Making a difference

An appointment to the civil service of the Company,’’ noted the Macaulay Committee Report in 1854 giving India its first modern bureaucracy which recommended that the patronage-based system of East India Company be scrapped in favour of tough competitive examinations, “will not be a matter of favour but a matter of right. He who obtains  such an appointment will owe it solely to his own abilities and industry. It is undoubtedly desirable that the civil servants of the Company should have received the best, the most finished education that the native country affords.’’

In retrospect, these were words that looked out well into the future, even though the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is by no means the British Indian Civil Service (ICS), neither is 2011 akin to the 19th  and 20th centuries. The pulls and pressures of a modern, vibrant, ever expanding and often corrupt India have taken a toll on the working of the bureaucracy. An increasing number of idealistic officials have been silenced into  insignificant posting or worse.

Indian civil servants who ran state and central administrations in the immediate aftermath of Independence, remember them as times where a political boss could take ‘no’ for an answer from officers not willing  to oblige outside the prescribed limits of law.

Politicians of the period, most of whom had made their bones during the freedom movement, realised the strain it would place on governance if an official was summarily kicked out — or even implicated in  motivated cases —  simply because he had declined to comply with illegal orders from the top.

These men of eminence are merely mirroring what the Constituent Assembly of India had in mind when it said that the “bureaucracy  should be able to speak out freely, without fear of persecution or financial insecurity as an essential element in unifying the nation.’’

Given the political shenanigans of the   day, this situation seems idyllic. There is little doubt that many of the billion dollar scams that the country and the government of the day finds engulfed in, would not have taken place if the officialdom had been more resolute and upright. The civil service continues to dominate policy as it did  earlier and is well within its rights to refuse signing on the dotted line if he or she deems fit.

That is happening increasingly less. It makes sense to understand the anomalies that have crept into the system. Now political bosses are  averse to being turned down, no matter how outrageous or venal their request. 

They take serious offence at refusal, are prone to turn vindictive and use their ultimate power to toss and turn around the bureaucracy and break its back. There is little point in blaming officials if this is happening across states; sooner or later a lot of people will crawl when asked to bend. Sadly for the country, that seems like a malaise that has come to stay.

The current issue of Governance Watch deals with this critically changing asymmetry. We profile and interview some young civil servants who after spending a few years in service, remain undeterred by power  and pelf, disregard for personal safety, possess no overarching ambitions and are willing to work with their heads down, minus the light and sound. In this, the country should consider itself fortunate. Our interviews  conducted on a pan-Indian basis reveals this timber and that can only be considered good news.

So you have a north Indian IAS officer  serving in insurgency-ridden north east India with guts and conviction, another civil servant is   single-handedly tackling the mining mafia in Karnataka, a lobby of such clout that it routinely makes and unmakes chief ministers and counts as a factor in elections. 

There is the officer in Punjab who set in place a PDS system in an impoverished district on his own steam while a policeman in Uttar  Pradesh is hell bent on cleaning a virtually uncleanable system. 

On the way, innumerable punishment postings, personal threats, disturbed family lives and an insecure, less lucrative future stares them in the face. But no sweat. 

They continue to carry on in the face of odds, diehards who  are willing to implement government policies by the book and not afraid of taking on the high and mighty of the land. It is their seminal contributions that this issue seeks to record.

Terrorism Combat

The clich� ‘is India soft in combating terrorism’ can now easily be replaced by ‘can India combat terrorism at all’? By any reckoning and by a variety of reasons, some in India’s control and some not, the dice appears loaded against her.

Let us examine the complexities. India cannot alter geography, sharing a 4057- kilometre porous border with Communist China in her east whose interest is to keep India down, both politically, militarily and from becoming an economic rival. On the west are traditional rivals Pakistan with whom India shares a 2,900-kilometre often hostile border. Both countries are long standing allies and for China, Pakistan has come handy in keeping India bottled up in south Asia. India can do as little about the China-Pakistan all weather friendship as it could about the China-Pakistan nuclear non-proliferation agreement, details of which are slowly but continuously emerging.

“The Pakistan-China axis is an old one and we have to be na�ve to believe that the two are not acting in unison. Please read AQ Khan’s latest revelations,’’ says G Parthasarathy, former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan and an analyst not known to mince his words.

China’s quiet but steady plans of increasing its military capabilities on the Indo-China border are on the radars of Sinophiles. Recent reports from the Pentagon have confirmed that China has successfully deployed long range CSS-5 missiles close to the Indian border while also having developed contingency plans to move airborne forces to the region at very short notice.

