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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA

21st CENTURY CHALLENGES FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA

21st CENTURY CHALLENGES FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

R.B. JAIN

DEEP & DEEP PUBLICATIONS PVT. LTD.

F-159. Rajouri Garden, New Delhi-110027

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ISBN 81-7629-350-4

© 2002 R.B. JAIN

All rights reserved with the Publisher, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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WITH LOVE

to

NIRMAL Anuj, Sandeep, Neeti, Sangeeta

and Ayush, Anvi, Saanya and Sanjna

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Contents

Preface ix

Introduction xiii

PART I

FIFTY YEARS OF ADMINISTRATIVE DEVELOPMENT

1. Striving for Good Governance: Fifty Years of India's Administrative Development3

2. Socio-Political Structure and Public Administration 45

3. Human Resource Development 82

4. Globalisation, Liberalisation and Human Security: Challenges for Governance 123

PART II

PUBLIC POLICY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIVENESS

5. Public Policy Management 149

6. Political Control Over Bureaucracy 182

7. Citizen's Charter: An Instrument of Administrative Accountability 205

8. Political and Bureaucratic Corruption 222viii

PART III CHALLENGES OF CIVIL SOCIETY

9. Citizen Participation in Development Administration 263

10. NGOs as the Non-State Actor in Public Administration 283

PART IV CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL ISSUES

11. Criminal Justice Administration 313

12. Managing Foreign Affairs 339

13. Management of Environment 367

PART V METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL CONCERNS

14. Research Methodology in Public Administration: Need for a New Orientation 401

15. Comparative Study of Public Administration— Problems and Prospects 412

16. Search for a Theory of Public Administration 441

17. In Conclusion: The Challenges Ahead 470

Select Bibliography 480

Index 501ix

Preface

Since the last one decade, our general understanding of government and governance has been changing at a very fast pace. The forces of globalisation, liberalisation and the revolution in information technology have shattered many a myth hitherto held sacrosanct about the government and more specifically concerning its primary institution of governance — the public administration. No longer can

governments afford to support rigid, bureaucratic, reactive, rules driven administrative organisations. Rather, today's administrative system must be flexible, consultative, result-oriented and proactive—encouraging and supporting creativity and innovation from the bottom to the top in order to govern and provide services to the citizens at large. There has been a considerable rethinking the way the governments now conduct their business, and they are looking more and more towards innovative solutions to respond to an increasing number of complex new environmental and global problems and pressures, which are further accentuated in a developing, multi-linguistic, and a multi-cultural country like ours having diversity of social and religious systems. It is thus natural that public administrationists all over the world, more specifically in India must now concern themselves increasingly with more vital issues beyond the realm of mere regulation and law and order.

The present book is a sort of sequel to my earlier work on Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration. Despite the lapse of a quarter of a century, the issues chosen for discussion then have not altogether become redundant or lost their importance, and are as much relevant today as they had been at that point of time. As the book had long gone out of print, my colleagues and

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friends and the publisher have been urging me from time to time to bring out its new edition in slightly revised form. Because of my growing academic commitments and preoccupations, somehow or the other, I could never find adequate time to get around to do the required revision. However, as I had been continuously engaged in teaching, training and academic writings all these years, I thought it more conducive to do some fresh thinking and attempt another book on some newly emerging problems of public administration. May be, this will give me an incentive to attempt a revision of my earlier book at a later date. Thus, the issues chosen in this volume for discussion reflect those concerns, which in recent time have attracted the attention of the academics and policy-makers as crucial to public administration as an academic discipline, as well as to the processes of good governance in India. Taken together, my earlier work along with the present one, would have hopefully discussed most of the prevalent problems of public administration in India on which a continuous dialogue is necessary in order to strive for better governance.

Some of the chapters in this book have been earlier published in the form of articles or papers in some national and international journals and compendiums or presented at international conferences. These have been thoroughly revised and updated and rewritten from the perspective of "good governance". Others have been specifically written for this volume. Attempt has been made to discuss the issues both from historical perspective, and an in depth analysis of the various parameters involved, with a view to make some constructive observations to resolve the inherent problems and their implications for the body politic and the civil society as a whole. The author, however, does not claim any finality to the

analysis or the solutions offered, but only hopes that it will encourage further debate and discussion amongst the academics, intellectuals and policy-makers on these issues of governance which are crucial to the very survival of the people in India.

I am very thankful to all my friends, colleagues in the academic field and in the government, and a large number of students who have been all these years a source of inspiration for me in my academic pursuits, and encouraged me to write. In particular I am indebted to Professor O.P. Dwivedi of the

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University of Guelph and Shri T.N. Chaturvedi, formerly Comptroller and Auditor-General of the Government of India, now a member of the Rajya Sabha, who have at various times gone through the earlier drafts of these chapters and offered various comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to Professor Hartmut Elsenhans of the University of Leipzig, Professor Michael Pinto-Dushinsky of Oxford, Professor Renu Khator of the University of South Florida, Professor Keshav Sharma of University of Botswana and Professor L.P. Singh of Concordia University, Montreal for their constant support and encouragement in this project in various ways. I am equally grateful to the editors of the various journals or compendiums who had published the earlier versions of some of these papers and to the anonymous reviewers who had given their valuable observations to improve the earlier drafts. My thanks are also due to Dr. Deepak Sharma, my former student and now a Senior Lecturer in Political Science, SGTB Khalsa (E) College, University of Delhi, who has helped me in formatting these chapters through the computer system, and to Mrs. Sunita Gulati of Indian Institute of Public Administration for helping me in the preparation of the bibliography. However, none of them is accountable for any errors or omissions, facts or interpretations, for which I alone take responsibility.

I shall be failing in my duty if I do not acknowledge the tremendous strength and support received from my wife Mrs. Nirmal Jain, who despite her continuous indifferent health for more than a decade now, has always been a source of encouragement in my academic endeavours. Her preservance and forbearance all the time has greatly helped me in the completion of this work. Finally, I must thank Mr. G.S. Bhatia of Deep & Deep Publications Pvt. Ltd., who has published and brought out the book in such a fine shape. I shall feel amply rewarded if the chapters in this book are able to generate a healthy and constructive debate on these controversial issues of contemporary relevance and concern.

Delhi

R.B. JAIN

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Introduction

Political leaders, public servants and academics in India and the world over have in recent times been concerned with the question of what constitutes "good governance", and how can it be achieved? Although the concept of "good governance" has been interpreted differently in different contexts1 yet in pursuance of that 'elusive' and an 'infinite' goal, all governments in the industrialised as well as developing world have encountered pressures to reform their public administration system to respond to the needs and requirements of increasing democratisation, globalisation, liberalisation and market economy. These are not the only pressures that have led the governments to think about restructuring and reorienting their administrative systems. Other factors, like rapid developments in information technology, increasing deficit and accumulated debt burdens in many countries, a dramatic shift in the way in which workforce participants relate to their jobs and their employers, changing public perceptions regarding the role and performance of their public institutions and public services, changing socio-demographic profile, increasing participation of women and minority groups in the process of governance, increasing pressures from business groups and industry to provide a more conducive environment for domestic and foreign investment and above all, the emergence of peoples' movements led by

1. See R.B. Jain, "Bureaucracy and Development in the Third World: Emerging Trends in Good Governance at the Threshold of the 21st Century", a paper presented at Panel # RC 4.3 of the International Political Science Association's XVI11 World Congress held at Quebec City (Canada) from 1-5 August 2000.

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NGOs and non-state actors pleading for human rights, human dignity, corruption free sustainable development and a humane living environment in a civil society,2 have all propelled governments throughout the world to innovate and reform. To what extent and how public administration system in India has responded to these challenges faced by the countries at the beginning of the new millennium is the underlying theme of the various chapters contained in this book.

The first of the chapters in this volume sets the tone for the discussion of various other issues that have emerged in the process of governance in our country.3 Despite more than 50 years of administrative

development, it is ironic that the Indian administrative system is still under the hang-over of the colonial administrative values of the 19th and early 20th century, and has stubbornly refused to move into a new garb necessitated by the revolutionary socio-economic, political and environmental developments all over the world. From the perspective of public administration, the world has become a "global village" reflecting revolutionary changes in at least three different arenas: at the level of the institutional framework, in the transactional capacities, and in the rules of engagement that guide individual and collective choices. The system of administration in India unfortunately does not show any perceptible changes in any of these arenas.

Thus the need of the hour in India at present seems to be to adopt a normative model of Good Management Approach incorporating both the politico-administrative as well as the moral dimensions of good governance. This should, as subsequently discussed in detail, include: (a) A more strategic or result-oriented (efficiency, effectiveness and service quality) orientation to decision-making, (b) Replacement of highly centralised organisational structures with decentralised

2. For a discussion of some of these factors in the Canadian context, see Robin Ford and David Zussman (eds.), Alternative Service Delivery: Sharing Governance in Canada (Toronto, Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1997).

3. See Margarat F. Reid, "Institutionalising an Ethic of Change" in Jean-Claude Garcia Zamor and Renu Khator, Public Administration in the Global Village (Westport, CT, Praeger, 1994), pp. 155-68.

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management environment integrating with the new Panchayati Raj and Municipal Institutions, where decisions on resource allocation and service delivery are taken close to the point of delivery, (c) Flexibility to explore alternatives to direct public provision which might provide more cost effective policy outcomes, (d) Focussing attention on the matching of authority and responsibility as a key to improving performance, including mechanism of explicit performance contracting, (e) Creating of competitive environments within and between public service organisations, (f) Strengthening of strategic capacities at the Center to steer government to respond to external changes and diverse interests quickly, flexibly and at least costs, (g) Greater accountability and transparency through requirements to report on results and their full costs, (h) Service-wide budgeting and management systems to support and encourage these changes, (i) The most important task to break the growing nexus of bureaucrats, politicians and criminals leading not only to a breakdown of the total system but also to a sense of cynicism amongst the citizenry, (j) Adapting of innovations and evolving suitable mechanism to eliminate corruption at both political and administrative levels and strengthen citizens'

grievance redressal system, (k) Improving the system of delivery at the cutting edge of administration by replacing the existing archaic bureaucratic procedures by absorbing some appropriate precepts inherent in the philosophy of New Public Management, and (1) Making improvements in the working atmosphere of the government institutions and offices to reflect a new work culture and a changed administrative behaviour incorporating the principles of transparency, responsiveness, accountability, participative and citizen-friendly management.

Although the subsequent chapters included in this volume do not attempt to discuss in details all these strategies of good governance necessary for India at this juncture of the Indian polity, yet an effort has been made to examine some of the critical issues involved within the ambit of the subject of the succeeding chapters that follow. Thus the second chapter on "The Socio-Political Structure and Public Administration" analyses the inherent pressures and compulsions on the public administration system in India and the third chapter on

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"Human Resource Development" makes a strong plea for utilising the enormous potential of manpower available in the country with a little bit of foresight and effective man (as well as woman) power planning for improving the administrative capacity of the system. This is all the more essential in the face of increasing brain drain in the fields of information technology and software developments that is rapidly taking place in India.

The next chapter describes briefly the salient features of globalisation-driven package of economic reforms in India with its background and attempts to evaluate its impact on socio-economic aspects of the Indian economy during the last decade with particular emphasis on the critical social parameters—like poverty, unemployment, etc.. Analysing the impact on the policies of liberalisation on public administration, it argues that the policies of globalisation and competitiveness need to be directed to achieve the goal of human security which would remain a formidable challenge to policy-makers for the years to come.

Three subsequent chapters on "Public Policy Management in India", "Political Control over Bureaucracy" and "Citizens' Charter: An Instrument of Administrative Accountability" deal with some of the issues of formulation and implementation of public policy in India, the changing profile and role of bureaucracy in policy processes in the changed circumstances of liberalisation and rapid advances in information technology, and the manner in which accountability of public services could be secured. The introduction of the concept of Citizen's Charter as a means to secure public accountability of public services in the Indian context is also carefully assessed. Taken together these chapters also examine the

problem of responsive administration and the institutional and behavioural imperatives needed to secure transparency and openness in public transactions.

The next chapter on "Political and Bureaucratic Corruption" discusses the most crucial and important problem of moral dimension of governance in India. After analysing the various patterns and causes of political and bureaucratic corruption, the chapter considers and outlines a series of practical steps that need to be taken on an urgent basis in order

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to save the nation from the prevalent cynicism, indifference and a sense of resignation, that nothing could be done to save the country from the growing nexus of bureaucrats, politicians and criminals, which has emerged as the basic factor in the prevalence of corruption all around and lack of ethical conduct on the part of public servants. The chapter also emphasises the need for inculcating ethical values in the behaviour of public servants through an effectively enforced code of conduct.

The following two chapters on "Citizen Participation in Development Administration" and the "NGOs as the Non-State Actor in Public Administration" focus on the means for citizens to achieve an easy access to public services, improve the quality of citizen-administration interface and the greater involvement of citizen groups, private sector, cooperatives and dedicated NGOs in the process of effective governance. These chapters strongly suggest the need to relocate political and economic power by creating a system of consociational governance and power sharing that involves scattered local and deprived communities in the process of country's administration.

The three chapters that follow examine three important policy areas of significant administrative concern needing urgent attention in India in the context of rapidly changed circumstances at the threshold of the twenty-first century. Reforming the existing, archaic, and colonial system of criminal justice administration should be the state's first priority in order to ensure a modicum of healthy environment for peaceful development. Thus the chapter on the "Criminal Justice Administration" makes a strong case for securing integrity, coordination and professionalism in the system, which the author considers as a kind of relay race consisting of three constituent units—police, judiciary and the panel institutions having considerable significance in the very survival of the people as a whole. Similarly, the following chapter on "Managing Foreign Affairs" reflects the growing importance of cultural, trade and commercial diplomacy in the international arena from a global perspective. Apart from the problem of national security interests, which had been paramount throughout the twentieth century, the nations of the world today would have to come to terms more to maintain a crucial balance in the economic, technological and commercial interests

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of the international community. A new orientation in the management of foreign affairs is therefore an urgent necessity in the context of the advent of the corporate millennium.

In the same vein, the next chapter on "Management of Environment" has raised the issue of the need for institutional and technological devices in order to secure a semblance of clean and healthy living for the proliferating masses especially in a developing country like India. The national concerns on environment are such, where the policy to think globally and act locally is most appropriate. Many of the environmental problems in India' are the outcome of international factors beyond the boundaries of a nation state, coupled with extreme poverty and illiteracy, uncontrolled population growth and the development challenges. The paper argues that mere construction of a legal and administrative framework does not solve the problems of environmental degradation or provide an ecological balance for sustainable development. A strong political will to enforce environmental policies, working administrative institutions in the most objective, efficient and effective manner based on techno-economic and social considerations, and a bold approach for reconciling the goals of development with that of preservation of environment are essential conditions for the success of any strategies of managing environment and sustainable development.

The last of the three chapters in this volume may seem to be odd and out of place to a casual reader, as these raise some of the most fundamental theoretical and methodological issues of the discipline of public administration itself. But a discerning reader may readily observe considerable linkages between the conceptual approaches to the discipline and its substantive objective of good governance. The study of public administration has always been in a flux, as its boundaries and parameters have never been precisely defined because of the changing nature of its basic objectives. The concept of "good governance"—the latest manifestation of the substantive aspects of public administration as a discipline, is also intertwined with the search for a basic theory and methodology of the study of public administration over the last more than one hundred years, which began with Woodrow Wilson's classic chapter The Study of Administration (1887). The true

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inspiration of public administration is the magical but practical task of turning the authority of government to the furtherance of human purposes. It is time for us to direct our intellectual energies in pursuit of this goal by redefining the evolving parameters of the theory and practice of public administration in its post-modernist phase, which calls for a citizen-oriented public administration. The

concept of "good governance" could further be refined and fine-tuned in its tenets, methods and applications to be able to meet with the changing contours of public administration.

It is to this intellectual concern that the last of the three chapters together address themselves specifically in the context of governance in India. The first of these chapters "Research Methodology in Public Administration" makes a strong plea for developing research competence and training in research methods amongst the scholars in public administration in India in order to develop new paradigms and models for finding solutions to the emerging problems of governance. The second chapter in this realm on "Comparative Public Administration" argues that looking at the multifarious problems of governance in India, comparative perspective in public administration will not only be widening its horizon of interests, but would thereby be in a much better position to offer relevant and practical solutions to the host of problems faced by the people in India. The final chapter in this volume examines the various efforts made by scholars of public administration to search for a "Theory of Public Administration", the inherent difficulties, and limitations to evolve a theory of the discipline, and the various paradigms of administrative theory. As a result of the reinventing movement which led to the emergence of New Public Management, and the resultant post-modernism and reconstruction, the foundations for administrative theory are presently being laid on vitalising the role of citizenship in governance. The experiences in India's administrative development and striving for good governance over the last more than half a century should provide enough of substantive empirical evidence for scholars to be able to develop a new paradigm of the theory of public administration or at least evolve a consensus on the main ingredients around which a theory can be built.

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Taken together the above chapters reflect some of the author's concern inherent in the process of good governance in India. As no one can claim any finality either to the problems involved and the solutions offered in the governing process, it is expected that the discussions of the various issues in this volume would encourage further research and a much wider debate and a critical examination of other ingredients necessary in India's search for a model of better governance from different perspectives. Hopefully such a model would provide enough of material for replication in other countries in similar situations, and would induce scholars to develop a new theoretical paradigm for the discipline of public administration as a whole.

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PART I FIFTY YEARS OF ADMINISTRATIVE DEVELOPMENT

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1 Striving for Good Governance: Fifty Years of India's Administrat Development

INTRODUCTION

When after Independence in 1947, India embarked on the experiment to constitute itself into a sovereign republic and modernise the state and its administration through the adoption of a 'parliamentary democracy', not many scholars and analysts in the world had believed that India will survive as a democratic nation negating John Stuart Mill's contention that democracy is "next to impossible in multi-ethnic societies and completely 'impossible in linguistically divided countries'," as well as Robert Dahl's belief "that widespread poverty and illiteracy are anaethema to 'stable democracy'— a concept that is supposedly linked with the level of socio-economic development".1 However, these early forebodings and later predictions that "the odds are almost wholly against the survival of freedom and ... the issue is, in fact, whether any Indian state can survive at all"2 have not only been proven wrong, but India's existence as a democratic state since the last 53 years of its Independence has compelled scholars to evolve a new consociational interpretation of the survival of democracy in deeply divided societies.3

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Over all these years, while evolving a consensual framework of a democratic government, the leadership in India has also from time to time attempted to devise strategies for good governance, which is associated with an efficient and effective development-oriented, citizen-friendly and responsive administration committed to improvement in quality of life of the people. This chapter is concerned with a review and evaluation of the various efforts and strategies adopted in India for bringing out administrative development for good governance, and points out some further directions of reforms which are immediately needed in public management system in order to meet the challenges of the advent of the 21st Century.

I. COLONIAL LEGACY AND THE INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

A. The Inheritance

At independence, India inherited from the British a monolithic, strictly hierarchical administrative structure, with the line of command running unimpeded from the Viceroy and Governor-General in Delhi to the farthest village, but with certain well established traditions.4 The purpose of such a system was to keep the interest of the British power in India dominant, make sure that the government got the revenue it needed, and in terms of peace and security, maintain law and order.

The system of administration that had evolved in India during the 18th Century from the time of Warren Hastings and Lord Cornwallis—from imperial rule until Independence had five distinguishing features:

(a) the district as the basic unit of administration, and the office of the district collector as a prototype of a "District-Maharajah", "the alter-ego of the vice-regal authority" controlling, directing, and coordinating all administrative activities in his district;

(b) centralisation—as the recognised principle of administration both territorially and functionally and centralisation of decision-making in almost all policy areas—public finance, legal and judicial

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systems, education, health and even public works;

(c) the steel-frame of administration - strong institution of a single dominating civil service, with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) the elite generalist service, occupying the top position among other allied and subordinate services down the levels of central and provincial hierarchies;

(d) a system of elaborate rules and regulations designed by the British as a means of maintaining control over the decision-making power of their large number of Indian subordinates, who had varying levels of training, outlooks, and goals, and who were dispersed far from the administrative centers; and

(e) a system of Secretariat and Executive offices—a split system prevailing at both the central and provincial levels, ostensibly separating questions of policy from those of administration.5

Such a system of administration suited the British. This was the status quo regime. It maintained and preserved broadly the structure of society in India as it then existed, particularly the large proportion of rural society. It did not concern itself with any radical or specific socio-economic changes. The impact of the administration on the large proportions of Indian citizens was minimal. Thus, when the time for transfer of power came in 1947, the administrative system was not appropriately prepared to handle the massive developmental and post-independence tasks.6

B. The Impact of Independence and the Constitutional Imperatives

The period since independence has witnessed most changes in the administrative system. The attainment of independence brought in its wake momentous problems, simultaneously needing multiple revolutions: first, the transition from a colonial system of government to a full-fledged parliamentary democracy with a federal structure of government and commitment to a welfare state; second, the transformation of a semi-subsistence economy into a modern

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industrial economy to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, and want; third, a social revolution changing a caste-ridden stratified society into a progressive community-oriented to social justice; and fourth, a technological revolution to shine the light of modern science on the crusted traditional ways of a conservative people.

The broad strategies adopted by the Indian leadership, to usher into a new era, were:

(a) the political integration of the country;

(b) the framing of a new Republican Constitution;

(c) the adoption of adult franchise;

(d) a policy of rule of law and independence judiciary;

(e) a policy of a mixed economy and democratic socialism for agro-industrial growth;

(f) a policy of equal opportunity and protective discrimination to further social justice; and

(g) a policy of non-alignment in foreign affairs.

All these strategies have led, since then, to a number of veritable changes in the policy process and the administrative system. But some of the old problems still persist in one form or the other, while the processes of modernisation and socio-economic changes over the last five decades have given rise to a new set of problems pertaining to policy and administration.

The new set of problems that have arisen in the modern times relate to various issues such as:

(i) the empowerment of women and the downtrodden and the social upliftment of the poor and the backward;

(ii) growing incidence of social and political violence due to terrorism, communalism, regionalism, linguistic and group-conflicts;

(iii) environmental security and sustainable development;

(iv) challenges of globalisation, liberalisation, market economy and world capitalism;

(v) constraints of the emergence of a civil society; and

(vi) the challenges of the revolutions in information, communication and other technologies.

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The Public Management System in India has had to respond to these continuing problems and challenges faced by the polity from time to time, and it did so by first establishing a constitutional framework of a Republican Democratic Government. The pattern of administrative development in India was thus largely guided by the imperatives of the Republican Constitution, which came into force on 26 January 1950. The structure of colonial administration not only had to adjust to the system of democratic parliamentary government and the principle of federalism enshrined in the Constitution, but was also expected to implement the new policy goals inherent in the Preamble and a number of its

provisions relating to socio-economic dispensations. Some of these are discussed in the following sections.

C. Federalism : The Administrative Implications

Indian federalism has retained the earlier principle of centralisation of the British era in the structure of administration; it has vested imposing powers and responsibilities in the Union government. The emergency powers contained in the Indian Constitution enable India, under certain circumstances, to transform itself into a unitary state. Under emergency provisions, the Union Executive and the Parliament can direct a state government in the use of its powers or assume all of its powers, the Union Executive acting for the state executive and the Union Parliament enacting legislation as if it were the state legislature.

Apart from the fact that the central government has the constitutional right to modify the distribution of powers between the Centre and the states under certain circumstances, the central government also has vast powers over the collection and distribution of revenues, which make the states heavily dependent on the central government for financial support. Although the constitution provides for the devolution of revenue to the states under Article 275, the Union Government under Article 282 has the power to make grants to the states for any public purpose, even though the purpose is one for which Parliament cannot normally legislate. Under this provision, the central government allocates vast amounts of development funds to the state as part of Five Year Plans drawn up by the

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National Planning Commission, an advisory body of the central government, putting additional responsibility on its administrative structure. However, despite these centralised trends, each state has a personality of its own and can no longer be treated by the central government as merely a piece of territory for administrative purposes. The number, territorial size, and composition of states have changed many times since independence in response to the demands of the people of various regions. The number of States in India at present is 28 after the creation of three more states: Uttaranchal, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh towards the end of 2000.

D. Democratic Decentralisation : Evolution of Panchayati Raj System

To achieve the goal of participatory democracy, the Government of India embarked upon a series of experiments with community involvement and participation at the grassroots. The first experiment in the 1950s was the Community Development system in which each district was divided into blocks and

panchayats of villages. Both the Block Development and Panchayati Raj system received a big boost in 1993 when the 73rd Constitutional Amendment revolutionised and transformed the representativeness of democratic institutions in India. Until 1993, the Panchayati Raj system did not have a constitutional sanction; its elections were subject to the whims of state governments, and its authority was very limited. The 1993 amendment brought the Panchayats under the jurisdiction of the "Justiciable part of the Constitution."7 Now, its elections are mandatory at a regular interval, and state legislatures have been directed to endow sufficient power and authority necessary for its functioning. Further, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) are to be involved in preparing and implementation of plans for the economic development and social justice in their areas; and on some subject matters under Schedule XI of the Amendment. These subject matters are: agriculture, land improvement, soil conservation, fisheries, khadi, village and cottage industries, poverty alleviation programmes, education, health and sanitation, family welfare, woman and child development, social welfare, welfare of the weaker sections (in particular Scheduled Castes and Scheduled

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Tribes SC/ST) groups, etc.8 The Amendment also made provision for reserving seats in Panchayats for women and SC/ ST candidates. Finally, state legislatures have been empowered to authorise state governments to make grants-in-aid to Panchayats from the Consolidated Fund of the State.

The Constitutional Amendment has been implemented in nearly all states, as legislative formalities have been completed including constituting electoral procedures, but elections are yet to be completed in several states, hence, it is too early to assess the effectiveness of this innovation in participatory democracy. However, it is likely that in future, PRIs would have to play an important role in accelerating socio-economic development in the rural areas.9

E. Fundamental Rights and the Directive Principles of State Policy: Imperatives for Administration

The Constitution of India is committed to providing fundamental changes in the socio-economic order through its provision on Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy. While the Fundamental Rights guarantee for each citizen certain substantive and procedural protection against the state, the Directive Principles of State Policy, although not enjoying legal force through the courts, provide direction to the nation "to promote the welfare of people by securing and promoting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice; social, economic, and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life."10 Taken together, these provisions have meant a number of mandatory obligations that are required to be observed by administrative personnel in the discharge of their functions and the emergence of a large number of different types of administrative institutions at all levels to carry out the purposes and aspirations of a new nation.

Thus for example, the right of equality under Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees equal protection before the law, provides for equal opportunities in public employment, abolishes untouchability, and prohibits discrimination in the use of public places on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. At the same time, it protects the rights of minorities and provides protective discrimination for the downtrodden and the backward class of the population, the so-

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called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, as mentioned in the Constitution. The administrative implications of such constitutional provisions are far-reaching; for example, they impose additional administrative costs to implement preferences for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Community (OBC) groups. In recent years, such provisions have led to some important public controversies. Not only have there been allegations of lowering of administrative standards and compromises on meritocracy due to the inductment of candidates with questionable capabilities; there have been public riots and violent protests in some states as a result of perceived reverse discrimination.11

F. The Public Services

Perhaps India is the only country whose public services have been accorded constitutional status, and their rights and privileges have been safeguarded. Article 311 of the Constitution provides a safeguard to a public employee's right to be served with a notice to show cause notice before he/she can be dismissed from the service on charges of misconduct, inefficiency or corruption.

Such legal and constitutional guarantees, which were intended to protect civil servants from arbitrary actions and unjust administrative decisions, have come to be used as the "guardian" of corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats.12 Such legal guarantees have now become somewhat diluted with the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of the Union of India versus Tulsi Ram Patel (1985).13 The Supreme Court has upheld the government's claimed right to dismiss any employee without a formal inquiry and a reasonable opportunity to defend himself. All that the authority concerned has to do is to write down the charges warranting the termination of his services.

But the most unique feature of the provisions of the Indian Constitution is Article 312, pertaining to the creation of all India Services, which retain the same prestige and status once accorded to the old ICS. The special characteristic of these services is that although officers are recruited and trained by the

Union government, they serve both the Union and the state governments and occupy top policy-making and executive

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positions in both the central and the state governments. Moreover, they cannot be dismissed, removed, or reduced in rank, except for cause and only with the approval of the Union Public Service Commission.

Apart from the All-India Services, the Constitution also provides for Central Services for the Union Government and State Services for the state governments. While the All-India and Central Services are recruited by the Union Public Service Commission, the State Services are recruited by the State Public Service Commissions. The Commissions have been established as constitutional agencies to protect the services and the merit system from political interference.

The Central Government's public services are managed by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. This Ministry was created in March 1985. It formulates all policies and procedures pertaining to recruitment, training, promotion employer-employee relations, service conditions, etc., for all units under the jurisdiction of the Government of India. It also coordinates other personnel management issues such as administrative vigilance, reservation of posts for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST), compulsory arbitration, staff welfare, pension administration, Administrative Tribunal, Union Public Service Commission, Staff Selection Commission, Indian Institute of Public Administration, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration (Mussoorie), and the Institute of Secretariat Training and Management (New Delhi).14 The Ministry functions under the direct control of the Prime Minister through a Minister of State. Within the Ministry, there are three departments: Department of Personnel and Training, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, and the Department of Pensions and Pensioners' Welfare, which deal with all aspects of personnel management and personnel policy development, except recruitment which is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.

G. The Statutory Authorities

The other independent bodies for various administrative purposes provided in the Constitution are:

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(a) the Election Commission to conduct elections for various legislative bodies and all elective offices under the Union and the states;

(b) the Finance Commission, appointed every five years for determining the principle of distribution of revenues between the central and state governments;

(c) the Comptroller and Auditor General to audit accounts of the Union and the state governments; and

(d) the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commissioner to look after the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India.

The independent and impartial working of these bodies has been ensured partly by the methods of their appointment and conditions of their services, and partly by the fact that the expenses of these offices are the first charge on the Consolidated Fund of India and are not subject to the vote of the Parliament.

The above is a brief summary of how the various constitutional previsions have influenced the growth of the administrative machinery in India. Given the socio-political background at independence, the Constitution-makers did well to specify the principles on which the foundations of a new administrative state were to be laid.

II. POLICY OF PLANNED ECONOMY AND ADMINISTRATIVE DEVELOPMENT

In pursuance of the objectives of a welfare state and rapid economic growth, India had adopted Five Years Plans as a major instrument of public policy and the principle of "mixed economy" as the guiding ideology for planned developmental efforts. The planning objectives and social premises were derived from the Directive Principles of State Policy set out in the Constitution. Attempts to formulate and implement development plans have been accompanied by a vast expansion of various administrative planning institutions and agencies, and phenomenal growth of public services for developmental purposes. In the process, administration has become more and

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more hierarchical giving rise to problems of coordination at the horizontal level. Although the various plan documents also provide directions and strategies for developing administrative capabilities and effecting administrative reforms to meet the challenges posed by the policy of planned socio-economic development, efforts to achieve greater administrative decentralisation and a larger measure of planning have not been able to bridge the large and ever-growing gap between planning and implementation.

The strategy of planned economic growth and the consequent formulation and implementation of plan policies have put tremendous strain and responsibilities on the administrative system. The success of developmental plans and policies depends to a significant degree upon the effectiveness and capability of the administrative machinery. The structural and organisational problems of administration, posed by planning, start with the establishment of the planning machinery itself; determining its location; defining its powers, functions and responsibilities; defining its work vis-a-vis the other administrative departments; establishing effective channels of communication with the political organisation; establishing units for supervision and evaluation of plan implementation; establishing relations with the states and their administrative units, the private sector, interest groups, trade unions, cooperatives, and so on. All these pose structural, behavioural and attitudinal problems. The availability of qualified and efficient personnel with development orientation poses problems not only of managing human resources, but also of evolving behaviour, a distinct administrative culture for development.15 In many ways the process of planning has also made a deep impact on the character and functioning of the traditional administrative units and institutions. Two specific aspects of planning need a further discussion:

(i) the framework of planning; and

(ii) its impact on traditional administration.

A. The Framework of Planning

The new institutions that have come into existence as a result of the adoption of the system of economic planning are:

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(a) the National Planning Commission, an expert advisory body at the Centre responsible for formulating plans, assessing resources, providing for all technical and statistical details needed in planning activities,

determining the nature of machinery needed for implementation of plans, and appraising the progress achieved in the execution of plans in each state from time to time; and

(b) The National Development Council, a kind of super cabinet consisting of the chief executives of all the states of the Indian Union along with the Members of the Planning Commission, which has emerged as an apex body to promote national cooperation between the Centre and the states.

Further in almost all central government ministries and organisations, planning cells have been established to assist in the formulation of plan projects and targets in each substantive area. Similarly, planning boards and state planning departments have come into being at the levels and various state governments for the preparation of state plans and their integration in the national plan.

Because of various historical and political factors, the planning system in India continues to be highly centralised. However, the unsatisfactory performance of centralised planning has led to demands for radical decentralisation. The increased scope of plan activities at lower levels, recent emphasis on area development, and adoption of a target group development approach tend to make the argument for decentralisation stronger. The issue is not so much whether to decentralise, but as how and what to decentralise.16 However, efforts to establish planning machinery at sub-state levels, which have been under way for some time, have been halfhearted, with the result that no worthwhile organisation for plan formulation has emerged at these levels.

As a sequal to the Directive Principles of State Policy provided in the Constitution and with a view to involving people in the process of plan formulation and implementation, a scheme of Community Development programmes, Panchayati Raj institutions, Block Development officers, and a host of

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Village Level workers were introduced in the decades of the fifties and sixties in various state governments. But in the majority of cases, these institutions have been virtually languishing as a result of government indifference and in some cases the tacit hostility of political leadership at the state level. The so-called experiments in district planning introduced since 1969 were reduced to a mere collection of felt needs or of disaggregated departmental figures. The later attempts to strengthen district and block level planning in the early 1980s were also not very successful.

Deficiencies have been particularly marked with respect to the machinery for project planning and establishing linkages and coordination between projects. The successful operation of decentralised planning within a framework of multi-level planning requires appropriate organisations at these levels, which must be staffed with personnel of requisite technical expertise, especially for preparing sound projects and working out linkages among them.17 Controversy has arisen in recent times over the issue whether a new level of Service named as Development Services be created to fill this gap, or requisite training be imparted to the existing personnel for enhancing their capacities, or some strategies of the New Public Management, e.g. contracting out of some selected services at grass root level to private and non-state organisations, etc. be adopted. However, none of the alternatives has so far been successfully implemented in any of the states in India.

Thus to what extent, the 1993 constitutional amendment empowering Panchayats to make direct input in the planning process will result in a better planning at the grass root level remains to be seen. Until now the results of some experiments tried in various states have not been very encouraging, although very recently (early 2000), some progress seems to have been made in the state of Madhya Pradesh by making the Districts as the basic unit of developmental planning and activities in the state under the provisions of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. Similarly, in a step towards a more responsive administration, the Government of Delhi (Union Territory), has recently decided to constitute district-level committees to decentralise decision-making, planning implementation and monitoring of the various policies and

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schemes.18 This model, if proved successful, may perhaps be replicated in other states.

