civil servants

Modi Guilty of Impropriety, Telling Bureaucrats To Make Post-Election Roadmap Is Undemocratic, Wrong

“I can’t remember any occasion on which I was told or any official was told to prepare a plan in anticipation of a person coming back to power,” K.M. Chandrasekhar said.

In an interview to comment on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s order to senior civil servants to prepare a roadmap for the first 100 days as well as for the first six months of the as yet unelected new government, former cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar has said this is “totally unconventional and unprecedented”. “I can’t remember any occasion on which I was told or any official was told to prepare a plan in anticipation of a person coming back to power,” he added. Chandrasekhar said this was “not desirable, not right, not in the spirit of democracy”.

Chandrasekhar, who was cabinet secretary from 2007 to 2011, said, “Once an election is announced the role and character of a government certainly changes.” Explaining his point further, he said: “I think democracy demands that when an election is announced thereafter it’s only a holding operation the government performs.”

Chandrasekhar said he can’t think of any precedent, either in India or abroad, where the outgoing government has asked civil servants to prepare a roadmap for an unelected future government on the assumption that the outgoing government will be re-elected. He was asked whether this order from the prime minister, along with an earlier order last year asking joint secretary and junior officers to act as ‘Rath Prabharis’ and showcase the achievements of the last nine years, was “improper and a misuse of government powers”. Chandrasekhar twice said: “I absolutely agree”. He also agreed that the prime minister was guilty of “an impropriety”.

The Back-Room Mischief Makers

Today’s civil servants are openly subverting established systems to please their political masters.

The term “confession” has a dual connotation: you confess your love for someone or for something beautiful and inspiring, but you can also confess to a misdemeanour or to being part of a disreputable group. In writing this piece on the bureaucracy, I feel obliged to confess that for a good part of my active life, I was an insignificant component of a “giant machine run by pygmies”. This is an insider’s analysis of a not-so-honourable segment of government that has precious little to celebrate but much to be ashamed of. Even my dear spouse has figured out our ingrained professional limitations, evident from the fact that in her quiver of insults, the most hurtful is: “You are behaving like a typical bureaucrat!”

The bureaucracy was conceived to promote and safeguard public interest. It has been defined by sociologist Max Weber as the most technically proficient form of organisation that provides specialised expertise; uniform rules and procedures that are impersonal and equitable; continuity through record-keeping and other markers that preserve organisational memory; and cohesion through hierarchical command and control. The universalised application of laws, rules and “due process” ensures against discrimination and partisanship. The sacred mission is to do good by the common man.

India’s Iron Man, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, by far the greatest politician-administrator the country has produced, envisioned a bureaucracy that would be the “steel frame” of good governance in independent India. Speaking to the first batch of Indian Administrative Service officers in 1947, he exhorted them with these memorable words: “Your predecessors were brought up in traditions which kept them aloof from the common run of people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common man as your own.”

The great man believed that fulfilling such an onerous responsibility was possible only if the bureaucrat articulated his views with courage and integrity, as not doing so vitiated the process of decision-making. For him (unlike for the small men at the helm today), the foundational principle of a healthy vibrant administration was a civil service that expressed its opinion without fear or favour. In his words: “Today my secretary can write a note opposed to my views; I have given that freedom to all my secretaries. I have told them, ‘If you do not give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your minister, then you had better go. I will bring another secretary.’ I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion.” In telling civil servants that they were dutybound to express their views without fear, Patel underlined the simple truth that the salary paid to them is not hush money that denies them the right to express their views freely on matters in their charge.

Also read: Commandeering Civil Services and Armed Forces for Propaganda Could Make India a Failed State

Patel’s words of wisdom on the basic code of conduct expected of an administrator should make the current lot of civil servants cringe in shame at regressing so far from the professional standards and ethics that he enjoined on them. In the last ten years, instead of safeguarding public interest, they have been contemptible courtiers and underlings, genuflecting without demur before the brute power of a political executive out to remould every institution to correspond to its hard-right creed. Never has the bureaucracy fallen so low! L.K. Advani’s withering denunciation of the media during the Emergency applies with greater force to the current breed of civil servants: “You were only asked to bend but you chose to crawl.”

Today’s civil servants have been subverting established systems to please their political masters. Look at what’s happened to the Election Commission of India (ECI) under the present Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), a dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrat if ever there was one. The ECI has come a long way from the halcyon days when T.N. Seshan called the shots or, to be precise, cracked the whip, terrorising politicians into decorum. He took objection to the ECI being treated as an appendage of the Government of India, making it clear that as an independent constitutional body, the ECI would be the ultimate arbiter in all matters relating to elections, keeping equidistant from every political party.

Gore Vidal was spot on when he said that “there is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.” What he meant was that this particular human species is prosaic, insensitive, cautious, without scruples and bereft of empathy. Ironically, the diehard bureaucrat who is the present CEC spouted two-penny Urdu shayiri when announcing the schedule for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, not for love of poetry but to deflect and evade grave questions on the reliability of EVMs, ignoring the legitimate concerns of numerous highly respected bodies such as the Citizens Commission on Elections headed by a former Supreme Court judge.

Not without reason is the ECI viewed as a subservient wing of this autocratic regime. Apart from stonewalling any meaningful discussion on the reliability of EVMs, the ECI delayed announcement of the election schedule until after our lord and master had run the gamut of inaugurations. And then ensured that in pivotal States desperate for the Modi magic to shore up the regime’s prospects, the elections are stretched across seven phases spread over 42 days. The sudden resignation of the EC, Arun Goel, known through his career for his rectitude, would suggest that amid the skulduggery, his conscience had caught up with him.

In this dark period of infamy for the civil services, the most egregious has been the role of the IPS and Income Tax officials in law enforcement who have been zealous hatchet men of this iniquitous regime. The faceless functionaries of the NIA, the CBI and the ED are functioning as vicious instruments of oppression of the ruling party, manipulating the law to terrorise and punish political opponents and dissidents. These guys have blood on their hands.

In the last few years, a shadowy new class of individuals has sneaked into the middle tiers of the bureaucratic framework. Using the pretext of improving ease of governance and bringing fresh talent and perspective in government functioning, this regime has, since 2018, made several appointments of private sector specialists through what is called the ‘lateral entry’ mode. They have been given pivotal positions in key ministries such as finance, power, agriculture, statistics and programme implementation. Although the recruitment is through the UPSC, headed by a chairman with impeccable “Modi bhakt” credentials, nobody is fooled about the selection process being fair and objective.

