Ask what you can do for the country

Central government employees, including All India Service officers working in the States, have got a substantial pay rise. State governments will have no option but to follow suit very shortly.

This is something that all government staff should be happy about. They can’t complain that the raise fell below expectations at a time when there is a huge unorganised sector in the country that can hardly look for periodic wage increases. Nor can the bureaucracy crib about anomalies between groups of employees: these are inevitable when the government redraws the emolument structure. They have, no doubt, a right to represent their grievances, but none to disrupt the routine, going out into the streets on a protest.

Public servants in the country already stand alienated from the community. Demonstrations and slogan-shouting will further dilute their acceptability and credibility. Central and State staff have, over the years, acquired the image of a greedy lot, who are more conscious of their rights than duties.

There is underlying resentment among them when a new Prime Minister cracks the whip and demands higher productivity.

The average citizen feels that remonstrating against attempts to tone up the administration is highly objectionable.

This is why lots of people say with sarcasm that the ‘babu’ is being needlessly pampered through such upward pay revision, and that unless there is reciprocity in the form of greater sensitivity to community aspirations and a willingness to put in longer hours of work (and forgo some holidays on the long list), the average government employee does not deserve a periodic pay rise.

What does the common man want from the civil service, both at the top and at the lower rungs? First of all, there is a demand for accessibility. You call any government office seeking to speak to a senior or middle-level officer. You are calling to seek an expeditious decision in a professional service matter. You definitely don’t want to discuss a recent movie or the rightness of overlooking Ravi Shastri for the position of the country’s chief cricket coach!

Invariably, the officer concerned will not come on the line, the PA will tell you that his boss is in a meeting. If this experience occurs just once or twice, it does not matter. But if this happens each time you call, you are naturally annoyed and form the impression that the officer concerned doesn’t want to serve a taxpaying citizen, even if the latter makes a wholly lawful request.

I concede that many government officials function in an ambience of stress. That is, however, no reason not to meet a member of the public to give an ear to his grievance. The common man wants this culture to change, and change immediately.

With social media such as Facebook and Twitter becoming so widely used, communication with a citizen is far easier than before. This promotes speed and transparency. There is evidence of a refreshing reliance on the part of sections of the bureaucracy on this mode of keeping in touch with the public. This has to become more intense and widespread. I know that there are still some in government who wantonly refuse to become computer savvy. They need to either fall in line with modern technology or quit.

On the positive side I hear very encouraging developments with regard to issue/renewal of passports, which are now easy to obtain without greasing somebody’s palm.

Another illustration is the process of obtaining train tickets online. Why can’t this extend rapidly to other departments of government which directly deliver services to the common man? That process may not liquidate corruption. But it will certainly reduce its magnitude.

A galling feature of Indian administration is the shameful rapacity of a large number of officials. Until a few decades ago, this was a feature among the lower level of government servants. I am afraid this has moved up the hierarchy in the past few years.

The evidence of this is the recent arrest of so many senior tax and law enforcement officials by the CBI. This is distressing.

How do we handle this? How do we push up integrity levels in the senior ranks? The high rates of compensation to government officials in places such as Singapore, Malaysia and Europe are often cited to explain the astonishing probity of the civil services in those countries. If that were so, can we expect pay increases to push up standards of integrity in our government departments?

Large sections of the public are cynical that since greed and not need dictates the mindset of most bureaucrats, the recent hike in pay may not exactly bring about any dramatic change in their attitude to honesty. Political corruption cannot be an excuse for civil servants to line their own pockets.

It is shameful that some of the latter act as conduits to pass on money to their political masters. Nothing can be more condemnable.

The bottomline is that the poison of graft has afflicted all ranks in government. Unchecked, this can paralyse the entire administration. We, therefore, need a revolution of sorts in the mental make-up of many who join the government. The fact is that many idealistic young men and women who get through the civil services examination fall prey to the lures of unethical opportunities very early in their career.

I remember how former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was once appalled to learn, after talking to IAS/IPS and other probationers, that most of them wanted to join income-tax or customs, rather than other superior services. That testified to the values of an entrant to the presitigious central government services. I wonder whether the situation has changed at all.

While the public have a fundamental right to demand quick service without having to pay bribes, they too have an obligation to remain steadfast in their resolve not to pay for something that they are entitled to as citizens. Unfortunately, because of the unwillingness to wait for his turn, every citizen wants to jump the queue and be served ahead of anybody else. It is the unabashed payment of ‘speed money’ that has polluted the system. It is only a collective resolve not to yield to illegal and unethical demands of a public official that can help change the situation. Or else, we will continue to slide down in the esteem of the rest of the world.

The writer is a former CBI director

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