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Journalism of Courage
It8217;s a bold idea, certainly. Whether it is a feasible one and, more important, a useful one, would need more scrutiny, assessment and debate. Manmohan Singh, as an intellectual and minister, has always voiced his concern about the competence of the bureaucracy because he saw it as the ultimate delivery system 8212; the link between government and citizen; between policy and reality. Manmohan Singh, as prime minister, has now mooted the idea of enhancing the quality of administration by drawing in the best of the country8217;s young talent into this sector through the means of an entrance examination to the All-India and Central services in the manner of the entrance process to the Ecole Nationale d8217;administration in France.
There can be no doubt that reforming the civil service is an idea whose time has come. There is not just a decided cynicism, apathy and proclivity towards corruption within our bureaucratic ranks, there is a gross lack of talent and expertise. At a time when administrators are required to be more conversant with international trends 8212; social, economic and intellectual 8212; the rust inherent in the country8217;s famed steel frame has never been more manifest. But whether the path of reform lies through the high school is a question that the country must ask itself. Indeed, it can be argued that herding teenagers into the civil services stream, before they have discovered themselves and the world in which they live, may be premature in the extreme and unlikely to make them better administrators. Such a step could, besides, undermine even further the commitment to the liberal arts that every democracy worth its name should nurture. It would be wrong to lay the blame for the present state of administration in India at the door of the graduate or post-graduate. The root of the problem goes far deeper. There is, for instance, no system at present by which incompetent officers are weeded out, no process of selecting the best among them for the specific tasks at hand.
The early reservations expressed here are, of course, tentative and only by way of initiating the wider debate that the prime minister hopes to foster. The Express, on its part, promises to do its best to foster it in the days ahead.
