The Hindu Business Line : Administrative reforms: Case of Sisyphean labour

As if the reports of more than 45 Committees are not enough, the Government has appointed yet another Administrative Reforms Commission. The sprawling terms of reference and the mini-dissertation elaborating on them do not at all reflect the current realities of the people, and appears more like the mythical task of pushing a stone up the hill only for it to roll back, says B. S. RAGHAVAN.

Who has not heard the story of Sisyphus, consigned by divine curse to the realm of the dead, and forced till eternity to keep rolling a huge stone up a steep hill, only to see it tumbling back down when he reaches the top, and making him start the process all over again? Who has also not known of the savagely satirical novel — Erewhon — of Samuel Butler on those who strive frenetically hard to get somewhere but actually get nowhere? Or, who has not come across the Queen's strange admonition in Through the Looking Glass that "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place"? Are you tempted to dismiss these stories as utterly preposterous and outlandish? You must then be one of those innocents who have not heard of the Never-Never Land of administrative reforms nor of the labours purposelessly and in perpetuity put in by the Central and State governments in India ever since Independence to design a citizen-loving administrative structure!

Not daunted by the nearly 25,000 pages of reports of more than 45 Committees and Commissions gathering dust, the UPA Government appointed on August 31, 2005, yet another Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) — not the last one that the country is destined to see — to work on yet another report for the next 12 months. The odds stacked against it are formidable. For a start, except the Member-Secretary, all other Members of the Commission are part-time, living in different parts of the country. It is going to be quite a problem to get them to apply their minds to the responsibilities assigned to them in a sustained manner.

Its chairperson, Mr Veerappa Moily, is no doubt a seasoned politician with a grasp of the essentials of governance and its five other members too are known for their distinguished service to the nation in their respective capacities in their heyday. While none can quarrel with the composition of the Commission, the establishmentarian affinities of the members may hamstring them from offering any bold or radical prescriptions for fear of causing embarrassment to the Government or dislocation in the humdrum manner in which it is accustomed to function.

COSMIC SWEEP

Further, having been out of touch with the innards of the administrative machinery for long, they may not be sufficiently familiar (for no fault of theirs) with the complex demands of the current situation. If they were to merely bank on their own past, and outdated, experience, and on the views of the conservative-minded invited to meet, or write to, them, their recommendations are unlikely to be little more than a rehash of what had already been proposed by numerous other such bodies before them.

The greatest problem the Commission is up against is the incredibly vast and variegated terrain it has been asked to cover within the period of a year. The Government has set for it near-insuperable tasks numbering (the unlucky) 13, on all of which it is required to suggest measures "to achieve a proactive, responsive, accountable, sustainable and efficient administration for the country at all levels of the Government".

The overload of topics ranges as far afield as the organisational structure of the Government; ethics in governance; "refurbishing" of personnel administration; strengthening of financial management systems; steps to ensure effective administration at the State level; steps to ensure effective district administration; working of local self-government and panchayati raj institutions; social capital, trust, and participative public service delivery; citizen-centric administration; promoting e-governance; issues of federal polity; crisis management; and public order.

TERMS OF REFERENCE

As if this list is not cosmic enough in its sweep, the Commission is landed with a six-page schedule to the terms of reference enlarging upon each item of this bewilderingly heterogeneous cluster and enumerating in all 66 issues, most of them couched in opaque and jargonised language.

Just take the first task, "Organisational structure of the Government of India" and see the kind of intricate and complex aspects the Commission is asked to pronounce upon: Reorganisation of Ministries and Departments; revisiting and redefining the role of the Ministries and Departments in the context of evolving role of governance and need for greater collaboration; manpower planning and process reengineering; positioning administrative services in the modern context of global integration, emergence of markets and liberalisation; suiting the present system of governance to the environment of the times; suggesting a framework for possible areas where there is need for governmental regulation and those where it should be reduced; and strengthening the framework for efficient, economical, sensitive, clean, objective and agile (sic) administrative machinery!

The issues spun out of each of the other 12 topics are equally encyclopaedic. The possibility of the Commission being able to do justice to this mountainous mishmash of unrelated items and coming out with any meaningful report is extremely doubtful.

GOADED BY VIOLENCE

What the Government has not realised is that the time for ponderously repetitive tomes on administrative reforms is long past. Now nothing less than an administrative revolution will do. All the peripheral tinkering from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru onwards has made little difference to the average citizen who has no wires to pull and no means to bribe. The netas, sahibs and babus glare at him with, not a human, but an ogre's face. Even calls and communications from persons eminent in public life are ignored. On the other hand, once people erupt into violence and go on a destructive spree, the highest functionaries rush out to meet and greet them and assuage their feelings. They receive, shake hands and spend hours deferentially confabulating with those who resort to militancy, insurgency and mass murders, whereas persons who adhere to lawful ways are hounded, harassed and humiliated.

The lesson to the common man is clear: Administration is stone deaf to grievances expressed in a decent or peaceful manner, and can be roused to action only by violence.

The morphing of corruption into "rent-seeking" shows that it has finally arrived as a dignified and respectable avocation.

Corruption cannot be bad, the average citizen reasons to himself, because not one politician has been convicted of it since Independence. Politicians notorious for graft are getting guards of honour and smart salutes as MLAs, MPs and Cabinet Ministers.

RENT SEEKING

The "rents" sought are no longer talked in whispers, since they have ceased to be a matter of shame. They are transparent, above board and neatly and equitably standardised. Names of "rent" seeking judges and information on the amounts of "rent" are freely shared with anyone who wants to negotiate a judgment.

Ministers who, with a flip of the pen, are prepared to change "Not approved" to "Note approved" for the prescribed "rent" are no longer objects of denigration but of admiration.

No member of the general public is prepared to vouch for the upright functioning of any institution - Constitutional functionaries, bureaucracy, police, judiciary, service commissions, educational authorities, regulatory bodies et al.

The sprawling terms of reference and the mini-dissertation elaborating on them do not at all reflect the realities of the present situation in which people of the country, face-to-face with a callous and wooden administration, are in a rebellious mood and being driven to take the law into their hands.

(To be concluded)