For India this is a matter of serious concern, given the somewhat fragile relationship between the two countries which saw a border war in 1962 in which India’s political class was exposed as having no knowledge of either warfare or the terrain that the battle was to be fought.

That battle has left permanent scars as successive Indian governments — with the exception of Indira Gandhi in the early seventies — have simply refused to react to Chinese provocations including border incursions passing them off as ‘routine’, a throwback to the disastrous days of ‘Hindi-Chini bhai bhai’ and the Bandung spirit, all of which was thrown out of the window in 1962 never to come back again.

China’s top envoy Sun Yaxi told the Indian media a couple of years ago that all Arunachal Pradesh or south Tibet as he calls it, is Chinese territory, reiterating publicly what their diplomats have been saying across the table.

In its annual report to the US Congress titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” officials from the American department of defence have stated that “Beijing remains concerned with persistent disputes along China’s shared border with India and the strategic ramifications of India’s rising economic, political, and military power”. It is little surprise that Beijing is diplomatically opposing the proscription of Jaishe Mohammed as a terrorist group even though India has supplied mountains of evidence to back their claim.

What India can control, it is unable to do so. The cross-border terror exported by Pakistan-based ISI-sponsored militant groups and their attacks on the Indian mainland in the last decade or so — including the November 2008 savagery in Mumbai — does not seem to have an endgame.

Much of India’s inability is counter terror or attacks on its installations can be directly attributed to its own internal contradictions. India’s response to the Mumbai attacks, for instance, have degenerated into a farce. Not only has it not been able to provide a list of the attackers by frequently going wrong on their names and whereabouts, recent Wikileaks revelations suggest India was not even serious about extraditing one of the main accused in the attack and that its protest was at worst a mock, at best a mere formality to keep up pretenses.

It is little wonder that the case appears to have gone off peoples’ radars except for the three Americans killed in the attack and whose representatives appear determined to drag the ISI and top Pakistani army brass to their New York courts. But by far the biggest security threat to India emanates from its inability to reform security systems. The police has not been modernised and its system of investigation and information collection belongs to the days of the colonial raj where the sophistication to take a case to its logical conclusion remained strictly limited.

The police and security systems are putty in the hands of politicians and the civil bureaucracy who have no intention of letting go of their powers to control the police. “It is a well known fact that policemen are forced to do the bidding for politicians and their stooges. They are compelled to run errands,’’ says former CBI joint director NK Singh, one of the petitioners before the Supreme Court, whose PIL has sought to know why police reforms proposed in 1977 continue to gather dust.

The other bane of security: vote bank politics. By accusing the police of being unduly harsh on minorities which has been revealed in some instances but not all, security forces have been put on the back foot. Top police officers say that it is routine after every blast for the authorities to say ‘there should be no harassment of minorities’. That has led to its own repercussions.

In Delhi, since the 2008 Batla House encounter and as a matter of policy, the Delhi Police has not arrested any ISI agent or Pakistani module. Result: chances of terror attacks have gone up considerably in India’s capital.

Analysts say if the moment of suspects is to be judged by their community, we may as well forget about fighting terror. Above all, the lack of an aware political leadership has come in the way of India being unable to safeguard its flanks. Political instability and coalition politics have contributed directly to the state of security in the 1990s when in the days of United Front governments, national security was given the least priority, the saving of the government being the first.

India has to hold many crosses. Cyber war for instance. Officially, the likelihood of a Chinese cyber-strike has been played down, but say experts, could be a big mistake.� A recent investigation by software security firm McAfee has revealed that as cyber-attacks rise globally, India is emerging as an easy hunting ground. It has other implications as well because the vulnerability not just poses a threat to the government, military, and infrastructure, it also carries a huge risk for international businesses that have outsourced IT operations or bought software in India. 

“That India is under-prepared is well known, and experts often raise concerns about how the government’s IT systems could be crippled in a war. While that threat is valid, I think the real worry is someone attacking the IT systems of the private sector,’’ Shivarama Krishnan, an IT security expert told the media recently.� 

Says Gen. Shankar Roy Chowdhary, former army chief and Rajya Sabha member, “When we talk of state being soft on terror, the implication is that the government succumbs to pressure. It’s an ineffectual state. It’s ineffectual because it’s ineffective. It’s ineffective because it’s inefficient.’’ Sadly, that is a face off which the Indian establishment is not ready to take on.

A flawed model

When people say that India is not a security conscious nation, they are probably missing the woods for the trees. It would be difficult to find another example of a nation rated as the second largest growing economy in the world also being among the most security slack countries in the world. Pulp analysts are wont to tell us that policing is so inadequate and the issue of peoples’ alienation so overwhelming that we may as well forget about saving ourselves from being blasted out of existence by a thoughtfully planted RDX at some supposedly safe public place.