B. Traditional District Administration

The planning system has placed a heavy burden and responsibilities on the district as a traditional unit of administration and on its head, the Disctrict Collector, the District Officer or Deputy Commissioner, the various designations with which such officers have been known by in India. Different patterns of administration exist in different regions. There is therefore a need to develop a common model of administration which may permit flexibility for adjustments due to regional variations.19 The question whether the District Collector, who has traditionally been performing the law and order and revenue collection functions, should be associated with developmental functions has been continuously debated since Independence. The impact of the British legacy, namely, the centralisation of decision-making, the system of rules, the generalist concept of services, has further affected the pattern of behaviour of the district officials. This pattern is characterised by inflexible adherence to and dependence upon rules, a focusing of decision-making upward, and its reverse, a lack of delegation of authority and a generalised

rigidity that prevent the organisation from adapting readily to changing demands upon it. It is further complicated by situational elements of social, economic, political and cultural nature. Notable among the particular situational elements are the tendency for any group of people to divide into small groups on the basis of particularistic ties, heightening a lack of trust and reluctance to delegate authority, a tendency encouraged by the ideology of the caste system, and thinking of human relations in hierarchical terms; and a tradition of deference towards authority.20

C. Administrative Development through Five Year Plans

The formulators of Five Year Plans for planned economic development did realise the imperatives of change and improvement in existing administration system, if the goals of planning were to be realised. To this extent, every plan document has contained a specific chapter outlining

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suggestions for improving the administrative machinery. Thus, in the First Five Year Plan (1951-56), in a separate chapter on "Reform of Public Administration" it was laid down that the principal objectives of administrative changes were to secure integrity, efficiency, economy and public cooperation. Suggestions for changes in the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and the machinery for departmental enquiries were made to secure integrity. Similarly, proposal for changes in methods of work and organisation and the establishment of an Organisation and Methods Division; a system of intensive training in economic field and grounding in development administration for the IAS and constitution of industrial management cadre were made to increase efficiency. A system of adequate participation, systematic evaluation and a practice of reward and punishment for securing results for large scale projects was proposed for financial control and economy in developmental projects.21

The Second Five Year Plan (1956-61) also emphasised the importance of integrity, provision of incentives, continuous assessment of personnel—their training and speed, efficient and economic methods of work; and recommended the establishment of Vigilance offices in every Ministry and Department. Proposals were also made to establish Organisation and Methods Directorates in the State Administration. As a result of its recommendation for better control over spending of public money, a Committee on Plan projects was constituted by the National Development Council to conduct investigations, initiate studies and ensure efficiencies in implementation of projects. It also urged the organisation of cooperation for keeping people of small means and creation of an Industrial Management Service for the administration of public sector enterprises.22

The Third Five Year Plan (1961-66) also contained a chapter on "Administration and Plan Implementation". It reiterated the need for high standards of integrity, efficiency and speed in implementation. It emphasised the importance of reduction in construction cost, improvement in maintenance and simplification of work procedures, and the need for a line of communication between the planning for the country as a whole and for each district, block and village, preserving the

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broad national priorities while adapting the plans to conditions and needs of each area and each community.23

Noting the increasing gap between planning and implementation, the Fourth Five Year Plan urged for a concerted drive for better implementation of plans. It noted that since many deficiencies in plan-implementation arose from weaknesses in planning, it was essential that detailed administration and operational plans were formulated for the fulfilment of plan targets. It urged the need for constant appraisal of economic policies and performance so that gaps were noted with sufficient precision, integration of plans for production, imports and exports, improvement in the system of reporting and information, introduction of performance budgeting, economy in construction of projects through preplanning, programme management, avoidance of short tenures and frequent transfers, and emphasis on quality of performance.24

Although the emphasis on plan-implementation was continued in the subsequent plan documents, particularly in the Sixth and Seventh Plans, as against suggesting general changes or improvement in the Indian administrative system, but there is little evidence to suggest that plan implementation has improved in any substantial manner, despite the creation of a new Department of Plan Implementation and Coordination. Thus for example, the Sixth Plan document pointed out that planning, implementation and evaluation should be looked upon as an integral process, and need for the strengthened particularly at state, district and block levels. It suggested the projection of the anti-poverty programmes and the strengthening of District administration by appointment of District Development Officers, and strengthening of the national information centres for data storage, retrieval and processing.25

Similarly, the Seventh Plan in order to achieve the twin objectives of effective implementation of the anti-poverty programme and ensuring a balanced regional development at least in respect of the minimum needs, laid a fresher emphasis on the decentralisation of planning process and monitoring of implementation of plan-projects. To this end, it suggested the decentralisation of planning from the state to the district and

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block levels, and a scheme of effective functioning and financial decentralisation, establishing appropriate budgeting and reappropriation, making district officers accountable to district planning body and establishing data and information centres at district levels. It also laid emphasis on responsiveness in the administration of public enterprises involving questions of autonomy, accountability and coordination between different sectors of government, ensuring speedy resolution of controversial issues. Planning should increasingly be concerned with the appropriate administrative arrangements and personnel policies, especially in the less developed and remote areas and in the implementation of programmes for the weaker sections. The management and administrative systems have to be improved to eliminate inefficiency, cynicism and lack of integrity.26

The Eighth Plan (1991-97) took into account some of the changes expected to come about due to liberalisation of the economy. As a result of the new policies, the large scale capital inflow substantially increased improving the balance of payments position and restoring international confidence in the Indian economy. During this period, the average growth rate of GDP had met the target rate of 5.6 per cent.

The Ninth Plan (currently in operation) has been launched in the 50th year (1997) of the independence of India. It envisages a basic change in the new era of people-oriented planning wherein, not only the Central and State Governments, but also the people at large are expected to participate in the planning process. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments are expected to pave the way for the flourishing of the Panchayati Raj Institutions and the Municipal bodies. In this new era of participatory planning process, the Ninth Plan is expected to attempt to acceleration of economic growth, along with equity and social justice.27

Despite the plea that the Planning Commission has outlined its utility in the changed context of the virtual downgrading of the mixed economy pattern in a developing country like India,28 and should either be disbanded or relocated, it seems that in view of the above considerations, planning is still relevant in India for preparing a blue print for public-private sector cooperation to usher it into a new phase of

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modern world capitalism and a new corporate millennium. In a recent meeting of the Planning Commission held on 30 September 2000, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has directed the planners to prepare the blueprint of the 10th Five Year Plan with a view to raise the economy's annual growth target to nine percent. At the same meeting it was agreed that the Planning Commission be made the government's main think tank.29

III. REFORMING THE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM

The problem of administrative reforms has received continuing attention in India both at the Centre and in the states during the last five decades of its Independence.30 Indeed since the British period, there has been a time-honoured practice of examining particular areas of administration and to make recommendations for improvement.31

Since Independence, there have been a large number of changes in the structure, work methods, and procedures of the administrative organisations. Although these changes have been gradual, at times not too perceptible, they do indicate the efforts made by the government to affect procedural and policy innovation in the administrative system and to keep pace with the changed situation, growing needs and exigencies of the government. In order to understand the impact of such changes, it is appropriate to recount some of the important suggestions made by the various committees, commissions and experts on the subject of administrative reforms in India.

A. The Aftermath of Independence

Beginning with the Tottenham Committee's Report immediately after the Second World War in 1945,32 which sharply advocated a proper division between secretarial departments on the one hand and executive directorate and services on the other, with liberal delegation of powers to the heads of departments, the question of secretariat organisation was further debated by the Secretariat Reorganisation Committee, headed by Girija Shanker Bajpai immediately after Independence in 1947. The Committee suggested a reorganisation of the methods of work in the secretariat. In 1948,

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the Economy Committee headed by a prominent industrialist, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, made many suggestions for effecting economy in central administration and to tune up general efficiency and mould of the civil service.33 Shortly thereafter, the first comprehensive review of the central government was undertaken by the committee headed by N. Gopalswamy Ayyangar in 1949. It dealt with organisational changes, improvement in the calibre of personnel, and in the methods of transaction of governmental

business. One of the recommendations that was adopted by the Government was the strengthening of the organisation of the cabinet through the constitution of the standing committees of the cabinet such as the Defence Committee, Economic Committee, Parliamentary and Legal Committee, etc.34

B. Appleby Efforts at Reforms

However, none of the above attempts at administrative improvement received as much public attention in 1950s as did the three subsequent reports—Gorwala Committee Report of 1951, and Paul Appleby's two reports on the Indian Administration in 1953 and 1956. Gorwala Committee, headed by a former ICS officer, A.D. Gorwala was appointed by the Planning Commission in 1951 to assess the adequacy of administration to meet the requirements of planned development. Gorwala's report on the Planning Commission served as the basis for the formulation of certain crucial administrative proposals which were later included in the First Five Year Plan. In the same year, Gorwala submitted another report relating to the efficient conduct of State Enterprises. Appleby's Reports in 1953 and 1956 made significant impact on the thinking and interest in administrative reforms amongst the government officials, educated elites and the academics, primarily because it was perhaps the first appraisal of the Indian administrative system by a foreign expert. Although the Reports were critical of the administrative machinery, they were complementary of the administrative system as a whole. Appleby's first report dealt more with changes in the basic principles and concepts including the structural changes in the Indian administration rather than with details of administrative machinery.35

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The two main recommendations of Appleby, relating to the setting up of an Institute of Public Administration at the national level and the other, the creation of O and M organisations at different levels of administration, which were implemented immediately, helped the nation towards developing necessary infrastructure for research, teaching and improvement in public administration. In his second report, Appleby made several proposals for streamlining the administration, work procedures, recruitment and training, and relationship of administration with Parliament, the Planning Commission, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Appleby also underlined the need for delegation of powers.36

C. The Post-Appleby Period: The Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) Phase

In the post-Appleby period (1953-66) a number of other Committees and Commissions made piecemeal recommendations relating to the qualification for public services, salary structure of public services, district administration, work procedures, corruption and reorganisation of foreign service, but no comprehensive study of the administrative system was attempted until the appointment of the Administrative Reform Commission in 1966.37

The attempts at reforms till now had been far too narrow in their scope to make any appreciable impact on the administrative system as a whole. Because of the widespread deterioration in administrative efficiency and standards, the idea of setting up an independent commission on the pattern of Hoover Commission in USA gained ground.38 Accordingly, the Government on 2 January 1966 constituted an Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC), under the Chairmanship of Morarji Desai (who was later replaced by K. Hanumanthaiya).

The objectives laid down to guide the Commission's investigations were:

(a) "to give consideration to the need for ensuring the highest standards of efficiency and integrity in the public service",

(b) to take into account the need "for making public

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administration a fit instrument for carrying out the social and economic policies of the government and achieving social and economic goals of development", and

(c) to make the administration "responsive to the people."39 The two additional objectives, viz.—the promotion of national integration and the maintenance of efficient standards of administration throughout the country were implicit in the Commission's terms of reference.

The ARC had stressed that in the above investigations, it was guided by certain basic considerations, such as: the intensity or magnitude of the administrative deficiency or inadequacy, the requirements of adapting the administrative system or procedure to the demands of developmental functions or tasks; the availability of the proposed reforms in terms of administrative, social and political challenges; the need for improving efficiency, effecting economy and raising administrative standards; the need for maintaining a balance between administrative innovation and change, and administrative stability; the need for improving the responsiveness of the administration to the people; the urgency for reform; and finally, the demands of the present and the needs of the future.40

Some of the most significant recommendations made by the ARC pertained to:

(a) the appointment of Lok Pal (at the Center) and Lokayuktas (in the States) to deal with complaints of corruption and public grievances;

(b) constitution of Inter-state councils under Act 263 of the Constitution to deal with Centre-state relations;

(c) establishment of a central personnel agency at the centre (Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms) under the Cabinet Secretariat and independent personnel departments in each ministry;

(d) introduction of the concept and technique of performance budgeting;

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(e) procedural reforms relating to the elimination of delays in sanctioning of pensions to retired officials and payment thereof;

(f) constitution of a policy advisory committee, policy cells and policy officers in each department or ministry;

(g) establishment of internal standing committee on planning and planning cells in each ministry, constitution of state planning boards, and preparation of project manuals and training programme for project management;

(h) the constitution of several corporations for management of the public sector; and

(i) constitution of consumer consultative committees.

Perhaps the two most important areas touched upon by the ARC in its reports were: (a) minister-civil servants relationships, wherein the ARC emphasised the need for the depoliticisation of the services, and (b) the creation of a climate and culture of administration, that would help arrest the growth of unhealthy personal relationship between civil servants and the ministers.

Another important but at the same time the most controversial recommendations, which if implemented, would have meant a radical departure from the past traditions and structure of the civil services, was to change the character of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The ARC had suggested the regrouping of all the present services in the Government of India into eight functional categories, so that the IAS shall no more be a generalist service, but shall have a purely functional role of revenue administration.41 This recommendation, which could have changed the entire civil service structure from being based on generalist character to a specialist system of service and would have ended the primacy of the erstwhile "steel-frame", had evoked sharp and bitter reactions from amongst the top hierarchy of the civil services.42 No wonder, the proposal was not only shelved, but perhaps was responsible to some extent in the development of an indifferent and apathetic attitude amongst the top civil services for the implementation of the recommendations of the ARC.

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In retrospect, it seems that despite the extensive work done by the ARC extending over a period of four years, it failed to make any real impact on the administrative structure. There was no attempt made to overhaul the original administrative structure. The ARC seemed to have no philosophy of administration and made no attempt to articulate one. Indeed it had no overall core report on public administration as a whole. It did not ask such basic questions as what constitutes good administration and in reference to those norms of good administration, what could be considered to be the major reforms in Indian administration. In not raising these basic issues of administrative reforms, the ARC lost a major opportunity to suggest some fundamental changes in Indian administrative system.43

Most of the ARC's recommendations had failed to arouse the authorities to take positive action to implement them. But the fact, as observed by a political commentator, was that the Commission never came to tight grips with the day-to-day administrative lacuna, lapses and shortcomings, much less produced a single, coherent report spelling out in precise and concrete terms the steps needed for effecting a complete overhaul—a real breakthrough—in civil administration. The eminent individuals who headed the various study teams and their learned colleagues took only an overall view of the issues entrusted to them and dealt with the larger questions of administrative policies and procedures, but lost sight of specific issues affecting the core of administration. As a result, whatever reforms they have recommended—and acted upon by the government—have hardly touched the core of administration,

which remains as cumbersome, out-of-date and red-tape ridden as it was before the Commission was brought into being.44

D. The Post-ARC Reform Efforts

After the Administration Reforms Commission, there have been no major committees or commissions on administrative reforms per se except for three isolated attempts:

(a) to improve the examination pattern of combined services by introducing a preliminary tests to eliminate a large number of candidates having less

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potential for success, as a sequel to the Kothari Committee Report,45

(b) to revitalize the Panchayati Raj system at the grass root level by converting the three-tier structure into two-tier structure,46 and

(c) to change the system of economic and fiscal adminstration.47

Besides the above, the Government of India also constituted a National Police Commission (1977-79), under the Chairmanship of Dharam Vir, a former ICS, which examined various aspects of police and law and order administration in India and submitted eight volumes of its reports to streamline the police administration, but most of the many worthwhile and important recommendations made by it have been gathering dust on the government shelves, as the political leadership which came into power after the 1979 elections did not feel interested to act on them.

In addition, the Government in 1983 appointed a high powered commission led by Justice Sarkaria to enquire into the entire gamut of Centre-State relations. The Sarkaria Commission regarded federalism as basically a functional arrangement for cooperative action rather than a static institutional concept. It emphasised the need for decentralisation of the planning process and adoption of certain well meaning conventions in respect of the appointment of Governors and the use of Art. 356. Nevertheless, action on the above recommendations has been very slow because the Centre-State relations are still being

conducted in the same old hierarchical top-down approach and a matter of political bickerings and bargaining.

Another development in the history of administrative reforms in India has been the appointment of Satish Chandra Committee to review the examination system for the recruitment of civil services. The Committee reported in 1989, and some of its major recommendations have already been put in operation effective 1993 competitive examinations for All India and Central Services.48 Currently, (2000-1) another Committee headed by an eminent educationist Dr. Y.K. Alagh is reviewing the pattern of examination for recruitment to Civil

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Services.

One of the reasons for a lack of general interest in administrative reforms and improvements had been the domination of administration by politics in the 1970s, and the political leaders being too much preoccupied with buttressing their positions rather than be interested in administrative reforms. There was some toning up of administration in the period during the Emergency (1975-77), but this was more due to draconian measures taken to impose the discipline rather than through any systematic reform of administration. All these improvements were washed away in the backlash after the emergency, and administration actually lapsed into a still greater measure of inefficiency. This only reiterates the danger and futility of undertaking ad hoc measures to tone up administration.

IV. POLICY OF LIBERALISATION AND DEREGULATION: THE ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

The major policy issue confronting the government during the last one and a half decades has been the issue of "liberalisation" for industrial progress and the changing role of the public sector in India's economic development and its implications for administrative developments. The policy of a "mixed economy" adopted by the government in the spring of the Indian Republic has led to the establishment of almost 200 public sector projects at the central level and approximately 700 at the state level, each representing an investment worth approximately US $25 million. However, a majority of these enterprises have failed to come up to expectations. Many have incurred heavy and continuing losses, and far from contributing to the resources available for development have become a drain on the public exchequer. Such a phenomenon has been attributed to the growth and persistence of bureaucratic culture rather than commercial culture in the management of these enterprises; backseat driving by the ministries leading to the constriction in the autonomy of managers of public sector enterprises, which is

so necessary for decision-making: lack of manpower planning and training of executives; and lack of development of marketing techniques. Some of these

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shortcomings were noticed at the very outset. The adoption of company form of organisation for public enterprise in mid-fifties was thought of precisely to provide them management autonomy. But while the "form" was there, the reality of "autonomy" was missing.

The government at present is trying to remove some of the unwarranted advantages which accrue to public sector undertakings., "the most over fed part of an under-nourished economy". About half of the public sector plants are working at 75 per cent of their capacity and more than a fifth at less than 20 per cent of their capacity. Although policy-makers have not yet whole heartedly advocated "privatisation" as the possible remedy, public monopolies in such areas as oil refining, power generation, air transportation and telecommunication equipment have been opened to private competition.

The policy of industrial controls and licensing was considered necessary in the early stages for fulfilling the objectives of planning and for ensuring that scarce resources were allocated to priority projects. The system, which one economist calls "command capitalism" was originally intended to make India self-reliant, egalitarian and labour-intensive. Although some measure of self-reliance was achieved at the cost of the other two objectives, it has led to the emergence of a parallel black market economy and corruption, which far from promoting rational allocation of resources has only led to the growth of the luxury sector. It has been estimated that "black" or "untaxed" money amounts to at lease 20 per cent of gross domestic product, with perhaps another 15 per cent generated by smuggling, which not only constitute a big drain on public exchequer, but has serious implications for transparency, accountability and public integrity in administration.

The policy of delicensing adopted in early 1990s has made little headway in either bringing out technological developments and qualitative improvement in India's indigenous industrial products or expanding the export market of locally produced high-tech, industrial electronic, and software products. The missing link in the economic policy has been the marketing of indigenous products abroad. The recent policies of tax cuts and delicensing have only meant relief for the rich without any lowering of prices, improvement in quality,

29

or safeguarding of the consumer's interest. No wonder, a majority of big businessmen have never been as happy as in the recent times, despite the unpopularity that the government might have earned with some of them, because of the highly publicised pursuit of highly placed tax evaders. Even the Consumers Protection Act, 1987 has made little headway in compelling big business to think about the interest of the poor consumers and make them socially responsive.

The process of economic liberalisation has led to the demand for retreat of the state in India. The Disinvestment Commission in India established in 1996 as a sequel to the adoption of the policy of liberalisation has recently been making some perceptible headway by bringing in the private and foreign capital to share the Government's investment in certain core industries like power, transport, air companies and other industrial manufacturing fields despite some very controversial and agitational consequences due to the opposition of a number of labour associations, trade unions and interest groups, and various leftist political parties. While this may be the logical consequence of the new economic policy, the rolling back of the state has to be very guarded, for private sector cannot effectively provide all of the services necessary for human development in a developing country like India.

In a recent statement the present Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, held that the political parties in power contributed to the decline of Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) by using them as fast breeders of jobs, instead of making them sustainable, competitive and fruitful players in the national economy. Expediency of the moment was allowed to prevail over the future of the PSUs and the employment security of their employees. While criticising the PSUs, as faltering due to inadequate competition, inadequate accountability and inadequate motivation and functioning like a government department within government constraints, the Prime Minister called for a new strategy to revitalise the public sector by bringing in competition, granting operational flexibility, reducing surplus manpower and upgrading technology.49 This statement of the Prime Minister reiterates that the state in India can neither possibly withdraw from the basic responsibilities of providing social welfare and necessary infrastructure, nor can it

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allow indiscriminate and unregulated foreign investments or advent of multinationals to affect social disruption. Unless policies of globalisation and competitiveness can be made to lead to the general welfare of the society, it is futile to talk about the prospects of human security.

Thus, the agenda for the government at the end of this century is clear: continue free trade, begin liberalisation in agriculture, improve the quality and quantity of education and health services along

with a clean government and reorient administrators to enable them to creatively and actively participate in restructuring the mixed economy in a manner that the liberated private sector is made both responsive and sensitive to social concerns of human security and welfare.50

V. THE ADVENT OF THE NEW CORPORATE MILLENNIUM: GROWING STAKES FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

The decade of 1990s has been a decade of exceptional changes in the theory and practice of good governance. The changes in question have increasingly been treated under the rubric of "globalisation", a catch all phrase which emphasises the emergence of a truly global economy and a shift towards "world capitalism", signifying a movement toward a new era of both vastly more powerful and essentially different corporate forms and processes, which has in all societies affected the existing forms of governance and citizen identity. Three important movements that have made important strides during this decade in meeting the challenges of this transformation have been Reinventing Government, the New Public Management and a call for the Downsizing of Public Bureaucracies. Indian Administration has not completely remained untouched by these global developments and has in various ways attempted to incorporate some of the precepts drawn from these movements. To what extent the administrative system in India has been successful in its efforts to modernise itself, and utilise the lessons emanating from the experiences of other administrative systems undergoing transformation under the spell of one or the other of the above movements is a question which cannot be answered in one way or the other. However, it would be helpful to review what

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particular steps have been adopted in India for achieving some positive goals of these alternative precepts in public management.

A. Restructuring Economic Administration

During the 1990s, after adopting policies of economic liberalisation and structural adjustment, a number of expert committees (such as the Raja Chelliah Committee on Tax Reforms, the Rangarajan Committee on Foreign Investment, and the Goswami Committee on Industrial Sickness and Corporate Restructuring were appointed to study and make recommendations on various policy measures related to economic reforms. Despite the recommendations of the above committees and the emergence of a somewhat deregulated industrial system, clearance and approval of investment proposals still takes time because of powerful inherent roadblocks. Bureaucracy is still a powerful component in the decision-making process and with this 'red-tapism' is as much a consequence of the system of rules as their interpretation and application by it. At the same time the new breed of politicians that has emerged after mid-1960s see the bureaucracy as a needless obstacle in the achievement of their political goals which has lead to frequent conflicts in the relationship between the political leadership and the

permanent executive. The conflict of interests between them has further led to increased politicisation of bureaucracy and the emergence of a nexus between the politician, bureaucracy and the criminals, thus seriously corrupting the body politic, and a major issue of public service integrity, and loss of ethics in public life.51

B. Promoting Efficiency and Accountability

In the face of continuing challenges of globalisation and corporatisation, the Government of India's Department of Administrative Reforms had in 1997 organised a national debate on the issue of making administration responsive, accountable and effective and assuring its adherence to constitutional principles. On the basis of responses received from officials, experts, voluntary agencies, citizen's groups, media, etc., an Action Plan was evolved which was discussed in the Conference of Chief Ministers convened by the then Prime Minister on 24 May 1997. The Conference resolved that the

32

Central and State Governments would work together to concretise the Action Plan dealing with: (i) Accountable and citizen-friendly Government; (ii) Transparency and Right to Information; and (iii) Improving the performance and integrity of the public services. As a follow up, several measures have been taken to make the administration accountable. For instance, in order to make public agencies more responsive to citizen's needs, a number of Citizen's Charters have been instituted by a number of Central Departments/agencies and state governments.52

Steps have also been taken to strengthen the existing machinery for redress of public grievances by specifying fixed time limits for handling grievances and publicising the names of officers handling grievances and establishing a system of computerised monitoring. Government has also initiated measures to simplify laws, rules and procedures by establishing a Commission on Review of Administrative Laws on 8 May 1998 with a view to identify proposals for amendment/repeal of existing laws, regulations and procedures and those which have inter-sectoral impact so as to make them objective, transparent and predictable. The Commission has since submitted its report on 30 September 1998 recommending a repeal of almost 50% of administrative laws. On the basis of this report most of the Ministries/Departments have taken steps to suitable amend/ modify or repeal the Acts and Laws administered by them with a view to improve service delivery and bring about transparency in administration. In addition, the Government has also undertaken certain other steps to improve its efficiency and effectiveness through modernisation of government offices, a software package to track the movement of files, a scheme to grant awards to members of the public and the employees for suggestions made to improve the overall efficiency, productivity and work culture of the staff etc.53

The Government also stepped its efforts to maintain purity and integrity in high public offices and eradicating corruption in public life, by introducing a Lok Pal Bill in the Parliament on 3 August 1998. The Bill could not get through as the Parliament was dissolved in April 1999, but is likely to be reintroduced in the 13th Lok Sabha constituted in September 1999. Similarly although its efforts to confer statutory status on

33

the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) have not met with success in the last (12th) Lok Sabha, however, in recent years the present Chief Vigilance Commissioner, N. Vittal has started a campaign to expose corruption in high places by putting up the names of some highly placed but allegedly tainted officials from different services, against whom criminal or departmental proceedings have been recommended for alleged corruption on the web site of the CVC. Such a measure may not have resulted in eliminating corruption in the administrative system and has on the other hand given rise to some legal and moral controversies, but has certainly created flutters in the bureaucratic echelons.

In order to achieve transparency in administration, the Government has recently instituted an Inter-ministerial Working Group under the Chairmanship of H.D. Shourie, Director, Common Cause to examine the feasibility and need of introducing a full-fledged Right to Information Act so as to meet the needs of an open and responsive Government.54 Based on its recommendation, a Bill is likely to be introduced in one of the coming session of the Parliament, which would ensure transparency in government operations, and every department would have an information officer to provide information to the people. Certain provision of the Officials Secrets Act would have to be repealed to the extent they go against the provisions of the freedom of information legislation.55

Despite some other reforms being undertaken by the Government such as creation of facilitation counters, establishing a Code of Ethics for public services, tackling corruption and cleansing the administration, and ensuring stability of tenure and a scheme for Civil Service Boards, the one area in which the government's efforts have not borne any fruit has been the downsising of the existing bureaucracy. Many of the PSUs (including Public Sector Banks, have, however, initiated measures for Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to shed their surplus flab.

C. Redefining the Role of the State

The Fifth Central Pay Commission in its Report in January 1997 had strongly advocated reduction in Government through dismantling of excessive controls, disinvestment in the

34

public sector, corporatisation of departmental undertakings, privatisation and contracting out of many services that are presently being performed by the Government. It emphasised that the Government's role will be more in evolving the policy of governance and less in the actual governance itself. New regulations will have to be evolved and enforced so as to provide a level playing field as between the public and the private sector enterprises, as also between domestic and foreign companies. The administered price mechanisms will have to be replaced by mechanisms based on market-determined prices. The residual role of the state would have to be confined to the following areas: as a facilitator of economic activity, as a developer of infrastructure, as an investor in social services and as promoter and implementor of poverty alleviation programmes.56

Towards this end, the Pay Commission recommended a step by step approach to public service reforms, which should include:

(a) redefinition of the core functions of the Government, restatement of the distribution of work between the three-tiers of the governance;

(b) drastic reduction in the number of Central Ministries and Departments and regrouping and redefinition of their size, constitution and newly stated roles;

(c) transfer of all functions that should be performed by Panchayat Raj institutions to them by the State governments;

(d) delegation of functions not involving formulation of policies to agencies, which may be public sector enterprises, autonomous bodies or cooperative institutions;

(e) reduction in recruitment to different services;

(f) simplification of procedures and formulation of accountability norms in Government;

(g) reduction in the hierarchical and decision-making levels of Government; and

(h) level-jumping and coordination for quick decisions etc.57

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VI. THE CHANGING ADMINISTRATIVE STYLE: A CRITICAL EVALUATION

Mapping the political and administrative history of India over a period of fifty years is indeed a difficult exercise. Obviously, there have been changes in administrative institutions, structures, style and cultures in post-independent India, and some distinct changes do carry the mark of the political leadership than in power. Thus, administrative development has been an uneven process; and it can best be understood only in the context of the totality of politico-administrative environment.

The first ten years of the Republic represent a period of remarkably smooth change and adaptation from the British Raj to a democratic parliamentary system, during which a bold attempt was made by the political leadership to change the character and values of the administrative system, while preserving its essential characteristics of an effective framework to cope with new problems and situations. There were no visible cracks in the system, rather it developed the necessary resilience, and the capacity to both mend, mould, and build itself. The processes of change from this situation were manifest in the next ten years of the growth of the Republic, which is up to the end the period of Lal Bahadur Shastri's term as Prime Minister and the beginning of the Indira Gandhi's era (1966). During her time, a new generation of politicians emerged, who were not so much oriented to liberal traditions or values as the first post-independence political leadership. Despite this generational change, and the many stresses and strains that marked the itinerary of the political system, the trend and temper of the administrative procedures and style of the preceding decade were substantially unchanged.

It was, however, after 1967, that one witnessed the beginning of erosion of most of the fundamental values of the administrative system that were consolidated during the earlier years of the Republic. This period marks the beginning of uncertainty and instability in the political system. Whether this happened because of the personal struggle amongst leaders for consolidating and preserving their power-base, or changing economic, local or institutional condition, is a matter for

36

speculation, but the net consequences of this uncertainty was that the policy-making administrative apparatus got disoriented and replaced by some kind of a 'shot-gun' approach to administration. The administration and the administrators reached the lowest ebb both in their performance and efficiency at the time of the heightened crisis posed by the imposition of the nation wide emergency in 1975. The post-Emergency period also did not help to restore the erstwhile standards and morale in the public services.

A. Changes in the Administrative System

Basically, there have been a number of visible changes in the administrative system and style since the British times. The 'district' as the fundamental unit of administration has undergone a metamorphosis both in terms of the importance and the position and status of its chief executive. The importance of both the district and district officer have been reduced owing to the fragmented expansions of governmental activities on the one hand, and to the growth of 'mafia' politics on the other. Much of a district officer's time is now simply wasted in listening, persuading and arguing in the anti-social elements (with whom local political leadership seems to be in companionship), while the regular official work remains unattended. These developments, coupled with enormous responsibilities that are now put on a youngish district officer, have eroded whatever autonomy and authority he used to employ with respect to his assigned duties in the past. An ambitious officer now wants to complete his compulsory tenure at district as early and smoothly as he can and looks forward to the day he is posted to a position at the state capital, away from the rough and tumble of the district politics, with the result that district and local administration has suffered heavily at the delivery point and at the cutting edge.

Along with the decline of the district level of administration, there has been a simultaneous decline in the strength and morale of the main public service—the so-called 'steel frame' of the British administration. Although the Indian Administrative Service still maintains its dominant position despite the various attempts by the Administrative Reform Commission and the Pay Commissions to water it down, its

37

position and prestige in general has suffered due to various socio-political factors referred to above. Public and political reactions, values, judgements and even sentiments and prejudices have affected the performance and morale of public bureaucracy in India. There seems to be at present a strong reaction and suspicion against the power of the bureaucracy, and the constant hammering that it has received at the hands of politicians, has earned it the name of a 'villain' in the public eyes, who regard it as a big impediment in the attainment of the socio-economic millennium promised to them by politicians. The ethical values of politicians, businessmen and the bureaucrats have gone down so low that there is no

aspect of public life today which is free from the incidence of corruption or black money. People in authority seems to have acquired dual personalities; their private actions ill-match their public pronouncements.58

Finally, political interference, influence peddling, growing nexus between politicians, criminals and bureaucracy, pervading corruption in all walks of public life, muscle-flexing through the unions have made even the most legitimate means of control and accountability meaningless in the administrative parlance. The emerging administrative style and culture of India does not seem to provide any positive orientation to help the ordinary citizenry.59

B. The Positive Achievements of Administrative Reforms

The above analyses of changes in the style and culture of administration in India may seem to be pessimistic. However, it is not meant to undermine the achievements and the performance of the administrative system. It has been a fine machine, capable of rendering some excellent performances in the sphere of policy-making and implementation. It has over the years sustained the working of the most politically conscious people. It has been able to maintain its strength and achieved a strong industrial base for the nation through a system of planned development. There have been an absolute growth in terms of literacy, education, scientific and technical knowledge and even relative prosperity. The overall percentage of population below poverty level has come down to 26.3%. The bureaucracy in India has responded well in times of crisis and

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particularly when it was given clearly defined objectives and unambiguous priorities. All these give a ray of hope for further improvement in the style and operations of administrative system in India.

Down Sizing Government

But this is only a hope because until now, even taking into consideration the ten years of economic reforms (between 1990 and 2000), one thing which has resisted all suggested administrative reforms is the government's own style of functioning. The Government's efforts to downsize the big government have come to a nought. Prone to overstaffing, slow action, the bureaucracy in India tends to be seen as an agency meant to ameliorate the unemployment situation and therefore, not necessarily designed to produced results or be accountable for its decisions. The increase of strength in recent years at higher levels of the bureaucracy had more than neutralised the marginal pruning at the middle and lower levels.

Till March 1999, there were 40.67 lakh sanctioned posts at the lower level. However, by the end of 2000, their number was restricted to 37.29 lakh. In the typical example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the bureaucracy was allowed to grow top heavy, the number of officers occupying relatively senior slots rising from 1,158 to 1,237 during the same period. This included Secretary-level placements, which went up from 137 to 149. The corresponding increase at the level of Joint Secretaries was 16.

Going by the size of the central bureaucracy, these numbers might seem small. But each officer above the level of Joint Secretary costs the tax-payer dear. According to a retired bureaucrat, the mess in the way of right-sizing the bureaucracy can be attributed to the Government's lack of will. While professing to curtail non-productive expenditure, the present (2001) regime has merrily gone around creating new ministries and departments to fetch jobs for unemployed alliance partners.

Since a regulatory mechanism is in place and the Government's role is getting increasingly limited to policy-making, the number of existing Ministries could be reduced to half. If the Government rally means business, it should wind up ministries besides combining departments with overlapping briefs. Quite instructive in this regard could be the British

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experiment, called the "next step reforms", under which unnecessary ones in the civil services were marginalised through transfer of powers to regulatory and autonomous bodies. But in India, such bodies have been put in place without adequate powers.60 Oversize administration tends to promote lethargy, inefficiency and corruption. The government administration of post-liberalisation era in India will have to be

How the Numbers Stack up

Year Staff Strength (in lakhs) No. of Secretaries, Additional, joint and Deputy Secretaries Salary Bill (Rs. crore)

1997 38.95 1371 19843

1998 38.47 1459 26688

1999 37.46 1553 30095

2000 38.26 1692 38659

2001 38.55 — 34103

Source: The Times of India, 2 March 2001, p. 3: 7-8.

result-oriented, service-driven and accountable. This is possible, but only if the political leadership changes its style of operation, and cleanse-up its greedy and corrupt way of governing the nation.

C. New Directions for Administrative Reforms

Given the political will, therefore, the need of the hour in India at present seems to be to adopt a normative model of Good Management Approach towards public administration. This should include:

(a) A more strategic or result-oriented (efficiency, effectiveness and service quality) orientation to decision-making;

(b) Replacement of highly centralised organisational structures with decentralised management environment integrating with the new Panchayati

40

Raj and Municipal Institutions, where decisions on resource allocation and service delivery are taken close to the point of delivery;

(c) Flexibility to explore alternatives to direct public provision which might provide more cost effective policy outcomes;

(d) Focussing attention on the matching of authority and responsibility as a key to improving performance, including mechanism of explicit performance contracting;

(e) Creating of competitive environments within and between public service organisations;

(f) Strengthening of strategic capacities at the Center to steer government to respond to external changes and diverse interests quickly, flexibly and at least costs;

(g) Greater accountability and transparency through requirements to report on results and their full costs

(h) Service wide budgeting and management systems to support and encourage these changes;

(i) Breaking the growing nexus of bureaucrats, politicians and criminals to restore public confidence in public management system amongst the citizenry;

(j) Adapting of innovations and evolving suitable mechanism to eliminate corruption at both political and administrative levels and strengthen citizens' grievance redressal system;

(k) Downsizing of bureaucracy and improving the system of delivery at the cutting edge of administration by replacing the existing archaic bureaucratic procedures by absorbing some appropriate precepts inherent in the philosophy of New Public Management;

(1) Effectively utilising the fruits of technical revolution and the Information Management system for an effective and quick public service delivery system; and

(m) Making improvements in the working atmosphere of the government institutions and offices to reflect

41

a new work culture and a changed administrative behaviour incorporating the principles of transparency, responsiveness, accountability, participative and citizen-friendly management.61

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

In conclusion, however, it should be remembered that no amount of planning and thinking in all these areas would be useful unless the government is capable enough to take hard and unpleasant decisions and has the will and capacity to implement and continuously monitor and evaluate their impact. At the same time, the political leadership has to demonstrate its strong determination to undertake reforms by first cleaning its own stable from corrupt and criminal influences, and setting ethical standards of good governance both at the political and administrative levels. The processes of modernisation of state and administration need an active and consociational association of people at all levels of the governmental structure in order to realize the goals and objective that the society sets for itself. Given the present political milieu, can the present government rise to the occasion—is a big question?

