Cabinet of All Talents

This was an empty Utopian dream, widely divergent from the facts of the situation. Every official failure, he said, could be traced to a minsters's incompetence or worse. Ministers obtain the quality of official assistance that they deserve, Mr. Deshmukh added. Hence the supreme importance of selecting ministers of the right mental and moral calibre. If such men were not available in adequate numbers in the ruling party, the obvious remedy was to reduce the number of ministries and ministers, and where even this was not possible, the reins of government should be handed over to a Cabinet of all talents drawn from all the important parties all well as the non-party public on the basis of an agreement to implement a national programme such as the series of Five Year Plans.

Ethical Aspect

Mr. Deshmukh said the ethical aspect of governance was vastly more important than the administrative aspect. It was difficult to uncover and bring home misfeasance. In the seats of power, no matter of whichever party, there was not enough intolerance or the necessary fanatical hatred of shoddy or corrupt practices and there was too ready a tendency to make terms with evil for political expediency and saving face. The surrender of ethical principles could be traced not to a desire to advance the interests of society but to the furtherance of selfish individual ends, although it was often sought to be justified by reference to apparently legitimate social ends. What was lacking today was moral leadership with a sufficiently fanatical intolerance of evil or moral lapses.

Multiple Standards of Bahaviour

There was a similar tolerance of multiple

standards of behaviour and ethics in academic life, business, politics and day-to-day affairs. These was much vacillation and lack of purposefulness in regard to extracting from workers work upto capacity or to ensure that labour was worth its hire not only in industry but generally.

Too many political leaders passed judgments of indispensability in their own favour and there was no determined effort to disillusion them. "Is there no remedy then? Must India from yet one more example of Parkinson's cycle?", asked Mr. Deshmukh. He

answered: "If the present situation in India can be described as dharma glani (languishing of moral law)-as I think it can justly bethen according to the Gita, things have to be very much worse before they become better." Mr. Deshmukh, however, believed that with their spiritual heritage it would he possible for them to check the languishing of the moral order. The lead in such an endeavour should be taken by the truly educated and enlightened.

Law and Order Situation

In the course of his lectures, Mr. Deshmukh also called for the appointment of a high level commission to review the law and order situation in the country. To a certain extent it appeared that publicmen were vaguely aware that many features of the law and order situation gave cause for anxiety. They should go a little more deeply into this problem in order to find out if there were many predisposing causes which aggravated the situation or made it more of a threat for the sound operation of their infant democracy. Trusteeship Theory

Among the major weaknesses of Indian policy, Mr. Deshmukh mentioned, were: insufficient realisation that masses lacked

the extent of education commonly prevalent in the more advanced countries, nomination by political parties of candidates on communal or section grounds and singular tolerance of multiple standards of behaviour and ethics. After analysing the various forms of democracy in the world Mr. Deshmukh said the essential conflict between the individual selfishness and the commonity's greatest good always remained and every-system of governance that might be devised was a sort of unstable equilibirium. Referring to the trusteeship theory currently advocated by the newly formed Swaraj Party, Mr. Deshmukh said the community could never be well served by a substantially large number of men of wealth and property preaching and professing to practise the doctrine of trusteeship. The only kind of trusteeship that is likely to succeed, Mr. Deshmukh said, is the trusteeship of natural endowments and talents, matured by education and culture and placed disinterestedly at the service of fellowbeings, who, however, ignorant and unlettered, shrewd enough to suspect, detect and resent ulterior motives.

are

Not only does the Administration function differently in different countries but one might say the spirit behind it also varies. Neither the Administration nor the spirit has achieved definitive form in India. By proclaiming India a Parliamentary democracy we have not reached the journey's end; we have in fact embarked upon a fresh voyage. It is surprising how little attention is paid to the log-book of the voyage.

District Officer

Our Administration has been modelled on the British pattern, though under British rule, because the Government was mainly irresponsible, the actual organization and functioning were different from what they are in Britain. Take the key cog in the Indian administrative machine-the district officer. There is no such officer in Britain; he is closer to the French prefet than anything we know of in England. The assumption in Latin European countries has been "that the central power has always needed its representatives in the various regions of the country". The district officer in India continues to operate on that assumption. Either our district administration has to be democratized or we must recognize that the spirit of our Administration has to be different from that in Britain.