Also read: How the Civil Servant Can Really Guard Taxpayers’ Money

Much like the American system – where appointments are made by the incumbent President – but without its checks and balances, this lateral induction, along with engagement of handpicked consultants and advisors, is a most dangerous infiltration of the civil service. Most are indoctrinated individuals who owe allegiance not to the State or the common man but to this regime, its ideology and its corporate interests. There are murmurs in the corridors of the ministries that these lateral inductees are helping in designing policies for the industrial lobbies rather than for the ordinary citizen. The whole business is a veritable can of worms.

In trying to justify their craven professional comportment, civil servants allude to the government rules that restrict the freedom of a public servant from criticising the government or not complying with its orders. Conduct rules as well as convention enjoin silence on the civil servant in matters of political controversy or where security of the state or public order are involved.

But that does not mean that the public servant is obliged to execute the illegitimate orders of the minister. He needs to remind himself that his foremost commitment is to the service of a state that is pledged to the ideals of justice, equality and fraternity. If the public interest demands something other than what the minister asks for, he should record his dissent, and if the orders are illegal or unjust, he is duty bound to refuse compliance. Unfortunately, what’s been happening in the last ten years is a deadly jugalbandi of the political executive and the bureaucracy devoid of concerns with justice or the needs of the people.

Apart from the unremitting propaganda using the official organs of state and the lapdog media to purvey falsehoods, half-truths and misinformation, this government has commandeered all manner of spin doctors to vilify government critics and deflect attention from its own misdeeds. (Last week, a syndicate of lawyers led by the infamous Harish Salve, berated activists and public interest advocates who have been fighting for democracy and freedom, labelling them “vested interest groups” bent on disrupting the functioning of the judiciary.) Even superannuated bureaucrats have been summoned out of the woodwork to defend the regime. One recalls a public statement by a group of retired Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers led by a former foreign secretary, attacking their former colleagues for indulging in a smear campaign against the present government.

Besides betraying an unashamed majoritarian sensibility, these ex-diplomats stooped to a new low with cheap shots aimed at their erstwhile civil service compatriots, sneering that their criticism of this government stemmed from not receiving recognition post-retirement or was an investment in a “potential political change at the Centre.” Ironically the holier-than-thou former foreign secretary has since been rewarded for his sycophancy with the post of chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Bah!

When the history of this period is written, the harshest judgement will be reserved for the craven professional conduct of civil servants who have let the ‘steel frame’ crumple into putty in the tyrant’s hands. The stark truth is that they have been facilitators in perpetrating injustice – servile abettors of an authoritarian regime. That genius, James Baldwin certainly had bureaucrats in mind when he sounded the dire warning: “A civilisation is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

Mathew John is a former civil servant. The views are personal.

Commandeering Civil Services and Armed Forces for Propaganda Could Make India a Failed State

The ‘Rath Prabhari’ and the Ministry of Defence’s ‘selfie-point’ orders are obviously aimed at creating a positive public perception of the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the eve of general elections in 2024.

‘Propaganda’ is defined as “information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people’s opinions.” Its maximum application is in the political arena.

In the Indian context, political propaganda has been at its pinnacle in the past few years and almost the entire media – print, electronic, digital and social – has been virtually captured and conscripted to serve a political party and its supreme leader. Many institutions and instruments of democratic governance have been intruded and compromised. Now, civil services and the armed forces are being commandeered. On October 17, 2023 the Department of Personnel, Government of India instructed all ministries to nominate senior officers – joint secretaries, directors, deputy secretaries – as “District Rath Prabharis” under their purview to “showcase/celebrate achievements of the NDA government during the last nine years through “Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra” from November 20, 2023 to January 25, 2024. The yatra would traverse 765 districts in the country, covering 2.69 lakh gram panchayats.

Earlier on October 6, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had subpoenaed the armed forces to promote the Union government’s achievements in various fields. As per the directions issued, the armed forces will create 822 geo-tagged ‘selfie points’ in public places across the country to “showcase good works done in defence” in a manner that “enables the people to get the feeling of being a part of the initiative.” The additional director general (media and communications), MoD issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which recommends that “the ‘selfie points’ may contain a giant-sized picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” Another order was issued by the MoD on October 9, 2023 instructing soldiers on annual leave to promote government schemes, designating them as “soldier-ambassadors.”

A collage of the visual aids offered by the defence ministry to organisations and departments under it, to illustrate how the selfie points should be.

This extraordinary commandeering of civil services and the armed forces for propaganda at one go is obviously aimed at creating a positive public perception of the BJP government in general and Prime Minister Modi in particular on the eve of general elections to parliament, due in April-May, 2024. Looked at from several dimensions, this is a dangerous move.

First is the federal dimension. Article 1 of the constitution says ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.” The core objective of the constitution was to ensure national unity and integrity while at the same time performing the task of socio-economic reconstruction through democratic means. To achieve this purpose and to meet the special needs of India, the constitution framers developed a sui generis variation of federation. The constitution incorporates federal features such as the distribution of powers between the Centre and the States: 97 matters are on the Union List; States have exclusive powers on 66 matters contained in the State List; and the Concurrent List consists of 47 items. The constitution envisages India’s governance as a joint venture between the Union and state governments. But of late, the Union government has launched an assault on the federal structure of the constitution by attempting to capture areas and subjects which are within the domain of the states. This commandeering of civil services and the armed forces to trumpet the “achievements” of the Union government and the prime minister directly to the people would further worsen the situation and accelerate Centre-state tension and friction.

Second is the code of conduct. Under Rule 5(1) of the Civil Services Conduct Rules, 1964, no government servant shall take part in, subscribe to, aid of or assist in any other manner, any political movement or activity. Engaging members of any of the central civil services in the Rath Prabhari campaign, which is clearly political in nature, would therefore infringe the Civil Services Conduct Rules. “Rath Prabhari” itself is a political (mainly BJP) parlance and not that of civil service. Considering that the idea underlying this campaign exclusively revolves around the BJP government’s so-called “achievements” during the past nine years, inevitably, it has a political connotation that cannot be wished away. Had the campaign covered the entire post-independence period as we celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, it would have been a different proposition.

Also Read | It Is Not Civil Servants’ Job to ‘Showcase’ Govt Achievements: Former Cabinet Secretary

The third dimension is the grave impropriety of it all. Civil servants and soldiers are not BJP cadres. Just as there is separation of powers between the judiciary, the executive and the legislature in the constitutional scheme, there is a clear line of separation between governments that come and go in a democracy, and the bureaucracy, which is permanent. The bureaucracy’s role is to conceive, design, plan, implement and supervise policies and programmes of a government. Its job is not to do propaganda for the same, since another government voted in by the people has the right to change the policies and programmes of one government. The ‘Rath Prabhari’ programme envisaged by the present government is clearly a political programme intended to publicise its claimed achievements a few months before the 2024 general elections. This amounts to misusing government machinery for election purposes.