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. For a detailed discussion on these two aspects, see Lijphart, Arendt, "The Puzzle of Indian Democracy : A Consociational Interpretation", in American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No 2 (June 1996), pp. 258-68.

2. Harrison, Selig S., India: The Most Dangerous Decades (Princeton University Press, 1960, p. 338, quoted by Lijphart, n. 1.

3. See Lijphart, n. 1.

4. This section is based on the author's study, Jain, R. B. and Dwivedi, O.P., "Policy Developments and Administrative Changes in India", in Public Administration in World Perspective (Henderson, Kieth and Dwivedi, O.P., (eds.), Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1990.)

5. Taub, Richard P., Bureaucrats under Stress, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969, p. 156.

6. Mangat Rai, E.N., Patterns of Administrative Development in Independent India, University of London, London, 1976, p. 30.

7. Dutta, Prabhat, "Village Self-government in Post-Colonial India", in Kurukshetra, April 1995, p. 52.

8. Ibid.

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9. Mishra, S.N. and Mishra, Sweta, "Future of Panchayati Raj after 73rd Constitutional Amendment", Kurukshetra, April 1995, p. 29.

10. Constitution of India, Articles 37-38.

11. Jain, R.B., "Reverse Discrimination : A Dilemma in Quest for Social Justice and Equal Opportunity", Indian journal of Public Administration, 27 : 181-98 (January-March 1981); and Weiner, Myron, "Preferential Policies", Comparative Politics, 16 : 35-52 (October 1983).

12. For details, see Dwivedi, O.P. and Jain, R.B., Bureaucratic Morality in India, International Political Science Review, 9(3): 205-14 (1980).

13. 3 SCR 398, AIR 1985, SC 1414.

14. Avasthi, Amreswar and Avasthi, A.P., Indian Administration (Agra: Laxmi Narayan Publishers, 1993), p. 160, see also Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1997-98, pp. 1-7.

15. Sharma, Keshav C, "Development Planning and Development Administration", International Review of Administrative Sciences, 34 : 121-29 (1968); and Maheshwari, S.R., "Administering the Planning System", Indian journal of Public Administration, 30 : 603-12 (July-September 1984).

16. Prasad, Kamta, "Planning in India : Some Basic Issues Relating to Operational and Strategic Aspects", Presidential Address to the 66th Annual Conference of Indian Economic Association, Bangalore, 1983.

17. Ibid.

18. The Hindustan Times, 4 November 1999, p. 3: 1-4.

19. In a series of meetings with the district collectors, former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi had urged that the district administration be revitalised and the role of district office property delineated, see Kallhan, Proumilla, "Fresh Briefs for Collectors", The Hindustan Times, June 20, 1988.

20. Taub, n. 5, p. 161.

21. India : Planning Commission, The Five Year Plan, 1951-56 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1953), pp. 115-27.

22. India, Planning Commission, The Second Five Year Plan, 1956-61 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1956), pp. 274-90.

23. India, Planning Commission, The Third Five Year Plan, 1961-66 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1961), pp. 276-90.

24. India, Planning Commission, The Fourth Five Year Plan, 1971-76 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1971), pp. 154-71.

25. India, Planning Commission, The Sixth Five Year Plan, 1980-85 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1983), pp. 88-96.

26. India, Planning Commission, The Seventh Five Year Plan, 1985-90 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1985), p. xi.

27. See The Hindustan Times, 2 March 1998, p. 1 : 1-3.

28. See Shastri, P.D., "Scrap these five year exercises" in The Hindustan Times, 3 February 1997, p. 12 : 4-8.

29. See The Times of India, 1 October 2000, p. 7: 3-8.

30. This section of the paper is based on Dwivedi, O.P. and Jain, R.B., "The Administrative State of India" in Malik, Yogendra and Kapur, Ashok

43

(eds.), India's Fifty Years of Development, New Delhi: APH Publishing Corporation, 1998.

31. See for details, Mishra, B.B., Government and Bureaucracy in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986.

32. See, R. Tottenham, Reports on the Reorganisation of the Central Government, 1945-46, New Delhi: Government of India, 1946.

33. This Report was discussed during the Constituent Assembly Debates, See India, Constituent Assembly Debates, New Delhi: Government of India, 1949.

34. Ayyangar, N. Gopalswamy, Report on Reorganisation of Machinery of Government, New Delhi: Government of India, 1949.

35. Paul H. Appleby, Public Administration in India, Report of a Survey, New Delhi: Government of India, 1953.

36. Paul H. Appleby, Reorganisation of India's Administrative System With Special Reference To Administration of Government's Industrial and Commercial Enterprises, New Delhi: Government of India, 1956.

37. For Further Reference, See the Following Reports: India, Report on the Public Service (Qualification for Recruitment) Committee, New Delhi:, Ministry of Education Mudaliar Committee, 1956; India, Commission of Inquiry on Enrolments and Conditions of Service of Central Government Employees, 1957-59; India, Report on State Administrative Services and Problems of District Administration, New Delhi: Government of India, Krishnamachari Report, 1962, India, Report of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, Sanathanam Committee, 1964; and India, Report of the Committee on The India Foreign Service, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, Pillai Committee Report, 1966.

38. R.B. Jain, Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration, New Delhi: Vishal Publications, 1976, pp. 398-434.

39. India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Administrative Reforms, Resolution No. 40, 165-AR (P), 5 January 1966.

40. India, The Administrative Reforms Commission and Its Work: a Brief Survey, New Delhi: Administrative Reform Commission, p. 8.

41. India, Report on Personnel Administration, New Delhi: Administrative Reforms Commission, 1969, p. 24.

42. Sivaraman, B., "Generalist and Specialist in Administration", Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, July-September 1971, p. 384.

43. Dubhashi, P.R., "Administrative Reforms in Perspective", Dr. John Mathai Endowment Lecture, published by the University of Kerala, Trivendrum, 1985.

44. Narayanan, P.S., "ARC Goes: Core in Administration Remains Untouched", Northern India Patrika, Allahabad, 1970.

45. Kothatri, D.S., Report of the Committee on Recruitment Policy and Selection Methods, New Delhi: Union Public Service Commission, 1976.

46. Mehta, Ashok, Committee Report on Pantfiayati Raj, New Delhi: Government of India, 1979.

47. Jha, LK., Committee Report on Economic Administration, New Delhi: Government of India.

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48. Maheshwari, S.R., Administrative Reforms in India, New Delhi: Jawahar Publishers, 1993, p. 148.

49. See The Hindustan Times, 2 April 2000, p. 8: 6-8.

50. For a detailed discussion on the subject, see Jain, R.B., "Globalisation, Market Economy and Human Security : The Indian Experience", in Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 42, No. 3 (July-September 1996), pp. 309-20.

51. For details see, Vohra Committee Report, reproduced in Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 41, No. 3 (July-September 1995), pp. 640-47.

52. See, Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1997-98, New Delhi, 1998), pp. I-VII.

53. For details see, Agnihotri, V. K., "Government of India's Measures for Administrative Reforms", a Note submitted for the Indian Council of Social Science Research Symposium on Administrative Reforms, New Delhi, 3 January 2000.

54. India, Report of the Working Group on Right to Information and Promotion of Open and Transparent Government, New Delhi, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, 1997, reproduced in Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July-September 1997), pp. 823-38.


56. Government of India, Ministry of Finance, Report of the Fifth Central Pay Commission, New Delhi, 1997, Vol. 1, pp. 83-136.

57. Ibid., pp. 113-14.

58. Dwivedi, O.P and Jain, R.B. India's Administrative State, New Delhi: Gitanjali Publishing House, 1985, pp. 122-23.

59. Dwivedi, O.P and Jain, R.B., Bureaucratic Morality in India", International Political Science Review, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1988, pp. 205-14.

60. See Jay Raina, "Has enough been done to reduce Govt. flab? in The Times of India, 2 March 2001, p. 3: 7-8.

61. See R.B. Jain, "New Directions in Administrative Reforms in India", in Vinod Mehta (ed.), Reforming Administration in India, New Delhi: Har-Anand, and ICSSR, 2000, pp. 204-20.

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2 Socio-political Structure and Public Administration

The inter-relationship between the state and society has been an important theme in the evolution of political systems in the past half century. That the state is deeply embedded in society, and that societal variables do affect the autonomy and performance of the state is now an accepted fact. Whether it is the system theorist, or the dependency theorists, or the ecologist interpreters of public administration, all seem to agree that in any society interactions between the state, its socio-political structures and its

administrative framework ultimately determine its policy outcome. Such interactions not only help pattern societal preferences, but also pave the way to political and administrative developments in the context of divisiveness within and between classes, ethnic and religious segments, interest groups, or linguistic differences. The literature on comparative public administration is replete with the emphasis on interaction and inter-relationship between an administrative system and its external environment and the impact of socio-cultural values on bureaucratic behaviour, the processes of political and administrative changes and vice-versa.1 While scholars have concentrated more on the study of the state's capacity to bring about socio-economic change through the evolution of a pattern of political and administrative institutions, little attention has been paid to understanding the

46

impact that the socio-political structures in any society make on its political or administrative development.

This chapter is concerned with an analysis of the sociopolitical structure in a complex and developing society, that of India, with a view to discern the inter-relationships between its social and political structures, continuing policy changes and administrative development. The attempt is to show that although a highly heterogeneous and complex social system with traditional, diversified religious-cultural values creates enormous pressures on its public administration system, it does not necessarily stifle administrative development. The need is to coordinate policy and administrative changes in a manner so as not only to respond to the growing socio-economic compulsions of the society, but also to enable its people to participate in the politico-administrative processes. Hopefully such an analysis and similar findings on the context of other developed and developing societies would be helpful in building up a theory of societal context and administrative development.

THE INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGIES

India was one of the first of the British colonies to gain independence from the yoke of an imperial power. After attaining freedom in 1947, the challenge before the political leadership was to frame a well-conceived strategy of change, development and nation-building, and to forge instrumentalities thereof—both mobilisational and institutional. To attempt to achieve a modicum of economic and political development in the aftermath of partition, through a democratic political system, while undertaking at the same time reconstruction of a hardened social structure—not only deeply rooted to the age-old traditions, but highly fragmented—was indeed a formidable task. The four basic objectives of socio-economic and political development uppermost in the minds of political leaders at that time were: (a) the creation of a stable democratic polity, (b) laying the foundations of a self-reliant economy

for rapid growth, (c) attainment of social justice through the elimination of discrimination based on class, caste, sex and religion and eradication of poverty, and (d) rebuilding

47

of the dilapidated administrative structure to be able to withstand the pressures generated by the growing demands and aspirations of the expectant masses.

The leadership in India responded by channelising the processes of change through the creation of a state system based on Western liberal democratic ideology of freedom and equality, incorporating the parliamentary system of government, reconciling it with the concept of economic planning, and reforming the administrative machinery to enable it to respond to the growing exigencies and requirements of a social system divided by a variety of socio-cultural identities.

Although the framing of a new political set up with its institutions, structures and the rules of the game have proved to be matters of incalculable difficulty for many of the new nations of Asia and Africa, India presented a striking contrast. Not only was an elaborate State system created with speed, but the democratic structure it established was institutionalised in considerable details. This had been possible because of both antecedent agreement on fundamentals and continuing diffusion of these agreements in the generation that followed Independence. Even as early as 1928, The Motilal Nehru Committee had framed a complete draft spelling out the features of (free) India's polity. It recommended, among other things, a parliamentary form and federal structure of the government and an exhaustive list of fundamental rights. These recommendations found overwhelming support among the members of the Constituent Assembly in the late 1940s.

However, decision-making on India's institutional strategy was not wholly a product of agreements that were reached during the national movement. The framers did consider the emerging framework anew. Certain occasions did come when the members of the Constituent Assembly ran into serious disagreements. But the debates were avoided at most opportunities. Viable compromises were sought on fundamental provisions such as the federal structure of the country, the importance of judiciary in interpreting the constitution and the role of "due process"; the question of a proper balance between personal liberties of the citizen and the integrity of the nation; between the right to property and the goal of social and economic development; between the need for

48

centralisation and the extent of decentralisation to lower levels of the polity, between the right to equality and the question of special rights and privileges of minorities and tribal and religious groups, and so on.2

In order to prevent the country from falling into pieces, certain restraints on the power of some institutions and the freedom of individuals were introduced. For example, the Central Government was armed with effective powers against the constituent states. Similarly, preventive detention to strengthen the government's hands came to be accepted as a necessary provision despite its restrictions on the most fundamental rights of a democratic citizen. It was dubbed as a 'necessary evil'. Again, while defining the relationship between Parliament and the Courts, due consideration had to be given to the need to arm the state with powers to reduce social and economic disparities; consequently, 'the due process' clause was modified to suit Indian conditions.3 Efforts were also made to elicit the maximum consensus in order to lay down a strong foundation of a nation. What emerged, as a result, was a federal structure of parliamentary government with a cabinet form of executive at the national and state levels directed to liberal democratic goals of individual freedom and social justice in the fulfilment of which government was assigned a positive role. The institutional structure that came into being was essentially modernist in character but with important departures from the Western model designed to facilitate national integration and social assimilation.4

The Indian leadership, in fact, borrowed liberal philosophy and Indianised it according to the unfamiliar and unique Indian practices and attitudes. Grant 6f 'special privileges' to the backward groups in society and the "Scheduled Castes and Tribes", was an innovation designed to help the economically and socially weaker sections of the community. Similarly, the linguistic diversity of the country was given constitutional propriety through the adoption of all the major regional languages as having a legal status. The system also provided for flexible methods of adaptation to the changing social needs and demands by making the amendment procedure relatively easy to effect. This was a deviation from the strictly orthodox federal practices.

49

A political system, though a sub-system of the society is supposed to perform the overall and overriding function of looking after the society and managing it to the extent that this can be done at conscious, corporate level. It is necessary therefore, that a maximum number of members of a society participate in the exercise of this function. Certain groups may be legally or actually deprived of the right to participate in the process, while even many who have the right to participate may not choose to do so unless it be made mandatory for them. The extent of the formal right of participation in the political process which is concerned with the total whole, the actual facilitation of the exercise of such a right, and the actual exercise of the right, thus, may be taken as determining the degree of political

development which a society has achieved when compared to other societies or to itself in a former stage. This particular aspect of making maximum possible opportunities available for free participation of people in public affairs was the one on which the edifice of a democratic system was built in India.

The arena of power in India has not been limited to a ruling oligarchy or an aristocracy of birth; it has increasingly spread to the society as a whole by drawing new sections into its ambit. This is what differentiates the Indian political system both from the European systems where, during the phase of rapid industrialisation and social changes, political participation was confined to the upper classes of society; and from the revolutionary experiments in both communist and non-communist varieties where barring intraparty feuds and military coups, political competition was generally not allowed to interfere with the process of development. In India, politics is neither suppressed not confined to a small aristocracy. On the contrary, it provides the larger setting within which decision-making in regard to social and economic development takes place.5

The launching of the new governmental set up and the inauguration of the Indian Republic in January 1950 did not complete the process of institutionalisation. The emergence of further consensus on political system involved new developments in the institutional layout of the country and important modifications of the formal structure of authority. The creation of a National Planning Commission within the

50

political structure was one among such developments directed towards the attainment of planned economic growth. The Commission was entrusted with the task of formulating "Five Year Plans", enunciating social and economic priorities of the nation, and suggesting general model of economic development. The states were reorganised on linguistic cultural basis to integrate heterogeneous communities into a nation, yet at the same time given an opportunity to maintain and promote their own regional language and culture. The dream of achieving unity in diversity was actually sought to be fulfilled. The launching of the community development programmes and the establishment of the Panchayati Raj institutions were other measures within the framework of Indian political process that were undertaken to secure democratic decentralisation for the sake of social and economic development at the grass-root levels and germane to the processes of nation-building. A continuous process of administrative reform was initiated first through an assessment of the administrative machinery by some inside and outside observers and later through the creation of a number of specific committees and a high powered Reforms Commission to suggest the necessary administrative changes; such changes being continuously monitored by a permanent Department of Administrative Reform.6

Despite the indigenous and foreign criticism, the story of Indian polity since independence has been one of remarkable stability. Except for a brief aberration of the emergency between 1975-77, the more than fifty years of independence have seen remarkable performance of democratic elections, reasonably well working political and administrative institutions, and basic political stability.

THE INDIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Institutional strategies alone are not enough for conceiving a process of change, development and nation-building. Social structures and environmental factors do affect the state and the administrative system, and hence the development of the polity. The significance of these factors multiplies all the more in a pluralist society of India, where the nation shares loyalties with a variety of other socio-cultural

51

identities. These identities have contributed both to the process of its development as well as to its decay. While they have played a major mediating role between politics and society, translating group loyalties into focal prints of political solidarity, at the same time they have given rise to a number of fissiparous and separatist tendencies within the political and administrative framework, weakening its overall capacity for development.

(a) The Demographic Characteristics

Amongst the many social variables that have affected the Indian administrative system, a tremendous growth in population, despite an aggressive and extensive family planning campaign has been the most crucial factor.7 From 251 million in 1921, India's population more than doubled by 1971, reaching 540 million. The census of 1981 reported India's population at 685.48 million, which according to the latest 2001 census, has already exceeded more than one thousand million at the present annual rate of increase of approximately 2.2%. The annual rate of population growth has increased from 1.1 percent between 1921 and 1931 to 2.2 percent between 1961 and 1971, and to an average of 2.4 percent between 1971 and 1981.

In the 1950s, the urban population in India rose from 61.9 million to 77.8 million, an increase of 0.43 percent in the proportion of urban population to total population. By 1981, India's cities had grown by about 100 million persons at an annual rate of increase of 3.8 percent. The census of 1971 placed urban population at about 24 percent of the total. The urban population stands now at 160 million. Cities such as New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Bangalore and Hyderabad have experienced population

explosions over the period through 1981. The percentage of urban population as a whole has been consistently increasing.

The Indian population, which has reached one billion at the end of the 20th century, is divided by religion, sex, language, caste, dress and even by the food-habits. These divisions have been further compounded by the gap between the rich and the poor; the English-speaking elite and the vernacular mass, and the urban and the rural. In its diversity and continental size, India shares most of the characteristics of the European

52

Community than the more integrated multi-ethnic, and unified polities of the United States.8 India contains all of the major world religions, it is sub-divided into a myriad of castes, it has 19 official languages, 18 provided in VIIIth Schedule of the Constitution plus English as a continued official language and a thousand dialects, and tribal tongues. Politically and administratively, these diverse groups are organised into 28 states, after the creation of Uttranchal, Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh in November 2000, and 7 union territories. The process of mobilisation and social change in the last fifty years has heightened the sense of awareness of the political and administrative development. Whereas such factors have led to political and administrative decay in most developing societies, in India these have provided potential for administrative reliance and growth.

As a result of the dramatic growth in the population and an increased process of nationalisation, a large segment of population became increasingly dependent upon certain services provided by the government. Urbanisation has been related to industrialisation, and these combined with population growth have placed heavier demands on transportation, communication, financial utility, education, medical, health and other services. Planning of population growth and development of adequate and appropriate human resources have put additional burden on the administrative system. "Government has become more intensively involved in regulating, planning, stimulating and even undertaking directly economic and commercial activities in many significant areas. The Government of India's commitment to the abolition of poverty through socialism and a variety of social services for minorities and the economically disadvantaged classes have further accelerated the demands on government apparatus, and has penetrated more and more sectors of the citizens' life. Citizens' increased dependence upon the activities and the initiative of the government in all spheres of life has further increased public employment."9 Table 1 on next page indicates clearly the growth of public employment at the central government level in India.

53 TABLE I Growth of Central Government Employment, 1953-1980 Year Employment* (000) Year Employment* (000)

1953 1561 1967 2746

1954 1613 1968 2793

1955 1692 1969 2807

1956 1792 1970 2921

1957 1819 1971 NA

1958 1914 1972 NA

1959 1989 1973 NA

1960 2025 1974 NA

1961 2094 1975 NA

1962 2156 1976 NA

1963 2349 1977 NA

1964 2536 1978 3477

1665 2637 1979 NA

1966 2710 1980 3678

* Includes regular and non-regular employees.

N.A. indicate figures not available.

Source: O.P. Dwivedi and R.B. Jain, India's Administrative State, New Delhi:

Gitanjali Publishing House, 1985, p. 19.

The expansion of government has brought in its trail an inevitable increase in bureaucracy and public employment at all levels of government, particularly at the lower levels of organisation. Government employment has expanded not only because of the radical changes taking place in the nature and growth of government functions, but also because of the fact that in a country, which cannot afford unemployment insurance, the creation of lower posts has often been used to placate the massive unrest of the educated unemployed youth particularly at the levels of state administrations. All these developments have added to the cynicism and disenchantment that generally prevails in the public mind about the efficacy of the public management system as a whole.

Although overstaffing the public service imposes a financial burden on the state, undermines morale and presents a major obstacle to efficient management, and expanding regular government employment does not either help to solve

54

the shortage of productive employment opportunities in the economy, most developing countries do not find any other alternative to growing unrest due to unemployment. For short-term unemployment relief, temporary public works (or food-for-work programmes) are preferable, both in terms of costs and returns. However, it results in indiscriminate additions to line agency payrolls that are likely to become permanent.10

Another characteristic of public employment in India is reflected in Table 2 which shows distribution of central government employees by ministries and departments during the growth decades of 1961 to 1980. During these twenty years, central governmental manpower increased from 1,986,577 (regular staff) in 1961 to 3,321,072 in 1980, a growth of 1,334,495 employees of 67.2 percent. The some trend is witnessed in Tables 2A, 2B, 2C and 2D.

The most dramatic growth was concentrated in four ministries (communications, which includes post office, telegraph and telephones; civilian defence; home affairs; and railways, which accounted for 85.5 percent of the total increase. These four growth sectors reflect the conscious public policy decisions made by India to enhance services in these areas. Obviously, maintenance of law and order, along with transportation and communications, are priority items for the government.

The expansion of public bureaucracy has been accompanied by a proliferation in the number of regulations, some of which are virtually impossible to administer and make the processing of

transactions cumbersome. The expanding sphere of the role of governments has placed the bureaucracy in a monopolistic position and has enhanced the opportunities for greater administrative discretion. For example, during the first two decades of the post-independence period, legislation output increased by more than three times compared to any period preceding the attainment of independence. During this period about sixteen hundred statutes, including twenty-one constitutional amendments, more than one hundred regulations, one hundred president's acts and one hundred and fifty ordinances were enacted. In addition an average of about five thousand rules were being issued every year.11 Executive regulations together with increased bureaucratic discretion

55 TABLE 2 Distribution and Growth of Central Government Eemployees by Ministries and Department, 1961, 1971 and 1980 Departments/Ministries 31 March 1961 31 March 1971 31 March 1980 Growth 1961- 1980 Numerical %

Agriculture & Irrigation 29290 20227 25445 —3845 —

Atomic Energy 4417 14492 23292 18875 422.2

Cabinet Secretariat 2093 7271 195- —1S98 90.68

Commerce & Civil Aviation — — 8209 8209 —

Communications 241599 385560 532524 290295 120.2

Defense (Civilian) 279177 473728 515319 236142 84.6

Education & Culture 4830 11966 8776 3946 81.63

Electronics — — 682 682 —

Energy 1561 5351 6639 5078 325.30

External Affairs 34-48 4023 4884 1436 41.64

Finance 86833 118956 158023 71190 82.0

Health & Family Welfare 8194 15437 19S1S 11324 138.2

Home Affairs 29357 77759 237207 207850 708.0

Audit & Accounts 38001 51091 55772 17765 46.7

Industry 12233 13540 69S49 57616 471.0

Information & Broadcasting 9274 15234 20204 10930 117.8

Labour 4345 10336 9664 5519 133.14

Law, Justice & Company Affairs 2024 2784 3602 1578 77.36

Petroleum and Chemicals — 316 502 502

Planning 1519 1633 5975 4458 293.36

Railways 1146921 1373634 1553229 406308 35.4

Rural Reconstruction 945 — 1591 646 68.3

Shipping and Transport 10293 5536 5769 —4757 -46.2

Space — — -9439 9439 —

Steel Mines & Coal 6299 10294 11911 5612 89.1

Supply & Rehabilitation 15874 14257 14402 —1472 —9.3

Science & Technology 9962 11542 17992 8030 80.6

Tourism & Civil Aviation 10742 14684 17570 6828 83.6

Works & Housing 25936 34395 39261 13325 51.4

Social Welfare — 1049 578 578 —

Other Departments 1604 3562 6049 4445 277.1

TOTAL 1986577 2698657 3321072 1334495 67.2

* Only regular employees included.

** In 1977, the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms was separated from the Cabinet Secretariat and merged with the Ministry of Home Affairs, reducing the number of employees.

Note: The Table has been compiled from the statistical data available from the reports of the various Ministries/Departments of the Government of India.

Source: O.P. Dwivedi and R.B. Jain, India's Administrative State (New Delhi: Gitanjali Publishing House), 19S5, pp. 28-29.

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provide opportunities and incentives for corruption, since regulations governing access to goods and services can be exploited by civil servants in extracting "rents".12 Thus in many developing countries, public bureaucracies have become uncontrolled and unaccountable centers of power pursuing their own interests through the instirurionalisation of systematic extortion and bribery. Under conditions of uncertainty and with a government which acts as the nation's largest employer, producer, regulator, and even the consumer, both the public and civil servants have come to accept government inefficiency and ineffectiveness as part of the natural order of things.13

(b) The Caste System

The social system in India is organised around caste structures and caste identities, which are as old as the Indian civilisation. The tribal, linguistic, religious, regional and caste loyalties, the fundamental characteristics of the social infrastructure of the Indian society have made a deep impact on the working of political and administrative system and have affected the processes of development. Caste is undoubtedly an all-India phenomenon in the sense that there are everywhere hereditary endogamous groups which form a hierarchy. Caste, being the important organisational structure, has hampered developmental processes and proved to be the most important cause responsible for backwardness and economic inequality. In its original form the system was associated with social hierarchy based on occupations, but later on, it became the negative feature of the society when its basis became 'birth' and not occupation. The caste system in India, as it has emerged, stratified the society socially, corrupted it politically, and weakend it economically.

After Independence, the caste system grew further; regionalism had taken the shape of caste consciousness and caste mobilisation. 'Politicisation of caste system'14 became the new trend in Indian politics. In the process not only Hindus of upper class but the outcastes, the so-called untouchables, also came to play important role. In order to ameliorate the conditions of this section of the society, the State in India devised the means of according special privileges to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes and backward classes as these

57 58 59 TABLE 2A Ministry/Department-wise Filled Posts in Central Government and Union Territories by Groups as on 31-3-1994 Code Ministry/Department By Groups Total

A B C D Unclass

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

I. Central Government

40 Ministry of Agriculture 587 1068 4614 3482 — 9751

41 Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers 101 198 217 143 — 659

42 Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism 263 320 905 377 __ 1865

43 Ministry of Civil Sup. Con. Affairs & Pub. Distri. 63 175 194 159 — 591

44 Ministry of Coal 35 49 242 99 — 425

45 Ministry of Commerce 663 1343 4222 1769 2 7999

46 Ministry of Communications 5404 22117 487563 165430 — 680514

48 Ministry of Environment and Forests 469 495 1909 1837 — 4710

49 Ministry of External Affairs 728 1885 2138 805 2 5558

50 Ministry of Finance 6066 11560 117303 8460 18547 161936

51 Ministry of Food 140 302 700 626 __ 1768

52 Ministry of Food Processing Industries 72 134 404 125 — 735

53 Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 2606 1069 11327 7771 1 22774

54 Ministry of Home Affairs 6714 9378 456321 41949 88 514450

55 Ministry of Human Resources and Development 549 1221 3195 7472 — 12437

56 Ministry of Industry 701 966 3068 1884 — 6619

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

57 Ministry of I & B 2862 6997 20107 8449 2012 40427

58 Ministry of Labour 1353 742 3795 2244 2 8136

59 Ministry of Law, Justice and Company Affairs 433 502 1703 599 — 3237

60 Ministry of Mines 2286 956 7264 1052 — 11558

61 Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources 141 75 153 80 __ 449

62 Minitsry of Parliamentary Affairs 12 44 56 28 — 140

63 Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions 3380 4662 1168 — 7194

64 Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas 32 105 101 64 — 302

65 Ministry of Planning and Programme Implementation 280 594 4654 397 — 5925

66 Ministry of Power 537 406 758 265 __ 1966

67 Ministry of Railways 9332 5470 938914 547670 42 1501428

68 Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment 192 511 783 509 — 1995

69 Ministry of Science and Technology 825 1798 11491 9245 — 23359

70 Ministry of Steel 49 119 262 152 — 582

71 Ministry of Surface Transport 1081 796 17738 29651 __ 49266

72 Ministry of Textiles 166 324 4026 1627 — 6143

73 Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment 1368 2863 22398 8851 — 35480

74 Ministry of Water Resources 1351 1564 6945 4387 — 14247

75 Ministry of Welfare 117 250 413 238 — 1018

76 Ministry of Defence 11688 15852 375599 195508 __ 598647

90 Department of Atomic Energy 2937 2257 11203 4083 — 20480

91 Department of Electronics 404 408 472 242 — 1526

93 Department of Space 4928 2886 6377 1454 — 15645

100 Cabinet Secretariat 592 4145 4614 465 — 8916

101 President's Secretariat 22 89 97 95 — 303

102 Prime Minister's Office 29 135 143 118 — 425

105 UPSC 130 424 735 450 — 1739

106 Central Vigilance Commission 31 58 56 57 — 202

107 Election Commission of India 25 88 152 71 — 336

108 Planning Commission 1272 1891 1164 571 — 4898

112 Indian Audit and Accounts Service 2221 12665 494i68 6060 — 70414

113 Supreme Court 190 619 100 668 — 1577

114 High Court of Delhi 101 117 591 — — 809

Total-I 72565 119050 2591369 1068936 20696 3872616

II. Union Territories

12202 Delhi 1903 9904 74705 7567 — 94079

12203 Andaman and Nicobar Islands 312 541 13175 9593 — 23621

12204 Lakshadweep 54 206 2840 1480 — 4580

12205 Dadra and Nagar Haveli 86 58 19910 318 — 2372

12206 Daman and Diu 87 96 1857 647 — 2687

12207 Pondicherry 1071 592 14006 7436 — 23105

Total-II 3513 11397 108493 27041 — 150444

Grant Total (I + II) 76078 130447 2699862 1095977 20696 4023060

Source: Statistical Schedule received from Ministries.

Adopted from Fifth Pay Commission Report (1997), p. 235.

60 TABLE 2 B Distribution of Sanctioned and Filled Posts in Central Government and Union Territories by Groups as on 31-3-1994 (lakhs) Group Sanctioned Posts Filled Posts

Central Government Union Territories Total Central Government Union Territories Total

Group 'A' 0.90 0.04 0.94 0.72 0.04 0.76

(% to Total) 2.2 2.4 2.2 1.9 2.7 1.9

Group 'B' 1.36 0.12 1.48 1.19 0.11 1.30

(% to Total) 3.3 7.4 3.4 3.1 7.3 3.2

Group 'C 27.88 1.18 29.06 25.92 1.08 27.00

(% to Total) 66.8 72.4 67.0 66.9 72.0 67.1

Group 'D' 11.39 0.29 11.68 10.69 0.27 10.96

(% to Total) 27.3 17.8 26.9 27.6 18.0 27.2

Unclassified 0.23 0.00 0.23 0.21 0.00 0.21

(% to Total) 0.6 0.0 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.5

Total 41.76 1.63 43.39 38.73 1.50 40.23

100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: Fifth Pay Commission Report, 1997, p. 228.

communities were described in the Constitution. These concessions were given to these communities for a limited transitional period only. But the measure became a long-term phenomenon. Even more than fifty years of Independence these special concessions in the shape of reservations to political and administrative offices and in educational institutions have not been withdrawn; they have rather increased day by day and might continue for ever. While such output responses of the state system helped in initial development, and brought about the desired social change, at the same time they created additional tensions hampering the process of development. This wrong method for right purpose has not only widened the gap between the communities, but has also led to the emergence of certain vested interests who are not ready to give up these privileges, even after their full nourishment. The lower castes

61 TABLE 2C Trends in Distribution of Sanctioned Posts in Central Government by Group of Post (Figures in Lakhs) Group Group of Posts Total

A B C D Un-classified

1957 0.10 0.19 7.29 9.78 N.A. 19.37

(% to Total) (0.6) 0-1) (42.0) (56.3) (100.0)

1971 0.34 0.46 15.45 13.38 - 0.19 29.82

(% to Total) (1.1) (1.6) (51.8) (44.9) (0.6) (100.0)

1984 0.68 0.80 22.87 13.31 0.21 37.87

(% to Total) (1.8) (2.1) (60.4) (35.1) (0.6) (100.0)

1994 0.90 1.36 27.88 11.39 0.23 41.76

(% to Total) (2.2) (33) (66.8) (27.2) (0.5) (100.0)

Increase in 1994 over 1957

(i) Absolute

(ii) Annual compound 0.80 1.17 20.59 1.61 0.23 24.39

growth rate (%) 6.0 5.4 3.7 0.4 — 2.4

Source: Adapted from Fifth Pay Commission Report, 1997, p. 230.

dilemma is still there, and it has created further discontent and conflicts in the society. The 'Son of the Soils' theory inherent in the 'Mulki' rule in some states in India and the issue of reservation tend to aggravate caste animosities and generate social upheavals and violence as has been amply demonstrated by the disturbances that have frequently occurred in many states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. It needs to be made clear that the reservation system that is being resisted is not what has been conceded to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It is the expending base of reservations among the so-called backward castes and other backward classes (OBC) that threatens to produce a backlash. The vested interest in backwardness that the system of reservation has created might further lead to a re-alignment of communities on lines that can only perpetuate the present division.

62 TABLE 2D Distribution of Sanctioned Posts in the Central Government by Groups and Major Departments Group Railway: Communications Defence (Civilian) Others Total

1984 1994 Increase (Absolute/ Percent) 1984 1994 Increase(Absolute/ Percent) 1984 1994 Increase(Absolute/ Percent) 1984 1994 Increase(Absolute/ Percent) 1984 1994 Increase(Absolute/ Percent)

A 7228 9591 1863 24.1 3625 8381 4756 131.2 11653 15900 4247 36.4 44963 55791 10828 24.1 67969 89663 21694 31.9

B 3560 5664 2104 59.1 9870 23772 13902 140.9 8847 18116 9269 104.8 57775 87906 30131 I 52.2 30052 135458 55406 69.2

C 814357 951112 136755 5-16.8 540990 558552 17562 3.2 341906 411919 70013 20.5 589576 866148 27657222! 46.9 36829 2787731 500902 21.9

D 679046 579385 -99661 -14.7 124682 162944 38262 30.7 361066 226878 -134188 -37.2 166085 170341 4256 2.6 1330879 1139545 -191331 -14.4

Un-classified N.A 43 N.A. 4368 0 N.A. 62 0 N.A. 16890 23166 N.A. 21334 23209 N.A.

Total 1504691 1545795 41104 2.7 683535 753649 70114 10.3 723534 672813 -50721 -7.0 875289 1203352 328063 37.5 3787063 4175609 388546 10.3

Source: Data collected by Pay Commission.

Adapted from Fifth Pay Commission Report, 1997, p. 231.

