In June 2018, retired civil servant N.C. Saxena wrote a reflection in the Economic and Political Weekly titled ‘Has the IAS Failed the Nation? An Insider View’, in which he argued that the IAS must share the blame for the country’s less than adequate performance on hunger, inequality, and social protection. In this book, he provides a more detailed argument.
“Raj Krishna once described the Fifth Five Year Plan as the fifth edition of the First Five Year Plan,” remarks Saxena in a footnote that says much about missed targets and unread reports. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, at the turn of the century, despite a plethora of plans, schemes and reviews, India also missed critical Millennium Development Goals in hunger, health, malnutrition, sanitation and gender. What went wrong?
Saxena begins with a historical perspective. The Indian Civil Service was formed by the British in 1858. By the 1930s, a 1000-strong ICS led a colonial administration of one million in governing a population of 350 million in the British Raj.
At first, the ICS was almost entirely British; by 1947, Indians were half the service. In 1949, addressing the Constituent Assembly, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel remarked on the need for a neutral cadre of civil servants to help build the new nation.
Issues of power
Saxena argues that over the decades, with the expansion of state functions, growth of coalition politics, and blurring of the separation between executive and legislature, issues of power and patronage have inevitably taken centrestage. Today, IAS officers deal with urgent rather than important matters. They look for quick solutions or band-aids, rather than ways to strengthen systems in the long term. As for the poor, Saxena observes, “Programmes for the poor are poorly run.”
To be fair, he adds, a major reason for the malaise is unstable and all-too-brief tenure. Subjected to frequent transfers, officers find it difficult to deliver on important outcomes. Saxena points out the multiple constraints, not least the lack of adequate staff to deliver public goods and services. The total number of government staff in India is only 1.2% of the population, which is less than half the average for Asia. However, an inordinately high proportion of these are support staff (drivers, orderlies, clerks), and not enough are at the frontlines (teachers, early childhood educators, nurses).
What needs to be done
Saxena’s pessimism about the IAS is not without basis, but it is surely overstated. Despite considerable challenges, a large section of the IAS continues to be professional, transparent, accessible and open to dialogue. Many officers continue to work quietly in difficult conditions, improving things in the time they get.
What will it take to strengthen the capacity of the IAS to deliver results? Stability of tenure, says Saxena; he even recommends a ‘stability index’. Coupled with this, lateral movement into and out of the civil service, with mid-career officers doing stints in non-governmental organisations, research institutes and academic institutions to develop perspectives beyond the government system.
One gap in Saxena’s analysis is that it largely speaks of policymaking at the Centre, not the States. IAS officers spend the first half of their careers implementing programmes; the second half, in designing policy. Increasingly, States are designing policies that address their specific needs.
Finally, the theme that is absent in Saxena’s analysis is that of decentralisation. This is an area where the IAS could and should have done much more. Instead of meaningful democratic decentralisation in terms of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, there has been tokenism, in the form of deconcentration (e.g. the district collector as the representative of the State government in the district) or delegation (with the final powers still remaining with the State government). Meaningful decentralisation, with effective building of capacities in local governments and transfer of funds, functions and functionaries, would have almost certainly resulted in better implementation of basic programmes like PDS, greater transparency and accountability, and effective inclusion of the poor.
What Ails the IAS and Why It Fails to Deliver; N.C. Saxena, Sage, ₹595.
