The Month Reviewed

Negative Attitude

The Union Home Minister in a circular to the Central Ministries has expressed concern over the negative attitude of civil servants which leads to the delay in the disposal of Government work. It is an old adage that an expert civil servant can find hundred ways why a thing should not be done. This tendency has of late been accentuated by the constant interference from above.

The Home Minister says that the capacity

of an officer to take decisions and assume

an

responsibility might be one of the primary criteria for judging his work, and that those who show a negative approach and shirk responsibility on a decision should have earned adverse judgment on their work. As the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh the present Union Home Minister, was responsible for introducing the principle of promotions on merit, instead of on seniority. In practice, this did not lead to good results, and this principle had to be abandoned in favour of merit coupled with seniority. It was found that caprice of the Ministers and other deciding authorities played a determining part in deciding what was merit. This led to a steady demoralisation among the services, instead of promoting efficiency.

The services in India to-day, good, bad or indifferent are the product of the presentday administration in which the elected representatives of the people play a vital and supervisory part. The Ministers lay down the policies which the civil servants are to execute. A good civil servant can only advise his Minister, he cannot take the initiative and guide. The responsibility resmains that of the Minister. A civil servant can only help in the making of policies, he does not lay them down. If the civil servant does not display a positive approach the reason for it is to be found in the conditions under which he works, and is to be traced to the Ministers whose implement he is for the execution of policies laid down

Despite certain protection granted to the Services under the Constitution, there is no provision in India for an independent outside agency, like the Civil Service Commission in Canada, which could, in addition to looking after the interests of the Civil Servants, also help in better organisation of the structure and working of Govt. departments. The needed objectivity and disinterestedness too have been lacking in the Civil Service Commissions established under the Indian Constitution, but their chief handicap has been the lack of sufficient authority in dealing with the civil service matters. of a National Council which would enable civil servants to participate more effectively in the process by which their salaries and

The absence

conditions of work are determined has not been conducive to developing a positive attitude among the civil servants to their work, and has done not a little in promoting the present prevailing negative attitude to work.

The Union Home Minister has stoutly refused to agree to an examination of the structure of administration in the country. It is true suggestions for this had come from quarters, which might not have been interested so much in promoting Government's efficiency as in accentuating discontent and dissatisfaction with the Government and giving it a bad name, but that is no reason why the Home Ministry should themselves not

take the initiative and appoint a Commission, like the two Hoover Commissions in U.S.A., which would make an expert, objective and disppassionate survey of how the Government's work is being done to-day and say how it could be done better. Laying down of obiter dicta piecemeal, which by their very nature are difficult of enforcement, and exhortations to civil servants or their condemnation, have so far not brought forth any results, nor they are likely to do so in future.

Congress & Corruption

Obviously there was much plain speaking in the meetings of the Congress Parliamentary Party in New Delhi in August, which were also attended by the Prime Minister in his capacity as the leader of the party. Some of the speakers went to so far as to suggest that corruption was rampant and indiscipline was rife among Congressmen. One speaker suggested the conduct of surprirse searches of the M. P.s' houses and hinted that undesirable things would be found in them.

The reply that such frank confessions and criticism brought forth from the Prime Minister was that if anybody brought forth to his notice any case of corruption with full proof at any level, whether it was the level of the services or the ministers, he was preprared to go into the matter. The manner in which, the L. I. C.-Mundhra deal and the Mathai affair have in recent months been

disposed of make it obvious that it would be humanly impossible for anyone to convince the Prime Minister of anyone's guilt. A similar inference would also have to be drawn, judging by the fate of the charges levelled against Ministries and Ministers in many of the States. Such charges and the inquiries where made, have not helped in cleansing public life. Their only result has been some scandalising, the hardening of guilty people's consceince, and development of an attitude of cynicism among the people. Charges of corruption too are, therefore,

sometime made with a sense of utter irresponsibility.

It is not hidden from anyone that U. P.'s then Finance Minister Mr. Charan Singh, placed a number of charges against his colleagues before the Prime Minister. Instead

of any inquiry being ordered into them, he was advised to resign, which he has done. On the floor of the U. P. Vidhan Sabha, there was an outburst against the Home Minister, and charges of corruption were levelled against him-after these had been whispered round the State for months-and the Chief Minister promised to hold an inquiry. This he has now dropped on the plea that the matter had become sub-judice, because the Minister's son had filed a defamation suit, against some of his and his father's alleged traducers, the subject of matter of these suits has a bearing on the charges made in the Vidhan Sabha. This plea and the dropping of the inquiry, which the Chief Minster in February last had stated was his constitutional responsibility, has neither enhanced the prestige of the Chief Minister, the Home Minister and the Ministry, nor quelled the suspicions that have been aroused in public mind as a result of the crop of all sorts of charges.

Further, in face of all this the Home Minister's statement in the Vidhan Sabha on August 6 that the Governor should hold an inquiry into the charges being made against him by the Socialist group leader, Mr. Raj Narain, which was only a repetition of his statement of July 30 when he suggested an official inquiry to give him an opportunity to clear his reputation, does not seem to be very convincing. There is nothing to prevent the Home Minister asking for such an inquiry but if he were really serious about such an inquiry, the Chief Minister would not have taken shelter behind the plea of sub judice to abandon an inquiry which he had already undertaken.

After an inquiry is made, it may be perhaps be found that there was no substance in the charges, but the manner in which the Chief Ministerial inquiry has been blocked, and a proper inquiry has been denied into the allegations of corruption against a Home Minister is itself scandalous and merits being inquired into. The Union Home Minister, in order to develop a positive attitude among civil servants, has proposed that types of cases should be laid down on which the final decision must be taken by an officer of a specific level. Similarly it would be useful to lay down type of cases, involving corruption charges against Ministers and high civil