The fourth dimension is the core electoral code of a level playing field, which is critical for the conduct of free and fair elections. The Election Commission of India (ECI), no doubt, has directed the government not to conduct the campaign in the states (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chattisgarh and Mizoram) where the Model Code of Conduct has come into effect due to assembly elections. Otherwise, the ECI has no problem with government servants openly participating in this political propaganda on the eve of parliament elections in 2024. This is a grave dereliction of duty by the ECI. The commission should have stopped this serious distortion of the electoral code and level playing field by invoking its plenipotentiary powers and the far-reaching judgment of the Supreme Court in the Mohinder Singh Gill vs Chief Election Commissioner (1978):

“… but where such law is silent, Article 324 of the Constitution is a reservoir of power to act for the avowed purpose of not divorced from, pushing forward a free and fair election with expedition…”

And “free and fair election” is a part of the basic structure of the constitution.

Politicisation of armed forces?

Now coming to the brazen politicisation of the armed forces and the ‘selfie points’ that have already come up in some places. The SOP lays down the themes based on the government’s catchphrases including Atmanirbhar Bharat, Sashaktikaran, Nari Shakti, digitisation etc. Look at the tearing hurry of the MoD to execute the scheme. Directions were given on October 6, execution to commence “immediately” and action taken report to be submitted by October 11.

“Is it the execution of a routine scheme or ‘all-hands-on-deck’ to identify national defence, particularly the armed forces, with the political party in power,” asks the distinguished soldier Lt Gen H.S. Panag (Retd)!

This move by the government violates Rule 20 (1) of Army Rules (1954), which says that no person subject to the Army Act shall take part in any activity held for political purposes. Also, the SOP suggesting that the ‘selfie points’ may contain a giant-sized picture of the prime minister is questionable because as per Article 53(2) of the constitution, the supreme command of the defence forces of the Union shall be vested in the president of the Republic, not the prime minister.

Representative image of the Indian Army. Photo: Public.Resource.Org/Flickr CC BY 2.0

A former Chief of Naval Staff was emphatic when he said that this programme “should never” have been contemplated and would have a negative long-term impact on the forces. He said:

“I am not quite clear about the concept underpinning the “selfie points” programme, but with the general election looming, any endeavour which even remotely involves the armed forces with political influencing, can only ring alarm bells. The MoD should never have contemplated this, and one hopes the military leadership will explain the deleterious long-term impact of politics on the morale & cohesion of our professional forces.”

What else can one expect from a political dispensation hungry for power, and whose top leader in 2019 described the Indian Army as “Modiji ki sena” and the ECI did not lift a small finger, despite strong protests by ex-servicemen?

It is intriguing why the present ruling dispensation – with its massive propaganda machinery like a large political party, RSS and affiliate associations, IT Cell and a pliant media – should commandeer the civil services and the armed forces for the purpose. A question arises: Is there a credibility crisis?

Be that as it may, we call Pakistan, which gained independence one day before us, a “failed state” mainly because of its hijacking of the civil services and politicisation of the armed forces. Is India heading that way? As it is because of the brazen crony capitalism the country resembles a “failed state” as defined by Robert Rothberg in the seminal book, When States Fail: Causes and Consequences:

“Failed states offer unparalleled economic opportunity-but only for a privileged few. Those around the ruler or ruling oligarchy grow richer while their less fortunate brethren starve… The privilege of making real money when everything else is deteriorating is confined to clients of the ruling elite… The nation-state’s responsibility to maximize the well-being and prosperity of all its citizens is conspicuously absent, if it ever existed…”

Commandeering of India’s civil services and the armed forces for political propaganda, thereby severely denting their independence and integrity, will only hasten the process.

M.G. Devasahayam is a former Army and IAS officer.

It Is Not Civil Servants’ Job to ‘Showcase’ Govt Achievements: Former Cabinet Secretary Chandrasekhar

The Wire spoke to K.M. Chandrasekhar about the controversy over the Modi government asking ministries to nominate civil servants as ‘Rath Prabharis’.

New Delhi: The Union government’s order to deploy civil servants as ‘Rath Prabharis’ to specifically promote the “achievements” of the past nine years has drawn significant criticism from several quarters.

The order asks every ministry to nominate officers of the level of joint secretaries and below in each of the country’s 765 districts to “showcase the achievements of the last nine years of Government of India” between November 20, 2023 and January 25, 2024.

Some retired bureaucrats have said that this amounts to the wholesale politicisation of the civil services, and registered their protest. While the government has said that Rath Prabharis will not be nominated in the five states headed to assembly polls until the Model Code of Conduct is in place, this will only provide temporary relief, former IAS officer E.A.S. Sarma said.

The Wire spoke to K.M. Chandrasekhar, who retired as cabinet secretary in 2011 and served under Manmohan Singh, about his views on the matter.

How do you view this order? Would you say this is a violation of the Central Civil Services Conduct Rules, 1964 which says government servants will not indulge in political activities? This is an allegation being made by opposition leaders.

I would say this is not a violation of the conduct rules, because government servants are supposed to follow orders unless they are against the law. But it is certainly not in good taste. A civil servant’s job is to implement government schemes and deliver services. At best, if there are issues of coordination with the states, officers can put out their contact details but that is for the purposes of carrying out their duties. As cabinet secretary, I would take secretaries of various departments by the planeloads to the various states, especially the weaker states for better coordination between the Union and state governments and better delivery of services. We would resolve problems on the spot. That in short is the job of a civil servant.

But politicians like BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya say that bureaucrats must serve the people as the government deems fit.

Our job is not to showcase or celebrate the achievements of the government. While this order of Rath Prabharis is per se not illegal, it is definitely in bad taste. Projecting anyone in this manner is extraordinary and I have never heard of something like this in my entire career. Anyway, officials at the level of deputy director or director are too junior and have the power to only put up files. They cannot take a decision or resolve a problem on the ground. So just reading out from a written piece of paper is not something that officers should be doing. This is most unusual.

There is another order issued by the Ministry of Defence which says that soldiers on leave must showcase the efforts of the government. So this is not just about government servants.

This again is a ridiculous order. When a person is on leave, they cannot be tasked to carry out such orders. The government can only request. And even then, how can such an order be implemented? Who will monitor and how will the soldier know the fine details of the schemes of the government? If a person is on leave, he or she is on leave. If a person is asked to carry out these orders then he or she cannot be deemed to be on leave. Again a highly improper order.

If you were cabinet secretary now, what would you do? And it is easy to criticise when an officer has retired but it is quite a different thing when the officer is serving.