63 TABLE 2E Trends in Regular Employment in Central Government Year(as on 31st March) Civilian Employees@ DefenceForces@@ Total Central Govt. Employees

Other than Defence Defence Army Navy Air Force Total

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1971 22.25 4.74 8.30 0.30 1.06 9.66 36.65

1981 28.87 5.20 8.81 0.36 1.20 10.37 44.44

1991 32.87 5.26 9.89 0.51 1.40 11.89 50.02

Annual compound growth rate (%)

1971-81 2.6 0.9 0.6 1.9 1.2 0.7 1.9

1981-91 1.3 0.1 1.3 3.5 1.6 1.4 1.2

Notes: @ D.G.E. & T.

@@ Authorised strength as reported by Armed Forces Pay Cell. Source: Fifth Pay Commission Report, p. 229.

(c) Impact of Religion

Apart from the caste system, another major social factor that effects political and administrative development is the religion. All the major religions of the world, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism originated in India. Islam and Christianism came to India in the medieval period. The vast majority of population, almost 83 percent are, however, Hindus, while Muslims constitute 12 percent of

the total population, the third-largest concentration of Muslims in the world. The major source of conflicts in the society have been between these two major and important religions—Hinduism and Islam. All other religions have no role practically except in small context, for instance, Christianity in Kerala or Eastern border areas and Sikhism in Punjab. The roots of the Hindu-Muslim resentment are deep and can be historically traced back to the Muslim period. During the last few centuries, however, the Hindus and Muslims had learned to live together and had shared in the development of social and cultural traditions. The political

64

evolution of India under the British revived the old animosities, which gave rise to alienation and hostility and the demand for a separate state of Pakistani. This issue paralysed the nationalist struggle under Mahatma Gandhi. It resulted in a deep schism in Indian society leading to the division of the country and led to an outbreak of violence and bloodshed. From time to time even after Independence and Partition such communal riots have frequently occurred in various parts of India. In recent past the incidence of such events have again increased, putting great strains on the administrative system. Apart from the loss in terms of lives, communal riots cause widespread destruction of property and adversely affect economic activities. Communal tension of the Hindu-Muslim variety already has a long and sordid history. It has been further compounded by the developments in Punjab and Kashmir during the last fifteen years. These developments have injected into the situation the potential for a Hindu-Sikh confrontation, which fortunately has not so far occurred. Because of the possibilities of such conflicts taking place in the societies, the administrative machinery has to keep itself in readiness to combat against the fanatic violence, terrorist activities growing militancy and mindless destruction of lives and property. This explains the growth in the number of paramilitary and police forces and other intelligence security agencies that have come to dominate the administrative system in India—the Central Reserve Police Force, the Border Security Force, the industrial Security Force, the VIP Security Commandos, SPG, etc. Not only these have created problems of deployment and administrative coordination, but have also often been a cause of resentment and tensions between the central government and the governments of the states. The developmental capacities of the administration have certainly received some setback, if not been completely destroyed.

(d) Bureaucratic Dysfunctionalism

Apart from the problem of law-enforcement, social structure in India also tends to encourage bureaucratic dysfunctionalism.15

In a way, of course, the structural characteristics of Indian bureaucracy correspond to the Indian culture and the social milieu in which it operates. Complex as it is, the Indian culture

65

is itself a product of the influences of flourishing folk cultures, the sub-cultures of castes and classes, and the urban culture of an English-educated middle class. It is an 'amalgam of various traits, traditions, attitudes and outlook that draws on the three dominant religions: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. The coexistence of a large number of religious groups makes India unique. Thus, an understanding of the Indian bureaucracy must include a study of its symbolic relationship with the Indian culture. The importance of caste determines the social outlook in India. An official's behaviour will, therefore, also be culturally determined. In spite of his participation in a depersonalised system, his behaviour must necessarily be culture bound or he risks social disapproval. This aspect of the problem was commented on some time ago by a noted scholar:

An administrative system influenced by such traditional loyalties will tend toward an ascriptive rather than achievement-oriented pattern of recruitment. And that is why a person who asks favours from officers belonging to his caste does not consider his act unethical. Similarly, when a government official "fixes" applications and licences in utter disregard to merit but in accordance with family and caste loyalties he is obeying a law of social conduct more ancient than that of the upstart state. Moreover, in any traditional society, the family forms the common interest group "par excellence"... Since family in this usage includes uncles, cousins, nephews, grandparents and other near and distant relatives, a great deal of pressure to "fix" jobs for them or to find some other source of income to support them is not uncommon... Moreover, these relatives... would like to take advantage of his position in securing jobs, procuring permits, etc., while he is still influential. They do not consider the exploitation of relative's official status as something bad or unethical.16

The orientation of officials in India is not merely banned upon personal, economic and social conditions or caste, but also on what is often termed "ethno-expansionism". This involves

66

the assumption that one's own ways are per se superior to all other ways and that the circumstances one enjoys should be desired by all men. The concept of ethno-expansionism is of particular value to the analysis of the cultural content of Indian bureaucracy. When the upper castes assume bureaucratic office, their aim is not merely to expand their ranks through favouritism, but also to invest their caste values with a quality that they consider will be acceptable to other groups, castes and communities.

(e) Secularism, Casteism and Religious Values

Secularism has been a distinguished characteristic of India's composite culture. As a policy of the Government after Independence, secularism, as Nehru conceived was designed to safeguard the peace and security of the minorities; renunciation of revivalism and obscurantism of religion, and recognition of differences and non-conformities in socio-religious affairs. The state in India, as the Constitution provides, is neutral in matters of religion, but provides opportunity for all religions to flourish, subject to "public order, morality and health". Yet religion has been a dominating factor and a force in the politico-administrative culture in India, despite the fact that the "new culture of science and technology has had a healthy impact of intermingling the different communities and religions."17

The Indian culture, which has been a history of unity and synthesis, of reconciliation and growth, of harmony and assimilation, of fusion of old traditions and new values, has several contradictory forces within its fold. The forces of progress and regress have simultaneously worked on Indian culture. At the same time, it has been dominated by individualistic ethos, a stratified society, and the theories of dharma and karma, the institutions of castes based on occupations, and the inequalities brought in the social system due to the caste hierarchy. All these cultural factors have not only been reflected in the political processes, but also find their expression in the development of administrative policies. The most appropriate example of such a policy is the reservation system in the public services in India and the preferential treatment to some of the specified communities sanctioned by some of the constitutional provisions to which we have already

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referred. The kind of tensions and conflicts often leading to violence that these have created in the social fabric of the nation are too well known to be repeated. At the same time, such practices have brought dissensions in the administrative system. A number of developmental policies and programmes of the government have even been influenced both in their conception and implementation through these cultural imperatives.18 Not only the political processes have been affected by these forces, but in many cases bureaucratic functionaries belonging to the so-called high castes have felt constrained to visit places inhabited by the so-called low caste citizenries in the course of their official dealings.19

(f) Authoritarian Character of Indian Bureaucracy: The Cultural Context

Although the present traits of authoritarian behaviour in the Indian bureaucracy have been traced to the British days of colonialism, when most Britishers, whatever their convictions about authority relations at home, showed a high degree of authoritarianism in their behaviour toward the Indian subordinate, whether he was the despised clerk, or the illiterate worker,20 some other scholars have tried to examine the linkages between patterns of social relation and authority patterns in Indian organisations

both governmental and nongovernmental. The available evidence on superior-subordinate relations in India indicates that the parental type in general and the assertive superior in particular, dominates authority relations in Indian organisations. Many Indian top managements particularly in the governmental hierarchies, are relatively authoritarian in their relationships with lower management and labour. Along with cases of paternalism, that is nurrurance, this element of assertiveness in superior behaviour is not only a characteristic of top-management but also a feature of all authority relations at all levels in any organisation—governmental or non-governmental.21

The linkage between the individual behaviour in the organisations and the wider culture has also been sought to be explained through the concept of national character. "A man brings to his work attitudes and modes of behaviour which have evolved from his life experience."22 Thus in India, it has

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been suggested that the expectation that a highly controlling superior has a positive effect on the presumed existence of a basic or a modal Hindu personality, in which security for the individual is associated with dependence upon superiors. However, it seems likely that in a country like India with its great variety of regional, linguistic, caste, class and religious differentiations, there are many national characters, rather than a modal personality. Even if it is assumed that in complex societies with their wide range of social differentiation, the family ties and early childhood experiences with authority are relatively uniform, the concept of national character tends to ignore the influence of other social relationships, outside the period of early childhood which individuals enter into throughout their latency and adolescence periods and which are highly differentiated along the class, caste, and rural-urban dimensions.23

It has thus been argued that the administrative and management culture prevalent in India today reflects the family atmosphere and the way people live at home. India is a hierarchical society, where the father has all the answers. Nobody can question him. This is also carried to the work environment where the boss is always right. The rigid nature of ties in the family is reflected in the controls that people adopt at the office, where a countless number of forms having no substance are required to be filled in. The system does not tolerate flexibility. People are actually taught not to question but only to remember and to follow. This is the reason why many functionaries in administration tend to have low self-esteem visa-vis their superiors. The superior at work expects loyalty not to the project, but to himself. He actually goes ahead to destroy another person's self-esteem because that is how he can keep the status quo. That is why information in the Indian administrative system flows in one direction only. The junior person's views are invariably ignored. People thus tend to be docile and in awe of the hierarchical structure. Any one who takes on a different approach is termed as an odd ball. This is

precisely the reason why it is often contended that the technology which is presently being inducted in India belongs to the year 2000, while the country's administrative set up is still in the 1920's.24

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(g) The Linguistic Multiplicity

Another element of social infrastructure, which has made inroads in the nation-building process in India and has affected public administration, is the linguistic multiplicity, which is unique in many respects than in many other countries of the world like Canada, Belgium, Russia and Switzerland. Their example is, however, irrelevant in understanding the language problem in India. According to the linguistic survey published in 1927, there were 179 languages and 544 dialects in the erstwhile Indian subcontinent, which in 1981 grew into 1018 languages. Despite the multilingualism prevailing in India, the last phase of the Indian national struggle for independence witnessed the demand for one national language. But the emergence of a neat and acceptable formula of a single national language has not been an easy task. The state in India recognised the linguistic multiplicity when it accorded legal status to fourteen languages of India listed in the Eighth Schedule of the constitutional document (later amended to include eighteen languages) and recognised Hindi to be the national language and English to continue as link language (Total of 19 official languages). Such provisions, however, did not satisfy many leaders, especially in the Eastern and Southern part of the country. The politicians recognised, propagated and exploited the economic importance of a language being the official one. It was argued that any section of the society belonging to the official language group was also able to capture most of the job opportunities in the country. This created strong sub-regional movements directed against the officially recognised national language. The language problem became a live political issue. Hindi became the scape-goat in the bigger politics of state autonomy. Many a time it led to violent outbreaks in the country and unprecedented acts of self-immolation and the like. The linguistic configuration was thus responsible for the creation of more regional diversities and many more states as sub-units of the political system, expanding the tendencies of a vast administrative machinery leading to further drains on the already limited state resources and delays in the implementation of public policies. Linguistic differences have also prevented the growth of a consistent national policy on language and education. This has in turn led

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to lowering of educational standards and a greater strain on human resource development.

(h) The Social Classes: Urban/Rural Dichotomy

As has been indicated earlier, the social structure in India consists of powerful status groups based on religion, castes and language. Although a class system has also begun to emerge in India, it still remains tenuous. The slow process of industrialisation and urbanisation has led to a highly uneven pattern of class-growth. Status groups continue to cut across class lines. As a result, the development of class identities and political mobilisation based upon class appeals has been securely inhibited.25 India's urban-based class structure is small as compared to the rural society. The 15 million industrial workers in the organised sector of the economy make up only 10 percent of the total work force of 150 million. Of these, only 3 percent, or 5 million, work in large modern factories. The industrial work force, moreover, is not only small, but its portion of the total labour force has also remained remarkably stable over the past several decades.

Rural India now contains 72 percent of the population, and some 70 percent of the labour force is engaged in agriculture. Despite the land reforms of late 1940s and early 1980s, the distribution of land ownership in rural India has been grossly unequal. In the early 1970s, over 96 percent of India's rural household owned less than 20 acres of land; 43 percent owned less than 5 acres; and 24 percent owned no land at all with the percentage of landless labour increasing. The disparities in land ownership are revealed in the fact that 10 percent of the rural families hold 70 percent of the cultivable land.26

In comparison to this the size of the urban population represents a consumer market larger than the entire European Union. These changes in the rural/urban population and the emerging class structure have meant the evolution of new administrative policies, strategies and institutions. In the past forty years, there has been a proliferation of a number of administrative institutions, authorities and agencies both at the centre as well as the states to cater to the strategies of integrated rural development, and the needs of growing urban

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metropolises, incredibly crowded, lacking in adequate housing, transportation, water, and electricity, sewage and sanitation facilities. The administrative strategies evolved have ranged from technological and scientific innovations in the field of agricultural production to the establishment of institutions of democratic decentralisation and a host of specified agencies for regulating industrial development, large, medium and small scale and a host of institutions for providing a number of services for good urban life have come into operation. Because of a growing concern for environmental degradation a number of regulatory agencies have come into being to protect the environment from further degradation, although with little success. All these developments have further meant a keen political competition among various segmented social groups and cultural communities based on language, religion, region, and caste, creating additional pressures on the administrative systems. The existence of a number of multifarious agencies with conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions have not only

highlighted the problems of unified direction, control and coordination, but have also raised afresh the basic issue of centralisation and decentralisation and the relative autonomy of various units of administration.

(i) Social Justice and Poverty-Alleviation

Among the most important policy changes that have affected the Indian public administration has been the issue of social justice and alleviation of poverty. To what extent have the new strategies, institutions and the new concepts of rural/ urban development been able to realize the fundamental objective of alleviating poverty and achieving a modicum of social justice?

At the time of Independence, in 1947, the leaders of free India had thought that they would be able to achieve a just and equitable social and economic order in India in a short time and that poverty would be eliminated before too long. Forty years later, the political economy of the country, at least in the sphere of social justice and poverty eradication, appears to have done badly. According to a World Bank report, a third of world's poor still live in India and 40 percent of India's population lives below a minimal poverty line. Over the 6th Plan period,

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according to Government of India's reports, there has been a drop of 11 percent in poverty, which stands at 17 percent. The projected estimate in the drop of poverty ratio after the Seventh Plan period is another 11%, leading to 26% and will further drop to 5% by the end of the century. This has not happened, as the present poverty ratio is 26.3%. Poverty persists because neither economic growth nor targeted development spending has been big enough to help the truly poor. Another factor is that poverty is concentrated in the countryside and growth in the cities.

Both official and unofficial studies have found that subsidies of all kinds—not only agricultural inputs, but also food, education and medicine, go disproportionately to the better off. Even in the anti-poverty programmes, some 15.2% of the beneficiaries are the non-deserving, not counting the money squandered by the corrupt. One of the reasons of the persistence of this phenomenon is the excessive centralisation in the administration of such programs, and the non-involvement of people at the grass-roots level in the implementation of such schemes. Although the green revolution has created pockets of rural prosperity, real farm incomes have stagnated for 30 years while non-agricultural incomes have more than doubled. One poverty expert has calculated that even if incomes were to grow at a speeded-up 1% a year, having the poverty rate by trickle down alone would take 35 years.

The strategies of poverty eradication programmes count on faster economic growth through technology-led second green revolution, a drop in the population growth rate and redistribution. The budget 1987-88 had allocated 8% of the government spending amounting to approximately U.S. $ 1.5 billion for anti-poverty programmes. Yet these projects, which consist of mass employment schemes and the distribution of income producing assets such as buffaloes, serve only about 10 million families, a small fraction of the poor. On one reckoning it would take some $ 5 million a year to employ all the employable rural poor and $ 10 billion a year, more than half of government spending, to lift all the poor above the poverty line.27

Although it is true that social injustice has not grown, and poverty has not increased since India became independent but at the same time there is no sufficient evidence that India has

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moved towards a more egalitarian or poverty-free society. Perhaps the objective of social justice might have been unrealistic, but as one scholar has put it "the uneven distribution of economic power and benefits through manipulation of the polity has created major distortions and problems for the political economy. The issue doesn't seem to pose any serious threat to the state and the administrative system. The poor do not press hard enough upon the state, which has been effectively under the control of an elite. Poverty at best remains only a moral problem of the Indian political economy. It pricks the sentiments and the conscience of the liberal middle class elite, but does not pose great political challenge to the state. After fifty-four years of independence, social inequalities and poverty still remain the major blight on the nation's political economy."28

The compulsion of planned socio-economic development has no doubt changed the pattern and complexion of the administration system from the British framework of a stable order to that of a system of continuous strain, both politically and administratively, "adopting ad hoc—and frequently unsuccessful remedies to a procession of deeper more intricate, and apparently less easily alleviated crises."29 The administrative system, to say the least, has been unsteady throughout India, and at present is at its lowest ebb in efficiency and integrity. Commenting on this change in the temper and values of administration, a former official who has been a part of the administrative machinery both in pre-independence and post-independence period has observed:

The British administration in India governed too little and did not concern itself enough with changes in the social and the economic order. Perhaps the Indian governments have governed too much. This may

well have been inevitable, part of the temper of times, since India gained independence. When the idea of a welfare state was the generally accepted norm, India had also a great deal to make up to come abreast with other nations of the world... Where the life of the community, or at least its vital growth and development depends so heavily on the administrative machine, any inefficiency

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or erosion in standards has a snowballing influence and gathers speed in geometric progression. India has indeed been caught up in the problem of governing less but effectively, or taking in more ineffectively. Each difficulty, whether economic or social, has tended to produce more rather than less government but the country has by no means turned the corner towards ensuring reasonable standards of prolonged good management.30

SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND SMALL SCALE INDUSTRIES

India's industrial policy has been largely governed by the Industrial Policy Resolutions of 1948 and 1956, which had laid the pattern of industrial growth through a division of industrial sectors reserved exclusively under the public sector, or those sectors which were left open for private investments and others which both the public and private sector could continue to expand. Notwithstanding these resolutions, the Industrial Policy Statement of 1980 aimed at promoting an economic federation with an equitable spread of investment and the dispersal of returns widely spread over small but growing institutions. Prompted by the growing number of small scale entrepreneurs and the so-called "bullock-capitalists" who had emerged in the various progressive states in India,31 the government had used indirect measures that have the effect of marginalising private capitalism in class polities and making it dependent on the state. Government policies toward capital have promoted its involution, that is the multiplication of more smaller enterprises. The ideological justification was readily found in Mahatma Gandhi's "ideology of cottage and labour-intensive industries by self-employed workers". Promoting small-scale industry in order to enhance employment, economic development, and competition has accelerated the propensities of India's small business and commercial classes.32 The Industrial Policy Statement of 1980 gave a pre-dominant place to small-scale sectors and widened the scope of such industries to include those having an investment from 1 million rupees to 2 million rupees. Since then there had been a tremendous growth in the sector of small scale industries as is clear from the following Table 3.

75 Progress of SSI Sector under Different Plan Periods Plan No. of Units (In Lakhs) Value of Output (Rs. Crores) Average Value of Production (Rs. Lakhs) No. of Persons Employed (In Lakhs) Average No. of Employees Per Unit

First Plan 0.16 40 2.50 _ _

(1951-56)

Second Plan 0.36 1170 3.25 10.61 30

(1956-61) (125) (28.25)

Third Plan 1.32 1969 1.49 13.52 11

(1961-66) (266) (68.29) (27.42)

Annual Plans 1.99 3918 1.97 29.30 15

(1966-69) (50.75) (98.98) (116.71)

Fourth Plan 3.18 6500 2.04 41.40 13

(1969-74) (59.80) (65.90) (41.30)

Fifth Plan 8.00 20934 2.61 69.70 9

(1974-79) (151.6) (222.06) (66.91)

Sixth Plan 12.8 50520 4.00 90.00 7

(1979-85) (60.25) (141.33) (30.25)

Seventh Plan 18.27 132320 7.24 199.60 7

(1985-90) (42.51) (161.91) (32.89)

Annual Plan 19.48 153340 7.87 125.80 6

(1990-91) (6.62) (15.88) (5.18)

and (1991-92) 2.082 178699 8.58 129.80 6

(6.8) (16.53) (3.17)

Note: Figures in brackets indicate %age increase over the previous plan.

Sources: (1) Five Year Plan Documents, Planning Commission, New Delhi. (2) SIDO Relevant Annual Reports.

Adapted from Sweta Mishra, "Role of the State in Promotion of Small Scale Industries: A Case Study of Delhi State Industrial Development Corporation", Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, 1998, p. 105.

A number of backward areas were identified for purposes of location of such industries. The Industries Development and Regulation Amendment Act of 1984 provides for reservation of certain selected items for exclusive production of small-scale sectors. As a result of such a shift in Indian industrial policy, a number of administrative institutions have come to be

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established at the central and state level. These organisations and agencies provide a comprehensive range of consultancy services, and technical, managerial, and marketing assistance. A new form of organisation known as Small Scale Industries Development Corporation has also come into being in almost all the states with the National Small Industries Corporation as an apex body. Thus the shift in industrial policy as a result of the emerging social and class-structure has prompted the establishment of new forms of administrative organisations in the administrative system. It is still too early to attempt an assessment of their efficacy as instruments of development.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

The foregoing analysis has sought to reflect upon the linkages between the socio-political structure, policy changes and public administration in a complex developing society of India. It has outlined, although briefly, the kind of changes in administrative institutions, structures, style and culture that have taken place in the country after independence. Many of these outcomes have been the direct consequences of the changing socio-political structures and the emerging cultural values in the society.

Although one can discuss specific administrative changes occurring at particular points of time due to certain sociopolitical exigencies, or sudden policy changes, the emerging pattern and style of public administration in India has been the product of the totality of the socio-political environment that has operated in the country so far.

The increased authority for 'licensing' and 'control and regulating', particularly in the industrial sector, has opened large areas and umpteen opportunities for corruption, bribery and affluence through ill-gotten wealth. Although at no time in the recent history of India, public ever believed that the administration was clean, nevertheless there were times when the extent of suspicion was very low. All

through these years, and particularly in the later. period, corruption has almost become the way of life. A sort of cynicism seems to prevail that one has got to live with it. In the process, the one section of society which has suffered immensely is the poor citizen. He is

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devoid of proper means through which he can let himself be heard, or even put forward his complaint or grievance for any effective or speedy redressal. The record of central and state governments in the post-independence period on the question of providing services which are 'sensitive, courteous and satisfying' has been, to say the least, dismal. Even with the vast bureaucracy, the treatment of the rank and file employees as compared to their high-ranked colleagues leaves much to be desired. The way they are huddled in dingy rooms overcrowded with dilapidated furniture, accumulated dust on files, cobwebs on the corners and almirahs, no proper sanitary or water arrangements, all these and much more speak about the prevailing duality in the administrative architecture and culture in India.

The officers' excessive dependence upon notations entered by the junior clerks on every file, the outdated administrative procedures and formalism, the excessive delay in forwarding an application and the infinite time taken to passing of the final order, the uncertainty in the application of rules or regulations but bending regulations for selective applications; the methods of flattery and encouraging subservience for obtaining service from the administrators, the lubrication required in the form of payment to powerful political or bureaucratic functionaries, the sight of an untidy, dirty and unclean public office with dust and vermin and betel leaves red stains, have all become a part of administrative culture in India. Coupled with the excessive 'secrecy' and 'mystique', such situations do not encourage any citizen even to attempt to seek what is legally due to him thereby generating a sense of indifference, apathy and resignation, which results to preferring to employ the services of the so-called 'intermediaries' on 'payment' and get the work done rather than face the ordeal himself and get frustrated. In the government system of today's India, the hallowed traditions of continuity, hierarchy-based status and distance-based authority have become so important that the overall work ethic is usually one of apathy and indifference. The performance is at the level of lowest common denominator. There is no concern for the common man, his time, his difficulties, his inconvenience in coming to the office again and again. The lower hierarchy of

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employees have become so insensitive and unresponsive towards their duties and work that invokes no surprise at the hands of those at the other end of the public counter or officials' table. Finding any exceptions to the above listed norm brings an element of surprise.

One of the crucial problems emerging out of the complex social structures and environmental factors, has been the lack of proper coordination and control in the implementation of a number of decisions and policies at various levels of public administration. Due to the existence of a multiplicity of public agencies—judicial, state and local and of different character— some autonomous, semi-autonomous and departmentally controlled and simultaneously working in the same sector or area, and/or for the same clientele as target groups, these agencies have often worked at cross purposes. The net effect has been that not only the administrative efforts have been counterproductive, but the citizen at large has suffered due to the utter confusion and the plurality of jurisdiction that overwhelms him in his dealings with the administration. Inadequate systems of "control and coordination" in the processes of policy formulation and implementation, a proper balance between the needs for a centralised uniform policy and decentralised implementation, an adequate system of rapid consultation and communication amongst the vertical hierarchies and horizontal authorities and the creation of an effective delivery system to the different social and target groups are the emerging administrative imperatives borne out of the compulsions of a heterogeneous complex social system. Despite the creation of a number of specialised agencies like the Departments of Plan-Implementation or Coordination at the Centre and State levels, this aspect of public administration has not visibly improved. There seems to be an impending necessity of new technological tools and administrative strategies, if the capability of the system in this respect is to be improved substantially.

The preceding analysis of the inter-relationships between the socio-political structure and administrative system in India may appear to be highly critical about the negative impacts created by these factors, but it is neither intended to undermine achievements and performance of the Indian administrative system nor to suggest that administrative performance and

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inefficiency are incompatible with a complex socio-political structure. A modicum of balance between the conflicting demands, aspirations and influences of different classes, castes, religious and linguistic groups has sought to be achieved in India.

Despite the tremendous increase in public employment, growth of public enterprises, proliferation of administrative agencies and the enormous burden of public expenditure as a result of the growing socio-economic demands made on the system, the process of administrative development in India has been a continuous one, while the administrative system has at times shown signs of strains due to constant pressures, largely generated by the weight of its own structure and continuous policy changes, the system has certainly acquired some resilience to withstand and bear such pressures. That the public administration in India has not disintegrated, despite a number of dysfunctionalism, pathologies and negative consequences of a growing bureaucratic apparatus lends adequate support to our hypothesis

that a complex socio-political structure in a developing society need not always inhibit the processes of administrative development.


1. For a detailed discussion on the interpretation of the ecological aspects of public administration see: Ferral Heady (ed.), Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective, (New York, Marcel Dekker Inc., 1984)

2. See, Rajni Kothari, Politics in India, New Delhi, Orient Longman Ltd., 1972) pp. 100-108

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. For a collection of essays on this subject see John K. Pulparampil (ed.), Indian Political System: A Reader in Continuity and Change, (New Delhi, N. V. Publications, 1976), pp. 452-53..

6. See for example, the Reports of A.D. Gorwala and Paul H. Appleby on the Reform of Public Administration in India in the 50s, and the various Reports of Administrative Reforms Commission in the late 60s and early 70s. For a detailed discussion on this topic see R.B. Jain, Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration, (New Delhi, Visual Publications, 1976), Chapter XII.

7. This section draws partly from the author's earlier joint study, see O.P. Dwivedi and R.B. Jain, India's Administrative State, (New Delhi, Gitanjali

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Publishing House, 1985).

8. See, Robert A. Hardgrave Jr., and Stanley A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, (San Diego, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1986), p. 4.

9. Dwivedi and Jain, n. 7, pp. 16-17.

10. Seluck Ozgediz, Managing the Public Service in Developing Countries: Issues and Prospects, (Washington D.C., World Bank, Staff Working Paper No. 583, 1983).

11. R.C.S. Sarkar, "Role of Government Departments in the Legislative Process", Journal of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, New Delhi, Vol. 21, (1968), p. 1.

12. A.O. Krueger, "The Political Economy of Rent Seeking Society", The American Economic Review, Vol. 64, No. 3, (1974), pp. 291-303.

13. David J. Gould and Jose A. Aonaro-Reyes, The Effects of Corruption on Administrative Performance: Illustrations from Developing Countries, (Washington D.C., The World Bank, 1983).

14. See, Kothari, n. 2.

15. For a lengthier discussion on this topic seek R.B. Jain and O.P. Dwivedi, "Administrative Culture and Bureaucratic Values in India", a paper presented at the 5th Conference on Public Policy and Administrative Studies, University of Guelph, Guelph, 22 April 1988.

16. O.P. Dwivedi, "Bureaucratic Corruption in Developing Countires", Asian Survey, Vol. 7, 1967, p. 249.

17. Ramashray Roy, Bureaucracy and Development: The Case Study of Indian Agriculture, (New Delhi, Manas Publications, 1975).

18. B.P. Singh, "Political Culture and Public Administration in the National Value System: The Indian Scenario", The Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 27 (October-December 1981), pp. 1043-54.

19. See, Rajni Kothari, Caste in Indian Politics, (New Delhi, Orient Longmans, 1971, and Miriam Sharma, The Politics of Inequality, Competition and Control in an Indian Village, (Delhi, Hindustan Publishing Co. 1979).

20. B.B. Misra, Administrative History of India, 1854-1947, (Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1979).

21. Sudhir Kakar, "Authority Patterns and Subordinate Behaviour in Indian Organisations", Administrative Sciences Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3, (1971), pp. 298-307.

22. Harry Lavinson, The Exceptional Executive, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 17-19.

23. Kakar, n. 21, p. 304.

24. See Sam Pitroda, "Work Culture Kills Self-Esteem", The Statesman, (New Delhi), 19 January 1988, p. 4.

25. Hardgrave and Kochanek, n. 8, p. 11. For a detailed analysis of the class structure in Indian society, see Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne H. Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 26-35.

26. Hardgrave and Kochanek, n. 8, pp. 18-19.

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27. For a detailed study of poverty in India, see Atul Kohli, The State and Poverty in India: The Politics of Reform, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987).

28. V.A. Pai Panandiker, "Preference for Political Stability", The Hindustan Times, 22 August 1987.

29. E.N. Mangat Rai, Pattern of Administrative Development in Independent India, London: University of London, 1976, p. 5.

30. Ibid., p. 6.

31. The term "bullock-capitalist" has been coined by Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph to refer to small to medium-sised self-employed independent agricultural producers who displaced large landowners in the agrarian power-constellation and had turned small producers using labour-intensive technologies that promote employment. See Rudolph and Rudolph, n. 25, pp. 49-54

32. Ibid., p. 27.

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3 Human Resource Development

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a multifaceted concept. Not only does it imply the harnessing of the available manpower (including woman power) in a society to the greatest potential of their productivity, but also to their optimal utilisation. Governments today especially in the low developing countries, face a great challenge of effective human resource development. The problem there is both paradoxical and complicated. Paradoxical—because while there is an abundance of labour due to the constant explosion of population, at the same time there is an acute shortage of economically, productive, skilled and specialist manpower to meet the needs of the socio-economic development of these societies in an equitable manner. The problem is further complicated because of the non-availability or dearth of the various inputs required in the "process of increasing the knowledge, skills and the capacities of all the people in the society."1 No wonder, therefore, that there has been in recent times an increasing awareness amongst these countries to develop human resources as an integral part of their general economic planning. Of the three basic inputs for economic growth—human, physical, material and financial resourses, human resources are regarded as the most crucial. An accelerated rate of human capital formation has thus emerged as the most critical variable for socio-economic development of these societies.

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I. THE ELEMENTS OF HRD

There are a number of elements which constitute the framework of HRD. Various inputs are needed for systematic development and effective utilisation of human resources. In a broader sense these extend over to several policy issues, e.g. population, nutrition, drinking water, health, education, training, sports, culture, housing, communication, etc. Appropriate policies in all these areas are critical for HRD. Hence as an organisational device HRD requires an integrated planning framework and holistic view of the conditions under which human resources are supposed to be developed.2

A national human resource development policy, therefore, will have to consider all these related issues, integrate them in some appropriate mix and thus facilitate their bearing on the two basic problems inherent in the HRD strategies: (a) optimal utilisation of human resources, and (b) generation and skill, knowledge and talent, which are inter-linked together and feed on to each other. The various tributary policies flowing out of the concept of HRD can be grouped as under:3

Group A: Promotive Policies

(i) Nutrition Policy

(ii) Health Policy

(iii) Housing Policy

(iv) Education Policy

(v) Communication (media) Policy

Group B: Utilisation Policy

(i) Training Policy

(ii) Research and Development Policy

(iii) Employment Policy

(iv) Wage Policy

(v) Migration Policy

The two sets of variables are related to provision of employment opportunities and the provision of social services, which are intrinsically linked with the question of human resources and development planning.4 In meeting the objectives

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of development and utilisation of human resources, the HRD policy has to mainly negotiate the challenges of rapidly changing technology, the changing nature of job-slots and the consequent rapid changes in the social organisation. In the evolution of the concept of HRD, a consensus seems to be emerging that population should be endogenised in the process of development for the latter to be able to reach out to the much sought after targets, i.e., poor and remotely places regions of an economy. As a sequel to this it is observed that human resources as well as their better management should be presaged along side development plans. Only then the progress would be able to respond to the desired socio-economic objective.5

However, in simple practical terms, in public administration HRD involves:

(a) assessment of existing resources of manpower skills;

(b) projection of future manpower requirements;

(c) preparation of inventory of jobs;

(d) developing job qualification standards; and

(e) career management.

At the organisation level, HRD paves the way for adequate and fair recruitment, including motivation, utilisation and conservation of human resources. Organisational effectiveness depends on the capability and competence of the personnel responsible for implementing the organisation's policies, programmes and projects and in the delivery of goods and services to its clientele and beneficiaries.6

This chapter is concerned with an analysis of the HRD policies and initiatives taken in public administration in India with a view to harness and utilize the potential of the available manpower. Inter-alia it also seeks to review the various training strategies of the Government of India towards management, development and change in the mental attitude of the public service personnel. Obviously because of the limited scope of the paper many other aspects of HRD noted above, and HRD in ot-her areas like public sector, business and industry cannot possibly be addressed to in detail. Hopefully, however, these vital issues will help in understanding the most crucial problem of HRD as an instrument of public service reform.

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II. PLANNING FOR HRD IN INDIA

In order to meet the challenges of rapid socio-economic development and industrialisation, India has since independence adopted a strategy of planned economic development. A series of Five year plan starting from the First formulated in 1951-56, to the Ninth (1998-2003) have outlined the targets of growth in various social, economic, educational, scientific, technical, political and administrative sectors. The Prime Minster Atal Behari Vajpayee has recently (2000) asked the planners to prepare an outline for the 10th Five Year Plan to reflect a growth rate of 9%. These plans have from time to time laid varied emphasis on the involvement of managements in government and industries to project their manpower requirements and take necessary steps for manpower planning, and thus implicitly recognised HRD as a key economic input as well as an output.

The importance of manpower planning as a strategy of HRD was first given special attention in the Third Five Year Plan (1961-66). The plan recognised human resource as the foremost amongst all other resources viz. financial, physical, material, etc. It further laid stress on the planned and systematic recruitment, training and development of personnel, particularly managerial, to ensure meeting the long-term manpower needs of industry, business, public sector and the government. It also emphasised the need on the part of the Government for maintenance of necessary statistical data, and development and application of techniques for manpower assessment as essential ingredients of manpower planning in its undertakings.

In 1962, the Government of India established the Institute of Applied Manpower Research at New Delhi, which has since been actively involved in the researches into manpower needs, projections in various sectors of business, public undertakings and public services. From time to time it has also been organising training and developmental courses for the public and private sector managerial personnel to fill in the various gaps in manpower requirements. In the Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-79), and other succeeding Fifth (1975-80) and Sixth (1980-85), attention has invariably been focused on augmenting the

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supply of trained manpower, more particularly in the managerial and technical fields. The Seventh Five Plan (1985-90), likewise laid special stress on professionalisation and specialisation in industry and business, and envisaged the development of skills and abilities which could successfully meet the new technological developments and also new working methods and managerial techniques. The plan has also dealt with at length on some other aspects of manpower planning, e.g. the subject of compensation on merit, actual performance, recognition of individual dignity and self-respect and well planned career development programming, quality of work life and work ethics.7

The Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) has put its major focus on human development. It is towards this ultimate goal that employment generation, population control, literacy, education, health, drinking water and provision of adequate food and infrastructures are listed as its priorities. Provisions of the basic elements which help development of human capital will remain primary responsibility of government. The VIIIth plan lays emphasis on Human Resource Development against the physical and the financial resources. A New Education Policy formulated in 1986 and modified in 1992 anticipates the challenges and the requirements of the 21st century. It conceives HRD as a package of many activities such as nutrition, health, culture and education, even labour agriculture, and food. From conception to the graduation is the range of HRD. Even after graduation the government shall concern itself with continuing education and life of dignity for all men and women in the country.

