The Hindu Business Line : <I>Politicised administration </I>

The unprecedented violence in the recent polls to local bodies in Tamil Nadu, especially the Chennai Corporation, has once again thrown into sharp relief the increasing politicisation of bureaucracy at all levels.

In a sense, total and complete depoliticisation of administration is an impossibility. It is, however, expected of an upright public servant not to give rise to even a whiff of suspicion that personal predilections or the rapport he enjoys with politicians of different hues have affected his objectivity and impartiality. By and large, government officials adhered to this code of conduct till around the mid-1970s. But political masters who were in a hurry to achieve their ends found this inconvenient, if not downright obstructive. They began actively subverting the old values in favour of inducting `committed' bureaucracy, and even `committed' judiciary. The dry rot that set in has robbed the administration and the police of the trust and credibility they once enjoyed in the eyes of the people.

The politician-official nexus is now in full swing, each accommodating the other's wishes, with sordid self-interest at a premium. In the bargain (pun intended), all sense of delicacy or shame has gone overboard, and the distinction between politics and administration has been blurred. How else does one explain the eager identification by the various echelons of the administration with the fortunes of political leaders? In many States, government functionaries are given over to one party or the other, blindly doing its bidding. The public is convinced that the percentage of those who are non-partisan is negligible.

The most conspicuous example is when, following the taking over of the reins of the government by a rival political party or coalition, the crime branch-cum-criminal investigation department (CB-CID) begins raiding the premises belonging to prominent political personalities of the previous regime and claims to have unearthed incriminating evidence of assorted offences. If these people were committing crimes, how was it that the fact was not known to the CID when they were in power?

After all, a crime is a crime is a crime, and whoever commits it, whether he is holding position of authority or not, should have been hauled up. . Most regrettably, even the CBI is widely believed to be caving in to political pressure.

These ominous trends if left unaddressed will reduce governance to a shambles and endanger the very stability, if not survival, of India as a nation.

B. S. RAGHAVAN