I can only share an anecdote of what it was like to work with the Manmohan Singh government. Once I called the prime minister about an appointment of a special director to the CBI. A junior officer was being appointed, overlooking the seniority of another. The prime minister was eating lunch. He halted his meal, heard me out and left his lunch unfinished. A few minutes later, I got a call from (the advisor to the prime minister) T.K.A. Nair, who said the prime minister wanted to see the two of us. We reached 7, Race Course Road, where Pulok Chatterjee (also principal secretary to the prime minister) was already waiting. The prime minister immediately worked out a solution to the satisfaction of the senior CBI officer and gave orders to the Department of Personnel and Training Minister Prithviraj Chavan to do the needful. I am not sure if anyone can even tell the present prime minister that he is wrong.

‘Rath Prabhari’ Move Illegal As It Is Wholesale Politicisation of Civil Services: EAS Sarma

The former IAS officer said that the ‘truce’ between the ECI and the Modi government to not deploy ‘Rath Prabharis’ in election-bound states does not address the “serious malaise that seems to have already afflicted and spread fast in the body of the civil services in India”.

New Delhi: Former IAS officer E.A.S. Sarma said on Friday that the decision not to deploy civil servants as “Rath Prabharis” in election-bound states may provide temporary relief, but highlighted that the BJP-led Union government’s intentions to use these officers to promote its achievements are “undesirable and illegal”.

“Let me clarify that deploying civil servants as Rath Prabharis in poll-bound States violates the election laws, deploying civil servants at any level, anywhere else, at any time, is also undesirable and illegal, as it amounts to engaging civil servants in campaigning for a particular political party and wholesale politicisation of civil services in general,” Sarma said in a letter to the Union cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba.

On October 17, the government sent a letter to all ministries, asking them to nominate officers of the rank of joint secretaries, directors and deputy secretaries in all the 765 districts of the country to deploy them as “district rath prabharis (special officers)” between November 20, 2023 and January 25, 2024 to “showcase/celebrate the achievements of the last nine years”.

On October 26, the Election Commission of India (ECI) issued a notice saying that these activities should not be undertaken in the five states where the Model Code of Conduct is in force, until December 5, for the assembly elections.

Sarma, who had written to President Droupadi Murmu about the longer-term concerns regarding the politicisation of the civil services and the implications of the Rath Prabhari campaign, said that the “cosy truce” between the Union government and the ECI would only provide temporary relief.

He said the move “is only a half measure, as it merely provides a palliative to a far more serious malaise that seems to have already afflicted and spread fast in the body of the civil services in India”.

In the letter to Gauba, the former IAS officer said that the campaign will cause “irreversible damage … to the role and the morale of the civil services and the irreparable damage it will cause to the political neutrality of the civil services, that is implicit in Part XIV of the Constitution”.

Civil services, like any other wing of the government, owe their existence to the constitution and their allegiance can only be to the constitution and rule of law and not to an individual or a particular political party, Sarma said.

He also raised some crucial questions about the Rath Prabhari campaign, such as why civil servants are expected to highlight the achievements of the government during the last “nine years” alone; and why civil servants should be forced to “showcase/ celebrate” the achievements of the NDA government, when the Constitution envisages them to be a politically neutral instrument of continuing governance.

Sarma also said the “symptoms of politicisation of the civil services” are already visible in the “undue extensions” granted by the political executive to those who head Central investigation agencies.

“In the long term, politicisation of the civil services is not desirable either for the civil services or for the political executive. Sooner they realise it, the better it is for either of them,” he said, asking Gauba to “appreciate the wider implications of moves such as the ongoing Rath Prabhari campaign for the future of civil services in India and for the well-being of our democracy”.

Read the full letter below.

E A S Sarma
Former Secretary to the Government of India

Shri Rajiv Gauba
Union Cabinet Secretary

Dear Shri Gauba,

You must have closely followed the concerns expressed by some of us about the prudence on the part of the Central government to engage senior officers as “District Rath Prabharis” under their purview to “showcase/celebrate achievements of the NDA government during the last nine years through ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra’ from 20th November 2023 to 25th January 2024″.

Apparently, after a public outcry and complaints before the Election Commission of India (ECI), the ECI and those in the government seem to have arrived at a cosy, truce not to extend the campaign to those States where Assembly elections are scheduled to be held shortly (https://cms.thewire.in/government/pushback-forces-modi-govt-to-climb-down-on-calling-ias-officers-rath-prabharis)

While it may at best be a temporary relief for civil servants, it is only a half measure, as it merely provides a palliative to a far more serious malaise that seems to have already afflicted and spread fast in the body of the civil services in India. Let me clarify that deploying civil servants as Rath Prabharis in poll-bound States violates the election laws, deploying civil servants at any level, anywhere else, at any time, is also undesirable and illegal, as it amounts to engaging civil servants in campaigning for a particular political party and wholesale politicisation of civil services in general.

In this connection, I invite your attention to a letter addressed on the subject to Rashtrapatiji by Prof. Jagdeep S. Chhokar, Former Dean, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and myself, raising longer-term concerns about politicisation of the civil services and the Constitutional implications of the Rath Prabhari campaign.

While a copy of that letter was sent to you, the same may also be accessed in the public domain at https://countercurrents.org/2023/10/open-letter-to-president-of-india-regarding-ruling-party-using-its-power-to-influence-elections/.

I would request you to examine each one of the issues raised by us in that letter carefully, as they not only relate to the illegalities arising in the immediate context of the ensuing Assembly elections but also relate to the likely adverse impact of the Rath Prabhari campaign on the 2024 Parliament elections and, more importantly, the irreversible damage that such a campaign will cause to the role and the morale of the civil services and the irreparable damage it will cause to the political neutrality of the civil services, that is implicit in Part XIV of the Constitution.

As pointed out by us in our letter, it was Sardar Patel, who laid the foundation for the civil services in India. While addressing trainee civil servants on April 21, 1947, he emphasised that they should “maintain the utmost impartiality and incorruptibility of administration. A civil servant cannot afford to, and must not, take part in politics” It was on that basis that the civil services conduct rules were framed by the government. Unfortunately, the ill-conceived Rath Prabhari campaign involving civil servants makes a mockery of Sardar Patel’s vision.

The civil services, like any other wing of the government, owes its existence to the Constitution. As an instrument provided by the Constitution, it is expected to be seamless time-wise, and politically neutral. Its allegiance is and should be to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to an individual or a particular political party. It is bound by the democratic values implicit in the Constitution.