The situation is far more complex. For a vast democracy such as India, the challenges of maintaining security is enormous — and prickly. The policing system is archaic and very short on resources. Just visit the local police station (thana) and judge for yourself whether it has the firepower to take on heavily armed and trained professional terrorists or the sophistication of intelligence to be able to bust a plot at the planning stage. At least three major terror plots were nipped in the bud in the US and UK in the last one year. That happened through sustained shadowing, decoding and interception. In one case in the UK, a group of suspects were sitting around the drawing board making plans when the police stormed in and picked them up, with all evidences intact. It is little surprise that US has not been hit since 9/11 while Britain has tightened security in a way that has made movement of suspects extremely difficult.

In India, policing is geared towards VIP security leaving the common citizenry hapless against terror attacks. In Delhi, since most VIPs live in heavily guarded elitist NDMC with their offices in close proximity, there is little concern as to what happens to the common citizenry. All encompassing police reforms on the table since civil servant Dharamvira proposed them in 1977 have been gathering reams of dust. The political class is not willing to let go of the police as an instrument to further their petty interests, a fact noted in abundant measure by the Dharamvira committee. Unless that happens and the police made more accountable, sophisticated and resourceful, India is going to be repeatedly embarrassed and its innocents killed and maimed. 

The police today is a caricature of the classical colonial police where native Indians could only be reined in with the help of brute force. This image — reinforced in daily TV grabs of police manhandling victims in various parts of the country — is hardly conducive to getting it crucial inside dope against those sponsoring terror.

Notwithstanding an aggressive media campaign, it is doubtful if members of the public are going to act as volunteers of information to a police which continues to be trapped in its pre-1947 mode. In the absence of timely and actionable intelligence, it is also difficult to make a fool proof case in a court of law. The number of alleged terrorists who have been let off by the courts only demonstrate that gathering information and putting it together to build up a sound case requires a sophistication not yet in evidence.

Should we have more stringent laws? That debate lends itself to other subterranean issues. TADA and POTA were seen to be too harsh and hence scrapped. So effectively what we have are 19th century legislations concerning law and order. Are they sufficient to match the wits, guile and daring of modern day anarchists? Your guess is as good as mine.

India’s geographical position makes it a special case. Hemmed in by two vast military oligarchies China and Pakistan — who also happen to be allies — it has roughly two fronts to tackle. If Pakistan by its own admission has been sending in terrorists to India, China’s provocative postures and hyperactive cyber militants have hacked into as many sensitive websites as they possibly can. 

The biggest challenge is to maintain the very delicate balance between intelligence and democracy. In non-elected governments, collecting information is easy, torture and tapping being two time tested sources of information. In democracies, no one can - and should - be harassed. There are well laid out procedures which are time consuming and which need resources. Unless India works on these two aspects, its security is going to be compromised. For a nation that seeks to lead the world in economic change, that is hardly a good sign.

Perception as Reality

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation, held 18th-19th century English jurist and philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In India, legislations have followed a similar logic and plot since 1947. They have helped shape contemporary thought, in addition to moulding public opinion, influencing politicians and policymakers in such a way they constitute an integral part of contemporary Indian history.

In doing so, they have tried on most occasions to adhere to the single touch stone which believes that legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests. To be sure rulers have tried at different points of time to turn this tide of history or to introduce overtly political strands into what is essentially a bi-partisan motion, but they have been repelled.

More than anything, legislations have decisively proved to be the barometre of public opinion. When the Congress government in the 1980s decided to impose India’s own version of press censorship, it was defeated through a well crafted strategy of opposition both inside and outside the Parliament. Similarly the scandalous 42nd Amendment which sought to bestow the office of the Prime Minister with extra constitutional powers in the Emergency years, was repealed. In some cases, apart from generating heat and debate, it has also guided political destinies. 

When legislation in the Shah Bano case was forced down the throat of a one-party dominated Parliament, the issues that it threw up eventually turned out to be more powerful than the enactment itself. It eroded Congress’ mass bases in the most politically crucial state of India: Uttar Pradesh.

To be sure, a popular piece of legislation has also been welcomed. When Indira Gandhi decided to abolish privy purses of princely dynasties in the early 1970s, it may have evoked great consternation in the minds of the Maharajas, Rajas and erstwhile rulers who stood to lose a lot but inside the Parliament, members did not see it that way. For them, this was a popular move in a day and age when everything stood to be nationalised and if the opulent princelings were to be put into their place, be it so.

