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As the Indian bureaucracy completes 160 years, former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer T.R. Raghunanandan reflects on the decisions being taken by the government to reform the IAS and the impact these are likely to have. The first part of this blog can be found here. 

Things seem to be moving swiftly in the circles of IAS reforms. The idea of having a fourth level of examinations at the end of the Common Foundation Course, which I had said was unnecessary, seems to have been dropped for now, going by the reports in the papers. However, that has not laid to rest other questions, two of which considerably exercise the mind at the moment; the one of lateral entry at the Joint Secretary’s level and the other, of the stand-off between the elected government of Delhi, and particularly its chief minister, and the IAS. I propose to deal with the latter in this blog.

The circumstances of the current controversy on who is answerable to whom in Delhi, are well known. One would not hazard to look at the issues of the facts, because, depending on where one sits, one has a diametrically opposite view point on the facts that have led to the dispute between the IAS and the elected government. Suffice to say that there is tension between the two; and that is a masterly understatement.

Regardless of my personal views on the matter as to who is right or wrong at this point in time, I have long held that the crux of the issue was the delay by the Supreme Court in determining the exact boundaries of the responsibilities of the elected government of the union territory of Delhi and the Union Government. As long as these boundaries were hazy, there was ample scope for disputes between the union and the union territory’s elected government. Disputes of this nature almost always place the permanent bureaucracy in a sensitive position; as they are used as the arms and ammunition for political battles.

Sadly, last week’s Supreme Court order did not make matters clear. At the end of 535 pages of sometimes heavy reading; one is still at a loss to get answers to precise questions that needed to be answered. Broad statements such as that the Lieutenant Governor works under the aid and advice of the elected government, and that the two ought to work with a spirit of cooperation, hardly suffice when the tussle is about real issues on the ground; who issues transfer orders of staff, who recruits and who clears and undertakes procurement processes. It is not as if the Supreme Court were not aware of these matters, even though these might not have been framed into precise issues and questions to be answered by the court.

Once again, there is ample scope for the bureaucracy to be accused of favouritism and being subordinated, possibly under threat, to the union government.

What does the bureaucracy do in such matters? When faced with orders that contradict each other, what line of thought ought to be the norm?

The answer lies in the fundamentals, which is the hierarchy of orders or directives. Any student of public administration knows well enough that the working directives that drive governance on a day to day basis, such as rules, bye-laws, instructions and letters, only constitute a subordinate framework, which is subject to the law. The law, in turn, is subject to the provisions of the Constitution.

True, bureaucrats who take upon themselves the task of interpreting the Constitution may find themselves in a tight spot, because their interpretation might be disputed, particularly when it comes to the nuances of the separation of functions between levels of government. However, in this case, the Supreme Court has already given an interpretation, which needs to be acted upon. The key to understand such interpretations is to proceed in the opposite direction as one would if one were to be faced with a battery of rules and laws. One needs to comply with the broad principles and then fill in the detail.

Whatever may be the gaps in the interpretation of the Supreme Court, the judgment makes two clear and unequivocal statements. First, that the LG works under the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, and that all matters in the State and Concurrent List, excluding subjects that are specifically excluded, come within the domain of the elected government. Surely, that is easy to interpret?

The problem arises when tactical positions are taken, with a view to the future, as to which position is to be supported. Such positioning by the bureaucracy, which comprises largely of ambitious loners, might yield benefits to individuals who ride the risks. However, it undermines the bureaucracy as a whole. Politicians are canny creatures; always on the lookout for chinks in the armour of the permanent bureaucracy. Over the years, politicians are no longer befuddled by the impassive barriers that the bureaucracy builds against quick and decisive actions; if an officer won’t do what the politician of the day wants, the latter will find a new officer to do their bidding.

As it stands today, it looks as if more issues will be raised before the Supreme Court. In particular, the issue of who controls the services of the officers in Delhi, will be raised. However, whatever may be the outcome, the position of the bureaucracy as a permanent and objective servant of the political power of the people expressed through the latter’s representatives, will be undermined. The nice thing about a democracy is that political power changes hands, sometimes when one least expects it. But politicians also teach each other tricks that succeed.  Manipulating and playing mental games to subjugate the permanent bureaucracy is one of them.  