With specific reference to the Rath Prabhari campaign, the crucial questions that arise are

Considering that the campaign engages civil servants, why should it be confined to the achievements of the government during the last “nine years” alone? Why should it not cover the achievements during the last seven and a half decades of independent India when the country made progress in leaps and bounds?
If it is a “Rath Prabhari” campaign in which civil servants are to be engaged, whose “Rath” is it? Does it belong exclusively to the NDA government or the system of a seamless governance system that the Constitution has provided?
Why should civil servants be forced to “showcase/ celebrate” the achievements of the NDA government, when the Constitution envisages them to be a politically neutral instrument of continuing governance? The responsibility of the civil services is to administer the policies of the government to the extent they remain consistent with the provisions of the Constitution, not “celebrate” their implementation. Celebrations should lie exclusively within the domain of the political parties.

Considering that the idea underlying the Rath Prabhari campaign exclusively revolves around the NDA government’s so-called “achievements” during the last nine years, inevitably, it has a political connotation. Irrespective of the limited perspective of its implications for the ensuing Assembly and the 2024 Parliament elections, there are far more serious implications with reference to the laws that govern both politicians and civil servants.

As pointed out in our letter cited, under Section 171C of the IPC, “whoever voluntarily interferes or attempts to interfere with the free exercise of any electoral right commits the offence of undue influence at an election“. For any public authority, including the political executive, to coerce public servants into such an activity is therefore punishable not only under the relevant election laws but also under the relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Under Rule 5(1) of the Civil Services Conduct Rules, 1964, and the corresponding provisions of the Conduct Rules applicable to the All India Services, the Audit and Accounts Service and the other services mentioned in the Ministry of Personnel communication File No. I-28047/08/2023-coord dated 17-10-2023, “No Government servant shall be a member of, or be otherwise associated with, any political party or any organisation which takes part in politics nor shall he take part in, subscribe in aid of, or assist in any other manner, any political movement or activity”.

Engaging members of any of the central civil services in the Rath Prabhari campaign, which is clearly political in nature, would therefore infringe the Civil Services Conduct Rule. All those public functionaries including senior civil servants who become a party to engaging other civil servants in this campaign would also be responsible for violating those rules.

I feel concerned about the symptoms of politicisation of the civil services already visible all around.

It is distressing, for example, to find undue extensions granted by the political executive to those who head crucial institutions involved in governance, including the Central investigation agencies, which in turn compromise their political neutrality and their overall effectiveness. For the civil services to be effective and credible, to be able to invoke public trust, they should remain apolitical and resist any attempt to politicise their rank and file.

In the long term, politicisation of the civil services is not desirable either for the civil services or for the political executive. Sooner they realise it, the better it is for either of them.

As the head of civil services, I would urge you to appreciate the wider implications of moves such as the ongoing Rath Prabhari campaign for the future of civil services in India and for the well-being of our democracy.

I sincerely hope that you will consider each one of the concerns expressed by us in our appeal to the President of India and act decisively, and unhesitatingly, keeping in view the long-term interest of our democracy. Failure to do so would amount not only to damaging the political neutrality and effectiveness of the civil services that the Constitution envisages but also to damaging the very fabric of our hard-earned democracy.

Regards,

Yours sincerely,

E A S Sarma
Visakhapatnam
27-10-2023

Modi Govt Announces Climb Down on Calling IAS Officers ‘Rath Prabharis’, EC Notice Follows

Officers are expected to participate in Prime Minister Modi’s yatra on November 15. Only saying that these public servants won’t be called “rath prabharis” may not cut ice with anger that the government’s plans have run into.

New Delhi: A few hours after the Narendra Modi government climbed down on calling IAS officer as ‘Rath Prabharis’, the Election Commission of India on Thursday (October 26) issued a notice saying that these activities should not be undertaken in the constituencies where the Model Code of Conduct is in force till December 5.

“It has been brought to the notice of the Commission that a letter has been circulated to the Ministries for nomination of senior officers as “District Rath Praharis” as special officers for the proposed ‘Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra‘ starting from 20th November, 2023,” the EC notice said.

“The Commission has announced the schedule for General Elections to the Legislative Assemblies of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan & Telangana, 2023 and Bye–election in 43–Tapi (ST) Assembly Constituency of Nagaland on 9th October, 2023. The provisions of the Model Code of Conduct for the guidance of political parties and candidates have come into force from the date of announcement tentatively till 5th December, 2023,” it said.

“In view of the foregoing, [the] Commission has directed that the aforesaid activities should not be taken in the constituencies where Model Code of Conduct is in force till 5th December 2023.”

Interestingly, the EC notice came after Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra announced on Thursday that the programme would not be launched in poll-bound states, considering the Model Code of Conduct.

After facing criticism over the government’s plan, Chandra emphasised that the use of the term “rath prabharis” for senior government officers is improper and that these officials would now be addressed as nodal officers.

However, only saying that these public servants won’t be called “rath prabharis” doesn’t appear to solve the real issue with this government order.

This is because public servants taking part in “any activity” that is likely to influence the voters in an election violates the Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules and the corresponding conduct rules of the other Central and All India Services.

Former secretary to the Government of India E.A.S. Sarma had mentioned this point in one of the two letters he had written to the Election Commission of India on the Union government’s plan.

Apart from that, he further highlighted that “Under Section 171C of the IPC, “whoever voluntarily interferes or attempts to interfere with the free exercise of any electoral right commits the offence of undue influence at an election“. For any public authority to coerce public servants into such activity is punishable not only under the relevant election laws but also under the relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).”

In an interview to The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Sarma called the government order ‘unethical’ and ‘illegal’.

“My objection is to the government asking its officers to showcase its achievements during the last nine years, on the eve of the Assembly elections. The announcement came after the Model Code came into effect. Therefore, it violates the Code,” he said.

On November 15, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s yatra, civil servants are expected to actively spread information about the alleged accomplishments of the Narendra Modi government, The Hindu reported.

The Viksit Bharat Sankalp yatra will be held to commemorate the occasion of “Birsa Munda Jayanti – Jan-jaati Gaurav Diwas.”

Throughout the yatra’s duration, Information, Education, and Communication vans will tour tribal and other districts in Jharkhand. The yatra will continue until January 25, 2024, the daily said.

Civil Servants’ Authority Will Be Weakened if They Are Used for Poll Campaigning

Whether the government has done well or badly in the last nine years is not for civil servants to say. They can only describe policies in their sectors.

When the Constitution was being framed, there were concerns about the civil services. India’s home minister Sardar Patel had famously observed that he had asked his secretary to give his views freely. He had no use for civil servants who wanted to echo the views of the political masters. He wanted their independent opinion on issues, in the best interest of governance. The civil services were thus expected to be apolitical.