In the new millennium, new issues have come to dominate and by the looks of it, they are no easy meat either. Take for instance, the Lokpal Bill. Introduced for the first time in the 1960s, its passage of introduction has been tortuous. Introduced, withdrawn and re-introduced. In its latest avatar, the bill has finally seen the light of the day but only after a comprehensive light and sound show involving protagonists holding forth on corruption. Despite the bill’s introduction, its enactment is quite another thing altogether and is likely to see more pitched battles in and outside the Parliament. 

But given that drama is part and parcel of democracy, there is little doubt that the government has sensed the public mood on graft and has decided it would be safer to introduce the bill in whatever form and then see how the cookie crumbles. 

Often enacting legislation turns into a playground for political shadow boxing and there is no better embodiment of it than the Women’s Reservation Bill. Parties are candid in their off-record assessment that of all the bills pending, this is the one which will be the hardest to enact. Reason: in an overcrowded theatre where reservations of all kinds are on the cards, the last thing a politician wants is competition from inside his own household. Which is what is likely to happen should women’s reservation in political parties become a reality. The threat of losing a long-held constituency to a cousin or even a wife or a sister is particularly galling.

On the face of it, everyone favours more representation for women but that could well be the public persona. The irony of the situation is typical Indian: even despite no reservations, Indian politics is dominated in a big way by women. 

It is this dichotomy that this current issue of Governance Watch seeks to explore with 12 of the most significant legislations since 1947. Assuredly more could have been added to the list but that is also a question of perception.

Things that make India tick

A year after the 1857 revolt had been well and truly quelled, the British in India embarked upon their first major administrative voyage, the Act for the Better Government of India, 1858, a legislation of far reaching import.

It made changes at three levels in British India’s governance policy, first at the imperial level in London, the second at the capital of India in Calcutta and the third at the level of states or provinces. This approach introduced by the British – and subsequently carried on in toto by the Indians – deftly divided Indian polity into two pillars. The first pillar was Politics which comprised elections, legislation, representations to the government, dissent, drama and all activities which personified democracy.

The second was more complex. It laid down Policy, the execution of government plans, development initiatives, a bureaucracy to oversee and meet targets and objectives and to ensure that what the politician promised, reached the people, at least in theory. So in effect, while Politics in India is flexible in terms of who or which political party comes to power, on the question of Policy there can be no real changes, except those brought about by legislation and common consent.

A Policy introduced by, lets say, the Congress will be carried on by the BJP and vice versa. Globalisation as Policy was adopted by the Congress government in the early 1990s. But it was pursued equally vigorously by the BJP-led NDA government. While Politics is flexible and in the hands of generalists in which any member of the public can participate, Policy is cast in stone, and in the hands of specialists, either bureaucrats or technologists. Thus was laid down the concept of governance.

It is common for experts and laity alike to prophesise that in India it is only politics that works, that the alignment of caste and religion and other emotional strings ultimately decide the fate of politicians in elections.

While this may be partially true, it does not provide all answers. Increasingly, voters are asking more questions than those relating just to ethnic affinity.

A candidate contesting polls at the national or the state level now has to have at their finger tips a list of development activities that he or she intends to pursue. If a legislator has served a full term, then a listing has to be made of the targets promised and met. One good example of this growing awareness of the importance of Policy is the office of the Ministry of Power in Delhi.

At any given time of the year, there are a horde of MPs waiting to meet the power minister with one fervent request: please allocate some megawatts from the central or state power grid to my constituency, no matter how meagre. Apparently the first question people ask these days is electricity shortage and politicians seeking a second term have to know all the right answers or be prepared to face the consequences.

It is this triumph of democracy that The Sunday Indian seeks to reflect through this edition which will be on stands once every two months.It will look at the biggest topics around which the Indian growth and power devolution story revolves. The executive, judiciary and the legislature will in focus as will be the increasing role of activists who have an influential voice when it comes to introducing amendments in Policy matters.

There is no greater evidence of this clout than the National Advisory Council (NAC) which has had an important role to play in the two UPA-led governments since 2004.By its very nature, Politics is populist and impulsive, but Policy or governance is more steady, has to keep an eye on detail and not give in to sudden flights of imagination, fancy or enterprise.

The Sunday Indian’s Governance Watch is going to do just that –  keep an eye. It will also meet a critical need. While the media is filled with so-called political stories, based on palace intrigues and personal likes and dislikes, this issue will examine how India is being run and bring readers close to home truths, to the nuts and bolts that actually move the country and its sytems.