Foot-soldiers of this raj

On a flight to Kolkata, I noticed a gentleman on the coach to the aircraft. He sat opposite me and reeked of perfume. Clad in a kurta-pajama...

On a flight to Kolkata, I noticed a gentleman on the coach to the aircraft. He sat opposite me and reeked of perfume. Clad in a kurta-pajama, with dazzlingly white chappals. A ring on every finger. At first, the perfume attracted my attention. And then I noticed the two attendants. I am sure they weren’t actually attendants. But they behaved that way. They refused to sit. One held a briefcase belonging to the important gentleman. The other held a similar bag. Their own hand-baggage was on the luggage rack. The distinguished gentleman must have been really important. One of the attendants even held his boarding pass. Important people don’t hold their own boarding passes. In situations like this, you are desperate to figure out who the important person is. It wasn’t a minister. Certainly a MP. But which MP? Ordinary MPs don’t merit such treatment.

As every passenger on Indian Airlines knows, the first row is reserved for the high and mighty. So it was in this case. The important gentleman was in 1A and I was right behind him. The attendants were in economy class. But they hung around, took care of the hand-baggage, held his glass of juice while he sipped and even opened his book for him. They departed only when the plane began to taxi, only to return when the plane reached Kolkata. I was desperate to find out who he was. I craned my neck around to try and see the book. That might offer a clue. It was a Hindi compilation of Vajpayee’s speeches. That determined the party and perhaps the geographical background. But nothing more. I have seen important people. Not all of them behave this way. Not all of them have a retinue. This one did and acted imperiously, as if he was used to such treatment. There were at least 20 people at Kolkata airport waiting to receive him with garlands. But I still don’t know who he was.

The distinguishing feature of every important person in government is a retinue. I read somewhere that every Central cabinet minister has 20 supporting staff and every full-fledged secretary, 12. Including several peons. The word ‘peon’ means different things in different parts of the world. Originally, in the 13th and 14th centuries, it simply meant a foot-soldier, the word ‘ped’ signifying foot in Medieval Latin. In Spain, Portugal or South America, peon means an unskilled farm worker, with some connotation of bonded labour. But throughout South Asia and some parts of Southeast Asia, the word means a manual worker or messenger. Today, a peon’s is the most lucrative government job that exists, especially for students who drop out after Standard X. Peons, as a class, seem to have disappeared from the private sector.

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Remember, 374 million people work outside the government and pay for the 20 million who work within it. Don’t they have the right to know how many peons there are?

What do peons do? Make tea-coffee, bring glasses of water, ferry files, spread crockery and cutlery for the boss at lunch time. If you think this, you are wrong. Much of this work is reserved for daily wagers. Peons belong to a higher category and will not descend to this level. Generally, the job description peaks thrice a day. In the morning. When the boss comes in to work. Stand outside any ministry or government department and you will witness a convoy of Ambassadors. The peon will be there, to carry the briefcase and lunch box. In the evening, reverse flow takes place. And, at mid-day, there is the business of plates and spoons. That apart, the peon perches on a stool outside the door, barring entry. And it is his job to switch green lights to red and vice-versa. There is also the business of over-time for any additional work. Those two people on the plane, who were probably members of the higher bureaucracy, were performing a peon’s task. Because peons can’t travel on planes. Do we really need peons, or for that matter, stenographers? If the private sector can perform efficiently without traditional peons and stenos, so can the government. For bureaucrats who shy away from keyboards and are addicted to dictation, voice recognition software seems a better option. If there are no peons, we may even reduce drop-out rates after Standard X.

I raise this because of an unproductive meeting that took place between the PM and chief ministers on October 18. We know the combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and states is in a mess, we don’t need Standard & Poor’s to tell us that. Expenditure in social sectors is being affected, thanks to wages, salaries and pensions of government employees and the problem is horrendous at the state-level. Apart from the positive signal, the quantitative impact of downsizing is negligible at the Centre, barring Railways and Posts. This meeting was supposed to sort out the state problem, but the expected October Revolution failed to materialise. Yes, there were decisions about VAT (value added tax) and service tax, but those were due to happen in any case. On downsizing government and reducing expenditure on government employees, nothing materialised. No pre-ponement of retirement age to 58. No freeze on DA or LTC. No identification of surplus manpower and retraining-cum-VRS. Following the Centre’s lead, states may of course set up administrative reforms commissions and do nothing about implementing recommendations.

Some 20 million people work for the government, if you include public sector enterprises; 3.2 million are with the Centre. I have been trying to find out how many are peons or, if you prefer, Class IV employees. The Fifth Pay Commission’s report apart (which only has Central figures), I haven’t been able to find out. You may expect NIC’s attractive web-site to tell you this. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t even have figures on the number of government employees. Remember, 374 million people work outside the government and effectively pay for the 20 million who work within it. Shouldn’t the 374 million have the right to know how many unproductive peons there are in that 20 million and what they do? An ex-civil servant told me that 30 to 40 per cent of government staff consists of Class III and Class IV employees. Does that mean we have 6 to 8 million Class III and Class IV employees? Perhaps 3 to 4 million peons? These are not bonded labour. Citizens are bonded to them.

We don’t have too many government employees. We have them in the wrong places.

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Shekhar Gupta’s ‘National Interest’ column will appear on Monday