In the 1970s there were efforts to dilute this approach. There was talk of a committed civil service. Questions were asked ― committed to whom? The civil service could only be committed to the Constitution. It could not have commitments in favour of any politician, party or ideology. It had to implement policies of the government in power. But it could not be committed to their political ideology, good or bad. Their responsibility was to help frame policies for welfare and economic growth with the approval of ministers or the cabinet. They were expected to implement these effectively and ensure that people got the full benefit of these policies.

The achievements of any government are projected through the media, for which the publicity wings of the government are specifically responsible. Political masters talk about these achievements in their speeches. They tell the people how much good work they are doing. The civil servants only explain to the common man the intricacies of policies and how they can use any scheme for their welfare.

But recent media reports indicate that a large body of civil servants would be expected to tell the people about the good work of the government in the last nine years. There is a campaign mode being prescribed for this. This is very unfortunate. Whether the government has done well or badly in the last nine years is not for them to say. They can only describe policies in their sectors. This approach may appear to be a politicisation of bureaucracy, which is very unfortunate.

There is another aspect of this issue. Governments in different states are run by different political parties. Many states have their own schemes. During elections, states ruled by parties opposed to the Centre may like to propagate their own policies. They may like to tell people how badly the Centre is doing and how well they themselves are working. This would create problems in implementing the idea of projecting achievements.

An important issue involved here is our long term-view of the functioning of the civil service. While the campaign planned may give some benefits to the ruling party, it may open the door to a civil service of poor quality. The essence of a democracy and good governance is that civil servants try to improve their professionalism in framing policies and ensuring maximum benefits to the people. They specialise in effectively implementing government policies to ensure maximum benefits to people. Whether an approach or programme is superior or inferior to the earlier government’s is not their business. But now, they are being effectively called upon to identify with one government. This is not part of the parliamentary system of governance. Governments come and go but the civil servants remain a neutral observer. The current orders of the government are completely in violation of this spirit.

The government’s decision on this issue is difficult to understand in view of the ongoing election process, during which the state machinery is expected to be completely neutral. To argue that those representatives of the Centre should be allowed to disseminate achievements of the party in power is clearly unfair. The Election Commission may take note of it and review this programme for poll-bound states.

B.K. Chaturvedi is former Cabinet Secretary and member, Planning Commission.

How the Civil Servant Can Really Guard Taxpayers’ Money

PM Modi recently asked civil servants to consider before a decision as to whether the ruling party is using the taxpayer’s money in the nation’s interest or for its own interest. This advice is, indeed, critical to our development process.

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, raised some very important issues while addressing civil servants recently.

Addressing them on the occasion of Civil Services Day, he advised them to consider – before taking any decision – whether the ruling party is using the taxpayer’s money in the nation’s interest or for its own interest. To check, specifically, whether the ruling party is using taxpayer money to advertise itself or to spread public awareness, and whether it is appointing its own workers to institutions or adopting transparency in appointments. He also advised them to evaluate whether political parties are changing policies to create new avenues for black money.

He asked young bureaucrats to get things done rather than letting things happen.

The prime minister’s address raises some very important issues of governance. The civil service is governed by important norms of conduct. Its members are expected to be fair, just and empathetic to people’s issues. They must be upright and honest, and have excellent knowledge of the issues of governance. When interacting with people, they should especially look at the underprivileged and deprived sections of the population and suggest or implement policies which look after their needs .

The need for young civil servants to get things done rather than letting them linger is very important. It is critical to our entire development process. Similarly, the need for transparency in appointments is important in our democracy. This idea must pervade all appointments whether by the Centre or by states. We need to work on this. However, for correcting certain aberrations in our system of governance, institutional reforms are required.

Consider the question of freebies. In the parliamentary system of governance, prior to elections, political parties issue their manifestos. These often contain a lot of freebies, with each party trying to outdo the other. While these are sought to be justified on grounds of empowering the people, there is a strong feeling that they are aimed at garnering maximum votes disregarding the financial health of the state. Free financial benefits to individuals from taxpayers’ money, must have very objective criteria. In the absence of such criteria, there is profligacy, financial mismanagement – and the economic ruin of the state.

The truth is that in recent years, all political parties have favoured giving financial benefits to individuals on a large scale. In successive elections, political parties have become more profligate at the expense of the taxpayer. Considering that this malady is widespread, an institutional solution is required. The Finance Commission could be charged with this responsibility. It could provide a ceiling on such transfers to individuals. Any state exceeding it should lose its share from the financial devolution from the Union government. Some similar disincentive needs to be devised for Union government-sponsored freebies. Also, it is only appropriate that when individual benefits are to be given, civil servants put forth their views clearly and suggest an alternative policy approach. This may result in some changes and saving of taxpayers’ money in some cases.

An important development in recent times is the huge amount of money spent on advertising. Such advertisements invariably have photos of political dignitaries and praise for work done by their government. The Union government and most states do this. While there is no data which can be cited, my experience is that the money spent on such advertisements has multiplied manifold. A substantial sum of money goes into telling the people how well the leader and his government is doing instead of informing them about new schemes and how they can avail themselves of the benefits of these schemes. This is an enormous waste of taxpayers’ money.

To be sure, this is a very sensitive issue and I doubt that either the Union government or any state will agree to curtail this expenditure as they are all getting a lot of free publicity at the taxpayer’s expense. However, the central government must take the lead in this. There is a clear need to separate politics from administrative schemes. The CAG can be requested to issue clear financial norms for this.

An important question raised during the prime minister’s address was the generation of black money. This is linked closely to corruption and to policies which may incentivise a black money economy. Often, vested interests with political connections are involved in the award of large contracts. Civil servants have a tough job. In large infrastructure contracts or award of concessions for coal blocks or oil fields or other major infrastructure projects or in several areas relating to states, there is need for complete transparency so that corruption is minimised and black money generation curbed.

In some areas of international trade and investment which have problems of over-invoicing or under-invoicing, or foreign investments from non-transparent jurisdictions, there is need for greater vigilance. Civil servants can work on policies to minimise corrupt practices by constant systemic reforms. This is a very difficult area as powerful interests may be involved. It will be appropriate to set up a group of officers to constantly work on it and suggest changes and employ technology that will minimise corruption. Civil servants have a crucial role in this entire field.

B.K. Chaturvedi is a former Cabinet Secretary and member, Planning Commission of India.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

Civil Servants: From Colonial Clones to Compliant Managers?

Since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, the ethos of civil services has been shifting from constitutional values to management compliance. This has been attempted through a huge lateral entry of ‘compliance managers’ to capture the IAS.