Table 1 on next page gives plan-wise expenditure on the different components of HRD. As the table reveals, throughout the planning period, expenditure on all the components of the HRD has been between 11-14 per cent of the total plan outlay, which has, however, been woefully inadequate. It is only in recent times that the Government has been somewhat serious in evolving an integrated strategy for human development, but still the budget outlays fall short of the requirements of the nation.

87 TABLE 1 Plan Expenditure (Actual) by Heads of Human Development Programme Heads of Development 1st Plan (1951-56) 2nd Plan (1956-61) 3rd Plan (1961-66) Annual Plan (1966-69) 4th Plan (1969-74) 5th Plan (1974-79) 6th Plan (1980-85) 7th Plan (1985-90) 8th Plan (1992-97)

Expenditure % of total Expenditure. % of total Expenditure % of total Expenditure %o) total Expenditure % of total Expenditure % of total Expenditure % of total Expenditure Expenditure

Education 588.7 6.0 306.8 4.6 774.3 4.9 1284.3 3.3 2523.7 2.6 6382.65 21217.01

Scientific Research 149.0 7.6 273.0 5.9 71.6 0.8 47.1 0.7 180.8 0.8 445.3* 1.1 865.2* 0.9 N./A 8090.00

Health 225.9 2.6 140.2 2.1 335.5 2.1 681.7 1.7 1821.0 1.9 3392.89 9275.92

Family Planning 98.0 5.0 228.0 4.8 24.9 0.3 70.4 1.1 278.0 1.8 497.4 1.3 1010.0 1.0 3256.26 6500.00

Water Supply and Sanitation 105.7 1.2 102.7 1.5 458.9 2.9 930.2 2.4 3922.0 4.0 6522.47 16711.03

Housing, Urban and Regional Development 33.0 1.7 85.0 1.8 127.6 1.5 73.7 1.1 270.2 1.7 1106.9 2.8 2488.4 2.6 4259.50 13533.45

Total (All Heads of Development) 1960.0 100.0 4672.0 100.0 3576.5 100.0 6625.4 1 100.0 15778.0 100.0 39303.2 100.0 97500.0 100.0 N/A N/A

* Relates to Science and Technology.

** Excludes expenditure on nutrition (Rs. 3.7 crores).

+ One crore equals to 10 million.

Sources: Seventh and Eighth Five Year Plans, Government of India, Planning Commission, New Delhi. (1985-90) and (1992-97) respectively. Adapted from Duleep Singh, "Productivity Scenario in India—Seventh Five Year Plan and Human Resource Development" in Uddesh Kohli and Vinayshil Gautam

(eds.), Human Resource Development and the Planning Process in India (New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1988), p. 21. Planning Commission.

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Education Policy and HRD

It is obvious that the most important index of a nation's efforts towards HRD is the varying emphasis of the Government on the elementary, higher scientific, technical and general education as revealed through its education policy. Since Independence, education policies in India have been changing in view of the different kinds of skills and manpower required from time to time. While in the decades of 1950s and 1960s, the emphasis was on promoting scientific and engineering education, in the decades of 1970s emphasis shifted on developing professional and managerial skills and talents. It is only in the new education policy of 1986, that a more integrated and comprehensive view of human development has been taken and serious efforts made to plan human resource development.

National Policy on Education, 1986

The National Policy on Education, 1986 as modified in 1992 lays emphasis on :

(i) Reorganisation of education by initiating restructuring and strengthening programmes in the areas of early childhood care and education, elementary education, higher education and technical and management education,

(ii) Strengthening the links between education and development through mechanisms like vocationalisation, work experience, rural universities, delinking degree from jobs, use of media and technology, networking of institution and strengthening research and development efforts;

(iii) Making planning and management of education more participative, functional, responsive to local needs efficient and effective through the involvement of grassroots level local bodies in planning and management and use of education, involvement of voluntary agencies, District Boards of Education, State Boards of Education; (iv) Strengthening and reorganising adult education

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programmes linked with national goals with emphasis on skill development and upgrading.

(v) Sharpening awareness of art and culture and inculcating abiding values; and

(vi) Provision of nation-wide infrastructure for physical education, sports and games which will form an integral part of the learning process.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development has prepared a detailed Programme of Action. The following important areas provide the major inter-faces between education and other related areas:

(i) Accelerated development of women and children constitute an important component of the country's human resource development policy. This calls for integration of inputs in relation to education, health and nutrition to promote the holistic development of the child and it is necessary that programmes for primary school children, pre-primary education and child care should be suitably integrated with the broad educational programme.

(ii) Considering that adult education programmes can make a meaningful contribution to socio-economic development, emphasis will be attached to strengthening the existing programmes, which will be linked to national goals such as promotion of Women's equality, conservation of the environment and national integration. Achievement of significant strides in female literacy will be an over-riding priority since this can make an impact on the adoption of the small family norm, and better standards of health and child development.

(iii) The National Policy places emphasis on introduction of systematic planned and rigorously implemented programmes of vocational education to enhance individual employability, reduce the miss-match between demand and supply of skilled manpower and provide an alternative for those pursuing higher education without particular

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interest or purpose. This would require vocational courses to be tailored to the needs of the employers, industry and the requirement of skilled manpower in different sectors including agriculture, marketing and services sector. Training of appropriate categories of paramedical and health man-power should

also optimally interlock with educational programmes through health-related vocational courses like nursing and pharmacy. Effective linkages are to be established between vocational, technical, education and general education programmes for effective curricular adjustment, implementing continuing education programmes, availing facilities of other sector and provision of support services. Specific mechanisms to provide such linkages will be formulated by the AICTE in consultation with parallel bodies/agencies.

(iv) The increased application of education technology in the spread of useful information, the training and retraining of teachers, to improve the quality of education, sharpen awareness of art and culture, inculcate abiding values, etc. both in the formal and non-formal sectors, would call for close coordination with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting with a view to developing a coordinated multimedia approach.

Several problems confront the successful implementation of the programme. Inter-ministerial channels of communication and exchange of information are still to be established. At present such interdepartmental linkages are very weak. In view of the fact that most of the development thrusts take off from the Central and the State Governmental Departments, forging of links has to effectively result in convergence of the basic services including education—to ensure that benefits under the respective schemes reach the clientele groups and mechanism for strengthening their effective delivery. The nature of linkages may take different forms under varying conditions. The setting up of such coordinating agencies at the central and state levels would facilitate the decision-making process as well as the

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process of implementation.

Realising the importance of Human Resources Development, allocations for education have been increased in the Seventh Five Year Plan particularly effective from 1987-88 onwards. The allocations under education, health and social welfare in the State sector have also substantially exceeded the Seventh Plan outlay in nominal terms. Nevertheless considering the magnitude of the problems it is evident that financial allocation from government budgets will not be adequate. The Eighth Plan working group on resources of education has estimated Rs. 45,000 crore for education in 8th Plan, but ultimately only Rs. 21.217 corers were available.8

Despite all these steps taken by the Government of India in relation to HRD there is still no national policy on HRD as distinguished from a general education, health or nutrition policy. Such a policy must take into account the needs of personnel of various skills and fulfil the basic regional, cultural and constitutional commitments.9

Population Growth, Unemployment and HRD

An important element of HRD is the demographic aspect. Unchecked population growth is a formidable obstacle to the process of economic growth. This leads to the diversion of limited resources of a nation from the production to the consumption channels leaving a depleting resources base for future economic development. According to the latest census (1991), the population of India was 844 million. The rate of growth of population during the last few years was though lower than in the 1970s and early 1980s, but amounts to an addition of around 18 million people to the nation's population every year. As the population grows, an accelerated expansion of employment opportunities becomes necessary "both for poverty alleviation and effective utilisation of human resources for the economic and social development of the country."10

Although employment has grown at the rate of 2.2 percent per annum in the past two decades in India, but due to a faster increase of labour force at about 2.5 per cent, the backlog of unemployment has been rising. A declining trend in employment elasticity with respect to GDP growth in recent year has made the task of accelerating the growth of

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employment more difficult. Assessment of the present backlog of unemployment and likely additions to the labour force suggest that the fulfilment of this goal would require the generation of additional 10 million opportunities per year on an average, or about a 3 percent average growth of employment. The 5.6 per cent growth rate envisaged in the Eighth Plan would be inadequate to contain the mounting incidence of unemployment and under-employment in the country during the plan period (1992-97). In addition to the generation of new enduring employment opportunities, it has to be ensured that those under-employed and employed at very low levels of earning are also able to raise their productivity and income levels. Upgradation of technologies in the traditional and unorganised sector and improved access to credit and markets is at present the top priorities in the present Government's policy of economic liberalisation. The effect of these policies would be felt only after a few years.

In addition to the backlog of unemployed, the problems of education unemployed has assumed alarming proportion in the urban areas of India. The rapid development of education which has been

mostly lopsided emphasising more on arts rather than on technical subjects, the inadequacy of new employment opportunities and the lack of sufficient diversification of the national economy have all contributed to the swelling number of educated unemployed.11 It is in this context, that as a move towards HRD the Eighth Plan not only makes vigorous efforts to contain the population growth, but also to an efficient and effective utilisation of the existing idle and under-utilised capacity particularly in the manufacturing industries.

III. HRD INFRASTRUCTURE IN INDIAN ADMINISTRATION

The HRD philosophy provides for a personnel management system that ensures a developmental, systematic and balanced treatment of employee concerns. Governments are, therefore, confronted today with competing HRD issues, namely:

(1) avoiding conflict and the searching for balance

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between merit and political partronage in public service employment;

(2) increasing size of the bureaucracy;

(3) sustaining personnel motivation and moral to ensure positive work behaviour and high levels of performance; and

(4) continuing training and development of civil servants to equip them with the necessary knowledge, attitudes and skills to meet the present and future challenges of public service.12

Apart from the Ministry of Human Resource Development which came into existence in 1985 with five main departments, namely, the Department of Education, Culture, Arts, Women and Child Development, Youth and Sports, largely responsible for broader aspects of education policies, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (MPPP) is responsible for formulation of policy pertaining to the management of human resources of the Government of India. Implementation of different aspects of the policy relating to personnel management including administrative vigilance,

reservation in the service and posts for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other specified categories, pension administration, administrative reforms and public grievance redress are also coordinated by it.13

Role and Functions of the MPPP

The important role and functions of the MPPP are as follows:

(i) General question relating to recruitment, promotion and moral of the Central Civil Services.

(ii) Deputation of officers/experts to other countries and United Nations and its allied agencies.

(iii) Re-deployment of staff rendered surplus in Central Government Officers.

(iv) Formation and coordination of training policies for the All India Services and Central Services.

(v) Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration and Institute of Secretariat Training

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and Management.

(vi) All policy matters relating to vigilance and discipline among public servants.

(vii) Central Bureau of Investigation.

(viii) Central Vigilance Commission.

(ix) Administration of all service rules including Fundamental Rules (FRs), Supplementary Rules (SRs) and Civil Service Regulations (CSRs).

(x) Grants to the Indian Institute of Public Administration.

(xi) All aspects of Senior Management and career development for Middle Management.

(xii) Government-employee relations, including staff grievances and welfare.

(xiii) Union Public Service Commission.

(xiv) Staff Selection Commission.

(xv) Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB).

(xvi) Organisation and methods.

(xvii) Policy and coordination of issues relating to Redressal of Public Grievances.

(xviii) Administrative Reforms.

(xix) Formulation of policy and coordination of matters relating to retirement benefits to Central Government employees.

(xx) Pension structure and relief to pensioners.14

Organisational Structure

The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions consists of three separate Departments, namely, the Department of Personnel and Training, the Department of Pension and Pensioner's Welfare. It is under the overall charge of the Prime Minister assisted by a Minister of State. The three Departments function under the Secretary (Personnel), who is assisted by three Additional Secretaries, five Joint Secertaries and other supporting staff.15

IV. HRD THROUGH PUBLIC SERVICE TRAINING IN INDIA

Training plays a very important role in the development of the government's human resources and hence to the

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achievement of its aims and objectives. To achieve the purpose of HRD, training needs to be effectively managed so that the right training is given to the right people in the right form at the right time and at the right costs.16

In comparison to most of the developing countries, training for public services in India has been a long established practice dating back to 18th century during the times of East India Company. Even before independence, there was an effort on the part of the imperial government of Britain to provide a modicum of immediate post-entry training to its higher civil servant. However, it was only after independence in order to meet the requirement of new government, that training became an integral part of the personal policies of the government. Almost all the reports of Administrative reforms—from Gorwala Report (1953) to the reports of Administrative reforms Commission (1966-72), and those in the post-ARC era have invariably emphasised the need for systematic and coherent training and career-development of public services for effective HRD. As a result of these attempts, there has been a proliferation in the number of training institutions and the number of officials receiving training in various technical and generalised aspects of public administration. The availability of foreign assistance and collaborative arrangements with academic institutions in the USA, Britain, France, Canada, Japan, West Germany, USSR and many other countries under various international development programmes and bilateral arrangements have been responsible for significant expansion in the infrastructure for public administration management training programmes in the country.

The growing network of training in India includes some newer type of institutions and mode of training. There are now a large number of institutions dealing with research, education and training in public

administration and national level Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) for Indian research and in-service training in public administration. The Administrative Staff College of India at Hyderabad provides the necessary inter-sectoral interaction. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration at Maussoorie imparts training to the new entrants in all central services of the government. Almost all different central services of the government also have their own

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training establishments, e.g., police, income-tax, railways, forests, telecommunication, foreign trade, etc. A majority of state governments have established state training institutes in their respective states for providing post-entry and in-service training to their employees.

Besides, many University Department of Public Administration have established programmes of pre-entry and short-term training courses which cater to the generalised and specific needs of public services in different government departments. During 1960s and 1970s, a number of rural development training institutions have come into being providing much needed training in rural development. The two national institutions at Hyderabad and Vallabh Vidyanagar are doing some pioneering work in training for management of rural development. In addition, during the last three decades, management institutions on the pattern of Indian Institute of Managemant, Ahmedabad, have come into being in some of the states, and Departments of Business Management have been established in almost all the Universities in India.17

Many banking institutions and public sector undertakings have organised their own training centre to cope up with new and changing needs and project-related training of their employees. Some of these institutions have experimented with newer and more relevant modes of training using action-learning mode in the context of field programmes, making training more relevant to practitioners, particularly in those development programmes, which are basically people-oriented.

The contents of training programmers have undergone substantial changes. While in the 1950s, the initial training programmes concentrated exclusively on traditional public administration subject, such as public personnel administration, organisation and methods (O&M), government accounting and auditing, principles of organisation and so on, the new training programmes besides these topics, also include policy analysis, organisational development, industrial relations, attitudinal and behavioural changes, and information system. Emphasis is also placed on management training for specific programmes and institutions, like rural development, health care, family planning, educational institutions, etc.18

The Department of Personnel and Training, in the

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Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India with its training division has been the nodal agency in India for coordinating the various activities in respect of HRD. Besides, there are the constitutional bodies like the Union Public Service Commission, the State Public Service Commissions, and the Subordinate Services Selection Boards, which are vested with the functions of recruitment and promotion of public services at different levels and are also involved in framing the civil service regulation and giving advice in disciplinary matters relating to employees of the government. In addition, there are more than 100 training institutions in the country which carry on various aspects of training activities of all levels of public service, and thus contribute to the process of HRD. Although training institutions in India have focused only in a limited way on the training courses entirely on HRD, they have been conducting a variety of training programmes for developing different types of skills for personnel both at the centre and the state level.

The most important and key institution for training of public services in the country is the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration situated at Mussoorie in the State of Uttranchal. It is the premier body that is responsible for conducting foundational courses for the top echelons of public services, who are recruited on the basis of generalist concept of administrators. Some of the important programmes conducted by the Academy are as follows:

1. Foundation Course—A 16 week programme for fresh recruits to All India and Central Services, Group 'A'.

2. IAS (Indian Administrative Service) Professional Course (Phase-I)—24 weeks programme for direct recruits.

3. IAS (Professional Course) (Phase-II)—10 weeks programme for fresh recruits to IAS on completion of their one year district training.

4. Training Programme for IAS Officers (promoted or on the select list)—4 weeks.

5. Management Development Course—-for 4 weeks for IAS and All India and Central Services Group 'A'

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Officers with 6 to 10 years of service. 6. Joint Secretaries' Course on Policy Analysis and Formulation—4 weeks programmes.

The above courses primarily aim at preparing the IAS and All India and Central Services 'A' Group officers of the Central and State governments for various duties and responsibilities in the field of administration. There are 35 Central Training Institutions catering to the needs of the Central Government, 16 State Training Institutions engaged in HRD programmes for state government administrators of district and state level, 24 national training institutions, and 15 other training institutions which organise various HRD programme for state and district level functionaries.19

Another premier institution involved in HRD is the Indian Institute of Public Administration in New Delhi, which conducts a number of management development programmes, management orientation programmes, advanced professional programmes in public administration and other specialised course on various aspects of public administration.

The role of the Training Division of the Government of India, which is the main coordinating agency for continuous liaison and exchange of information between the training institutions, on the one hand, and the training coordinator of Central Ministries and State Governments on other hand has been:

(i) to promote coordinate and facilitate training;

(ii) to formulate policies, regulations and procedures on training and oversee their implementation; and

(iii) to advise Ministries and Departments on determination of training needs, instructional techniques, and evaluation of training programmes.20

Since 1970s, the Government of India has given high priority to training of its personnel as a move towards developing human resources. The Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms and Bureau of Public Enterprises have been coordinating training for Government Officials and to

99 TABLE 2 Expenditure on Training (in Million Rupee) 1993-94 1993-94 1994-95

Budget Estimated Revised Budget Provision

Plan Non-Plan Total Plan Non-Plan Total Plan Non-Plan Total

75.2 59.6 134.8 66.1 59.6 125.7 68.0 62.8 130.8

Source: Government of India, Budget Documents, 1994-95.

some extent for public enterprise managers at top level. The Indian Institute of Public Administration, The Indian Institute of Applied Manpower Research, Central Labour Institute, National Labour Institute, Public Enterprises Centre for Countinuing Education have now emerged as the most sought after institutions for training of Government and public enterprise personnel as an outcome of Government priority on training and development. Voluntary professional association like Institution of Industrial Engineers, Computer Society of India, Indian Society of Training and Development, Indian Association of Personnel Managers, etc. have further added towards refinement of the training function. At the same time there has been an emergence of a vast amount of training literature in the form of books, journals and research reports. In the last 15 years, the Training Division of the Government of India has developed close links between universities and academics and various Central/State Government agencies leading to a number of highly useful HRD programmes of pre-entry training, in-service training, management development and many other educational programmes for public administrators at various levels. The concept of in-service training to administrators has been a massive and gigantic task in India not only in volume and quality, but also in quantitative terms.21 The allocation for training in public administration in India during the years 1993-95 has been as follows (see Table 2 above) which to say the least is not very encouraging for meeting the needs of an integrated HRD policy.

Although the recent efforts of the Government of India

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towards training of public servant did create a training culture, but this has not been able to change the 'work-culture' for the so-called responsive administrative structure of the government nor has been be

able to bring out any attitudinal changes in the behaviour of the bureaucracy in India. As emphasised by a veteran trainer in the Government of India, the government must ensure that its largest single asset—its human resource— civil servants should not become a liability. As an effective political master, the government's strength will be in utilising the skill and knowledge of its vast public servants and not making them redundant. There is an urgent need to have a fresh look at the past and present training efforts of the government to meet its policies of socio-economic and industrial development. Public servants are expected to acquire professional learning. As a first step in this direction, there is a need to move from the existing "training culture" to "learning culture."22 Mental attitudes of public services rooted in the colonial past need to be substantially changed for effective human resource development in the changed context of planning for soico-economic growth.

Training and Individual Development

Apart from harnessing the potentialities of persons from different sections of the society for public employment, the concept of HRD extends to development of individuals from pre-recruitment education and training programmes right upto the post-recruitment education and counselling programmes. As Nadler depicts in the following Table 3, while training and education can be evaluated, development of individual cannot be properly evaluated as it is a long-range investment.

The Department of Personnel and Training has been instrumental in identifying functional areas of training as well as designing for individual and career development of officers involved in the priority development sectors. It has also been making concerted efforts for ensuring result-oriented training. It has made substantial headway in the development of trained manpower and training capabilities, provision of assistance for the upgradation of the training potential of the state and Central Training Institutions, implementation of career-based training plans for the Indian Administrative Service and

101 TABLE 3 Concept of Human Resource Development Activity Focus Economic classification Evaluation Risk Level

Training Present job held by the individual Expenses On the job Low

Education Future job which individual is being prepared Investment (short range) On future job Middle

Development Future organizational activities Investment (Long run) Almost impossible High

Source: Leonard Nadler, Development Human Resources, (Austin Texas, Concepts, 1997), p. 3. Quoted by Mathur, n. 19, p. 239.

creation of a greater awareness, at all levels of administration of the need for pursuing training programmes.

The tasks undertaken by the Department during the last few years include the designing and conduct of special training programmes, as well as development of training software. Certain special training programmes for individual development have also been introduced during the last two years in tune with the changing requirements of development administration and the emerging challenges posed by the liberalised industrial and trade policies.23 Some of these attempts of the Government toward developing specific telents are described as under.

Training in India and HRD: An Assessment

There is no doubt that training of public services in India has been a growing industry at least since Independence. However, despite this boom, only a small number of public servants have been able to benefit by the training policies and arrangements both in the government as well as public sector. According to one estimate, only one senior civil servant in five is likely to have some in-service training during his entire career. Also, such training has been heavily concentrated on pre-entry and post-entry courses for administrative elites to the neglect of in-service training and the training needs of lower

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level staff.24 It is a well known fact that training has been frequently done for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. People are sent on courses to get them out of the way or to find a temporary placement for those awaiting transfers or postings. Sometimes it has been given as a reward (especially long term courses in foreign countries) for one's service in a particular department, but without any pre-planning as to how the training given is proposed to be utilised after the trainee's return from the course. Bureaucratic politics and patronage play a more important role. Such arrangements have little to do with the nature of training or making people more effective at their jobs. Even where the reasons for selection of personnel have been appropriate, training have been mostly inappropriate. Despite numerously pronouncements at regular intervals that training programmes must be related to a process of systematic career development, the training agencies either at the levels of the central government or state governments have not been able to achieve this coordination.

Furthermore, those who are responsible for providing leadership to training activities have often treated their function as a discrete even rather than an overall programme of organisational improvement or

relating it to actual work environments. A rigorous evaluation of training programmes in the context of organisational and environmental framework has been lacking in most of the training efforts. Coupled with that has been the absence of systematic monitoring and follow up of the effects of training on one's career development or performance on the job. If the purpose of training is to help make an organisation more effective, the total administrative system must be made conducive to human resource development and must regard training as integral part of the whole process. A piecemeal approach to training would only lead to massive waste of resources and a lack of coordination in their use, creating an atmosphere of frustration and cynicism. The need of the hour is to explore ways to make it a more effective instrument in improving the standard of administrative performance.

A comprehensive and coherent training policy must become an integral part of the government's personnel function and must be so implemented. Various types and categories of

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training should be properly related to each of the personnel functions—recruitment, placement, reassignment, promotion, transfer, requirements of new specialised skills—and ultimately to a comprehensive programme of human resource development. Evolution of a policy alone is not enough, it must be implemented. A commitment on the part of both political and bureaucratic leadership is an important requirement of its successful implementation.

Another step in the strategy for making training effective for HRD is to strengthen a programme of research and development for training. The central nodal agency responsible for training in the government set-up can play a key role in this direction by coordinating the assessment of training needs by different agencies and using their evaluation reports in different training activities for evolving new curricula and methodologies to improve training effectiveness for HRD. Above all, such an agency through frequent conferences, meetings and seminars and collaborative research projects should establish a continuous dialogue between the Universities and training institutions to provide a much needed linkage between 'education' and 'training' for developmental goals. At present, the training policies in India do not adequately take into account the complementary role which the Universities can play in imparting education for development administrators. Part of this problem arises from the persistence of the 'generalist' philosophy, which still dominates public recruitment in India. There is certainly a case for education to be intimately associated with the expanding research and training efforts of the various training institutions. While education provides conceptual and methodological insight and empirical data the training institutions focus on the practical administrative needs of development in the country. Education must be seen as a part of the larger effort to improve administrative capability for national and human resource development.

V. WOMEN AS HUMAN RESOURCE

Women in India have not been traditionally considered as vital element of human resource. Consciousness and awareness

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about women as a productive agent and the need for developing the potentialities of one-half of the human resource in India was not reflected in the governmental policies of development till late seventies. And this, despite the fact that the Constitution of India guarantees equal rights and opportunities for both men and women not only in public employment but also in all walks of life. The recognition of the productive capacities of women came as a result of a distinct shift on the issue of women came as a result of a distinct shift on the issue of women's status and their role in development after the release of the Report of the National Committee on the Status of Women Towards Equality,25 which came at the start of the United Nations Women's Development Decade in 1970s.26 The report expressed great concern over the declining sex ratio and work force participation of women, their displacement from work and concentration in subsistence agriculture, their lower life expectancy than males and higher mortality rates. It pointed at their occupational and educational lag and noted the discrimination and exploitation faced by women in paid and unpaid work. It commented upon their extremely poor participation in societal decision-making and leading roles, whether as policy-makers, politicians, planners, executives as administrators or as top professionals. "Women were really found to be at the bottom of the heap, a residual sex, deprived of the basic needs of health, nutrition education, employment, in sum of a dignified human existence."27 A number of remedial measures in the form of reformed legislations like equal pay for equal work, anti-dowry acts, protection against rape and sexual harassment along with the setting up of a Department for Women's Affairs, family courts and legal aid cells, special policies and programmes, of women's development through education and training, organised national efforts for care of the mother and the child were taken during the UN women development decade. The Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) for the first time included a Section on Women and Development which continued during the VIIth Five Year Plan (1985-90) and also in the VIIIth Five Year Plan (1992-97) as well.28 The National Policy on Education (NPE) (1986) coming from a newly organised Ministry of Human Resource Development has put the issue of equality between sexes on the centre stage

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in defining its strategies of human resource development. The new education policy is perhaps the most revolutionary statement of the times on the role of education as an agent of basic change in the status of women. The policy makes a redical departure from the National Policy on Education (1968) in making

the national system of education responsible for bringing about 'women's equality' and not first equality of educational opportunity.29

The NPE (1986) believes that education should play 'a positive interventionalist role' in the empowerment of women and this should be an act of faith and 'social engineering'. The strategies proposed range from 'a well conceived edge' in favour of women in order to neutralize the accumulated distortions of the past to fostering of new values through redesigning of curricula and textbooks, orienting and training all educational personnel; seeking active involvement of all educational institutions in promoting women's studies and active programmes of women's development. Women's participation in vocational technical and professional education is to receive emphasis with a view to removing the sex-stereotyping in these courses and for promoting their participation in non-traditional occupations as well as the existing and emerging technologies. Above all, more to be inducted in the planning and management of education at all levels.

Women's Development Corporation

During the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90) a scheme for setting up of Women's Development Corporations (WDCs) in all states and Union Territories was launched. Until 1992, the WDCs were set up in the States of Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The State Government of Haryana, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa are taking steps to set up WDCs. The centre provides funds through equity participation in the ratio of 19:51 (Centre-State), so that state governments have an incentive to set up such corporations. These corporations are envisaged to act as catalytic agents for developing economic activities among the women.30

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In addition the Government of India has also set up in January 1992 a National Commission for Women to monitor the matters relating to the constitutional and legal safeguards provided for women: monitor the implementation of all legislations made to protect the rights of women, review the existing legislations concerning women and suggest amendments wherever necessary and look into complaints and take suo-moto notice of cases involving the deprivation of the rights of women. The Government also proposes to establish the office of the Commissioner for Women's Rights, which will provide dynamic focal points for reviewing the progress of cases of atrocities against women at various levels and liasing with Special Cells for Women at the Central and State Level and with NGOs, lawyers and media for propagation of legal literacy and assisting for counselling and legal aid when required.31

Women Employment in Organised Sector

According to a report in 1992, the position of women at work with the organised sector was as follows:

Government : 13.5%

Public Sector : 18.0%

Private Sector : 11.5%

The Table 4 on the next page gives an account of the employment of women in the organised sector in India for State/Union Territories and Public and Private Sectors as on 31 Decempber, 1986.

The above figures show that despite the vigorous efforts of the government to develop woman as human resource, a large chunk of women workforce still remains in the unorganised sector leading to all kinds of exploitation, discriminations and drudgery of work. According to the 1991 census, the work participation ratio between men and women was as under (See Table 5).32

As was noted above one of the main objectives of the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90) was to integrate women in all development sectors as equal participants and beneficiaries with men, so that they could take a fair share in the development process and realise their full potential as citizens.

107 108 TABLE 4 Women Employment in the Organised Sector by States/UTs. and Public and Private Sectors as on 31st December (Percentages) State/UT Per Cent Share of Women Employment to Total Employment Percentage in 1986 over 1976

Public Private Total (Public end Private) Public Private Total

1976 1986 1976 1986 1976 1986

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

State

1. Andhra Pradesh 8.14 10.01 20.20 21.06 10.66 12.39 69.34 45.40 50.72

2. Assam 6.35 10.36 44.18 43.71 29.97 28.01 151.93 3.25 15.08

3. Bihar 7.63 6.81 6.52 6.41 7.41 6.74 {-)1.74 (-)9.74 (-)3.15

4. Gujarat 12.02 13.63 8.02 9.25 10.27 11.73 51.71 52.30 51.91

5. Haryana 9.33 12.50 6.13 7.50 8.08 10.82 100.00 44.00 83.38

6. Himachal Pradesh 7.10 9.61 13.64 12.33 7.42 9.86 60.53 80.00 62.87

7. Jammu & Kashmir 8.76 8.99 11.43 15.63 8.90 9.32 40.71 87.50 43.80

8. Karnataka 9.97 13.55 16.65 16.39 12.07 14.37 86.61 19.20 57.38

9. Kerala 25.50 27.74 43.16 44.33 34.77 35.60 43.24 10.15 21.68

10. Madhya Pradesh 8.03 9.37 11.32 10.43 8.59 9.52 52.97 (-)4.31 40.29

11. Maharashtra 10.57 12.45 9.39 11.82 10.08 12.21 48.08 41.09 45.41

12. Manipur NA 12.85 NA 25.00 NA 12.74 - - -

13. Meghalaya 11.79 15.85 30.00 36.96 13.49 17.51 89.13 41.67 79.31

14. Nagaland - 13.03 - 28.57 - 13.54 - - -

15. Orissa 4.73 6.59 14.48 11.30 6.49 7.25 108.56 (-) 11.90 50.74

16. Punjab 13.85 14.04 8.03 9.75 12.30 12.90 35.47 61.36 40.06

17. Rajasthan 6.80 9.02 16.83 19.62 8.56 11.04 83.42 79.25 81.98

18. Tamil Nadu 11.77 18.24 21.31 23.92 15.21 20.05 112.55 28.33 69.97

19. Tripura 9.57 14.68 35.00 39.36 12.50 17.31 163.64 76.19 135.38

20. Uttar Pradesh 6.11 6.73 7.10 8.15 6.37 7.02 45.11 9.77 34.75

21. West Bengal 5.40 6.59 13.42 14.96 8.92 9.67 39.23 (-)5.18 9.98

UTs

22. Andaman and Nicobar - 12.09 - Negligible - 10.85 - - -

23. Chandigarh 10.28 12.98 12.50 15.03 10.83 13.60 81.05 53.33 75.00

24. Delhi 9.27 11.62 10.00 11.54 9.48 11.59 63.91 41.07 56.88

25. Goa, Daman and Diu 16.39 19.80 17.78 17.99 16.55 19.20 96.61 62.50 24.62

26. Mizoram 15.48 20.68 - 30.00 15.38 21.30 175.00 - 195.00

27. Pondicherry 15.50 15.23 10.00 10.23 12.97 14.32 93.55 47.06 43.75

Total 9.09 11.14 16.49 17.79 11.55 13.09 60.74 17.89 -0.39

Notes: 1. Includes all establishments in the public sector irrespective of size of employment and those non-agricultural establishments in the private sector employing 10 or more persons.

2. NA— Data not received.

3. Figures for 1986 are quick estimates.

Sources: Employment Review, D.G.E. & X Government of India.

M.S. Ramanajum, Renu Gupta and R.P. Mamgain, "Employment of Women" in Manpower journal, Vol. 26 (July-September 1990), pp. 63-64.

109 TABLE 5 Work Participation 1991 Census, Percentage-wise Population Males Females Rural Urban

Males Females Total Males Females Total

37.64 51.52 27.69 52.43 +27.06 40.13 48.96 9.73 30.45

Work Participation Rate 1971-91, Percentage-wise

Year Total/Rural/Urban Persons Males Females

1971 Total 34.17 52.75 14.22

Rural 35.33 53.78 15.92

Urban 29.61 48.88 7.18

1981 Total 36.70 52.62 19.67

Rural 38.79 53.77 23.06

Urban 29.99 49.06 8.31

1991 Total 37.68 51.56 22.73

Rural 40.24 52.50 27.20

Urban 30.44 48.95 9.74

Note: Excludes Assam.

Main Workers

Males Females

Total 220.70 Million 1981 51.62% 14.07%

278.35 Million 1991 34.19% 16.48%

3.52% are marginal workers. (About 85% of the marginal workers are females). Source: Census of India 1991, pp. 9 and 11.

To achieve this objective, women are treated as separate target group in the planning process and in implementation of policies. Their share in the physical target is specified and monitored in development schemes of concerned ministries, so as to ensure that the required focus is achieved not only at the policy stage but also in implementation for the socio-economic development of women. In the Eighth Plan this aspect has been further emphasised.33

It will, therefore, be seen that there is still a vast scope of utilising the great potentialities of women as a human resource.

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Any new strategy for developing the immense inherent capabilities of women-power would require: (a) a clear identification of areas where women would be needed to serve both in urban and rural areas. Whether it be as educators, trainers, workers or guides, one would have to take stock of the women-power needed at each level and the degree of education or training needed to perform that role, (b)

after taking stock of the number of women who could be usefully covered, the educational process would have to cater to meeting those needs by revamping the curriculum to make it need-based for rural and urban conditions, (c) instead of being merely the passport for a white-collar job, the objectives of general higher education and their relevance to the people being higher educated are to be redefined, especially in relation to women, (d) recruitment policies need to be given a special orientation so that there are more women educators in administrative positions, and (e) auxiliary and sometimes compensatory strategies would be needed to aid the increased employment of women in job commensurate with their skills and aptitudes. Special programmes for women with grown-up or school-going children (age group 30-50) need to be devised to enable them to enter or re-enter the labour force.34

VI. HARNESSING THE POTENTIALITIES OF THE WEAKER SECTION SOCIETY

A unique feature of the Indian constitutional system is the provision for according positive discrimination to the persons belonging to the weaker sections of the community and to harness them as a work force for public employment. In pursuance of the Constitutional provisions contained in Articles 16(d) and 35, various instructions have been issued by the Government from time to time providing for reservation in public services for the members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). As a result of the implementation of reservation policy there has been considerable increase in the representation of SCs and STs in terms of absolute numbers and in percentage of the total number of employees in all the Groups of Central Government as may be seen from the Table 6 on next page.35

111 TABLE 6 Growth of Representation of SC and ST in Services Over Two Decades from 1971 to 1991 Category Group A Group B Group C Group D Excluding Sweepers Total

As on 1-1-1971

Total 28679 44204 1420622 1204443 2697848

SC 741 1794 136259 221248 360042

% 2.58 4.06 9.59 18.37 13.35

ST 117 192 23792 43916 68017

% 0.41 0.43 1.7 3.65 2.52

As on 1-1-1991

Total 62560 102532 2402089 1167836 3735017

SC 5689 12115 376015 248101 641920

% 9.09 11.82 15.65 21.24 17.19

ST 1534 2414 119666 79589 203253

% 2.53 2.35 4.98 6.82 5.44

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1992-93, p. 120.

