India.
Unfortunately, the same class of people would not allow the system to be drastically changed. Democracy or no democracy, the government officials have a common mind set all over the world from time immemorial. It is too difficult to change it. Politicians, the so called people's representatives, are also scared of the officials because without the latter the former have no existence or no power!
I know that I am nobody to comment over the present system or to give any suggestions for improvements. Yet, I think there is a common logic that the present system of selection of government officers needs to be changed. The system of arbitrary postings of the all India service officers in any ministry or any department without the requisite understanding of the functions should stop. The background educational qualifications and experience also should be given equal importance while a person is posted to head an organization or department.
It would be a good idea to have many all India services to serve various functional ministries and the persons for such services should be selected based on the specific knowledge that is needed for such ministries or departments.
The public sector is a big governmental function. Yet the government does not have any all India industrial management service. Even in such services, the functions of various disciplines vary widely and there is a need to look in to this aspect too. The practice of politicians occupying executive posts also needs reconsideration.
It is indeed a complex situation. A situation where power and service considerations go hand in hand with favoritism and performance requirements. A situation where priorities are difficult to be ascertained. Is it the country or is it the individual that is important?
It is easy to declare the country as important in public, but it is too difficult to practice that in private.
What do you think?
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