Opinion Cooling it

Ahead of a crucial general election, it is hard to miss the growing ranks of former civil servants who have been recently welcomed by parties with open arms. A former R&AW chief, army chief and home secretary have joined the BJP, which can boast of the most high-profile entrants this time. But other parties, from the Congress to the CPM, the TMC to the BSP, have previously given tickets to former public officials. This has revived old questions about the propriety of administrators and police officers taking political sides the instant they quit government.

The civil services in India, following the UK model, was set up as a permanent, unified and politically neutral apparatus, meant to implement the policies of the elected government. By contrast, the US has a system of political appointees, whose loyalties lie clearly with the government that chose them, and who present none of the resistance that an entrenched bureaucracy often can. But given that the Indian system rests heavily on the assumption of scrupulous neutrality, any evidence of partisan affiliation can erode trust in the system. It provokes a harsh glare on decisions taken by the civil servant while in office, and raises questions about whether their preferred party’s interests played a part in their choices.

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The same logic applies when a public official shifts to the private sector after retirement. While it is perfectly within the rights of civil servants to move to commercial employment, and offer their managerial skills for hire, it can also lead to an unseemly “revolving door” syndrome where industry and government officials benefit each other. The all-India service rules do mandate a year in between such stints to avoid blatant ethical breaches. Using that logic, in 2012, the Election Commission had expressed its desire for a cooling off period between retirement and formal entry into politics, and asked for the service rules to be amended, but the government rejected the idea. The Department of Personnel and Training, advised by the Attorney General, told the EC that the right to contest elections flows out of the rights of citizenship, and could not be curtailed once such an individual has quit her office. Officials who have made the transition argue that political duties are simply another side of public service, and that it does not render their previous work suspect. In the final reckoning, civil servants cannot realistically be expected to have no political preference. The test, however, is whether their functioning has been fair and impartial.