Reservation for the SCs/STs is made on the basis of the total number of vacancies occurring in each recruitment year. Reservation in promotions, not given effect to in a particular year, is carried forward to three subsequent recruitment years, except in the cases of promotion by selection from Group C to Group B, within Group B and from Group B to the lowest rung of Group A. After the third year, if suitable candidates of the required category are still not available, the vacancies reserved for SCs are filled up from STs and vice versa. In case of reserved vacancies filled-up by selection in the Groups mentioned above, the unutilised reservation quota is not carried forward and the exchange between SC and ST is permitted in the year of recruitment itself. Even after such an exchange, if an SC/ST candidate is not available, the reservation quotas concerned are treated as having lapsed. However, with effect from July, 1990 this dispensation has ceased to apply for those grades or posts in which there is some element of direct recruitment. As per

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orders issued on the 10th July, 1990, if eligible SC/ST candidates are not available in the feeder grades for filling up reserved vacancies in the grades mentioned above, that is, grades in which there is an element of direct recruitment, then such reserved vacancies are not to be dereserved but to be temporarily diverted to the direct recruitment channel as reserved vacancies. Subsequently when SC/ST candidates become available/eligible in the feeder grade for promotion against reserved vacancies, these vacancies are to be rediverted to the promotion quota in such a way that the structure and composition of the cadre remain unaffected over a period.

In the case of direct recruitment, there is a ban on dereservation since 1 March 1989. For reserved vacancies for which SC/ST candidates are not available a second attempt is required to be made for recruiting suitable SC/ST candidates in the same recruitment year or as early as possible before the next recruitment year. Even if in the two attempts the required number of SC/ST candidates are not available, unfilled vacancies are to be carried over to the next recruitment year. Dereservation in Group A services is permissible only in the exceptional cases with the approval of the Minister in charge of the

Ministry of Welfare and the Administrative Ministry concerned and after receiving the comments of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. If SC/ ST candidates get selected through the direct recruitment processes on the basis of their own merit, they are no longer adjusted against the vacancies reserved for SC/ST candidates.36

The number of vacancies reserved for SC/ST and the vacancies actually filled up by SC/ST candidates during 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989 in Groups A, B, C, and D are given in Table 7.

The main reason for the shortfall in the recruitment of SC/ST candidates in Group A and B posts in that SC/ST candidates are not available in required numbers for being appointed against the vacancies reserved for them, particularly in professional and technical posts. However, in the All India Services and other Central Services to which recruitment is made through the Civil Services Examination, almost all the reserved vacancies have been filled up by SC/ST candidates in the recent years as can be seen from the data given in Table 8.

113 TABLE 7 Vacancies Reserved and Vacancies Filled by SC and ST Group-wise Year Scheduled Castes Scheduled Tribes

Vacancies Reserved Vacancies Filled %age Vacancies Reserved Vacancies Filled %age

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Group A

1984 612 551 90.03 288 121 42.01

1985 551 473 85.84 307 172 56.03

1986 647 498 76.97 367 155 42.23

1987 560 594 106.07 247 224 90.69

1988 536 674 125.75 231 210 90.91

1989 472 437 92.58 188 313 16.49

Group B

1984 897 733 81.72 351 169 48.15

1985 809 771 95.30 388 191 49.23

1986 1031 835 80.99 410 202 49.27

1987 937 693 73.96 380 205 53.95

1988 1007 578 57.40 485 238 49.07

1989 847 707 83.47 462 269 58.23

Group C

1984 24442 25500 104.33 9864 10498 106.43

1985 23341 23923 102.49 11642 8529 73.26

1986 22941 24811 108.15 10378 9247 89.10

1987 22226 23200 104.38 14033 9983 71.14

1988 20090 21647 107.75 13700 9473 69.15

1989 29251 27976 95.64 15049 12920 85.85

Group D

1984 11013 12563 114.07 19951 4370 223.99

1985 9317 10627 114.00 4618 3954 85.62

1986 8500 10237 120.44 4367 3707 84.89

1987 9498 10382 109.31 6121 5323 86.94

1988 9011 9758 108.29 5876 5067 86.23

1989 9385 10464 111.50 5108 5827 114.06

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1992-93, p. 120.

114 TABLE 8 Vacancies Reserved and Filled in All India Services Year of Examination Vacancies Total Vacancies Filled For SCs Vacancies Total For STs Vacancies Filled For STs

Vacancies Total Vacancies Filled

I.A.S

1985 135 15 21 20 10 10

1986 125 125 19 19 10 10

1987 114 114 17 17 8 8

1988 109 109 16 16 9 8

1989 106 106 16. 16 8 8

1990 107 107 16 16 8 8

I.F.S.

1985 12 12 2 2 1 1

1986 12 12 2 2 1 1

1987 10 10 1 1 1 1

1988 10 10 1 1 1 1

1989 12 12 2 2 1 1

1990 15 15 3 3 1 1

I.P.S.

1985 115 103 17 13 9 8

1986 135 122 33 29 14 14

1987 102 67 17 10 7 5

1988 96 54 14 9 8 2

1989 100 100 16 16 7 7

1990 79 79 12 12 6 6

Source: Ibid., p. 123.

Various concessions like relaxation in the upper age limit, unlimited number of chances available within the relaxed age limit for appearing in the competitive examinations, full exemption from payment of the examination fee, relaxation in standards of suitability, non-adjustment of meritorious SC/ST candidates against reserved vacancies in direct recruitment, etc. have been prescribed to further improve the

representation of SC and ST in the services. In order to bring more grades within the ambit of the reservation dispensation for purposes of promotion, reservation has been extended to those grades in

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which the element of direct recruitment, if any, does not exceed 75% (as against 662/3% prevailing earlier).37

Reservation for Other Backward Classes

The Central Government had issued orders on 13 August, 1990 providing reservation in direct recruitment in all Groups of services to the extent of 27% of the total vacancies, for the socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC). On 25 September, 1991 orders were issued to the effect that within the 27% of the vacancies reserved for socially and educationally backward classes, preference shall be given to candidates belonging to the poorer sections of the SEBCs. It was also provided that 10% of the vacancies shall be reserved for other economically backward sections of the people who are not covered by any of the existing schemes of reservations. These orders could not, immediately be operated due to a stay order given by Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has since vacated the stay order and given the judgement upholding the reservation for SEBC upto 27%. The Government of India is now making attempts to fill up the necessary quotas.

Special Recruitment Drives for SC/ST

In the last few years, the Government of India has been carrying Special Recruitment Drives to fill up the backlog of existing reserved vacancies. The drive covered Ministries/ Departments, public sector undertakings, public sector banks and insurance corporations. The number of candidates who offered appointment in the Central Government under these drives during 1989-90 is given in the following Table 9.

Another drive was launched in the year 1991 to fill up the backlog of reserved vacancies as on 31 March, 1991, including the reserved vacancies left unfilled in the previous drives. The number of vacancies identified for the drive and the progress of recruitment in the Government Departments are mentioned in Table 10.

Reservation for Ex-Servicemen

Another section of the society which is being harnessed by the Government of India as a potential human resource is the group of persons both officers and soldiers who retire from the military service. Reservation in public services is made for this

116 TABLE 9 Results of Special Recruitment Drives for SC/ST in 1989 and 1990 1989 1990

Reservations Recruitment % Rectt. Reservations Recruitment % Rectt.

Govt. Deptts. 35647 31243 87.6 31928 19879 63

Public Sector 11000 3125 73.9 10461 6316 60.4

Banks 8822 8084 91.6 3142 2197 69.9

Insurance Corpns. 3085 3023 98 1028 1023 99.5

Total 58554 50475 86.2 46559 29415 63.2

Year 1989 Govt. Deptts. 18002 17326 96 17645 13927 79

Year 1990 Govt. Deptts. 16659 11044 66 15269 8826 58

Source: Ibid., p. 124.

category of persons. Initially reservation for ex-servicemen was provided for a period of two years from 1 July 1966. This has been extended from time to time and is in force on a permanent basis from 15 December 1979. 10% of the vacancies in Group C services and posts, and 20% of the vacancies in Group D services and posts, and 10% of the vacancies in posts of the level of Assistant Commandants in paramilitary forces are reserved for ex-servicemen subject to certain conditions. Ex-servicemen

TABLE 10 Special Recruitment Drive, 1991 (Ministries/Departments) S.C. S.T.

No. of Vacancies 9234 10807

Recruitment 5315 3847

Percentage of Recruitment 57.55% 35.59%

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Annual Report, 1992-93, p. 125.

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candidates who have already secured employment under the Central Government in Group C and D have been allowed the benefit of age relaxation as prescribed for Ex-serviceman for securing another employment in a higher grade or cadre in Group C and D under the Central Government. The DC (Resettlement), Ministry of Defence monitors the implementation of these orders in the Central Government agencies.

Reservation for Physically Handicapped Persons

Another category of persons brought into the purview of the HRD is the physically handicapped in the society. A provision for reservation of 3% in the vacancies in Group C and D posts/services in the Central Government services, meant to be filled by direct recruitment was introduced for the physically handicapped persons in November 1977. Handicapped persons who are benefited from this scheme are the blind, the deaf and the orthopaedically handicapped, each category being entitled to 1% reservation making up the total of 3% of those posts within Group C and D in the Central Government offices which have been identified as suitable for the physically handicapped and are filled by direct recruitment. Reservation in promotion within Group D and upto and within Group C has also been introduced with effect from November, 1989. The Eighth Plan has laid increased emphasis on the development of the physically handicapped and made some financial allocation for this purpose. The year 1994 was declared as the year of the physically handicapped and special efforts are being made for their recruitment in public employment

VII. HRD : THE PROBLEM AREAS

From the above discussions, it is evident that the main thrust of the Government of India in respect of its HRD programme have been on training of public services. In the process, other aspects of HRD like sound personnel policies, forecasting manpower requirements, manpower planning and projection, motivation and altitudinal changes, morale building and incentives policies, indentification of potential talents, career planning and aggressive requirement plans have

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received less attention on the part of the policy-makers. HRD as a concept needs an integrative approach to these mutually complementary issues. The traditional administration of personnel departments are no longer adequate to meet the challenges of manpower development for the future.

However, it is not always possible for any government, especially in the developing world to strike a balance in all these matters and to pay uniform attention to all these policy issues. There are some serious constraints operating on the government. As observed by Mathur, "the tasks of drawing up comprehensive HRD plans in the developing countries are beset with a number of paradoxical difficulties and problems. Firstly, because of the paucity of financial resources, developing countries can not afford comprehensive HRD. Secondly, HRD in administration is characterised by the longest of all production cycles. The education and training of a professional man requires 18-20 years of formal education and one year of intensive training followed by periodical in-service training. Thirdly, there are structural imbalances in labour market. Acute shortage of technical people in one hand and large surplus of unskilled grassroots level workers exist simultaneously in developing countries. Fourthly, training needs analysis of various levels of administrators which is a difficult task because of their multifarious duties. Fifthly, it is difficult to get dedicated and trained human resource administrators in developing countries. Sixthly, there is generally inadequate infrastructure for providing adequate in-service training and professional education to all civil servants who are engaged in administration at regular periodicity. Seventhly, there is a lack of adequate monitoring arrangements to get feedback of HRD programmes. The scientific evaluation of various HRD programmes, the benefits resulting from such programmes are difficult to measure. Career planning schemes, job enlargement and job-enrichment programmes and periodical in-service training, form important part of HRD programmes, but their total evaluation is very difficult in objective terms.38


From the above analysis it is clear that in India there is

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still inadequate realisation that HRD constitutes an integrative process covering several areas of education and training and overall personnel management system . As observed by Mathur, 'no human resources accounting has been consciously attempted in India. As a result this most valuable asset (viz. man/woman) is dwindling very fast indeed causing several drainage of energy, sapping the vitals of all developmental endeavour. A more holistic and balanced view of HRD concept has not yet been conceived and accepted by the so-called human resource administration.39

Although the New Education Policy (NEP) of 1986 as modified in 1992 conceives HRD as package of many activities such as nutrition, health, culture and education, even labour agriculture and food, but this package needs to be delivered to every child born in this country. The Indian Union consists of 25 States and 7 Union territories. The Ministry of HRD, is the apex institution, which is responsible for the implementation of the NEP and many state governments have also set up human resource departments. But both the Union and the State Governments have to have an integrated plan of action in respect of HRD in the interest of the child, women, youth and education.40

The HRD plans in India would have to be further integrated with personnel policies in the government departments especially with regard to training and development which revolves around the concept of total personal development. It consists of integrating pre-service, in-service, technical and behavioural training inculcating positive employee values and attitudes and professional and personal development. An important area of neglect by the government training programmes is the training of public services at the crossroads of their critical life, in mid-career, mid-life transition, and pre-retirement. These life points are significant to those concerned with training, because strengthening or diversifying of personal knowledge and skills, as well as inculcation of values and motivated behaviour can conserve human resources at the national and organisational levels. Retraining can pave the way for renewed contribution to goals attainment. Employees can remain productive even after retirement into private life, thereby conserving their human resource as

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citizens.41

Thus apart from adopting some new strategies for making training more effective at macro-level for HRD, it must be remembered that administration in developing societies calls for some revolutionary change in the attitudes, behaviour, orientation and outlook of public services at all levels of administration. This is all the more important at the middle and lower levels—the cutting edge of administration—where the services' interaction with the public is most frequent. Although there is a point of view that "a change in attitude and behaviour cannot be brought about by training effort alone", yet it must be said that sufficient attempts have not been made in India to reflect upon the situations and circumstances in which many of such officials operate, nor any efforts have been made to bring these cadres of employee within the ambit of some kind of training designed to make them better aware of their roles and responsibilities and enable them to improve their attitudes, behaviour and performance. Such an imbalance in training needs to be reduced, if it has to become an innovative instrument to help meet the challenges of human resource development.

There is a clear indication that policies for the development and better utilisation of human resources are going to be a key factor for sustaining high rate of growth in the future. HRD is a continuous and a whole career process and should not be narrowly conceived as a short-term work-place phenomenon. An effective, realistic, and a long-term HRD plan is one of the most essential per-requisite for accelerating growth process in low-developing countries. It is high time that the policy-makers in India embark upon a well thought out strategy for integrating the various stages of human development—the childhood, the youth, the mid-career and the later preretirement—through innovative public personnel management system which could dovetail various of its functional elements like manpower planning, recruitment, training, retraining and positive managerial practices at every phase of human development for an effective and optimum utilisation of the potential of its men and women power.


1. F. Harbison and Charles A. Myres, Education, Manpower and Economic Growth (New York, McGraw Hill, 1965), p. 2.

2. For a detailed study on this subject see "Development, Human Resource and Development Planning for South Asia-Report: A Thematic Overview" in Manpower Journal, New Delhi, Vol. 28, No. 1, April-June 1992, pp. 34-35.

3. Ibid., p. 34.

4. Ibid., pp. 34-35.

5. Ibid., pp. 36-39.

6. See Amelia P. Varela, "Issues in the Human Resource Development in the Public Service", Asian Review of Public Administration, Vol. 1, No. 2 (December, 1998), p. 1.

7. See Dharma Vira Aggarwala, Manpower Planning, Selection, Training and Development, (New Delhi, Deep & Deep Publications, 1987), pp. 70-71.

8. See K.K. Khullar, "Human Resource Development: Fast Backwards, Financial Express, 17 January 1993, p. 6.

9. Ibid.

10. See Biswanath Ghosh, "HRD in Eighth Plan : Slower Birth rate essential for success, Business Standard, 14th April 1992, p. 7.

11. Ibid.

12. Varela, n. 6, p. 2.

13. See Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1992-93, New Delhi, pp. iii-v.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. The Administrator, Mussoorie, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1, Jan.-March, 1993, p. 15.

17. See for example Kamla Chowdhry, "Strategies for Institutionalising Public Managements Education: The Indian Experience", in Joseph E. Black, James S. Coleman and Laurence D. Stifel, Education and Training for Public Sector Management in Developing Countries, New York, The Rockefeller Foundation, 1977, pp. 101-10.

18. For detailed analysis of such change in developing countries, see Seluck Ozgediz, Managing the Public Service in Developing Countries : Issues and Prospects, Washington D.C., World Bank Staff

Working Paper No. 583, 1983, pp. 25-42: and Samuel Paul, Training for Public Administration and Management in Developing Countries, Washington D.C., World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 584, 1983.

19. For details of these programmes see Annexure of Compendium of Training Programmes, 1993-94, Training Division, Government of India, April 1993, pp. 513-17; Also see Krishna Mohan Mathur, Human Resource Development in Administration" in the Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 33, No. 2 (April-June, 1997), p. 227.

20. See Administrative Reforms Commission, Report on Personnel Administration, Government of India, April 1969, Recommendation 26,

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as quoted by Mathur, n. 19, pp. 227-28.

21. Mathur, n. 19, p. 328.

22. See S.N. Swaroop, "Quest for Human Resource Development" in Financial Express, 17 April 1992, p. 6.

23. For details of such programmes see Government of India, n. 1, pp. 38-58.

24. Samuel Paul, n. 19.

25. Towards Equality, Government of India, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, December 1974.

26. For details see Usha Nayar, "Towards a Gender Inclusive Theory of Human Resource Development" in Manpower Journal (New Delhi), Special Issue on Development of Women as a Human Resource, Vol. 26 (July-September, 1990), p. 19. This section draws heavily from the proceedings of the seminar on Development of Woman as a Human Resource published in the above issue.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., pp. 19-20.

29. Ibid., p. 21.

30. See Government of India, India 1992: A Reference Annual (Published Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1993), p. 45.

31. Ibid., p. 246.

32. As reported in the Times of India, 7 March 1992.

33. Khullar, n. 8, p. 6.

34. Shailaja Chandra, "Human Resources Development for Women in India", in Uddesh Kohli and Vinayshil Gautam (eds.), Human Resource Development and the Planning Process in India (New Delhi, Vikas Publishing House, 1988), pp. 221-23.

35. Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report (1992-93), p. 120.

36. Ibid., pp. 26-28.

37. Government of India, O.M. No. 36012/ 17/88-Estt. (SCT), dated 25 April 1989.

38. Mathur, n. 19, p. 236.

39. Ibid., p. 237.

40. Khullar, n. 8.

41. Varela, n. 6, p. 8.

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4 Globalisation, Liberalisation and Human Security: Challenges Governance

INTRODUCTION

The key strategy adopted for growth and progress in most developing countries during the 1950s and 1960s was a heavy reliance on planned economy with an emphasis on public sector participation in economic development. The public sector was expected to generate surpluses for accelerated economic growth and socio-political development. Many developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America pursued this model of development vigorously, but within a period of 2-3 decades became disillusioned with the results. Against the background of a series of global recessions in 1970s and 1980s, the economies of most developing countries began to collapse particularly under the strains of severe external debts which began accumulating in the late 1970s. Public sector investments produced less output, lower yield and consequently very little surplus if any for growth. Consequently, pressures began to mount globally for a change in the strategies of growth, which posed a number of important questions to policy makers.

The process of globalisation and liberalisation in developing societies and the accompanying forces of market

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economy have given rise to problems of governance and questions of far-reaching substantial and procedural importance.1 While the substantial questions relate to the specific policy contents in respect of the security, welfare and developmental programs of the citizens in general, and the people belonging to the backward areas and lower classes in particular, the procedural questions relate to the

impact of globalisation and competitiveness on the problems of governance and policy processes. There seems to be a circular relationship between the substantive aspects of the policies of the state undergoing structural transformations, and its procedural and institutional prescriptions.

To overcome these economic crises, structural adjustment policies first originated in the industrially advanced countries and then spread to other parts of the world. While in the developed countries such policies contained both the elements of continuity and a break with the economic and social policies pursued in the post-war period, in the developing countries they constitute a complete reversal and a sharp break with the earlier policies of a state controlled and planned economic system and growing reliance on administrative methods for resource allocation and modernisation. The International Monetary Fund-World Bank directed structural adjustment programme (SAP) laid emphasis on a package of liberalisation and globalisation of the economy through a process of abolition of import control over all items including consumer goods, reduction in the rate of import duty, privatisation of the public sector and the adoption of a better market economy to determine the pattern of investment and output. In addition, deregulation in terms of public controls, quantitative restrictions and procedural obstacles is an accompanying feature of the reform package.

With the end of the cold war and the break up of the former Soviet Union and the global trend towards rolling back the frontiers of state with the increased reliance on market economy and the renewed faith in the capability of private capital and resources due to the phenomenal success of such policies in the case of the East Asian, Latin American and African countries, a process of structural adjustment spurred by the studies and influences of the World Bank and other

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international organisations have started in many of the developing countries.

In the context of the above world-wide developments, this chapter is concerned with an analysis of the processes of deregulation, liberalisation and new economic reforms undertaken in the polity of India as a response to the World Bank prescription of globalisation and competitiveness during the last one decade (since 1991), and to examine their impact on the problems of governance and administrative reforms, with a view to assess the extent to which the emerging system of governance and economic reforms have been successful in alleviating poverty, reducing unemployment, and providing welfare activities—the necessary ingredients towards promoting human security. In conclusion, it makes an effort to suggest some policy strategies that could further be adopted in India to meet the challenges of governance in order to promote human security in the context of globalisation and liberalisation of the Indian economy.

I. POLICY OF GLOBALISATION AND LIBERALISATION IN INDIA: BACKGROUND

After attaining Independence in 1947, India embarked on the experiment to constitute itself into a sovereign republic and modernize the state and its administration through the adoption of a ' parliamentary democracy' . While evolving a consensual framework of a democratic government, over all these more than fifty years, the leadership in India has also from time to time attempted to devise strategies for good governance, which is associated with an efficient and effective development-oriented, citizen-friendly and responsive administration committed to improvement in quality of life of the people.

The Government of India has adopted policies of globalisation, liberalisation and market economy in the wake of the serious economic crisis that enveloped the country by the middle of 1991. The crisis arose due to the economic consequences of upheavals in the erstwhile USSR and East Europe—the effects of the Gulf War, the shifts in the global economic power balance and the economic policies followed by

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the Union and the State Governments since the 1930s. The immediate reason was a serious balance of payments crisis owing to a steady decline in exports, negative growth rates in industry and agriculture, and 0.3 per cent decline in the domestic production of crude oil. Among the long-term domestic factors contributing to high cost and low productivity were: (a) the inadequate returns and continuing losses from the massive investments in the public sector undertakings and (b) economic populism resulting in increasing state subsidies, especially in fertilizers and writing off loans to farmers and hidden payments incurred through lower tariff rates of state undertakings in power and transport sectors.

India's adoption of a programme of globalisation, market economy and competitiveness came after more than six months of negotiations with the World Bank starting in January 1991. The package of reform measures announced by the newly installed Narasimha Rao Government in July 1991 consisted of two separate economic policies: (a) a macro-economic stabilisation programme (IMF inspired) essentially focusing on reducing the twin deficits on the balance of payment and on the state budget, and (b) a comprehensive programme for structural change of the economy (World Bank inspired) in the fields of trade, industry, foreign investments, public sector and the financial sector among others.

' Globalisation' , ' competitiveness' and ' liberalisation' come to India as a booster, and through the backdoor of " economic reforms" . The sanctity of economic reforms had been derived from it. It was

argued that progress is taking place though globalisation, and economic reforms are the only means to join in this process. Hence economic reforms are the only alternative for human security and India's future. Globalisation as a phenomenon involves two different entities (a) finance capital through multi-national corporations and (b) new technologies such as computers and telecommunications. It was argued that the growth and internationalisation of finance capital is good and desirable for projects because it promotes growth of technology. Globalisation provides a useful means to develop technologies necessary for the production of goods and services that improve our well-being.

The post-1991 economic reforms were initially launched

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under compelling balance of payments crisis. At the same time it was felt that by adopting market-oriented and globally competitive restructuring policies somewhat similar to those of Southeast Asian countries, the Indian economy could grow much faster and become more self-reliant in managing its balance of payments and could at the same time speedily accelerate growth and reduce the level of poverty, thus contributing to human security including freedom from hunger, disease, ignorance, unemployment and homelessness.

II. IMPLEMENTING GLOBALISATION AND COMPETITIVENESS: ECONOMIC REFORMS IN INDIA

The ten year period of implementation of economic reforms (1991-2000) is rather short for an objective appraisal of the performance of India's gradual shift towards market economy. But this period is quite sufficient to test the effectiveness of these reforms for securing human security and to test the abilities of the weaker and vulnerable sections of a poor society to understand the likely positive or negative effects of the process of globalisation and liberalisation.

The Pre-Reform (1991) Scenario

The structural adjustment policy and economic reforms were introduced in the Indian polity at a time when the domestic inflation raged at an annual rate of 17 per cent. The growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1991-92 stood at 0.6 per cent. The industrial sector also showed the same growth rate, while the index number of agricultural production had declined from 148.4 in 1990-91 to 145.5 in 1991-92 with food grains production declining from 176.4 million tons in the previous year to 168.4 million tons. In view of the fast deteriorating economic situation, the flight of capital had started from the country. This resulted in a severe balance of payment (BOP) crisis, the foreign exchange reserves touching the bottom line of $ 1 billion—from 4.4 months of inputs to 1.1 months in 1990-91. To attain

that growth and to reduce poverty on a sustainable basis, a series of measures have since been undertaken to bring back the macro-economic balance of the economy and to initiate the necessary structural adjustment

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programme for improving efficiency in resource use. In this perspective, the emphasis in policy objectives has shifted to higher ' growth' , with the expectation that higher growth will automatically percolate as benefits to the poor.2

The Thrust of Reform Package

The New Industrial Policy of 24 July 1991 spelled out the process of liberalisation. It stated that foreign investment and technology collaboration was welcomed to obtain higher technology to increase exports and to expand the production base. The number of industries reserved for the public sector was reduced to only eight, and compulsory industrial licensing was restricted for only eighteen industries. The policy indicated the need for more dynamic relationship between domestic and foreign industry than before in terms of technology and investment. The direct approval of investment up to 51% of foreign equity in high priority industries was made without any bottleneck. Liberalised Exchange Rate Management System was evolved to help in the free working of the Foreign Exchange Market and secure convertibility of the rupee. Coupled with changes in industrial licensing, the financial and banking sectors were also revamped. The Directional Paper of the Planning Commission (1991) had clearly indicated that the public sector should make investments of an infrastructural nature in areas where private participation is not likely to come quickly, but it should withdraw from areas where no public purpose is served by its presence. The paper stated that in large parts of public sector operations, where commodities or services are produced and distributed, unless it is necessary for protecting the poorest in society, the main operating principle should be that of the market economy.

The Role of the State

In the context of the new economic policy in operation since mid-1991, a controversial question that has often been raised is about the role of the state. State is not only required to achieve a balance between the functions of security, equity, ecology, development and safety, but also to provide an equilibrium between stability and growth. It is wrong to assume that under liberalisation, the state folds up. The rolling back of

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the State on the economic issues necessitates a re-defining of its new role and a re-examination of its structures and processes. It may no longer remain to be the owner of strategic industries, but it is still a regulator—a pro-consumer regulator that oversees and prevents the abuses of the market and to provide the legal, physical and human infrastructure. It has to concentrate on ' development dynamics' that would benefit primarily the poor and the disadvantaged.3

The thrust of the reform process was to increase the efficiency and international competitiveness of industrial production, to utilize for this purpose foreign investment and foreign technology to a much greater degree than was done in the past, to increase the productivity of investments to ensure that India's financial sector was rapidly modernised, and improve the performance of the public sector so that the key sectors of the Indian economy were enabled to attain an adequate technological and competitive edge in a fast changing global economy.

However, given India's widespread poverty, high unemployment and poor record in health, nutrition and literacy, the reform process could not be restricted to a freeing of market forces and at a concomitant reduction of the role of state. India was looking for its own adjustment programme aimed at minimising the burden of adjustment on the poor. In the foreword to the VIIIth Plan (1992-97), published in July 1992, the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao emphasised that India was committed to adjustment with a human face. The government believed that many areas of growth and development could not be left entirely to market mechanism. Rather than a lesser government, the country was in need of better government. Hence India's main objective was to ' dovetail planning and market so that they are complementary to each other' .4 The strategy outlined in the VIIIth Plan thus consisted of stabilisation measures, adjustment measures, and complimentary social measures. The stabilisation and adjustment measures related mostly to the reform steps in the areas of tax collection, revenues, foreign exchange, removal of export restrictions, liberalisation of foreign trade, disinvestment of public sectors, drastic industrial deregulation, controlling inflationary pressures, simplification of rules and procedures of

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foreign investments and enhancing the efficiency of the financial intermediation, etc.

The Provisions for Human Security

In order to protect the living standards of the poor during the transition period and provide for human society, the complementary social measures reflecting India's commitment to good governance were also conceived to ensure equitable distribution of both the gains and costs of economic reforms. Since

over half of India's population continued to live below the poverty line, a number of direct attacks on poverty were launched during 1980' s. Prominent among these were special programme for backward areas, such as subsidised food supplies through a Public Distribution System (PDS), concessional loan schemes for marginal farmers and agricultural labourers, employment-oriented programmes sponsoring different employment schemes like Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY), Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY), that are geared mainly towards urban housing improvement. After the introduction of the policy of globalisation, market economy and liberalisation, and despite the fiscal austerity, the government committed itself to increased outlay for clearly targeted social sector expenditures and for rural development during the overall plan period 1992-97. In particular, employment creation and human capital development in rural India through (both Poverty Alleviation Programmes [PAP] and Social Services, such as primary health care, elementary education and rural water supply-cum-sanitation) were to be expanded and broadened. However constraints on budgetary resources forced the government to postpone the provision of extra-funds for those programmes, and on the contrary to curtail them along with all other public expenditures. However, in February 1992, a National Renewal Fund (NRF), meant to provide assistance to workers who would become redundant as a result of the adjustment programme was created. Together with the rural development and social sector programmes, NRF was intended to constitute a comprehensive and permanent Social Safety net, providing adequate shelter for those who would be temporarily affected by India's SAP.5

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III. IMPACT OF REFORMS: THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS HUMAN SECURITY

Despite the optimism expressed in the World Bank Report of 1994 on the performance of economic reforms in India, that " the economy has responded generally in a positive manner to the stabilisation and reform measures implemented since July 1991 and a remarkable improvement in India's external accounts during 1993-94,6 the ten years of reforms in India until now have shown mixed results, and even by the World Bank's own admission the macro-economic stress brought about by the reform programme have begun to pose new challenges for human security.

The Economic Parameter

Although the first five years of economic reforms have failed to produce any dramatic economic results in India as they have in China, the principal positive achievements since their initiations are the high economic growth of 6.3 per cent in 1994-95 as against a mere 0.8 per cent in the crisis year of 1991-92 and a decline in the inflation rate to a single digit, i.e., below five per cent. Although there has been a 25 per cent growth in exports, but the simultaneous growth of 29 per cent in imports has widened the trade deficit to nearly $ 4 billion in 1994-95 as against $ 2 billion in 1993-94. If this trend continues, India could face another balance of payment crisis, despite a foreign exchange reserve of $ 17.5 billion much

of which is hot money. The only way to avert this crisis is to achieve a quantum jump in exports and in foreign direct investment.7

Similarly, the fall in inflation rate to less than five per cent is deceptive as it shows only the wholesale Price Index and not the Consumer Price Index, and has been achieved by deliberately pegging administered prices of coal, petroleum products and foodgrains and because of credit squeeze and high interest rates resulting in severe liquidity crunch by starving industry of funds for investment. In the coming days after the elections, administered prices of those products are bound to increase and the liquidity crunch will ease causing a spurt in the inflation rate of 12 per cent or more.8 In a globalised economy India has to achieve an inflation rate based on

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Consumer Price Index at just 2 or 3 per cent. It has thus a long way to go to achieve that goal.

However, the most negative and alarming effect of the present reforms has been the accumulation of huge fiscal deficit of nearly Rs. 70,000 crores (7,00,000 millions). It is this problem of huge fiscal deficit, especially of the revenue deficit which constitutes the biggest threat to the Indian economy. The steady fall in the purchasing power of the rupee (despite fall in inflation), the steep fall in its exchange rate against the dollar are directly or indirectly the result of the high fiscal deficit, to say about 50 per cent of the government revenues go merely in interest repayment and the net inflow of foreign aid has turned negative.9 The budget provisions for 1996-97 for interest payment is Rs. 60,000 crores (Rs. 600,000 millions) compared to Rs. 52,000 (Rs. 520,000 million) in 1995-96. Non-Plan Expenditure in 1996-97 is put at Rs. 151,593 crores (Rs. 1,515,930 millions). Interest payment thus forms 40 percent of the total non-Plan expenditure, showing increase in the debt and debt service burdens. Thus, on closer look, even the much touted recovery turns out to be an artificially propped up affair.10

Despite these initial setbacks, however, the Indian economy is expected to grow by 5.9 per cent at the end of the decade in 1999-2000. More importantly an industrial recovery seems finally to be underway from the cyclical downturn of the previous two years. Growth of GDP from manufacturing is expected to almost double to 7 per cent in 1999-2000 from 3.6 percent in 1998-99. The performance of infrastructure sectors has improved markedly. The inflation rate dropped to international levels of 2 to 3 per cent for the first time in decades. The balance of payments survived the twin shocks of the East-Asian crisis and the post-Pokhran II sanctions with a low current account deficit and sufficient capital inflows. This was demonstrated by the continuing rise in foreign exchange reserves by over US $ 2.4 billion during the year until the end of January, 2000 coupled with a relatively exchange rate. Export performance has improved on par with the better performing emerging economies.11

The Social Parameters: The Reforms and Poverty

Apart from the foreign sector, very few reforms have been

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introduced in the domestic economy of India, except industrial de-licensing and some tinkering with capital markets and least of all in the agricultural sector in prescribing increases in procurement and minimum support prices. Public investments in agriculture have not increased. Although there is a controversy about the poverty figures in India and the methodology arrived at to show a mere 19 percent of the Indian population to be below the poverty line. But this has nothing to do with reforms, except insofar as the stabilisation measures, which have, on the contrary, had an adverse impact on poverty due to steep decline in public spending. It is unrealistic to expect a trickle down impact on poverty and unemployment unless the economy begins to grow at more than 8 per cent a year. This is what the reforms were expected to do, but evidence that the economy has moved to a higher growth path is somewhat suspect.12

It has also been argued that the slowing down of economic reforms and procrastination shown in carrying out the needed structural adjustment in some vital sectors of the economy after vigorously pursuing the reform programme in the first two years of its launching, has largely been responsible for the reforms not producing as exciting results expected from them at the beginning. The real challenge and dilemma before the new government after the Eleventh General Elections in April/May 1996 was, therefore, whether to take the reforms to their logical conclusions, i.e., by integrating fully with the global economy or to limit them to internal liberalisation heeding the slogan of ' Swadeshi' (indigenous).13 Swadeshi offers an alternative philosophy and policy package following therefrom. Its contours are clear. It intends to shun westernisation but adopt modernisation. Economic reform package has postulated the globalisation as an end in itself. Yet it is a means towards integration of economy and not an end. Globalisation provides a useful means to develop technologies necessary for the production of goods and services that improve the well-being of the masses. An alternative strategy will devise policies where globalisation is a means to the desired end of the populace's well-being. The alternative policies such as Swadeshi do not accept globalisation at any cost.14

Although the central government expenditure (Plan and

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Non-Plan) on social sectors (education, health and family welfare, water supply, sanitation, housing, rural development, social welfare, nutrition and minimum basic services) as a ratio to total expenditure rose from 9.4 per cent in 1993-94 to 11.4 per cent in 1999-2000 (BE). As a ratio to GDP at current market prices, the central government expenditure on social services increased from 1.5 per cent in 1993-94 to 1.7 per cent in 1999-2000. The central plan outlay on major schemes of social sectors as a percentage to the GDP at current market prices increased from 1.09 per cent in 1993-94 to 1.12 per cent in 1999-2000 (BE). The central outlay increased by 29.6 per cent in Family Welfare in 1999-2000 (BE) over 1998-99 (BE), Health by 24.3 per cent, Welfare of Weaker Sections by 22.1 per cent and Women and Child Development by 16.4 per cent.15

During the last one decade, poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes which have been in operation for several years have been redesigned for generation of self-employment and wage employment of rural areas and restructured to improve their efficacy and impact on the poor. An outlay of Rs. 9650 crore has been provided in 1999-2000 (BE) as against 9345 crore in 1998-99 (BE). The former Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDP) and allied programmes such as Training of rural Youth for Self-Employment, Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA) and Million Wells Scheme (MWS) have been restructured into a single self-employment programme called the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SSGY) from April 1999. Simultaneously, Jawahar Rozgar Yojana QRY) has been restructured and streamlined with effect from April 1999 and has been renamed as Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY). The other ongoing programmes include, National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), Urban Employment and Anti-Poverty Programme (UEPP). The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) has subsumed the earlier three urban poverty programmes viz. Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY), Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP) and Prime Minister's Integrated Urban Poverty Alleviation Programme (PMIUPEP) and has become operative from December 1997.16

Despite these changes, which are regarded by many as merely cosmetic, the new policy-makers at the Raisina Hills will

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have to do some serious thinking to make the roots of reforms more deeper, bringing under its purview the millions of underdogs who have been bypassed by the five years' reforms. And unless policies of globalisation and competitiveness can be made to lead to the desired growth for solving the problem of poverty and unemployment, it is futile to talk about the prospects of human security in the society. The Agenda for the new Vajpayee government, which took over in September 1999 has been clear—continue to free trade, begin liberalisation in agriculture, and improve the quality and quantity of education and health services, along with a good and clean government, which may become an acceptable recipe for human security.

