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  • Here we go again!

    Posted On July 2, 2004

    By Karan Thapar

    That politicians can be their own worst enemies is a truism. Yet ponder for a moment over the present controversy about changing governors and shifting civil servants and you will, with a rude shock, realise how silly and shallow their behaviour can actually be.

    The UPA government arrived in office promising to improve governance and restore decency and ethics to public life. Badly needed promises and I assumed, if nothing else, they meant restoring damaged institutions and nurturing offices abused by their predecessors. Yet what is the first thing the press claims they intend to do about governance? Remove governors appointed by the BJP and replace them with their own. Since no one has contradicted these reports I believe them.

    In theory, if this is simply a correction of a wrong committed by the BJP it should be welcomed. Except there's more to it. Governors are meant to be above the political fray. Their office is designed as that of constitutional head of state. So the more you play around with the incumbent – whatever the reason – the more you politicise and denigrate the post. That, above all, must not happen.

    No doubt, some of the BJP appointees have been appalling. A few have also behaved despicably. But the remedy is not to sack the lot, even if it's in your power to do so. That would simply drag the office they hold into the dirt of controversy. Since most of them have only a year or so left it would be preferable to let them serve out their term. Not only would that be the lesser of two evils but also the bigger-hearted and more mature course of action.

    Unfortunately the UPA thinks otherwise and, not surprisingly, the BJP is howling in protest. The only thing is the BJP has absolutely no right to do so. In 1998, within a month of coming to power, the NDA dismissed three governors and three Lieutenant Governors. Since memory is short let me identify them. They were Krishna Pal Singh of Gujarat, T.S. Satish Chandran of Goa and A.P. Mukherjee of Mizoram. Whilst Singh may have been a politician, Chandran and Mukherjee were not. The former was an IAS officer, the latter from the IPS. The Lieutenant Governors were of Delhi, Pondicherry and the Andamans.

    So, I suppose, Congress is paying back with the same coin. Yet it's a dubious decision even if understandable. But what about the civil servants who have been shunted out of office? Kamal Pandey, the erstwhile cabinet secretary, had three months left when he was removed. At least one newspaper claimed his successor was patiently waiting at 7 Race Course Road for the axe to fall before accepting the vacant post. On tuesday the Home and Defence secretaries were moved to other jobs.

    Quite frankly, this is worse. Why? Because civil servants are the steel frame of governance. They are meant to be apolitical. No doubt many – perhaps most – are not, but the cure is not to mistreat them. If you do, it will only force them to seek shelter in even greater political patronage. For once civil servants know that security lies in alignment they will crawl towards political protectors. The Service and the nation it serves will be the loser.

    The UPA should have let Mr. Pandey complete his full term and trusted other secretaries to function properly. And if it wished to register displeasure there were better ways of doing so. Instead, it's guaranteed that when it goes – as one day it must – the successor regime will behave similarly.

    But once again, the NDA has no grounds for complaint. In Mr. Vajpayee's six years the top bureaucracy was shuffled more frequently than a pack of rummy cards. The worst treated were the DGs of Doordarshan. Like jokers they were passed from hand to hand, either easily discarded or quickly exchanged.

    The truth is these shoddy practices were started by Mrs. Gandhi. No, not Sonia but Indira. She was the first to initiate the quest for a committed judiciary, begin dumping out-of-work politicians in Raj Bhawans and push favourites to the top of the civil service command. And what she began others happily continued. Now it's accepted custom and practice.

    Yet if Congress is really to change things, to be the broom that sweeps out corruption and malpractice, should it not think twice before following in these tired footsteps? I had hoped that would be Manmohan Singh's raison d'être. I trust I'm not wrong.


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