Opinion Express View on lateral entry in bureaucracy: No short-cuts

The Narendra Modi government’s decision to cancel an advertisement for recruitment of 45 mid-level specialists through the lateral entry route, after it stirred controversy, has company. It follows its other conspicuous steps back recently, on the Waqf Amendment Bill, which has now been sent to a joint parliamentary committee, and the draft Broadcast Bill, put on hold for wider consultations. But, of course, the lateral entry issue is unique, it has a special resonance. The UPSC ad immediately stoked criticism and apprehensions — both within the ruling coalition and outside it — that by treating the 45 positions as specialised and designating them as single-cadre posts, the government was short-circuiting the system of reservation. Given the political context of the recently concluded general election in which the BJP-led NDA’s losses have also been attributed to perceptions among backward classes that it sought a “400 paar” majority to dilute the constitutional commitment to social justice, this rollback was, arguably, politically inevitable.

The fact is that lateral entry is desirable and that, as it has done in the past, it can bring in much-needed fresh ideas and energy. It is required to enrich state capacities to meet the increasingly complex tasks of governance. While lateral entrants are no magical cure for systemic ills and deficiencies, and a case may be made for a more fundamental restructuring, they can help fill the gaps of expertise and specialisation for specific durations, for well-defined objectives. Be it the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, 2005, or the Sixth Pay Commission, 2013, or the recommendations of the Niti Aayog in 2017, the need for the induction of personnel at senior and middle management levels in government has been repeatedly upheld and affirmed. In recent years, the government has also expanded the scale and ambit of the lateral hiring strategy. And yet, the problem arises when the demands of “expertise” and “merit” are ranged against the imperatives of “social justice” and “equality”. They need not be seen as antagonistic, and they are, in fact, aligned and mutually reinforcing. As the Supreme Court underlined in its recent judgment on subquotas for SCs and STs, the binary of merit vs reservation must be challenged in a country of great inequalities. Merit should be understood in terms of the social goods of equality and inclusivity — the conflict is between haves and have-nots, and not between merit and distributive justice.

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In its third term, with a whittled down majority, the Modi government also needs to take another learning on board. It needs to respond to the voice of a stronger Opposition, and to talk to its own allies — and listen to them too. In the case of the proposed recruitments through lateral entry, it was voices from within — allies such as JD(U) and LJP — as much as the agitation of Rahul Gandhi-led Congress, who is trying to put his stamp on the caste issue, that made it retreat. The government needs to remember that the new numbers demand a new listening. In a diverse country, that also makes for better decisions and more responsive policies.