The views expressed are of the author only and do not represent an institutional stand.

As the Indian bureaucracy completes over 160 years in 2018, former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer T.R. Raghunanandan reflects on the decisions being taken by the government to reform the IAS and the impact these are likely to have. 

The last three months of staying away from blogging – my longest absence so far from this site – has not been without event. From the unique experience of witnessing a state’s elections from up close as the election agent of a candidate, one argued and bantered on issues concerning the bureaucracy; an eternal favourite subject of discussion on social media.

Three events have shaken the Indian Administrative Service to its very foundations in the meanwhile. The first is a letter from a Joint Secretary of the Union Government, which suggested that selection of officers into the various civil services and – in the case of the All India Services – their allocation to various states, will depend upon the final ranking of the candidate after he or she has attended the Common Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. The second is an advertisement issued by the Union Government, seeking for open selection to the positions of the Joint Secretaries in selected key ministries of the Union Government. The third is the acrimonious showdown between the elected government of the Union Territory of Delhi and the civil servants working with it, which hopefully has now been resolved and a working arrangement of sorts restored.

On each of these issues, discussions within the tribe – I still continue to be a member of it, in spite of my voluntary retirement – have been full of clashing opinions. While officers who continue to serve in office have generally been quiet, or at most, are cautious in their comments, those who have retired have not held back from voicing their concerns. Most comments on these developments have been adverse, though some are optimistic that the changes rung in with the first two decisions will be for the better. Yet, there is unanimity – a rare thing when IAS officers discuss anything – that these events have irreversibly changed the character and the ethos of the service.

Let me say what I think is right, or wrong about these matters. The first issue is whether the final selection of officers into their respective services should depend upon the performance of the officer trainees in the Common Foundation Course.

The Civil Services examination is a trial by fire. There are three levels that have to be cleared till one finds one’s name on the merit list. At each level there is a carnage; a ruthless exclusion of those considered unfit. The first is an objective test that screens participants for the main examination. Nearly a million candidates appear for this examination and not more than ten thousand clear it; that is a selection rate of one candidate per hundred aspirants. Then, these ten thousand or so appear for a written examination comprising several papers, after which about two thousand are selected for face to face interviews. Following the interviews, nearly a thousand are finally selected into a basket of various services. Considered to be at the top; though technically, there is no such hierarchy, is the Indian Administrative Service, to which roughly one hundred and fifty candidates are selected. Then come the Indian Police Service, the Foreign Service, the Revenue Service, the Audits and Accounts Service and so on, again in no particular order of hierarchy, to make up the list of selected candidates.

Given the intensity of the competition, there is very little to distinguish one successful candidate from the other. While some of the top performers are prodigiously brilliant and their final marks are way beyond those obtained by their fellow competitors, as one goes down the merit list, the bunching of successful candidates who have obtained the same number of marks, becomes more and more pronounced. It is not unusual that what separates an individual who makes it into the IAS from one who does not, may be a fraction of a percentage point of marks obtained. Also given that the optional subjects that may be offered by candidates for the written examination ranges from medicine, to engineering, to law and to Chinese, the comparisons of skill and intelligence levels of different candidates is like comparing the proverbial apple with the proverbial orange.

In such circumstances, the successful candidate is bathed in relief and happiness when the results are announced. Since society makes much of them, many succumb to the belief that they are individuals with extraordinary intelligence. But some are intelligent enough to understand that they were lucky to be faced with questions that played to their strengths. It was their good day when they took the examination, and they aced it.

From what I remember, the Common Foundation Course was an endless lark. Nobody, except those officer trainees who were genetically wired to be diligent and sincere – read that as ‘humourless and dour’ – took the Common Foundation Course seriously. The government is being very unfair now, to reduce this celebration of success into another grind, where officers are closely scrutinised, before their fate for the next three decades is decided.