Writing on the Civil Service Day, April 21, Srinivas Katikithala, director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie (LBSNAA) dished out this pearl of wisdom: “The task of defining an Indian ethos for the civil service began in the 75th year of India’s independence, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address where he spelt out the country’s vision and the Panch Pran – the five pledges – to drive India’s transition from Amrit Mahotsav to Amrit Kaal. The second pledge – the removal of a colonial mindset – demanded a revision of self-imagination and the shedding of colonial baggage among the civil services.”

He signed off the article with this exhortation: “The shaking off of a former colonial mindset, sharing a sense of pride in the Indian roots, and a duty-bound set of civil servants with a nation-first approach is the new ethic of civil servants who pass out of its hallowed doors as ‘Mussoorie wale karmayogis’.”

This sycophancy has a similarity with what actress Kangana Ranaut said a couple of years ago: “India’s Independence in 1947 was not freedom but ‘bheek (alms)’…Of course, what we got [in 1947] was not Independence but alms. Independence is what we got in 2014.” Though she came under severe criticism, she reiterated her contention and gave the credit for India’s independence to Prime Minister Modi.

Also read: Some Seem to Forget Civil Servants Owe Loyalty Only to the Constitution

Katikithala has taken this forward. A person like Kangana had to say what she said to stay relevant. But on what basis is Katikithala saying that Narendra Modi has taken India’s civil services out of colonial clutches in 2019 and more so during Amrit Mahotsav through his ‘Mission Karmayogi’ announced in September 2020? Does he mean that all IAS/IPS officers prior to the 2019 batch are colonial clones? Is it not criminal defamation a la Rahul Gandhi of the Modi faux pas? Should defamation proceedings be launched in Gujarat, the cadre state of Katikithala?

Mission Karmayogi

Be that as it may, what is this ‘Mission Karmayogi’ which is described as a tool to build ‘future-ready’ civil servants with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, aligned to the vision of a “New India”? The New India Movement 2017-2022 launched by the Prime Minister envisages an India free from poverty, corruption, terrorism, communalism, casteism and uncleanliness, and unite the entire country by adopting good governance and using technology. Under this ‘movement’ the Government of India has launched flagship schemes such as Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Jan Suraksha Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana etc.

‘New India’ dream is also to double farmer’s income and to create a $5 trillion economy by the year 2022 – which is now well past. In short, it is a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building to make civil servants more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. At the end of the day ‘Mission Karmayogi’ will produce the ideal civil servant with all qualities of head and heart to serve the ‘New India’ vision under the direct command and control of the prime minister himself!

New IAS civil servants headed for training. Credit: PTI

Representational image. New IAS civil servants headed for training. Photo: PTI

The objective of ‘Mission Karmayogi’ is indeed noble. But the problem is the direction towards which this ‘New India’ is moving. Civil servants are only an instrument of governance and not governance itself which comprises elected political leadership and the policies it lays down.

New India Movement is supposed to free India from poverty, corruption, terrorism, communalism, casteism and unite the entire country by adopting good governance practices. But what is happening on the ground in the last few years is just the opposite. The governance has been at its nadir, and with the enslavement of institutions of democratic governance, democracy is being shredded to pieces.

“Minimum Government and Maximum Governance”, the slogan of 2014, which should have been the hallmark of democracy in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime has been turned on its head with the imposition of a highly centralised and autocratic system sustained by a harsh ‘police raj’ of suppression of liberty, human rights and economic opportunities. Critical legislations/policies/projects are being pushed with breakneck speed in an autocratic manner with no involvement of the people who are the sovereign.

Non-dissenting compliant managers

Ironically, while swearing by the poor, the Union government for the last few years has been assiduously building up a crony-capital driven ‘techno-commercial monopoly/duopoly’ with a declared policy of promoting a corporate oligarchy.

In December 2020, Amitabh Kant, then CEO of NITI Aayog made an announcement on behalf of the prime minister: “In India, we are too much of a democracy, so we keep supporting everybody. For the first time in India, a government has thought big in terms of size and scale and said we want to produce global champions. Nobody had the political will and courage to say that we want to support five companies who want to be global champions.”

Also read: Why New IAS Rules About Compulsory ‘Borrowing’ Are Constitutionally Offensive

True to this policy statement, India started morphing from democracy to plutocracy, which is government by the wealthy and for the wealthy. This is evident from the fact that corporate tax was reduced from 35% to 26% in 2019 with permission to defer taxes, leading to huge profits; they get cheap loans from public sector banks at lower rates of interest, adding to their profit; they are being helped through the National Company Law Tribunal to purchase companies at throwaway prices, funded again by banks and they are given various concessions in imports and are favoured in getting government contracts and purchases.

What is more, precious and prestigious public assets are being handed over to them on a platter through privatisation and monetisation. In the process, oligarchs have emerged who enjoy a monopoly over several sectors of the economy.

Out of these, the Adani Group is the prima donna with Gautam Adani making around Rs 1,612 crore on a daily basis in 2022. His wealth came from diverse sectors like power, port, renewables and energy. He and his family grew their wealth 15.4 times in five years. All these are unravelling now and are becoming part of history.

This deliberate policy pursuit has resulted in extreme concentration of wealth, massive unemployment, festering inflation and socio-economic iniquities in the country. “The top 1% in India now owns more than 40.5% of total wealth in 2021 while the bottom 50% of the population (700 million) has around 3% of total wealth. Since the pandemic begun to Nov 2022, billionaires in India have seen their wealth surge by 121%, or INR 3608 crore per day in real terms (Around INR 2.5 crore every minute). The rich have done well for themselves, while the number of hungry Indians has increased from 19 crores to 35 crores,” an Oxfam report said.

Such a predatory shift in India’s economic equity and social justice would not have been possible except with the active participation of civil servants at different levels with their newly acquired ‘management’ skills.

The fact of the matter is that ever since Modi became prime minister in 2014, the ethos of civil services has been shifting from constitutional values to management compliance. This was attempted through a huge lateral entry of “compliance managers” to capture the IAS and privatise the government. With ‘Mission Karmayogi’ in operation, this may not be needed anymore.

Academy mandarins should realise that IAS/IPS are not compliance cadres but constitutionally covenanted civil services (Article 312). By designing and grooming its members as “future-ready” products, ‘Mission Karmayogi’ violates the constitutional scheme of things which is stated by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the Constituent Assembly: “There is no alternative to this administrative system… The Union will go, you will not have a united India if you do not have good All-India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind, which has [the] sense of security that you will standby [sic] your work… If you do not adopt this course, then do not follow the present Constitution. Substitute something else… these people are the instrument. Remove them and I see nothing but a picture of chaos all over the country.”

Sardar Patel called IAS the ‘steel frame’ to defend and protect India’s constitution and its basic values of justice, liberty, equality, fraternity and human dignity essential in a “Democratic, Welfare State” and not its negative connotation of “rigid, restrictive, and rule-bound colonial bureaucracy” as interpreted by Katikithala.

