False sense of service

Dutifully, the Prime Minister inaugurated the day-long celebrations observed as Civil Services Day at Vigyan Bhavan Delhi for the seventh time on April 21. Same PM, same civil servants, same speeches and some prizes. That this quixotic annual ritual is of no relevance to aam aadmi goes without saying. But it seems it is nearly as meaningless for the civil servants too.

In our country, when any one refers to a set of people pejoratively as babus and appreciatively as civil servants, it generally refers to the same set of people who add the appellation ‘IAS' (Indian Administrative Service) at the end of their baptised names. That the term ‘civil servants' is a collective noun and should also include the vast army of scientists, engineers, doctors , technicians, clerks and peons — nearly four million in the Central Government — is not remembered.

The rest are termed government servants or employees.

Pecking order

Creating a top-down hierarchy even where no such thing is required, is an integral part of Indian ethos. Despite several attempts at administrative reforms, the pecking order, formal and informal, cannot be done away with. The members of the IAS, of course, are on top of the heap, and do not brook any intrusion into their turf by other services. Likewise, members of central services band together to be snooty when dealing with State (Pradesh) civil services and State government employees who, in turn, look down upon officers serving in Municipal Corporations.

Recently, Ms Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, unwittingly underscored this point while accusing the Central Government of being disdainful in dealing with the State government. She said that the Centre was treating her administration no better than municipalities! Surely, municipalities are worthy of more respect than she seems to suggest.

The civil services may be keeping the wheels of administration going on a day-to-day basis, but have left an indelible impression of self-aggrandisement. They have created for themselves an entitlement culture and are enjoying it.

Negative perception

The best illustration of this is a recent anecdote from Mr Chetan Bhagat, the well-known young author. When Mr Bhagat was travelling by Air India in economy class, seated alongside was his classmate, whose father was in the IAS. When the cabin crew came to know of his classmate's pedigree, they upgraded him to business class.

Sixty years ago, when Rajaji was the Chief Minister of Madras, his witty interjections in the legislative assembly were looked forward to. He once called PWD “Plunder Without Detection”.

Today, had he been alive I am sure he would have come out with an apt acronym for today's civil servants.

Be that as it may, setting apart a day in a year as ‘Civil Services Day' can hardly help in beating back the negative public perception about civil servants.

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Factories.)

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