Professional Competence

The Civil Service in Britain is recruited and trained on the assumption that the education of the administrator should be of the amateur type--an emphasis on "intelligent awareness" and examinations being "a test of mental ability" rather then on professional training as on the European Continent. Further, much store is set on training by learning while doing. Our new Administrative Service is based upon that model, but more and more voices are being raised against it in dissatisfaction. Economic and other types of Services that are being formed suggest that the emphasis in recruitment and training will shift increasingly to professional competence as has been the case

in

In India perhaps we have not reached. such ridiculous limits, but listening to Ministers I have often felt that the ethos of our Administration is developing on such lines. Lack of efficiency in execution is often sought to be covered up by legislative extravagance-a characteristic alien to the spirit of British Administration. Official-Minister Relationship

Parliamentary democracy in India has failed to articulate a two-party system. With our multi-parties and the propensity for fission-splinter groups-and occasional fusion, political life in India tends to resemble more that of France during the Third and the Fourth Republics than of Britain. This

subtle transformation may not have come about in New Delhi, but in many a State the effort to remain in power takes away most of the energies of the Ministers. In such a context the relationship of the Ministers with the permanent officials changes. official functions on the basis of certain criteria of relevance. There is one set of criteria for the French administrator, who may have one eye on his Minister and one on the Conseil d'Etat, and at the back of his head a calculation about the possible effects, on the policy he is advocating, of pending changes in Government: and another where a stable Government functions and a stable alternative is available. Either we consolidate-that is, put an end to the fragmentation of our political life-or frankly face the shift in the criteria of relevance and emancipate ourselves from irrelevant British Myths. Whims of Powerful Politicians

All over India, from Kashmir to Kerala, one increasingly hears of not mere interference in administration by politicians and parties but promotions and transfer of per

manent officials dependent upon the whims of powerful politicians. The more such interference grows the greater will be the demand for protection against abuses. The fabric of administration can be prevented from falling apart only if adequate countermeasures are devised. Lousis Rolland explains the situation that confronted France in the following words: "The officials had reasons to complain of arbitrary treatment and favouritism on the part of the Ministers at the head of the Services. The abuses became all the more apparent since the number of services, and consequently of officials, continually went on growing. A Minister, whose position depends on the votes of a majority, is inclined to secure the votes of the deputies by satisfying the demands they make regarding the officials in their constituencies". (Precis de Droit Administratiff page 8). French Remedy For Abuses

To remedy or mitigate these abuses the officials are given important guarantees: "The situation of the members of the French Service is now thought of as objectively determined by the legislative and regulatory dispositions taken by the authorities". The rights of the British official are in general, not guaranteed to him by law.

The administrative law on which French Civil Servants are nursed is a tissue of rights and privileges accorded to the citizen, as also to civil servants. It is explicitly conceived as setting limit not merely to the actions of officials but of Ministers who, it is feared, might without this restraint "let party considerations prevail in the execution of their administrative tasks" (Louis Rolland: Op cit, p. 6). The characteristic organ devised to meet the situation is the Conseil d'Etat. All decisions affecting an official's career may be brought to that august bodynominations, promotions, reversions, disciplinary penalties can all be attacked in this way.

Administrative law and Tribunals merge when the Administration cannot be kept free from political interferences and arbitrary encroachments.

Institutional Devices

We have opted for the simpler British system which is based, as are many things British, on self-restraint, and if the self-restraint

does not in fact prevail, it is better to think institutional devices that would check the resulting abuses than accept the abuses and adhere to the obsolete myths.

The Swedish System

The British system is based upon maximum ministerial control and responsibility and the general anonymity of the officials concerned. In Sweden the approach is different. A Swedish Ministry has a skeleton staff-the total of the ten Ministries is only about 600 (excluding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has a staff of over 1,000). The bulk of work is done through administrative agencies which are not subordinate or responsible to a Minister but to the Government as a whole. The Ministries as a rule are not authorized to take individal administrative decisions. The Freedom of the Press Act provides that documents kept by a State or a local government authority, whether received or prepared by such authority, have to be made available to any Swedish citizen who asks to see them; unless they are of a class specifically excepted by law. A further check on the working of the Administration is to be found in the person of two Procurators (one for Civil and the other for Military Affairs) appointed by the Riksdag under Art. 96 of the Instrument of Government. These Procurators, acting "in the capacity of representatives of the Riksdag..... supervise the observance of laws and statutes as applied..... by the Courts and by public officials and employees" (Article 96).

In West Germany

In West Germany laws are often called after the officials who may have drafted or organized then. Unlike Britain, West Germany is a Federal State and various arrangements have been made to adjust the relationship between the Union and the State a Ministry for Fean acute observer

Governments. There is deral Affairs which, as has put it, "is the seat of an internal diplomacy besides which that of the German Foreign Office must be child's play !" Subtle Changes

In India we are being pulled in these different directions. Because there is little (Continued on page 53)