The cardinal principle of public administration underlines that the bureaucracy thrives and grows under the cloak of parliamentary democracy, and in eyes of law it scarcely wields any formal authority, which means that the bureaucracy is to function under the shelter of Ministerial responsibility.
But this is not happening in the highly-hyped “clean” governance of Naveen Patnaik in Odisha. As it appears, some top bureaucrats de facto rule the State without any accountability to the electorate. They are very strongly visible in the media apprising about of the policies and programmes of the Government which the concerned Ministers should have done. Virtually, the bureaucrats have usurped the powers of Ministers in Odisha.
A case of the Hudhud cyclone preparedness demonstrated how the State was ruled by a few top civil servants. When the news broke out that the Hudhud was approaching the State with all ferocity, there was panic everywhere and the horrible memories of the Phailin which had struck the State a year back were afresh. People needed courage from their political representatives in general and Ministers in particular. But Ministers were not on the scene. Almost all the Ministers were in Kandhamal to campaign for the lok Sabha byelection. Winning election was more important for Naveen & Co than saving people from natural calamity.
This is seer insensitivity on the part of a legitimate democratic Government. Democratic governance demands that the Government not only be representative of the people, it is also to be responsive to their problems. Absence of Ministers in the capital to coordinate the preparedness on crucial areas like agriculture, finance, food supply and health in wake of the cyclone clearly showed how Naveen Patnaik ridiculed the Ministerial responsibility.
The Ministers during Patnaik’s fifteen long years’ rule have been possibly indoctrinated to say ungrudgingly “yes” to the bureaucrats. It was further confirmed when a senior Minister, Pradeep Maharathy, after returning from Kandhamal told the Press that there was no need of any Minister to be present in the headquarters as the Chief Minister and the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers were present. This statement of a senior Minister suggests that the Ministers not only are redundant now, they are also subordinate to the bureaucrats. The Patnaik style of governance, therefore, makes a joke of the principle of public administration that Ministers are to guide the bureaucrats. In fact, nobody excepting the democracy loses in this style of functioning.
There was a time when Nehru had scorn for the bureaucracy. As he put in his autobiography, “Few things are more striking today in India than the progressive deterioration, moral or intellectual, of the higher services, more specially, Indian Civil Services. This is most evident in the superior officials, but it runs like a thread throughout the services.” Nehru had this piece of comment on Indian bureaucracy in 1935. But it is also relevant today. The public image of bureaucrats in India nowadays is of inaccessibility, poor quality, sluggishness, corruption-proneness, arrogance and unaccountability to the results.
Odisha’s administrative apparatus is, therefore, no exception. When the opportunity unfolds, the high civil servants grab the benefits which are not due to them. Many of them have grabbed Government land irregularly and are caught in the mining irregularities and involved in other scams. But strangely, Patnaik puts his trusts in bureaucrats more than his Ministers. He does not take his political colleagues into confidence knowing well that the people of Odisha have given him and his party, the BJD, a big mandate to rule. It is legitimate if Naveen Patnaik rules with his Council of Ministers. Bureaucratic rule is not acceptable in democratic governance.
In fact, democratic governance in Odisha is in a shambles. It is fast becoming Naveen-centric with a coterie of civil servants around him with the Ministers in the back seats. As is known, the position of a Chief Minister in his Council of Ministers is the first among equals, the primus inter pares. Question then comes why Patnaik does not trust his equal partners in governance.
Possibly, there are two factors which might have prompted Patnaik to put his Ministers below the bureaucrats. Firstly, his Ministers might be corrupt if given more powers in the governance. More than a dozen Ministers have been dropped from his Council during his tenure as Chief Minister in last three spells on the charge of corruptions. Secondly, Patnaik does not want to develop more sycophants in his Council and fears that more trusts in his Ministerial colleagues may bring about more troubles to him. Instead, there is master-servants relationship in the Council of Ministers.
last year, the then senior minister Surjya Patro boastfully asserted that he was the servant of Naveen Patnaik. With the political executives sidelined, Patnaik, knowingly or unknowingly, has allowed a “babudom” to grow, and if it remains unrestrained without the Ministerial responsibility. This babudom will become a Frankenstein’s monster to devour its creator.
Why do we lament for Praksh Mishra, former Director General of Police, to be criminally charged if there is evidence of financial impropriety against himIJ Former Telecom Secretary Mr Beuria is languishing in jail on the charge of the 2G spectrum allotment scam and the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) in its recent final report submitted to the Supreme Court on the mining leases operation in Odisha has reportedly implicated some senior officers, including the Chief Secretary, in the mega mining scandal in the State.
The babus should, therefore, be under check, and a bureaucrat, irrespective of the post he or she holds, should not spared if found corrupt. Democratic governance needs honest Ministers and an honest bureaucracy to function effectively. And it should be kept in mind that a bureaucrat is invaluable as servant but ruinous when he becomes a master.
(The writer is an advocate, an author, a columnist and a former national president and Secretary General, National Audit Federation under CAG. E-mail Id: gcparida@gmail.com)