IV. THE PERSPECTIVES FOR FUTURE: TOWARDS SOCIA RESPONSIBLE MARKET ECONOMY

As has been observed earlier, although in the past five years, the stabilisation policies in India have worked quite well in turning around the balance of payments and producing quite comfortable foreign exchange reserves, but the size of increasing fiscal deficit is constantly worrying policy-makers. This reflects the fact that most public expenditure cuts were on developmental expenditures (including investments in agricultural infrastructure, rural development, energy, industries, communication, and science and technology) leaving less productive revenue spending (including interest payment, subsidies and civil service spending) more or less unaffected. The ensuing composition of public expenditures thus ignores the vital importance of adequate rural infrastructural facilities for future economic growth and poverty alleviation, while leaving many prevailing inefficiencies intact, thus endangering the sustainability of the noted achievements.17

The Eighth Plan document stressed that human development will be ' the ultimate goal' for the period 1992-97, and ' employment generation, population control, literacy, education, health, drinking water and provision of adequate food and basic infrastructure' are listed as priorities. It is thus necessary that every effort must be made to mitigate the adverse impact of adjustment on the poor, both in the short-term and long-term.18

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The Approach paper for Ninth Five Year Plan, adopted by the National Development Council had accorded priority to agriculture and rural development as a vehicle for accelerating the growth of overall economy which should encompass basic services such as safe drinking water, primary health care, universal primary education and shelter. Simultaneously, it should strive for containing the growth rate of population, people's participation at all levels, empowerment of women and socially disadvantaged groups such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities. " Growth with social justice and Equity" sums the goal set forth before the Nation. For eradication of poverty and unemployment, the strategy is to (i) accelerate economic growth with stable prices, since there is evidence to show that rapid growth has strong poverty reducing effects; (ii) focus on direct anti-poverty and employment programmes; and (iii) accord priority to governmental expenditure in social sectors.19

Some prominent economists in India have recommended a synthesised paradigm of " Socially Responsible Market Economy" (SRME), which needs to be evolved and given a concrete shape before it can be operationalised and implemented.20 The economic basis of the SRME paradigm lies in taking the market economy close to the concept of a perfectly competitive market economy. The state will have a well defined role in terms of both the quantity and the quality of state intervention suited to Indian

socio-political-economic conditions. The intervention would be based on a system of incentives and disincentives operationalised largely through open competitive market economy. Such a system will help to avoid both government and market excesses (failures).21

The ultimate goal of SRME is the maximisation of the people's welfare reconciling and satisfying the interests of all economic players, including consumers, producers, distributors and earners (from land, capital and enterprise). The SRME aims at maximising social output at maximum cost (translated into maximum price for consumers) without damaging the environment. It also makes best efforts for ensuring relatively full employment and inability of the balance of payments. The SRME is inspired by the ideals of maximum human resource development and improved social justice. The balancing acts

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are to be performed by the state overseeing the achievement of peoples' welfare in a largely market driven and private enterprise led socially responsible market economy.22

The SRME seeks to reorient the role of the state and planning through public sector and joint sector economic and social service activities through the building of cost infrastructure (human resource and skill development through social sector spending oriented at primary level), targeted employment generation and the building of hard infrastructure and core sector activities (where domestic private sector and foreign investment are not forthcoming at the required level). The role of the state will be strengthened in the enforcement of private contracts, controlling trade practices, external and internal security of people, land (and all borders), property and other tangibles and intangibles (like knowledge, culture and traditions).23

The SRME paradigm will emphasise self-discipline, peer pressure and adherence to the codes of conduct for all economic players. These codes would be evolved and overseen by the concerned sections of the economic players through their " associations" without any formal representation by the Government.24

In addition, a socio-economic code of conduct also needs to be evolved by the distributors and traders for reflecting their socially responsible economic behaviour in a freer market economy. The workers and their trade unions also need to evolve a social code of conduct for responsible behaviour in a freer market economy. Work culture must be in tune with the requirements of economic reforms. Similarly, the present managerial culture and the way of dealing with the subordinates and workers in general

should be drastically changed to suit the requirements of economic reforms. The work culture has to be oriented towards internalisation of productivity, innovation and social responsibility. The SRME paradigm needs to be adopted and codified by all sections of the economic players in the Indian society during the future course of economic reforms. The objectives of economic reforms and of the accompanying codes of conduct of social responsibility of all sections of economic interest groups must be prioritised in advance. An efficient management information

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system and continuous surveillance of the behaviour of persons in critical areas of economic reforms holds the key to further corrective actions to ' reform the reforms' .25

V. GLOBALISATION, COMPETITIVENESS AND HUMAN SECURITY INDIA

The concept of human security in developing countries like India can be conceived in a positive sense in terms of maintaining a pattern of quality of life which consists of a number of indicators like Food, Health Care, Clothing, Education, Housing and supporting construction needs, Transport—Air, Road, Rail, Sea—Communications, Women's progress and status, Population growth, Water, Energy, Ecology and Global interdependence,26 apart from eradicating (in negative sense) threats of hunger, disease, ignorance, repression, civil disorder and war, unemployment, homelessness and exclusion. The problem of development in these countries must be defined as a selective attack on the worst forms of poverty, i.e., progressive reduction and eventual elimination of malnutrition, disease, illiteracy, squalor, unemployment and inequalities. This means employment should be treated as a primary objective of development, since it is the most powerful means of redistributing income to the poor, as economic conditions of the poor sections cannot be improved simply by distributing purchasing power to them through welfare schemes.27

Under the new market ideology with globalisation, competitiveness and liberalisation being the popular catchwords, and the economic emphasis threatening to eclipse other dimensions of development, economic growth alone could not solve the problem of poverty and backwardness, thus ignoring many non-economic concepts such as distributive justice and equity, gender justice, woman rights, empowerment of the disadvantaged. Sustainable environmental practices and participatory governance also enter into the essential and desirable consequences of the policy of globalisation and competitiveness.

The Indian experience of ten years of globalisation and competitiveness clearly indicates that even as its GDP is

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growing albeit at a slower pace, and there is unexpected dynamism on the industrial front, the negative fall out of rampant consumerism and individualism has made a dent on the old community and kin networks. The quality of life in terms of environment and aesthetics is deteriorating and the criminalisation and lumpenisation of polity and society is rising at a frightening rate, leading to a call on the part of many thinkers for alternative development paradigm.28 Thus, it has been argued that if the erosion of cultural, family and community values as well as environment and natured resources is to stop, if an inner bearing, a sense of well-being and identity are not to be lost in the process of development, then culture and cultural values must be seen as determining of the process and not merely its consequence. These have to be integrated accordingly into policy processes, project design and funding by government and international agencies alike should form and a part of the ongoing process of globalisation, liberalisation and competitiveness. Fortunately in India there are a number of positive resources in spiritual values and systems inherent in the ancient Indian scriptures and philosophy and the modern indigenous Gandhian approach, which can be utilised for development.29 How to operationalize the harnessing of culture and development poses a great challenge to the policy-makers. The Swadeshi alternative mentioned earlier30 lays emphasis on the whole human being and integrates, cultural, economic, environmental, ethical and social issues. It is futuristic, because it is holistic. Once established, the Swadeshi policies package is expected to resolve both the growing social affliction of corruption and crime as well as the economic problems of providing reasonable material goods for the populace.31 It has, however, to be pursued with caution, lest it may not put back the country to the medieval times in the garb of preserving old cultural values and traditions.

The outlook of the Economic Survey (1995-96) presented by the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India in March 1996 clearly indicated that the trends in improving the quality of life, increasing employment content of growth and reducing the incidence of poverty in the recent years were reassuring. It further suggested that the various policies and programmes

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initiated in the process of economic reforms have shown positive influence on the development of social sectors,32 as these goals have been pursued by the promotion of broad-based, employment-generating growth, enhanced Plan outlays for poverty alleviation and social sectors, such as health and education, and the building of social safety nets to cushion the possible effects of reforms on vulnerable sections during the stage of transition.33 The slow growth in the economy in the following years due to various factors, predominantly political, however, belied this optimism.

More recently, the President's address in the Parliament on 25 October 1999 has spelt out the government's new strategy and policy approach to employment generation and social development. This policy is presaged on rapid and multi-sectoral growth through a bold strategy of economic reforms. The latter will be based on a triad in which the Government provides a strong policy and regulatory leadership; the private sector brings the dynamism and efficiency of the competitive environment; and local democratic institutions and the civil society brings enthusiastic participation by the people.

The elements of the social policy include: (1) creation of one crore additional employment opportunities per year, (2) a thrust to female literacy and primary education. Building of primary school buildings in all un-served habitations, (3) provisions of primary health services to all citizens and stabilisation of populations, (4) strengthening of welfare and child health services, (5) greater attention to welfare of the disabled and aged in co-operation with NGOs, (6) provision of clean drinking water to all villages in the next five years, (7) rural connectivity through all weather roads.34

VI. PROMOTING HUMAN SECURITY: CHALLENGES GOVERNANCE

In order to achieve successes on these fronts the Government has to face the greatest challenge of effective management of public finances facing all levels of government in India. There are several common themes for an effective strategy of governance which include: (a) redefinition and narrowing of government responsibilities to those functions

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that only government can discharge effectively, with a view to down-sising government; (b) systematic efforts to reduce subsidies by targeting them to the poorest segments of society; (c) a vigorous drive to divest commercial undertakings, such as power utilities and transport undertakings and concerted programme to deploy user charges for economic services rendered by government; (d) systematic induction of information technology tools and modern management practices to enhance efficiency of governance; (e) resource generation through transparent sale of under-utilised public properties such as land; and (f) urgent introduction of modern management practices in departments which provide well-defined services such as Posts or have well defined objectives like tax collection and above all a determined political commitment to truly effective expenditure management.35

Successful management of public finances is closely linked to both fiscal responsibility legislation as an instrument to assist fiscal consolidation and to institutional reforms necessary to nurture modern economic growth. Effective functioning of the market economy requires legal and administrative structures which ensure the basics of law and order and provide for economic implementation of

economic laws, such as law of contract, which encourage growth of the market economy and the creation of income and wealth. Not only there is need to identify and abolish many economic laws which are redundant, but a major effort is also necessary to modernize, integrate and simplify the rest of the laws, regulations and associated rules which govern and influence economic transactions.36

In order to meet the challenges of governance for promoting human security, a four pronged strategy needs to be adopted at this juncture of the evolution of the Indian Polity: which may as well be relevant for other developing societies.

(a) On the institutional front, it is necessary to regenerate political and administrative institutions from the virtual collapse that India has experienced in the last three decades — restore the legitimacy and effectiveness of the legislature, bureaucracy, the judiciary and the non-state actors of the civil society. As the ' sustainability of transition' in India has been greatly affected by the gradual incremental loss of the capacity

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and effectiveness of the democratic institutions, it is necessary that a radical package of reforms to revamp the institutional framework be implemented immediately.

(b) In respect of the administrative system, there is an immediate need to cut down the size of the government and its expenditure. As the present Minister of Finance, Mr.Yashwant Sinha has so categorically stated that while external borrowings are being used for productive purposes, the internal borrowings were going towards meeting establishment costs.

It is necessary to reverse the trend as early as possible. Simultaneously the bureaucracy is to be revamped in terms of change in its orientation, behaviour and attitude. In stead of being the defender of the status quo, there has to be a realisation that with the advent of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, it has to play a major role of a catalyst for change. Apart from the changes in the traditional values and norms of work culture, it has to demonstrate its willingness to accept new technical innovations and values of achievement and competition, equity and egalitarianism and concern for broader collective social goals.

Besides absorbing the values of participatory democracy, bureaucracy has not only to observe a modicum of transparency and concede an appropriate right of information to the people in its decision-making process, but has also to secure a balance between a rule-bound administration and an administration that can effectively and quickly deliver results, particularly in developmental and social welfare activities.

The bureaucracy is also both under legal and moral obligation to exercise its authority and discretionary powers with a view to meet the norms of responsiveness and accountability. Apart from its professional norms of efficiency, effectiveness, economy and cost consciousness, the core public service values of integrity, impartiality and responsibility need to be observed if the gains of the process of liberalisation are to be consolidated for protecting human security.

(c) On the economic front, it is of utmost importance that a comprehensive and concerted policy strategy based on general consensus be developed for:

(i) revamping public distribution system (PDS);

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(ii) disinvestment in public enterprises in key economic sectors like power, energy, oil, transport, telecommunication and in sick industrial units, and

(iii) reconsideration of proportion of subsidies in agricultural, oil, and other key sectors of the economy, which are at best counter-productive, and finally,

(d) In respect of social security, the system of governance faces a massive challenge to provide for adequate employment generation, provide for health, education, shelter, and the basic facilities of sanitation and drinking water. Providing for higher outlays and spending on items like primary education and primary health-care is not the solution alone, the real challenge is effective management on the part of the administration to deliver these goods at the lowest costs and in an equitable manner. These are some of the areas where the state cannot abdicate its responsibilities notwithstanding the emphasis of liberalisation on privatisation, increased public and foreign investments, and contracting out of the services in various industrial and other sectors of the economy and social services.


After more than 50 years of independence, India's achievements in regard to life expectancy, literacy, health and poverty alleviation compare unfavourably with many other developing countries. The record is very uneven across various States. Furthermore, there are disquieting trends in regional disparities with respect to overall economic development, which need to be addressed by a combination of Central government policies and more determined efforts by lagging States to avail of opportunities for faster development.37 It is necessary, therefore, that effective public programmes implemented through local participation and accountability must become the norm for future progress. To sustain and accelerate the growth of the economy and employment, while ensuring low inflation, the economic policies followed in India must combine fiscal discipline with rapid economic reforms wherever necessary.38

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Lasting success in human development and poverty eradication depends first and foremost on dynamic, transparent and accountable systems of national and local governance. And while these need to be anchored in democratic systems of government, their scope is much wider, encompassing efficient regulatory authorities, effective and impartial judicial services and other institutions that are able to provide real protections for and opportunities to rich and poor alike.

That is key to ensuring both that countries can access benefits of global economy and that the economic rewards that follow are translated directly into real improvements in the lives of the most destitute. The pioneering work in many parts of India on initiatives such as public interest litigation, open hearings on resource disbursement and more direct parental involvement in schools, show how the poor can both get involved and get results.39

However, as has been observed by an eminent scientist Professor U.R. Rao, a former President of the Indian Science Congress, " the solution to provide food, economic and health security to meet the growing demands of increasing population with limited land resources, lies in the adoption of a holistic approach for achieving environment-friendly, sustainable development." 40 It is towards this end that the policies of globalisation and competitiveness need be directed to achieve the elusive goal of human security. This is in itself a big challenge to the process of governance. India's experience of the past ten years of vicissitudes in the reform process may well serve as a lesson for many developing countries of the world to correct and reformulate the course of their policies for achieving the basic objective of human security for their masses.


1. For a detailed study on this subject see, Jain, R.B. and Heinz Bongartz (eds.), Structural Adjustment, Public Policy and Bureaucracy in Developing Societies (New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1994).

2. For a detailed analysis of these policies and strategy see Gupta, S.P., " Recent Economic Reforms in India and Their Impact on the Poor and Vulnerable Sections of Society" , in Hanumantha Rao, C.H. and Hans Linnemann (eds.), Economic Reforms and Poverty Alleviation in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 126-70.

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3. Pinto, Marina, " Challenge of Liberalisation to Indian Bureaucracy" , in Jain and Bongartz (ed.), n. 1, pp. 315-21.

4. Government of India, Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97), 1992.

5. For a detailed analysis on this subject see Stuijvenberg, Peter A. Van, " Structural Adjustment in India—What About Poverty Alleviation? in Rao and Linnemann, n. 5, pp. 31-89.

6. See World Bank Report, India: Recent Economic Developments and Prospects (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Inc., 1994).

7. See Seth, N.K.," Will Reform Succeed?" in The Hindustan Times, 10 May 1996, p. 11, cols. 3-8.

8. Also see " Analysts foresee double digit inflation in 1996" , Business Times (The Times of India), New Delhi, 17 May 1996, p. 13, cols. 1, 2.

9. Ibid.

10. See for details, Bhatia, B.M., " Five Years of Manmohanomics" , Pioneer (New Delhi), 11 April 1996.

11. See Government of India, Economic Survey, 1999-2000 (New Delhi, Ministry of Finance, Economic Division, 2000), p. 1.

12. See Debroy, Bubek, " Miles to go before we reap" , in Business Standard, 27 February 1996.

13. Seth, n. 10.

14. For a penetrating analysis of the concept of Swadeshi, see Divan, Ramesh, " Economic Reforms, Untenable Assumptions and an Alternative" , Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), 24 February 1996, pp. 445-46.

15. Economic Survey 1999-2000, p. 164 ff.

16. Ibid., pp. 168-70.

17. See Stuijvenberg, n. 5, pp. 72-73.

18. Ibid., pp. 73-74.

19. Government of India, Economic Survey, 1999-2000, New Delhi, Government of India, Ministry of Finance, 2000, p. 164.

20. See Wadhwa, Charan D., Economic Reforms in India and the Market Economy (New Delhi: Allied Publishers Ltd., 1994, pp. 242-47).

21. Ibid., p. 242.

22. Ibid., pp. 242-43.

23. Ibid., p. 243.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., pp. 246-47.

26. For a discussion of these parameters in the Indian context, see Malgavkar, P.D., Quality of Life and Governance: Trends, Options and Institutions (New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research and Konark Publishers Private Ltd., 1996), pp. 315-24.

27. Ibid., p. 335.

28. See Sundar, Pushpa, " Redefining Development: Importance of Non-economic Dimensions" , in The Times of India, 12 April 1994, p. 10, cols. 3-5.

29. Ibid.

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30. See Section III.

31. Divan, n. 17.

32. See Government of India, Economic Survey, 1995-96 (Ministry of Finance, Economic Division, 1996), p. 185).

33. Ibid., p. 13.

34. As Quoted in Government of India, Economic Survey, 1999-2000, New Delhi, Government of India, Ministry of Finance, 2000, p. 20.

35. Ibid. p. 21.

36. Ibid. p. 22.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid. p. 24.

39. See Marh Malloch Brown, " Need to make globalisation more inclusive, equitable" , in The Times of India, 13 February 2001, p. 13: 1-6.

40. Rao, U.R., " Development, Not by ' Yojanas' Alone" , in The Hindustan Times, 14 January 1996, p. 13, cols. 3-8.

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PART II PUBLIC POLICY, ACCOUNTABILITY RESPONSIVENESS

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5 Public Policy Management

INTRODUCTION

Public Policy management in modern times has often been characterised by a skepticism about the capacity of governments to meet their goals and objectives. The skepticism stems not only because of the complexity of political processes but also from the kind of role expected of bureaucracy and the one that it actually plays in a political system. In the context of developing countries, bureaucracy has

certainly emerged as one of the key elements in the politico-administrative process. However, it is misleading to assert that bureaucracy has a predominant role in policy-making and policy development. The two extreme views—that policy is essentially the concern of the government and is set by the political executive while the bureaucracy simply implements it; and that it is the bureaucracy, which sets the policy, which the ministers simply articulate—are both, of course, erroneous. Government policies are the outcome of a continuous interaction between the political executive, the senior echelons of bureaucracy and many other governmental or non-governmental actors. Although there may not be more than a thousand persons at the top level of bureaucracy in India, both at the Center and the states, who may be directly involved in policy-making, a majority is in one way or the other engaged in policy implementation.1

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MANAGING PUBLIC POLICY: THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY

The role and performance of bureaucracy in a country as vast and varied as India is a controversial subject of considerable concern. There is a widely held belief that, in India, the role of bureaucracy is not only dominant in the implementation of public policies, but is also pervasive in respect of policy formulation. Since British times, bureaucracy has no doubt played a very decisive and important role in the administrative system but after independence the role, expectations and actual performance of the Indian bureaucracy has changed considerably. This chapter proposes an analysis of the role of bureaucracy in India in the processes of policy formulation, development and implementation. Such an exercise requires an examination first, of the historical legacy of the bureaucracy, its general profile and the political context in which it operates, and later, an analysis of the role it plays in relation to policy processes.

Bureaucracy in India: The Historical Legacy

The Indian bureaucracy is the product of two different sets of influences - British traditions and a democratic welfare system. The British, who ruled India from a distance for almost a century, established a system of bureaucracy, the key features of which were elitism and strong loyalty to its masters. The system dates back to the Northcote Trevelyan Report of 1854, which demonstrated Lord Macaulay's profound belief in English liberal education. This belief resulted in the recruitment of a set of administrators for India from Oxford and Cambridge Universities designated as the Indian Civil Service—the ICS— who were called ' all-rounders' by the champions of the system and ' amateurs' by its critics. The advent of Independence and the concomitant change in the role of government to include the functions of a welfare state produced the second set of influences. The rapid technological progress attained since then has led to a proliferation of a number of para-state organisations such as public corporations, nationalised industries, public enterprises and voluntary organisations supported by public funds. These expanding frontiers and the

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new tasks of government require an administrative state able to handle social, economic, political and scientific problems in the national and international settings. Bureaucracy has thus become one of the chief instruments in the hands of government to deal with the challenges of the new political order and socio-economic imperatives. However, despite environmental changes after Independence, the British model continues to dominate the scene. The ideal administrator in India is still viewed ' as the gifted layman, who, moving frequently from job to job within the service, can take a practical view of any problem, irrespective of subject matters, in the light of his knowledge and experience of the government machinery' .2

Compared with other developing countries the Indian bureaucracy had many advantages at the time of Independence. During the colonial period, the foundations had been laid of a modern education system capable of training the personnel for both the administrative system and the growing industries. A network of communications, a core of financial institutions and a well-developed press provided the essential links in the infrastructure of a modern nation. The bureaucracy which was created by the British imperial government to maintain a colonial system proved to be a remarkable administrative legacy for independent India. The dominant feature of the British system, as noted earlier was the ICS, an elite cadre of civil servants. They were both the policy-makers and the executive officials. In British times, political power was highly centralised within the bureaucracy, which largely lay in the hands of the members of the ICS class. The structural characteristics of the ICS—an open entry system based on academic achievement, elaborate training arrangements, security of tenure, the reservation of all the responsible generalist posts at central provincial and district levels for members of this elite cadre alone, a regular, graduated scale of pay with a pension and other benefits, and a system of promotion and transfers based predominantly on seniority— have all been retained in the present system after Independence with only slight modifications of details. During the colonial period, the bureaucracy served to some extent as an instrument of national integration. The administrative unity of the country, maintenance of law and order, reasonable standards of integrity

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and the formalisation of the relationship between the administration and the people in place of arbitrary dealings as in past were some of the main achievements of the bureaucracy of this time. To a lesser degree also the bureaucracy came to be involved in the tasks of the construction and maintenance of public works (roads, railways, canals) as well as in the development of social services (education, hospitals).3

However, since the end of the colonial period it has been popularly and persistently argued that Indian administrators, retain some of the negative aspects of the imperial legacy such as aloofness and status-consciousness, are generally maladjusted, lack dedication and tend to be authoritarian in the new situation. The incompatibility of the ' ICS ethos' with the needs of present-day government is stressed by contrast with the style of developmental entrepreneurs not so rigidly tied to notion of bureaucratic status, hierarchy and impartiality.4

The hopes and aspirations of the people of independent India created new tasks and responsibilities which were assigned to the newly created Indian Administrative Service (the IAS), successor to the ICS, but with no radical break with, British administrative traditions. The foresightedness of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs at Independence, had rendered the process of transition smooth through his appreciation of the patriotism, loyalty and ability of the new elite cadre. Over the 50 years of Independence, the IAS has emerged as the elite corps to staff the key positions close to the President and the Prime Minister, as well as the other highest level positions charged with coordinating cabinet decisions, controlling recruitment and training, disciplining the other hierarchies of the public service, and formulating administrative policies. This pattern of IAS supremacy is also found in the state and local governments. Today, the IAS is the core of the country's administrative structure, sharing its tasks with a number of all-India, central and state services and providing strong administrative links throughout the country, although interpretations differ on just how effective these links have been. However, conceptually speaking, it can be said that the British influences have certainly contributed to the technical and political development of bureaucracy in India. Technically, the bureaucracy has emerged as a corporate

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administrative organisation, hierarchically structured both horizontally (between higher and lower in the same broad area of work) and vertically (between different skills, professions or disciplines), leading to a system of classes in the civil service, each with its own separate career structures determining prospects for promotion. Politically, bureaucracy has been viewed as a government of appointed officials either themselves acting as rulers or functioning as power elites under a separate decision-making body organised on elective principles.5

The Indian Bureaucracy: A Profile

Until about the middle of the nineteenth century, bureaucracies in almost all countries were filled by men from a numerically small upper class, irrespective of the character of the society or the form of its government, whether monarchic, democratic or aristocratic. It was assumed that the members of the upper classes possessed certain inherent abilities of administrative leadership. Eventually certain events

like the Renaissance in Europe, the French demand for liberty, equality, and fraternity, the introduction of competitive examinations, the enlargement of franchise, the growth of representative democracy in certain countries also accelerated the demand for a representative bureaucracy.

In the Indian context, T.B. Macaulay drafted Clause 87 of the East India Charter Act of 1833 and thus helped establish the right of all races to serve in the colonial civil service. Macaulay took great pride in this policy, which was officially reiterated by Queen Victoria in 1858 when the British Crown succeeded the East India Company as the ruler of India. Representation of Indians in the bureaucracy was expressly urged to mitigate the absence of popular institutions. But even under Company rule this policy was nullified, as the regulations from the British Home Office (probably drafted by another great name in classic English liberalism, John Stuart Mill) were in practice put aside. Benjamin Jowett expressly and openly recognised in 1864 that, by limiting colonial participation in higher administration, England would be assuring her university graduates desirable key positions. Ironically, almost precisely a century later, the desire to attain the same status by colonial intellectuals - often trained by Harold Laski at the London School of Economics -

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was to be one of the major forces behind the drive for independence from Great Britain. They were very much aware of the hypocrisy of British insistence on the openness of the system while continually engaged in such practices as lowering the maximum age for recruitment to exploit colonial natives' difficulties in getting an English education.6

The control of bureaucracy by an outside power added another complication. To perpetuate their stronghold, it was often in the rulers' interest to set one colonial social group against another. The British, it has been asserted by many, were past masters at this game. In various societies they favoured highly literate minorities with little social leverage who would be loyal creatures of the imperial power - precisely as predicted by Max Weber. Thus Chinese, Parsees and other minority groups were disproportionately drawn into Her Majesty's Service in various parts of the British Empire. Other groups with social power tried to modify these arrangements and secure definitive commitments to protect their rights. Thus, community representation and open or disguised quotas were commonplace in many of the colonial bureaucracies.

So long as countries remained colonial possessions, these issues were formally part of their struggle for independence. Independence then called attention to the issues of broader participation and the adjudication of claims by differing domestic groups to bureaucratic office in the newly emerging country. Their past sensitisation to discrimination, the need for employment by the educated and the heightened

self-consciousness of different communities induced by the practices of most imperial powers, made representation a most salient issue. This in turn gave rise to a wide range of parallel problems in better-established countries—problems which are, in fact, closely related and best treated under the heading of representative bureaucracy.7

The elitist character of the ICS is too well known to be elaborated here. This group formed a most unusual society -recruited from the English middle and upper classes and with diverse education, it was cut off from close contact with home. Also insulated from most real contacts with Indian society, it had to carry out complex administrative tasks and constantly make decisions which concerned the life and liberties of the

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people at large.8 The argument against such a class of administrators has been that their background may not be conducive to attitudes and temperaments to implement any level of developmental activities.9

The IAS, constituted after independence on the model of the ICS, has also been an elitist service. This emerges from the various studies on the socio-economic background of Indian bureaucrats undertaken by a number of scholars— V. Subramaniam, C.P. Bhambhri, D.N. Rao and R.K. Trivedi.10 Their general conclusions point to the fact that higher civil servants are by and large drawn from the urban salaried and professional middle class. Businessmen and commercial employees are less well represented than civil servants and professionals. There are practically no business men in the service and only a few sons of executives of large firms. Those who come from commercial backgrounds are mostly the sons of small-town merchants or employees of small firms. Beyond the middle class, farmers and agricultural labourers are grossly underrepresented in all the services, and even more so artisans and industrial workers. However, landowners are reasonably represented in the police services. The share of lower middle-class groups has been in inverse proportion to the prestige of the service. A high proportion of recruits to these services attended convent and public schools and better colleges. A large proportion of them look first class grades, obtained at the first attempt and did better at interviews. This is less pronounced in the less prestigious services, but is most noticeable in the administrative and foreign services, where their proportion is also higher.

The lack of representativeness in the Indian bureaucracy leads to two contrasting arguments. An egalitarian may criticize it on the ground that higher civil servants are drawn from only 10 per cent of the community. On the other hand, a realist may point out that this position is no different from that which obtains in most advanced and developed countries except certain Communist countries. To take a

specific instance, it is suggested that in the United States, 60 per cent of the bureaucrats come from the middle class, although the middle class in America is larger than in India. It is therefore argued that the natural growth of the middle class in India, in the wake

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of economic development, is bound to correct such over-representation. On the other hand, if the government continues to guarantee proportionate representation to all classes and to reserve a quota system for some as now, an immediate lowering of academic standards of recruits can be predicted, since many of them would come from the small number of candidates from outside the middle class with very low educational standards. At the same time, as argued by Subramaniam, it is doubtful whether any social gain would accrue through favours shown to such a microscopic minority of recruits from such a large class.11 On the contrary, it might create strong resentment and feelings of discrimination. Agitation, riots and unrest in the state of Gujarat and Bihar in 1978 and 1979, and again in 1985 and 1986, for and against the increase in the proposed quota system emphasise this fact. The debate is still inconclusive, and despite the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court (in the Bakke case of reverse discrimination) striking down the quota system, the quest for social justice for backward and unprivileged communities continues unabated in almost all countries.12

In recent years, however, there has been a broadening of the social composition of the services in India, partly because of the recruitment of a quota of candidates from lower strata of those known as the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, generally embracing poor farmers, artisans, school teachers or lower civil servants, and partly because of a larger intake of recruits in every succeeding year. This broadening of the social base is accompanied by other factors, such as the emergence of a large middle class, a more even distribution of recruits from different states, different language groups and different educational institutions. Although there has been a simultaneous fall in the proportion of first-class graduates among the new recruits, a greater proportion of these still come from public schools and better colleges who have done well at interviews. Despite the fact that the civil service in India has lately ceased to be the exclusive preserve of the small well-to-do class, because of the availability of more scholarships and free places for low income groups,13 candidates from the upper classes still enter the services in greater proportion. The majority of those recruited were arts graduates, resulting in an

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imbalance in the representation of those with science backgrounds. This has been interpreted by some writers, although without sufficient proof, as evidence of a weak scientific outlook on the part of the services.14 However, there is now a rapid trend of a greater proportion of technically qualified, engineers, doctors and business management specialists joining the IAS.

It is difficult to say, however, that there is any direct correlation between the socio-economic status of civil servants and their orientation to the job. Grave doubts have also been expressed about the proposition that civil servants sympathize only with the interests of their class of origin. This hypothesis has not been proved conclusively. A question therefore arises, whether the over-representation of the urban middle classes in the services could be compensated by a better understanding on their part of the problems of other classes. There is no prima facie reason why this understanding cannot be developed as a part of the official ethos. Subraniam's inquiry suggests that the social and political attitudes of government employees are not very different from those of the rest of the society. However, new sophisticated training techniques based on research are needed to improve social understanding amongst bureaucrats. Richard Taub's study of the bureaucracy in the state of Orissa proves this, for he discovered that an overwhelming number of civil servants seemed to like developmental programmes relating to industrialisation, power, irrigation, flood-control, dam technology and mineral resources, while only some were more interested in agriculture and land reforms. The initial attitudes of recruits can certainly undergo substantial change during the course of service of training programmes are designed to make them aware of socio-economic conditions and the ethos of the environment. Exposure to fresh experiences in the field can also bring about a change in attitude.15 Since the overall effectiveness of the bureaucracy in meeting the demands of a developing society depends upon the attitudes, skills, values and other professional qualities of its members, the administrative system in India needs a veritable revolution to change the outlook and value systems of its elites.

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PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA

Public policy-making in India is perhaps more polyarchal than in any other country, because of the existence of: a federal polity, diversity and pluralistic nature of society, a free press, and conflicting demands made by different groups through a vast network of communications developed over since Independence. Institutions involved in public policy-making range from agencies in all branches of government, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary to a host of nongovernmental institutions, associations, interest groups, political parties, academic bodies and individuals.

The embryo of public policies generally derives from the political party which comes to power through its election manifesto—which, of course, is modified soon after taking over the reign of authority on points of feasibility and practicability, as also to meet the criticism of opposition as reflected in the media. In the executive branch of the government, the policies are given concrete shape and direction by the Prime Minister and his or her Cabinet. They are assisted in the function by various standing committees of the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister's secretariat composed of personal advisers.

Although the Prime Minister's secretariat does not make any original proposals in policy matters, it exercises a great deal of influence in moulding them through preparation of briefs, analysis and sifting of information to facilitate decisions of the Prime Minister. The interplay between the Prime Minister and his/her Cabinet colleagues, use of committee structure in the Cabinet and interaction between the staff of the Cabinet Secretariat, Prime Minister's secretariat and the secretariat of the different ministries determines the final outcome of public policies through the executive branch of government. The nature of such interplay depends to a great extent on the personal style of the Prime Minister, his/her overall personality and the political strength of the party in power. However, notwithstanding such factors, the Cabinet and in committees play most significant role in the national policy formulation and in many major decisions of key importance.

Public policy development is also influenced by the policy planning cells established in several key ministries, for

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example, in Ministries of Agriculture, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, etc. In practice, these units have functioned more as research cells than as policy-making units, as originally intended. In addition, the predominant institution in policy-making is the National Planning Commission, which has the continuing function of formulating successive developmental plans. The Prime Minister constitutes a number of advisory committees from time-to-time to seek advice on national policy issues. The Economic Policy Advisory Committee, composed of certain well-known economists, is one of the most influential of such bodies. Prime Ministers are known to have sought advice from this as well as from other industrial groups on various policy issues.

While in the Indian system, the political parties set the macro-policy arena, they have unfortunately never created internal think-tanks of groups committed to their action agendas. Political parties tend to mobilise into policy search mostly at the time of elections. Neither the ruling party nor any others have thought it appropriate to fit their internal structures to the developing policy agendas. The Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers, thus remain the most active policy actors at this level.

