Vanity, thy name is the Indian bureaucrat

The only time the smile left his face was when I reminded him that even Jawaharlal Nehru, the creator of the Indian nanny state, had admitted at the end of his years that one of his biggest mistakes was to trust the bureaucracy to implement his dreams. They did not, and they continue to block change and new ideas to this day. The time has come, said I, to abolish the permanent civil service and start hiring people on contracts renewable every five years. This already happens in some countries and if you have been reading Arun Shourie’s brilliant articles in this newspaper on how administrative reforms get entangled ‘‘in the same faded red tape’’ you will agree that this is the only hope. Ask any major politician in India if it is a good idea to make bureaucrats sackable and he will tell you emphatically that it is but will add that it can never happen because to implement any new idea he has to go back to the bureaucracy and that is where it dies. Throttled by ‘‘faded red tape’’.

Alas, the entanglements of faded red tape are not the only problem. We also need a cure for Seshanitis. This is my name for the disease that afflicts officials who attain positions of absolute authority and who start behaving like T N Seshan did. Remember all those boasts about fighting corruption and eating politicians for breakfast? And, remember how we heard very little from him after he was found to be flying around in private planes and wearing an emerald worth Rs 6 lakhs on his finger?

This has not deterred those who took the job after him from behaving with exactly the same vanity. M S Gill behaved like God and fell so much in love with his image on television that it was hard to get him off. In one election programme I can remember producers plotting to drag his chair off the set if he did not stop talking. Then came James Lyngdoh, Maysaysay award winner and so filled with vanity he declared politicians cheats and a ‘‘cancer’’.

How can we trust an Election Commissioner who has such disdain for the players in the game he is supposed to be refereeing? And, now we have T S Krishnamurthy who was so fascinated by the cameras at his first press conference he rambled on long enough to forget he was there to announce the dates of the election.

He now orders all new development projects to come to a halt and even wants the Prime Minister’s hoardings veiled on the highways built by his government. What about the Indira Awas Yojana and the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana? Why not remove those names too?

Does the Election Commissioner believe that the average voter is a moron? Even more annoying is the fact that despite morality lessons, codes of conduct and halted development projects the Election Commission seems incapable of stopping candidates from spending more on their campaigns than they are legally allowed to. And, when I travel in rural backwaters I still meet dispossessed, desperately poor people who remain intimidated by thugs and guns. What is the point of stretching the election out over several weeks if this continues to happen?

The vanity of our officials has to be curbed. My suggestion to the next government is that it abolish the permanent civil service and start hiring the best and brightest on contract. This may sound drastic but I think it’s the only way. If you have a better idea do write and tell me.

Write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com