In the event, the feedback received from former civil servants who have recently visited the LBSNAA on the way ‘Karmayogis’ are being trained as ‘non-dissenting compliant managers’ to pursue Prime Minister’s agenda than as compassionate civil servants administering India’s parched millions is indeed disturbing. Some of them see the shades of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Shaka in the famed Academy!

The outside impact of this is already felt in some IAS officers wilfully pandering to corporate tycoons and openly embracing the bulldozer-bullet justice of political masters! Is this the Bhavana Vriksh, a tree of “service and empathy” that is being planted in the LBSNAA?

Ironically, Katikithala is grooming the post-colonial ‘Karmayogis’ sitting at Academy’s deep-green Director’s Square, a colonial vestige of the erstwhile Hotel Charleville where at one time “Dogs and Indians were not allowed.” Do we call this hypocrisy or what else?

M.G. Devasahayam is a former Army and IAS officer and coordinator of the Citizen’s Commission on Elections.

Modi’s Anti-Politics Tirade Is Preparing the Ground for an Authoritarian Switch-Over

If Modi’s anti-politics narrative is allowed to acquire traction on our national imagination, we shall be trading only one strong man with another when the time for change comes.

Last week, ‘Civil Service Day’ was observed with the customary address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Vigyan Bhavan. To a captive audience of the country’s seniormost babus, Modi delivered a sermon with his familiar cockiness. That, of course, is the privilege of the prime ministerial pulpit.

But the message Modi delivered was meant for a larger constituency. And the message is not only dangerous but it also reveals an authoritarian persona hopelessly overloaded with extraordinary delusions of infallibility.

It is one thing for a prime minister to sing his own songs of self-congratulation, it is quite another for him to instigate the bureaucracy against the political class. That is precisely what the prime minister ended up doing at Vigyan Bhavan.

The crux of his exhortation was that all political parties – except his own, the Bharatiya Janata Party – are self-serving instruments of self-serving leaders, and that these organisations are intrinsically pitted against the collective good and cannot be trusted to guard and advance common welfare, public interest and national well-being. And, though political parties cannot be wished away in a democratic set-up, it was the bureaucracy’s “duty” to sit in judgment over all policies proposed by duly elected governments. More significantly, the prime minister suggested that senior bureaucrats must be vigilant against any tinkering – by a newly elected (state) government – with the existing policy regime because the change could be at the behest of the new ruling party’s business friends.

His Orwellian double-speak apart, the prime minister seemed to be manufacturing an ethical narrative to justify his government’s pervasive and demonstrative use of the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and other coercive instruments against the BJP’s political rivals and opponents. A classic case of cooking up legitimacy for political vendetta.

The prime minister’s tirade against political parties must be music to the newly-empowered technocratic elite, which is ipso facto impatient with democratic constraints and is intellectually anti-people. This new elite compliments Prime Minister Modi’s self-serving righteousness. Just as he believes that whatever he does (or does not do) is guided and motivated by genuine concern for the national interest, the new ruling class wallows in its own partisan definitions of public good.

Also read: The Form of Corruption that Makes a Banana Republic

Running down political rivals is every politician’s trick of the trade. But Modi this time appears to have crossed one more rekha. Speaking in Hindi, after listing all the possible ways in which political parties could misuse their mandate, he suggested it was up to the bureaucracy to step in: “Ye aap logon ko dekhna hi hoga, doston (You will have to look into this, friends).” In other words, an open invitation was extended to the bureaucracy to join a kind of conspiratorial jugalbandi against non-BJP parties and governments. This is a new low point in our already much debased politics.

Of course, these last nine years, the prime minister has diligently used – on a massive scale – the resources and instruments of his office to build himself up as the sole national saviour; neither his party nor his cabinet colleagues nor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh nor the Vishwa Hindu Parishad nor crony capitalists are allowed to share the frame. He stands alone and tall on a self-commissioned pedestal.

On a parallel track, his vast propaganda machine has corrosively undermined all other political leaders and their parties by labelling them as contaminated and corrupt. A newly devised dogma renders illegitimate the very existence of opposition to his regime. Already, civil society and its democratic voices of dissent have been obliterated out of the public imagination. The Great Demagogue stands between order, stability, prosperity and chaos, confusion, contention.

This, of course, is not the first-time individuals, external and internal forces and circumstances combined to destroy public trust in the political class and its ability to steer the ship of the Indian State. In 1991, we ended up collectively putting our faith in the curative power of the market, with a capital M. The political class had lost its self-confidence and willingly ceded dominant space and moral aura to the purveyors of “animal spirits” of our business community and to civil society, which ritually chanted the “good governance” mantra. A chief minister even preferred to be called a CEO.

The long and short of this confusion was that the political class never recovered its old elan nor the public’s trust The judiciary, other institutions and civil society muscled their way into the domain of political parties. The old certitudes were gone but the new forces, individuals, ideological pretensions and interests sought to impose themselves in any manner.

And, when the “terror” era began, Indian society began pinning for a “strong” dispensation that would firewall us from external dangers and internal enemies. This clamour for a “strong” and “decisive” ruling arrangement was clearly at the expense of conventional democratic ways of negotiation, bargaining, adjustment and consensus-building among disparate sections of our society with its multiple fault-lines. Finally, in 2014, the Narendra Modi Project was sold to a vulnerable electorate as the answer to our polity’s fears and disenchantments. The unambiguously decisive mandates he won, in 2014 and 2019, were in expectation of a new democratic vitality and social harmony.

Also read: Unchecked by Consequences, a New Authoritarianism Is Unfolding in India

Nearly ten years later, however, the Modi experiment is running at the level of inefficiency inherent in any despotic arrangement. But the prime minister and his drum-beaters are wilfully denigrating the achievements of all pre-2014 governments, all of which were anchored in democratic mandates and constitutional sanctions. From this negation of previous regimes it is only the next logical step that the prime minister and his hit-squads should seek to delegitimise all constitutional institutions – the judiciary, parliament, political parties – as dens of anti-national sentiments. Unsurprisingly, the lawlessness of the police in Uttar Pradesh is being touted as a much-needed short-cut.

This markedly anti-politics disdain is gradually congealing into a new national religion, with Modi being the only high priest. This begets a deeper mischief. Whereas the much-maligned Nehruvian years ensured that India acquired a democratic culture that came handy in sorting out various succession crises, the exaggerated accent on one man today is depleting the polity of its republican vitality. If Modi’s anti-politics narrative is allowed to acquire traction on our national imagination, we shall be trading only one strong man with another when the time for change comes.