On August 15, India will complete Shastipoorthi, ie 60 years of independence. With the 1948 batch being its first, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the nation’s prime instrument of governance, will also enter its Shastipoorthi year. Is a rich, mellowed future in store for the governance of this nation wherein lives one-sixth of the human race? The economy is growing sans equity and the brand of “social justice” has spawned a frenzied “competition to be backward”! In politics there are no principles and this seems to be now afflict ing even the highest office in the land.
The state of the nation can be best described in words adapted from former President K R Narayanan:
“Sixty years into the free life of our nation we find that justice – social, economic and political – remains an unrealized dream for millions of our fellow citizens. The benefits of our economic growth are yet to reach them.We have one of the world’s largest reservoirs of technical personnel, but also the world’s largest number of illiterates, the world’s largest middle class, but also the largest number of people below the poverty line, and the largest number of children suffering from malnutrition. Tragically, the growth in our economy has not been uniform. Many a social upheaval can be traced to the neglect of the lowest of society, whose discontent moves towards the path of violence.”
In its Shastipoorthi year, the IAS, established by the founding fathers as the successor to the steel-frame ICS, is under siege. There are several areas where its incapacity to meet the current chal lenges stares one in the face. The IAS has not been able to develop a service culture or norms to effectively deal with the political authority, and it has not learnt to function in a fair man ner in a political milieu. The Service has been marginalized as an instrument for he effective maintenance of law and order in the country.The initial in-service training system based on the new recruits learning from the example and practice of administration from their senior colleagues has failed as there are fewer seniors worthy of setting an example.The administrative machinery under the IAS officers is neither distinguished by its efficiency and accountability, nor its spirit of service to the citi zen. And the image of probity and integrity of IAS officers has suffered.
The IAS has been unable to develop a service culture to effectively deal with the political authority, and it has not learnt to function fairly in a political milieu
Worse, the idea of justice seems to have gone out of the cadre. The vast majority are either party to the growing injustice in society or turn a Nelson’s eye. This is a very sad commentary on the members of this elite service constituted, covenanted and maintained at great cost with the sole purpose of rendering just and fair governance to the “bent, dried-up stick of a man” who represents the real India! Little do they realize that without justice, there would be neither peace nor prosperity – a thousand SEZs and double-digit “GDP boom” notwithstanding!
JB D’Souza, one of the doyens of independent India’s first IAS batch, wrote to his IPS friend last year: “At my age (84), I alternate between anger and sadness over the miseries our colleagues are inflicting on the poor, over the wretched condition 58 years of ‘free dom’ have brought them to….We are no longer a service; we have become a set of parasites, palanquin commanders or just expensive prostitutes.”
IAS (retd) with a distinguished career of 40 years - worked in Army, Govt, Private, Politics & NGOs.
