Patricia Mukhim
Bureaucracy the world over is notorious for putting spokes on the wheels of even the best proposals put forward for their approval. From observing many of our bureaucrats past and present, one would surmise that the grounding they receive while on training is to distrust, question, oppose and delay every proposal that comes to their table. No one denies that bureaucrats have to guard their backs but having passed the most strenuous of examinations, I am sure they can smell a scam or something quite not in order, a mile away. So why would they be suspicious about every file that comes to them? Why the delay in clearing a file when that is what they are paid for and paid big money? In fact if there was a strict yardstick to measure outcomes in the bureaucracy we would find that input (public money) is not commensurate to outcome (productivity).
One trade mark of the IAS officer, especially one that is directly recruited, is the air of superciliousness, almost as if they come from a different planet than the common person without the IAS spurs. Then there are the state civil service officers who have acquired similar traits from their seniors but who also are into money-making rackets. Some have been posted as heads of certain districts, not to serve the public cause but to carry out the diktat of politicians and business sharks. The ordinary people in every district can give the best character certificates to their DCs. Alas! Most are voiceless and feel they don’t have the legitimate right to say anything against these officers of an elite service. We all forget one important thing – each of these are public servants are employed to serve the public cause; not the government of the day or a section of the elite. Thankfully, some of the younger breed of IAS officers has a better idea of what their service entails and they care enough to remind their juniors and colleagues that the IAS and MCS are not birthrights but a call to service.
Recently, two national dailies did a story of Swapnil Tembe, Deputy Commissioner, East Garo Hills a 2015 batch IAS officer. This gentleman sent a memo down the line to all officials of the district that they should (a) take utmost care about the tone and texture of their voices (b) all communication to be done in a polite manner (c) give patient hearing to any member of the public who is reporting a grievance (d) to remember at all times that they are PUBLIC servants. Wow! That’s something that has not been heard in a long time. The VIP stature that these public servants acquire makes them forget where they come from and what their prime objectives are. Thankfully there are always bright sparks that light up the bleak horizon and who try to walk in the other person’s shoes. It’s not easy to be an aam aadmi in India and that’s a well known fact. People like Tembe give us ordinary citizens hope that our voices will be heard.
Then there’s the picture of Ram Singh, DC West Garo Hills and his wife that’s gone viral on the internet because the former carried vegetables he had shopped for the whole week and was carrying it in a basket and walking with his wife (she carrying her little on her back). Apparently Ram Singh walked 10 miles just to show that it’s possible to walk his way around without being overly dependent on vehicles. These DCs give us hope that Meghalaya is in the hands of able administrators.
In our own district of East Khasi Hills we now have two ladies manning very important posts in the district. Ms Matsiewdor War who took over as DC East Khasi Hills in December 2017 was transferred out for the elections period and transferred back to her post in May 2018 and Ms Claudia Lyngwa the present Superintendent of Police, East Khasi Hills. Both women are no-nonsense types who believe in action. The police lady is battling the drug menace and peddlers with a ruthlessness not seen in the past.
Ms Matsiewdor War has other credentials to her name. She participated in the 1986 Asian Games at South Korea officiated at the 2012 London Olympic Games and 2016 Rio Paralympics. Hence even when she’s at a meeting she gets to the point. It makes her a bureaucrat with a difference. On taking over as DC East Khasi Hills in December 2017 she exhorted her staff to work 150% to meet the needs of constituents. Ms War is the second lady DC of the district; the first being Ms Margaret Mawlong. Claudia Lyngwa is remembered for her grit in leading the charge against the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), Meghalaya’s militant outfit. The HNLC formed in 1987 had been on a killing and extortion spree which spiraled in the 1990’s and only tapered down by 2001 when the Government took the challenge of tackling them head-on. In that war with militancy some names stand out. They include Mr M Kharkrang, Assistant IGP ( R ) amongst others who stood against all odds to bring the Khasi Hills back to sanity from a completely lawless situation that existed then.
Every officer in a position of authority has the opportunity to be a trail blazer; to bring change in society and transform the lives of people through good governance. After all, power as they say is meant to be used to empower others. But that’s provided those that have power understand why they wield it. George Bernard Shaw had said, ‘Power does not corrupt men; fools however when they get into a position of power, corrupt power.’ The greatest disservice by the bureaucracy is that we as a state have had to suffer career bureaucrats who have not delivered any measurable outcomes in decades. If you ask me, this country is where it is today because we are enslaved by babus who lord it over us. For a bureaucrat destroying a life or an idea is immaterial so long as he can protect his turf.
Someone has rightly observed that the bureaucracy is the last remnant of the British rule. But every now and again we have examples that stand out. However, such examples are too few and far between and the younger bureaucrats are soon subject to peer pressure. Once they move from the district to the secretariat they become just a face among the crowd of seniors who will not allow them to break out of the beaten track. To enable the few path-breaking bureaucrats to continue to think and work outside the constricted space defined by a lethargic hierarchy, that has got so used to only pushing files or sitting on them, the public must do its work of supporting those that are trying their best to deliver and use the Right to Information to hold the indolent and corrupt officers accountable.
The Modi government has begun overhauling the bureaucracy by sacking the incompetent ones and also by creating the space for lateral entry into the system. The IAS lobby is against this but the public will be better served by those that are not entrenched in a fossilized system that has created power centres and appropriated that power for self aggrandizement. As long as elected leaders depend entirely on career bureaucrats, the system will fail us.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in 2016, “India’s economy has grown rapidly in recent years, but the country’s bureaucratic quality is widely perceived to be either stagnant or in decline”. Most bureaucrats don’t know to work as a team because they are so position conscious. Little do they know that team work is critical to making anything work. The bureaucrats’ obsession for procedures is what prevents outcomes. Hence files take months to travel from one desk to the other. Interestingly, Nitin Gadkari who is one of the NDA Government’s best performing ministers said in May 9 2016, that it took him 9 months to wait for an approval for an automated parking. This reveals the rot in the system.
There is too little whistle-blowing by the people of Meghalaya. Time has now come for people to understand that bureaucrats are ‘servants of the public,’ and not vice versa.
However, I must end this piece by saluting all those bureaucrats that break barriers and create new paths for their juniors to follow and who also serve a public cause very selflessly and effectively.