Power Drunk Officials Need To Sober Up

The young Indian Administrative Service (IAS) probationer from Maharashtra cadre in the middle of a storm of her own/family’s creation, would do well to reflect on the words of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel when he addressed the first batch of IAS probationers in 1947. The ‘Iron Man’ had spelled his vision for the ‘service’.

Sadly, every possible pitfall alluded to in his then counsel, is seemingly coming true. Patel had noted, “You can trust the Government to keep you content and happy so that you may give your best, but it would be unworthy of you to make that a condition of service.”

He had hoped that in the true spirit of a public servant, the probationers would lead the positive change, “India today cannot boast of an incorruptible Service, but I hope that you, who are now starting, as it were, a new generation of civil servants, will not be misled by the black sheep in the fold, but would render your service without fear or favour and without any expectation of extraneous rewards.”

More than 75 years after that speech, India stares at the institutional rot that has only worsened. Power has blinded many IAS joinees who obviously perpetuate the inequalities with a sense of disdain, hubris and entitlement.

Inequality in India transcends financial differences between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. It can additionally manifest in privileges and allowances that can be sociological, psychological, access-based or purely symbolic.

The layered ‘Manusmritism’ of class consciousness has led us to introduce yet another categorisation to the already entitled realm of VIP i.e., VVIP (Very Very Important Person). The colloquial and governmental underpinning of the same birthed the term ‘Laal Batti Culture’.

It is an ironic and regrettable normalcy for a land that fought against discrimination, in all forms. While the British Raj institutionalised the ‘second-class citizen’ phenomenon with signboards like ‘No Indians or Dogs’, the spirit seems to have survived and thrived, even when the Constitution of India insists on equality to all citizens and to promote fraternity.

Why does the entitlement of ‘status’ persist? The mad rush to ‘own’ symbols of exclusivity like beacons on cars, security cover, reserved parking, exemptions from security checks et all, would suggest that the relics of the Raj days are still alive and kicking.

The colonists may have wanted to keep the natives out, but the well-heeled Indians still want similar exclusivity, from their ‘own’. The concept of basic dignity of a human or labour has very little purchase in the minds of the new colonists i.e., politicians, Government officials, captains of industry, or even the latest to join the bandwagon of the entitled, Godmen/Godwomen.

Even visits to places of religious significance come with ‘VIP lane’ instead of ‘Priority Lane’, as the qualifications to the latter would not fulfil the latent desire for status.

The trappings of status manifest in the daftest of forms. Sometime back an official had wittily tweeted, “If there are ten similar chairs in a room then how to differentiate the chair of a senior? Put a white towel on it bureaucracy”.

It would be funny, if only, it wasn’t true. The hallowed ‘Sahebs/Memsahebs’ of bureaucracy are closeted in shiny and tiled oasis within the otherwise decrepit and musty secretariat buildings, with cubby little pantry’s replete with cups and saucers serving oversweet tea served by liveried bearers.

The rarefied air in these exclusive spaces of orderliness, amidst Soviet-era buildings reek of power and scream of authority.

To be fair, this shameful power-trip and status consciousness is not the exclusive preserve of Babus closeted in stuffy and putrid corridors of power. The unbelievable hubris and insistences of some ‘Mi Lords’, status-announcing designations on car shields of politicians, or the extra-creative application of rank ‘Stars’ of mighty Generals and DGP’s on facemasks to personal vehicles, personify the all-pervasiveness of ‘Status’ in Indian society.

Even the private sector in India has evolved its own quirky and desi adaptations of C-Suite privileges with certain reserved accesses/denials that would be considered an abomination, internationally. Clearly boorishness doesn’t matter, status does.

Not to be left behind, if the Maharajas of yore or the British Colonists insisted on certain pomp-and-show to announce the arrival of the powers-that-be. Bollywood has kept that sprightly spirit alive with dramatically choreographed ‘entry’ of stars on-screen, red-carpet events, or even at the otherwise banal airports.

Here the ‘dark glasses’ are as much about protection from frenzied paparazzi as it is a literal signal to catch their attention. Beyond the functionality of protection, it is also a class/status statement.

The penchant for many leading politicians to have their pictures clicked singularly (from flattering angles) or only with someone of matching authority, is not necessarily borne of stately protocols but equally from ‘class vanity’ and petty sense of superiority.

The size of the accompanying cavalcade, frisky gunmen (better still if they are ‘commandos’ of some denomination), blaring sirens, and obsequious audiences, is a measure of the politician’s status. The fundamental rule always is, bigger the better.

All this drama says a lot about us, as opposed to the over entitled politician, babu or any other nouveau-riche. Willy-nilly, we have ‘normalised’ and legitimised such status-hankering by not speaking up enough against such ugly over entitlement, in our respective domains of influence.

The ‘status’ hunters are everywhere, and in our society, they are aspired, not shunned. The IAS probationer couldn’t get away, but why was it surprising, after all?

Why should it surprise anyone when the IAS probationary sent repeated demands insisting on a separate office, staff, official car, and residential quarter? Or even when she cavalierly rearranged furniture, replaced nameplate, misused the red-blue beacon on her private car or affixed a sticker with ‘Government of Maharashtra’ emblazoned on it? Have we not seen it before?

The real issue (besides many more skeletons pouring out now) is not that all of this is disallowed in the first 24 months of probation, but that she thought she was entitled to demand and insist the same, as a matter of right! The ‘normalcy’ of brazen insistences in her mind and that of her parents who were incidentally versed with the ways of government/bureaucracy (former employee), ought to worry the citizenry.

After all, there may have been many similar excesses committed by others that had assured her and her family of the justness of her demands. She only entered the broken system and cannot be blamed for breaking the same, as the sanctified unreasonableness predates her joining the rotten ‘system’.

The outpouring pictures of gun-flashing and flexing relatives, paperwork discrepancies, supposedly dubiously sourced ‘reservations’, or even the questionable affluence (given the circumstantial background) is all par for course. She is perhaps the one who caught the inadvertent spotlight, but frankly such discourse is not unimaginable for an average Indian, who almost deifies ‘status’.

However, she must be allowed to prove her innocence as claimed by her in the court of law, as sporadic media-trials are also about TRP’s and never about answering this larger and systemic curse of status-fixation, that consumes all.

This case is only an outcome of the prevailing ‘system’ that is allowed to endure, despite odd (completely political) talks and postures of austerity, ostensible-simplicity, and odd calls for removal of ‘Laal Batti’ from official cars. Correction in any system does not succeed if it is bottom-up, but only if it is top-down.

In India, the issue of misuse of power/status is directly linked to two things. Firstly, the ability to ‘manage’ (remember that word jugaad) things via pulling strings with money, officialdom or ‘connections’ – basically cocking a snook at those who cannot. Secondly, the ability (or inability) to question the powers-that-be.

If the corridors of power allow more ‘questioning’ and disallow jugaads borne of political expediency, cases like the one dominating the news currently, will automatically reduce.

But will the powers-that-be allow those privileges to wither away which essentially feeds their own political system so well, just because then the common citizenry can truly lead a dignified and equitable existence? Unlikely.

They’d rather let the national mood fixate around the one-odd derelict that got caught and couldn’t ‘manage’ to extricate herself. It’s the system, not the bureaucrat in question that is the bigger villain.

Lt. General Bhopinder Singh is the former Lieutenant Governor of The Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Pondicherry and an Indian Army officer who was awarded the PVSM. Views are the writer’s own.

Cover Photograph- Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel with the first batch of IAS probationers.