On a more serious note, will this idea of testing the officers during the Foundation course have the effect of improving the quality of the civil services, or is it another extension of the torture of the civil services examination? I will continue this exploration in my next blog. 

As the Indian bureaucracy completes over 160 years, former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer T.R. Raghunanandan reflects on the decisions being taken by the government to reform the IAS and the impact these are likely to have. The first part of this blog can be found here.  

Once Officer Trainees are selected, they are all directed to join the Common Foundation Course, an orientation programme that usually starts in the  August of every year.  Since more than 500 individuals now get selected, there is not enough accommodation in the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie; so a parallel Common Foundation Course is held in the National Academy of Direct Taxes, Nagpur.

The Common Foundation Course is considered a big milestone; not in terms of the training content imparted, but simply because it is the professional gateway to what is a lifetime of service in the government, for most participants. The academic content comprises hardly anything worth remembering. Once one clears the entrance exam into the civil services, the classes on subjects such as Constitutional law or public administration does not hold one’s attention. The Foundation Course therefore relies on four kinds of activities to keep the participants active and interested.

The first are the classroom sessions where the resource persons are invited experts in their respective fields, or are civil servants with relevant experience. Usually, instead of regular lectures, panel discussions are organised, which stoke the exchange of several perspectives. These give newly recruited officers a preview into life in the government. The second are the after office hours activities. Life is an active social whirl, with plenty of societies formed by the officer trainees, say, for example, in music, theatre, quizzing and suchlike, which conduct competitions and discover that talents of the Officer Trainees go well beyond the ability to pass a tough examination. The third are group activities that involve traveling and immersion into various situations, known as ‘attachments’. Officer trainees, usually in small groups, are attached to various agencies or offices for this immersion. There is a village attachment and a tribal one, as also attachments with prominent NGOs, agricultural universities, Public Sector Undertakings and so on. Officers are attached to units of the armed forces as well. Some of these are undertaken in the Common Foundation Course while others are spread over a two year probationary period. The last are tests and project reports, in which officers, either individually or collectively, reflect upon their experiences, do a modicum of academic study and submit a final report on a chosen subject.

There have been suggestions in the air for more than thirty years that the marks obtained, both in the examinations conducted in the Academy for all participants in the Common Foundation Course, as also the internal assessments based on an assessment of the academic and non academic performance of each candidate, ought to be reckoned for the allocation of services and inter-se ranking. The Kothari Committee on reforms to the selection process for the Civil Services was the first to make this suggestion. However, the government did not accept this recommendation, stating that the assessment process conducted by the Academy was prone to be distorted due to political or other pressures. The government has recently again reopened this issue and asked the suggestion of states on what they thought off the idea.

Will this idea of testing the officers during the Foundation course have the effect of improving the quality of the civil services, or is it another extension of the torture of the civil services examination?

Personally, I think it is a tiresome idea, for several reasons. First, officers who finally make the grade have undergone one of the toughest examination processes, which has screened them from thousand others who did not make it. It just is not fair if a fourth layer of high stakes examinations are going to be held, in order to determine where the officer would be finally slotted. Second, a lot of officers selected for the Foundation Course don’t attend it, as they are again appearing for the civil services examination. How they will be assessed is not known. Third, the UPSC has been a bulwark of impartiality and credibility, when it comes to the selection of civil servants. The Constitution does not envisage that any part of the selection process would be undertaken by a body other than the UPSC. It would be a dilution of this approach if the government wants to conduct another final screening examination before assigning the state in which the officer will serve.

I would let the Foundation Course be. It is meant to be a lark. It is meant to build a sense of unity between people from diverse professions and interest. It is meant to develop social skills, particularly in those who have become mindless recluses because of repeatedly writing the civil services examination. Adding one layer more to the three stage recruitment process is not worth the trouble; it only vitiates the celebratory and cheerful atmosphere of the Academy and replaces it with grim faced examination fever. It would not allow any time for cathartic celebration. I think everybody who writes the civil services exam and succeeds at it, deserves a little bit of time to luxuriate in the feeling of success.