Those were the days

Yesterday I stepped into the 62nd year of entry into the Indian Administrative Service. Standing on this vantage point, what is the panorama of public service that I see unfolding before me? Am I filled with forebodings or buoyed up with hope? What I have attempted in this column is not a definitive portrayal, but a necessarily pointillistic narration, of the changing features of public service over this long period.

What remains till today a matter of the greatest amazement for me is the utter dedication to public well-being shown by India’s so-called colonial masters and the members of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). They constituted a bunch of barely 1,000-2,000 higher level British officials. Here they were, 6,000 miles away from home, exposed to horrendous living conditions, hostile terrain, a cruel climate and every imaginable disease, with no healthcare or medical facility worth the name, with 40 per cent of their wives in danger of dying of septicemia at child birth and spread over the nook and corner of a strange land, extending from the Northwestern Frontier Province to Burma, until it was hived off in 1937 to become a separate entity.

They could have taken it easy, just collecting taxes to keep themselves going, maintaining law and order for their own security, and carrying out minimal administrative functions. But no! They wrote detailed manuals covering every aspect of efficiency and effectiveness of public administration, made it mandatory for public officials to spend at least 10 nights in villages among the people, listening to, and redressing, their grievances, prescribing programmes of inspection of public works and public offices, and enforcing implicit and timely compliance with every order passed.

FRAGRANCE IN THE AMBIENCE

While serving in Darjeeling in the 1950s, I have seen old records testifying to the punishing work schedules of British officials of every department, who trudged up the rugged mountain paths to visit remote hilly hamlets at high altitudes to spend time with the people.

The integrity, sense of duty and hard work of British public officials, and their identification with the joys and sorrows as also the linguistic, literary and cultural heritage of the people they had come to serve were indeed awesome.

This was the legacy that the Indian members of the higher services inherited at the turn of Independence. Punctuality in attending offices and conscientious discharge of public duties were still at a premium in the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajaji, B.C. Roy, Kamaraj and other stalwarts. If, in the years immediately following Independence, senior services were seen to be honest, it was simply because they didn’t know how to be dishonest! There was still lingering in the ambiance the fragrance of the simplicity, austerity, selflessness and sacrifice of freedom heroes.

In those days, public servants of whatever description were never afraid of expressing, whether orally or in writing, their candid opinion on matters under disposal.

The excruciating treatment meted out to officials speaking their minds during the 1975-77 Emergency put paid to the noble tradition of plain speaking in public interest which was the hallmark of the culture of early days of Independence.

IN A WHIRLIGIG

The momentum of that legacy of discipline, responsiveness, empathy and commitment on the part of public servants slowly began petering out, reaching the vanishing point in the 1980s.

There is a paradox here: Persons entering legislatures and public services have post-graduate, professional, research and management degrees. The quality of public service, standards of rectitude and devotion to duty seem to be falling even as credentials and qualifications are rising.

How come? I want to take a charitable view. I will not blame any particular class — politicians, parents, teachers, public services or whatever. I will only blame circumstances which have undoubtedly taken on a bewildering complexion.

The pace and variety of activities in every sphere have become killing, and the cascade of challenges and hassles confronting people insuperable.

Both insiders and outsiders in respect of any given situation or context are finding themselves in a whirligig and losing their moorings which include value systems.

In spacious days of yore, human beings had plenty of time to give to fellow human beings — whether as members of the family, community, society or organisation.

Now everyone has to run fast to stand still.

However, I have every hope that things will right themselves with advances in education, technology and economic growth.

Other countries and other peoples have passed through worse times but have forged ahead. So will India!

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