Apart from the political parties, other sources of major policy options are various knowledge centre, like certain academic and research institutions which study policy perspectives; the media which plays a significant role in macro-policy issues; and various agencies of bureaucracy, particularly the Planning Commission, which are engaged in a continuous process of discussions on micro-policy issues and subsequent steps in their implementation. The role of the bureaucracy in policy processes varies from level to level and situation to situation. At certain stage of its operations, the bureaucracy performs

what is known as surveillance functions, while at other stages it is the diagnostic function finding precise sources of maladies. At certain stages, it performs what can be called the antenna function, i.e. keeping track on what is required by the government at particular junctures. And at other times, it may perform the function of proposing an alternate policy framework, the implementation of policies and providing prospective orientations to policy options. However, emphasis on each of these

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functions of bureaucracy is subject to the political dynamics within which it operates. Constitutionally, all policy matters must obtain the final approval of Parliament.

BUREAUCRACY, POLITICAL DYNAMICS AND POLICY-MAKING

There is a mistaken belief, held by some scholars, that bureaucracy's role in policy-making is to buttress, legitimise and implement policy determined by elected political elites, rather than to initiate policy.16 They believe that when the bureaucracy plays a major role in a given policy issue, it is probably because a vacuum exists in the area, a situation highly unlikely in major questions of foreign affairs or domestic economic policy. However, they do concede that bureaucracy sometimes plays a critical role in initiating policy, mainly because of its technical knowledge.17 Bureaucracy's close liaison with major interest groups also enables it to recommend and implement public policies. Because of its operational role in carrying out policy, bureaucracy is usually aware of when changes are required in on-going programmes. However, despite the sophisticated technology at its command, it is often inaccurate to conceive policy-making as a highly rational process, characterised by foresight and the weighing of most alternatives. Instead, much of the higher officials' time is spent shifting from one contingency to another. Since an official does not usually have sufficient control on his agenda for systematic planning, he is most often concerned with the post-hoc reconciliation of the unexpected.18

Normative Dispositions and the Political Context

Bureaucratic participation in policy-making is shaped by certain normative and operational conditions. Despite the essential ministerial role in ' big' decisions, senior officials have some margin or latitude, both in advising about policy and carrying it out. They can evaluate a given policy proposal as being highly desirable, merely feasible or ill considered. They can carry out an authorised policy whole-heartedly or at some intermediate level of commitment. Insofar as political values influence such choices, the ideological preferences of senior

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officials are an important variable in policy-making. This facet of official behaviour has been somewhat neglected, because research into the political values of higher officials has been difficult to conduct. Some research has focussed upon their socio-economic backgrounds, which has been found useful by certain scholars, as in their view such ' properties' seem to be highly correlated with normative ' dispositions' .19

However, it seems axiomatic that the role of bureaucracy in any system cannot be intelligently analysed without relating it to its political context. Both the bureaucratic and political apparatuses are intimately related not only to the dominant technological patterns prevalent in a particular society, but also to contemporary technological patterns available in the more advanced and creative centres of the world. Similarly, malaise is not likely to be diagnosed properly if one merely concentrates on bureaucracy as a discrete sector. As an Indian scholar has put it, an appropriate diagnostic exercise would call for greater speculation on the policy's values and goals, otherwise one would have to conceive of bureaucracy only in pathological terms. Thus, where politics is not conceived as collective therapy, where political reconstruction degenerates into mass manipulation, the bureaucratic phenomenon may accurately be identified as pathological, inflexible and repetitive, in short, irretrievably condemned to a routinised pattern of behaviour.20

In the realm of public policy-making, modern public administration recognizes involvement of both political and administrative components. As Carl Friedrich observes:

Public policy, to put it flatly, is a continuous process, the formation, of which is inseparable from its execution. Politics and administration play a continuous role in both formation and execution though there is probably more politics in the formation of policy, and more administration in the execution of it. Insofar as particular individuals or groups are gaining or losing power or control in a given area, there is politics; insofar as officials act to propose action in the name of public interest, there is administration.21

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Interpretation of Public Interest

A just and responsible administration implies that the administrators are not simply powerless pawns in a political game, the outcome of which is completely determined by consideration of power. Such an administration assumes that administrators are expected to use their power resources— principally their expertise—to bring about outcomes that are ' in the public interest' .22 Indeed many laws give administrators the mandate, if not the wisdom, to act in the public interest. However, the interpretation

of what ' public interest' is and who knows what it is have been points of heated debate in political science and are a bone of contention between administrators and politicians.23

The administrator tends to look at administrative problems, particularly in relation to development and public interest, from a particular angle. He blames the political leadership for introducing irrational criteria into implementation of schemes for rational development and for twisting administrative matters to prevent decisions purely on merit. What he calls ' political interference' is a constant irritant threats to demoralise the whole bureaucracy. The role of the politician and his capacity to articulate the socio-economic aspirations of the people at large is challenged and much is made of the rationality and impartiality of the administrator himself.24 Politicians, on the other hand, seem always to emphasise their authority at the representatives of the public, assuming that they know best how to define the public interest.

Divergent opinions of administrators and politicians often cause stress leading to hostility in situations which compel them to work together. Scholars have, however, observed that in India this has not always been true. Despite the predisposition of politicians and administrators, certain programmes have succeeded. In a case study of the administration of drought-prone areas in Maharashtra between 1970-73, Kuldeep Mathur suggests that the respective roles of bureaucrats and politicians are determined by structural constraint and the technological and environmental demands of the situation. The new nature of organisational goals and the demands resulting from scarcity situations force administrators and politicians to adapt to changed circumstances. Although

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Mathur's conclusion may well be true in respect of emergent and crisis situations, they may seldom prevail in normal circumstances.25

Thus, we can see that the administrative responsibility of the political executive is bound up with the notion of a public interest that is to be protected by administrators as a kind of trust for unorganised citizens. Administrative responsibility in a modern democratic state rests on two criteria: technical knowledge and popular support. Clearly certain complex problems demand technical solutions, which do not automatically guarantee political responsibility. Popular support must be assessed through legislative communications, public opinion polls and responses of affected groups.26 The citizen is, thus, viewed as the ultimate source of administrative power, not because of a specific commitment to democratic theory, but because he is a rational consumer of public goals and services. Institutional rules and arrangements associated with the bureaucratic, model of administration interferes with the power of citizens to express their preferences because such institutions limit public choice. To respond to the

preferences of the public and to avoid institutional weaknesses created by a dominant bureaucratic form, the government must divide administrative power and offer it to the citizen in many different forms. Thus, a variety of organisational arrangements are required to provide different goods and services. This is in essence the theory of public choice.27

Responsible Neutrality

In defining bureaucracy's role in policy-making, Fritz Morstein Marx introduced the concept of responsible neutrality. Responsible neutrality requires that bureaucrats play a major role in the definition and development of policies and implementation of programmes. Morstein Marx believes that " If the bureaucracy is to act in the public interest, it must be permeated by a consciousness of both its local and its social status in the system, but at the same time he does not think that a neutral bureaucracy implies an ostrich-like withdrawal and isolation from the nerve centre of the political process." 28

The permanent services provide the advancing knowledge and technology, the responses to clients, the more

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inmate acquaintance with programmes, needs and operations. The first and second echelon political appointees bring fresh views on social needs, responsiveness to political and party leadership and, to varying degrees, a restless desire to question, to change and to improve. If a working combination of the two is difficult to achieve, it is nevertheless fundamental to foregoing of an effective public service under democratic direction and control.29

In the context of prevailing politico-administrative relations in India, one would tend to agree with Satish Arora that:

It would be unfair to comment upon the pressures for performance upon the bureaucracy and its decreasing capacity to match expectations of it without simultaneously acknowledging the fact that the foregoing and restructuring of the bureaucratic instrument is primarily a political responsibility. To conceive of the bureaucracy as an autonomous entity is to lose sight of origins and prevailing power constellations. While it is true that the bureaucracy at the highest levels can facilitate the creation of mechanisms for self-scrutiny and readjustment to evolving socio-political milieus, it is also abundantly evident that its mandate is limited, and that qualitative transformation will have to be politically

stimulated. Bureaucracies are not especially prone to innovation and change, political elites should be, and often are, more responsive to societal demands. In the ultimate analysis, bureaucratic failure is an attribute of political system, whose arteries are hardened and whose radar mechanisms have failed to operate.30

In the changing socio-political environment of India, a business must be innovative; he must combine a forward-looking perspective and a positive attitude towards change. Factors such as personality, social background, education, experience and motivation, even in a minority of bureaucrats, are the necessary conditions for administrative innovation. To be operationally important, this minority must be identified, fostered and properly utilised. This is basically the function of political leadership.31

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POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY

Parameters of Bureaucracy's Role

Let us now turn to a discussion on bureaucracy's role in decision-making and policy implementation in India. Scholars have in general identified five key parameters of policy and decision-making within the executive.32 First and foremost is the basic function of anticipating policy needs. At times this may mean the need to discover the policy requirements of the country. Secondly, the bureaucracy has to develop systematically the various alternatives or choices, which are, indicated by the value premises, and an assessment of what is possible. In other words, to identify different manners in which the political and the policy needs of the country can be met. Thirdly, the bureaucracy is expected to suggest a specific choice of alternatives depending upon its assessment of what course of action would yield the optimum achievement of objectives. Fourthly, as the expert group and the directly concerned party, the bureaucracy is expected to decide upon the instruments of implementation. Lastly, the bureaucracy has to apply general policy to specific instances that is to say, decide in individual cases. This is likely to consume maximum time and attention on the part of the bureaucracy and is the most obvious part of the policy-implementation process.

The actual role of bureaucracy in the decision-making and implementation process varies from one system to another. However, the formal and official position in most countries is that the bureaucracy is merely an agent of the policy-formulators. As Wallace Sayre has, aptly put it, it is " not an autonomous brain in its own right but rather the neutral executor of plans made by other/' 33 but this, however, true in one system, may be a pure myth in another. Practically speaking, in most countries, the bureaucracy is one of the important actors in the making of governmental decisions. In most contemporary systems, its power as decision-maker has been steadily increasing. The crucial thing to be evaluated in any

comparative study of the role of bureaucracy in decision-making is to analyse whether it takes initiative in policy proposals or merely waits upon these proposals from its

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political bosses. Is the bureaucracy the protagonist of policies, or merely an adviser in respect of policy proposals? Is it to be an innovator and source of energy for policies, or a guardian of continuity and stability?

Forms of Interaction Between Political Executive and Officials

Yet another aspect would be to perceive clearly the relationship between the political executive of the top of the administrative pyramid and the career officials subordinate to them. The interaction between the two is fundamental to the determination of bureaucratic influence in policy process. In a democratic State, the political executive usually represents the party, which has been victorious at the polls. In non-democratic societies, it represents the ruling canons that preside over the destinies of the State. And in both democratic and non-democratic States, the task of preserving a stable balance between political and career officials is a continuing source of difficulty in framing government policy.34

" In all systems" , according to Peter Self, " there are certain typical forms at interaction which result from the distinctive style and interests of the two groups of participants. Important areas of interaction include policy-making, the arbitration of interests, the treatment of individual and localised claims, and the balance between political accountability and administrative discretion. In the first two cases, politicians possess format responsibility, but administrators supply the missing elements of political decisions. In the third case, administrators defend their distinctive methods of uniformity and impartiality against politicians' frequent interest in influencing particular decisions. The fourth case represents an inevitable point of conflict between the needs and interests of the two groups." 35

In some systems, like that of Britain, the political-administrative division of the two groups of participants is marked most clearly and rigidly, and associated with a definite and well-understood differentiation of roles. However, as contended by Lord Radcliffe Maud, the heart of the job of a senior civil servant is to have a common mind with his minister, which may require long hours of conversation between the two, in which the subject could be excluded, however, politically controversial. To help your minister make up his mind, you

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cannot confine yourself to the so-called technical or administrative questions, you have to enter as fully as possible into the minister's political thinking, including his relations to the Prime Minister and his other colleagues in the government.36 It is, thus, quite clear that the bureaucracy cannot remain uninfluenced by the political leadership. In the French system, such a political-administrative dividing line has been pushed upwards in favour of the career bureaucracy, so much so that political posts themselves have been progressively bureaucratised. In contrast to Britain, ' Marginal politicisation' as Self observes, for example, the ability of politicians to extract specific favours and expressions from the administration, is definitely more marked.37 The officials themselves often play political roles. Although we may accept this statement with reservation, nowhere is the politico-administrative differentiation as unclear as in the United States. The American Government produces neither a clear differentiation of policies nor of administrative elites.38

The Indian bureaucracy, although modeled on the British pattern, presents a somewhat hazy profile. The consensus of opinion in Independent India, reflected in the accepted policies of successive governments until the beginning of 1990s was that society should be built on the socialist pattern of democracy based on secularism and social justice. Such policies need a higher civil service intellectually in sympathy with the policy objectives for them to be implemented. Implementation implies discretion and enthusiasm on the part of officials. Although it is possible for an individual to subjugate his personal wishes to carry out categorical imperatives of a superior authority, but as a senior civil servant observed, " where the thought process has to be invoked, where an element of discretion is involved, it is contrary to human nature to expect that he will be able to substitute his own thinking by that of the rulers and exercise the discretion fully consistent with all the nuances of the original policy objectives. However, for a civil servant functioning at the higher levels, such an exercise of discretion is essential, for no policy directive can cover all the circumstances which may arise from day-to-day on the basis of which numerous decisions have to be taken." 39

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Bureaucracy's Political Responsiveness

There are bureaucratic defaults in two directions. First, officials do play on the politician's lack of knowledge to virtually block implementation of major and minor decisions taken by a Minister. Sometimes decisions are silently reversed without the Minister coming to know about it. Second, officials occasionally acquiesce in the politicians' decisions, which are against the rules or against the public interest. Quite often, the officials who stick to the rule book incur the wrath of ministers who seem to act on behalf of specific vested interests. Those who acquiesce in become favourites. Thus, the bureaucrats are seen in two negative roles; obdurate road blocks or willing tools.40 In recent times, such acquiescence on the part of the bureaucracy has become the general norm in India leading to the impression that it has become politicised.

A recent study has pointed out that the Indian bureaucracy has been involved in politics and political activity in a number of ways. Bureaucrats were not only not neutral in politics, they exercised more powers in reality than the law permitted. Many times Ministers were found wanting in effectively controlling their departmental bureaucracy.41 A similar study of relations between politicians and administrators at the district level has stated that the conventional notion of a clear-cut and clean division of functions between administrators and political leaders does not obtain in practice.42 This is also the contention of a senior civil servant, who maintains that the " classical doctrine of the neutrality of the civil service has broken down in the modern times and especially in the Indian situation" . The only way in which this doctrine can exist further is an idea of non-partisanship and impartiality; impartiality in the sense that where the civil servants apply a corpus of statutory laws and regulations they shall act impartially and not inform these operations with any political considerations not foreseen in the statutory laws. However, for the bulk of activity that is non-statutory a new doctrine ought to be pronounced to suit modern times. For want of a better term we may say that in place of neutrality, what should be encouraged or adopted is political responsiveness, which one may call ' commitment' .43

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Reasons for Implementation Gap

Many policy analysts believe that production for policy process is really a cyclical process starting from " realisation of problems" and moving to " finding a solution" , " implementing the solution" , " reviewing the impact and finally moving back to an assessment of the problem." 44 However, in reality it is not so. Political scientists and policy analysis have identified various factors that can influence the policy process and make it unpredictable.45

In other words, it is now realised that all problems that exist in society do not transform into political issues, all issues do not produce policies, all policies do not invite implementation, and similarly all implementations do not affect the society in the manner intended. And there can be a wide gap in policy formulation and policy implementation. It may also be noted that the assumption that once a policy has been formulated, it will be implemented—is not true in the developing countries. " Governments in these nations, tend to formulate broad sweeping policies and the bureaucratic organisations often lack the capacity for implementation, lack of qualified personnel, insufficient opposition to policy, rampant corruption, etc. While in the western nations, policies tend to be incremental in nature, in the developing countries, they are ambitious, sweeping, designed to bring about development and social reform creating new pattern of actions and institutions and in the process generating tensions both within and between the component categories of idealised policy." 46 Thus, the intended policies may never get implemented and if implemented may produce distorted and unanticipated consequences. A case in point is the Mandal Commission Report on policy of reservations for backward communities. The

Mandal Report initiated in 1976 remained unimplemented until 1990, which was resurrected from the shelf by the Prime Minister V.P. Singh only to strengthen his political base amongst the backward communities in India. It created a terror and unprecedented violence throughout the country resulting in a number of youth immolating themselves in protest against the policy of reservation. It led to the resignation of the Prime Minister V.P. Singh but has further divided the country on the basis of caste, class communities and religion as never before,

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" making such divisions deeper, stronger, perpetual and hurting the very psyche of the new generation" .

In India, growing awareness and concern has been expressed by politicians, planners and the public about the " implementation gap" , the difference between planned goals and policies, and their achievement and implementation. This has obtained particularly in respect of plan implementation, where a major problem has been reaching of targeted goals in the set time. Part of the problem has been faulty planning, and insufficient coordination between planning and implementation which seem to operate in an atmosphere of undeclared conflict. There are many other intervening variables that contribute to the implementation gap; lack of research and relevant knowledge about the development process and consequently, absence of appropriate policies and strategies leading to development; shortage of managers and administrators for developmental tasks; no new institutional forms which could be related more appropriately to development projects, and other intervening variables linked with social and political forces.47

Changed Role of Bureaucracy in Policy-Formulation and Implementation

Perhaps the most important intervening variable between development plans and their implementation is the bureaucratic machinery, whose function is to translate planned goals into action. It has been argued that despite the relative effectiveness of bureaucracy in- India in the area of policy execution and implementation, the traditional bureaucratic structure and process are incompatible with the implementation of development tasks.48

Before independence, bureaucracy in India was the government. Except for basic imperial policy directions from London, it was concerned with both policy and its implementation, notwithstanding the popular provincial ministers in the last phase. A distinction, however dichotomous, was rigidly maintained in the then administrative set-up, leaving policy matters in the hands of an identifiable

corpus of higher civil servants at the secretariat level, both at the centre and the provinces, and implementation to executive officers at the district level. The District Officer was, in fact, the real

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executive, who dominated at the policy implementation level. However, in the context of a developing democracy, this has undergone considerable change. Although, as we have seen earlier. Ministers today play a predominant part in formulation of policies, the distinction between the functions of ministers and that of the bureaucracy based on the institutional dichotomy between policy implementation is quite unreal. This is so because the dividing line between policy and administration has become quite blurred. The Minister is no doubt responsible for policies, but in the process of their formulation, he is greatly assisted and influenced by the bureaucracy. A lot of preliminary and preparatory work is needed before a policy takes shape. The top echelon of bureaucracy conceives and formulates recommendations in respect of policy decisions that the government may announce. They project one or more alternative policy scenarios based on their own value system, judgement, experience and predilections, and the data collected, sifted and analysed. These are then presented to the Minister in the form of advice for a suitable decision by him. It is only on the basis of the case so presented that the Minister is able to take a view of the matter. Involvement of bureaucracy in policy formulation is, therefore, real. Even when policy is directly formulated by the political executive, enunciation of details at various levels in the field, as well as its actual execution, remain in the hands of the bureaucrats. Similarly, Ministers are equally involved in the administration. In addition to their being technically responsible for what goes on in their department, Ministers are most anxious to see the successful implementation of policies initiated by them. Besides, the policy aspect does not really end with the formulation and declaration of a broad policy.

Need for Administrative Planning

In any decision-making process and policy-formulation, there is always a need for a detailed working out of strategic programmes and suitable administrative organisations and operational steps. Administrative planning begins where economic planning ends. It is a conveyor system without a dichotomy between planning and implementation, but there is always feedback from implementation to make planning much

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more purposeful. From time to time, bureaucracy has indeed risen to deliver the goods in times of crisis. It is, thus, the responsibility of the bureaucracy to ensure that the policies are conceived so as to be relevant to prevailing conditions and implemented with patience and conviction.49

At the implementation stage, numerous problems crop up requiring decisions, many of which have strong policy overtones. These decisions are mostly taken by the bureaucracy and it is usually impossible for any Minister either to supervise or go into the details of every case in which such supplementary decisions are taken. Thus, the bureaucracy has to be allowed a great deal of discretion. In many instances, a good policy formulated by the political executive has been badly implemented by the bureaucracy, and bad policy comparatively more efficiently. It is, therefore, clear that neither the political executive, nor the bureaucracy can adopt an isolationist stance at a higher level. Unfortunately, in the Indian system, the dichotomy between the planning and implementation process and the assumption that one is more prestigious and elegant than the other, has very often been a source of ineffectiveness in the functioning of the bureaucracy. In recent years, the role-occupants of the planning and implementation functions have not moved back and forth much to establish equality of status which has presumably been an important reason why implementation of policies has suffered. For effective policy-making and implementation, it is necessary that a collaborative culture be established between the occupants of these two roles.50

Three Phases of Bureaucrat-Politician Interaction

The foregoing analysis indicates that in India one may conceive of three distinct phases in the evolution of policy processes and their interaction with the bureaucrats and politicians. In the first phase, that is in the pre-independence era, when the bureaucracy was the government and enjoyed almost ultimate authority in policy-making and implementation, bureaucracy as an instrument of State was very powerful both in its policy development and implementation roles. Despite the clear distinction between the officials performing such roles, a sort of cohesiveness, solidarity

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and coordination existed amongst them, because of the strong sense of loyalty, esprit de corps, integrity and efficiency of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). In the second phase in the post-independence era, certain changes occurred in this traditional role of bureaucracy. Until 1967, that is, before the dominant one-party system of the Congress Party suffered a major setback after the third general election, the political leadership greatly depended on the advice of bureaucracy in key policy sectors. A comparatively strong and stable leadership provided a sense of direction for the development and progress of the nation and established priorities in resource development and allocation. Bureaucracy served as an instrument of advice, influence and arbiter in respect of policy-making and also carried out the onerous task of its implementation, though not as effectively as in the previous phase. Despite the emergence of the second generation of political leadership later on, the trend and temper of the administrative procedures remained substantially within the past traditions. There were no doubt strains and difficulties, but the political leadership, both at the Centre and in the states, considered it to be its

business to lead the administration and the people. With the help of both generalists and technical specialists, it selected policies for implementation, put them to the people for acceptance, and to the administration for implementation. Despite the absence of specialised policy-planning agencies in most of the echelons of the administrative hierarchy, and in the political parties and the absence of a system of contracting-out studies for policy-planning to specialised academic and research institutions (as is the practice in the USA), there was an effort on the part of the political and bureaucratic leadership to establish and consolidate a popularly directed administrative system, to establish institutions for economic planning and to project and implement comprehensive plans for socio-economic development.

The third phase, after the death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966), marks the erosion of most of the fundamental administrative practices consolidated after Independence. With gradual deterioration of political institutions and processes, and progressive incapacity for goal-setting and objective formulations on the part of the political leadership, it became clear that the political will no longer

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formulated and directed the decision-making process in terms of policy; instead it simply ordered the administration to act in various situations. It appeared to rouse and then wait on populist urges, and sought hereafter to square the policy account within the terms of immediate practical possibilities and limitations.51 Simultaneously, with the lack of understanding about the vital role of political communication processes at levels below state headquarters, there was a trend to expect the bureaucracy to carry out policy-planning and a tendency to blame it for the failure of policy, or more correctly absence of policy. " No doubt" , as one perceptive observer has put it, " the major failure of bureaucracy has been a lack of clarity in its own thinking about the scope of policy-planning, management and administration and its failure to highlight to its own members and the political leadership what their respective roles and limitations are in a democratic system." 52

The Post-Indira Gandhi Era

Much was expected from the leadership of the youthful Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when he took over the reins of government in 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, who had dominated the political scene until then. In her time, of course, despite talks of bureaucratic ' commitment' , the political leadership and the bureaucracy were so entangled with each other that the entire perspective on policy-planning and implementation depended on the outcome of conflicts and cooperation. With Rajiv Gandhi's slogan: " March to the Twenty-first Century" , hope was raised that the new environment would elicit consolidation and stability in the institutional and behavioural-pattern of these two main

actors in policy planning and implementation. With the modicum of structure of a few planning cells already existing in some of the ministries, like External Affairs, Home Affairs and Defence, and the proposed emphasis on administrative reforms and revamping the bureaucracy, it was assumed that the ad hocism of previous years would come to an end, and the new era would provide the necessary ethos for long-term policy-planning and its implementation through the cooperative and combined efforts of politicians, administrators and technocrats. However, frequent reshuffling of portfolios, arbitrary and sometimes

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impulsive shifting of higher echelons in the Central Government and the states have resulted in a total neglect of policies and their implementation. Over the last four decades, the IAS personnel, which are supposed to contribute to policy-planning at the higher levels, instead of being trained to provide managerial cadres and specialists in policy-formulation and planning have according to one of the present cabinet ministers been reduced merely to a clerical level.53 The primary reason for the deterioration in the IAS, as well as in other services has been the absence of policy with regard to career planning and the basic assumptions that an official can do anything and fill any post effectively, which had been the persistently dominant principle of its organisation. The rapidity with which they are transferred, especially in the states, and their placement in the uppermost positions in government without reference to their background experience or expertise, if any, has created the impression that civil servants are primarily used as staff officers rather than as advisers and specialists in policy-formulation at the highest levels. The situation has not improved any more during the subsequent regimes of V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar and in the government of P.V. Narsimha Rao.54 The coalition regimes of H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and the present government of Atal Behari Vajpayee have been too busy to ensure their survival to talk about any innovations in the field of policy-making and implementation and reforming the core administrative cadre. A strong case has been made several times to transform the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) into a reservoir of highly knowledgeable specialists in various subjects and areas, but to no avail.55

The Uncharted Course of Policy-Making

According to a noted sociologist, the administrator in India spends a disproportionately large part of his time dealing with contingencies, rather than coming to grips with hard policy issues. The administration, of course, must be alive to emerging situations and deal with unanticipated events. At the time, it is becoming evident that symptomatic therapy, the method which appears to prevail today, does not really heal: at any rate, if does not offer satisfactory long-term treatment. The entire area of policy-making remains uncharted, and in many

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sectors of national life it is difficult to say where any definite policy really exists. The most important area of policy evaluation remains neglected. What is needed then is an accurate diagnosis of the present situation and possible trends, a clear definition of the objectives of state policy and a set of possible alternative courses of action, based on policy evaluation, with an estimate of their costs and benefits. The administration should not only identify and anticipate current needs and future trends, it should also contribute towards reshaping the environment. This has to be done within a policy framework—a field that has hitherto remained largely neglected. A policy, however sound, does not solve problems. Problem-solving requires high level planning and management capability, efficient communication skills and elasticity and pragmatism in directing the course of state action. Without these, policy will not move far beyond the drawing-board stage. The administration must reorient itself in regard to both policy-planning and implementation. It must constantly look for more efficient management alternatives.56

Need for Improving Knowledge and Information Base

Considering that the quality of policy-making has much to do with the stage which a society has reached in the scale of progress, the public's awareness of its rights and responsibilities and the role public opinion plays in formulation of policies are important inputs to the policy-making process. In a country like India, the two major areas which appear to call for urgent attention in the field of public policy-making are:

(1) improvement in the acquisition; and

(2) development of personnel involved in policy-making.

In this context, the purpose of knowledge is to improve the rational components of policy-making. To improve policy-making, generation, identification and harmonisation of valid knowledge is essential. This also implies that the knowledge base be widened or in other words, that relevant knowledge be drawn from different disciplines and integrated. In these days of information technology, and the growing trend of

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e-governance, it is important that the new technology be used to buttress the process of policy development. In many policy-making areas in the Indian administration system, the interplay of

knowledge from diverse sources hardly exists. There are not many research organisations, which specialise in producing alternative policy projections and no mechanism in the administrative system where knowledge from such expert institutions is regularly sought and coordinated as inputs to policy development.

Development of Policy-Makers

Perhaps it would be worthwhile for universities and professional institutions around the country to organize special seminars and conferences in which ministers, legislators, civil servants and scholars could get-together to discuss current policy and administrative problems. Imparting knowledge to public policy-making should be made an essential part of such exercises. One cannot help noting that despite the growth of centres of advanced studies in different disciplines, there are hardly any institutions devoted to public policy research and study like the Centre for Policy Research and the Institute of Defence Analysis, New Delhi. And whatever knowledge is imparted in professional institutions is woefully inadequate. This discipline has yet to find its place in university curricula. Besides strengthening existing institutions, additional centres to provide policy knowledge to the civil servants and conduct research may have to be established to meet growing needs.


In conclusion it could be said that it would also be absolutely necessary to install a system of constant monitoring, evaluation and analysis of public policies, which would require continuous feedback from the actors in the field to those at headquarters, and vice versa. The recent attempts of the Chief Ministers of some of the States initiated by Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu to take recourse to e-technology to help keep contacts in the field has set the pace for e-governance. Above all, it would be of crucial importance to build an effective information system in each government and

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public organisation to provide the basic data and infrastructure for policy development and implementation. Unfortunately, at this juncture, there is little evidence to indicate that the administrative system is moving from its position of ad hocism to maturity, stability and dynamism in the crucial areas of public policy processes.


1. See my earlier study on the subject; R.B. Jain, " The Role of Bureaucracy in Policy Development and Implementation in India" , International Social Science Journal: 123, February 1990, pp. 31-45.

2. UK (1968), Report of the Fulton Committee' on the Civil Service, London: HMSO, 1968, Vol. 1, p. 11. For an excellent background to the development of Indian bureaucracy during the British rule, see B.B. Mishra (1977), The Bureaucracy in India: An Historical Analysis of Development Up to 1947, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

3. B.S. Khanna (1973), " Bureaucracy and Development in India" in Edward W. Weldner (ed.), Development Administration in Asia, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p. 223.

4. Joseph La Palmbara (1963). ' An Overview' in Bureaucracy and Political Development, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 12.

5. See Misra, op. cit., pp. 385-6, also R.B. Jain (1976), Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration, Delhi: Vishal, Chs. II and III.

6. See Donald J. Kingsdey (1944), Representative Bureaucracy, Yellow Springs: Ohio Antioch Press: R.K. Kelsall (1955), Higher Civil Servants in Britain from 1870 to the Present day, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul; and Samual Krislov (1974), Representative Bureaucracy, Englewood, Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 10-20.

7. Samuel Krislov (1974), Representative Bureaucracy. Englewood, Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, pp. 16-18.

8. Bernard S. Cohn (1966), ' Recruitment and Training of British Civil Servants in India, 1600-1860' in Rajph Braibanti (ed.), Asian Bureaucratic Systems Emergent from the British Imperial Tradition, Dutham: Duke University Press, p. 139.

9. Ralph Braibanti and Joseph J. Spengler (1956), Tradition, Values, and Socio-Economic Development: Durham: Duke University Press.

10. V. Subramaniam (1971), Social Background of India's Administrators, New Delhi, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, p. 3; C.P. Bhambhri (1971), ' The Administrative Elite

and Political Modernisation in India' , Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, January-March, pp. 47-64; D.N. Rao (1963), ' Disparities of Representation Among the Direct Recruits to the IAS' , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 11, January-March, pp. 88-9; R.K. Trivedi and D.N. Rao (1960), ' Regular Recruits to the IAS: A Study' , Journal of the National Academy of Administration, Vol. 5, pp. 50-80. While

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Subramaniam's study covers probationers during the years 1966-7 and Rao and Trivedi's covers the probationers between 1948-62. For a summary of these studies see G.B. Sharma (1978), ' Social Composition of Indian Bureaucracy: Some Reflections on its Representativeness' , in Ramesh K. Arora et al. (eds.), The Indian Administrative System, New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, pp. 200-23. Also see Hardwar Rai and Shaklendra Prasad Singh (1973), ' Indian Bureaucracy: A Case for Representativeness' , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 19, p. 73.

11. Subramaniam, op. cit., p. 128

12. See (1978), ' Bakke: Some Changes' , Newsweek, 17 July, pp. 29-30.

13. A recent survey in a leading Delhi daily reported that nearly 60 per cent of civil servants belongs to the rural areas. However only half of them had actually lived there up to the age of 18. In Class I there was a high proportion of those who had spent their ' impressionable' years in urban areas. An earlier study reported that 77 per cent of IAS officers came from towns and cities. Government service was a pronounced feature of the family backgrounds of Class I and Class II: officers from Class III were mostly the sons of agriculturists The families of doctors, lawyers and teachers contributed more to higher classes than to Class III. An earlier study had shown a similar pattern: government service —32.7 per cent, business—18.9 per cent; agriculturists—13.6 per cent and other occupations—4.6 per cent.

14. S.P. Aiyer (1973), Modernisation of Traditional Society and Other Essays, Delhi: Macmillan.

15. Richard P. Taub (1969), Bureaucrats Under Stress, Berkeley: University of California Press.

16. Robert Presthus, Public Administration, New York, Ronald Press, 1975, pp. 32-33.

17. Ibid., p. 17.

18. Ibid., pp. 39-40.

19. Robert Presthus, op. cit., p. 53.

20. Satish K. Arora, " Political Policy and the Future of Bureaucracy" , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, 1971, pp. 354-5.

21. Carl J. Friedrich, " Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility" in Carl J. Friedrich and E.S. Mason (eds.), Public Policy, Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press, 1940, reproduced in Francis E. Rourke (ed.), Bureaucratic Power in National Politics, Boston, Little Brown, p. 318.

22. Fred A. Kramer, Dynamics of Public Bureaucracy: An Introduction to Public Administration, Cambridge (Mass), Winthrop, 1977, p. 264.

23. For a discussion on this topic, see R.B. Jain (ed.), Public Services in a Democratic Context, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1983, pp. 155-225.

24. Kuldeep Mathur, Bureaucratic Response to Development, Delhi National Publishing House, 1972, pp. 835-45.

25. Kuldeep Mathur, " Conflict or Cooperation: Administrators and Politicians in a Crisis Situation" , Indian Journal of Public Administration,

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Vol. 20, 1974, pp. 844-5.

26. Fred A. Kramer, op, cit., p. 270.

27. Howard E. McCurdy, Public Administration: A Synthesis, Menlo Park, Benjamin Cummings, 1977, p. 305.

28. Joseph La Palombara (ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development, Princetion, Princeton University Press, 1963, pp. 16-17.

29. Frederick C. Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service, New York, Oxford University Press, 1968, pp. 17-25.

30. Satish K. Arora, op. cit., p. 366.

31. Hahn-Been Lee, " The Role of the Higher Civil Service Under Rapid Social and Political Change" , in Edward W. Weidner (ed.), Development Administration in Asia, Durham, Duke University Press, 1983, pp. 129-30.

32. V.A. Pai Panandikar, " Bureaucracy and Policy-Making" , Paper presented at the Seminar on " Public Services and Social Responsibility" held at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, October 6-11, 1973.

33. Wallace S. Sayre, " Bureaucracies: Some Contrasts in Systems" , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 10, 1964, pp. 219-29.

34. Francis E. Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics and Public Policy, Boston, Little, Brown, 1969, p. 91.

35. Peter Self, Administrative: Theories and Politics, London, Allen and Unwin, 1972, p. 153 .

36. Lord Radcliffe Maud, " Government in Theory and Practice" , Political Studies, Vol. 13, 1958, pp. 15-21.

37. Peter Self, op. cit., p. 160.

38. Ibid.

39. R.C. Dutt, " Committed Civil Service: The Problem" , Seminar, No. 168, August 1973, p. 13.

40. See, " If not, ' Yes Minister What?" , Collection of views, The Hindustan Times, June, 27, 1994, p. 13.

41. C.P. Bhambhri, " The Administrative Elite and Political Modernisation in India" , India Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, 1971, pp. 47-64.

42. Shanti Kothari and Ramshray Roy, Relations Between Politicians and Administrators at the District Level, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1969, p. 160.

43. M.K. Chaturvedi, " Commitment in Civil Service" , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 17, 1971, pp. 40-46.

44. See Renu Khator, " Bureaucratic Expansion and Policy Performance: A Quantitative Study of Indian States" , a paper presented at the 1986 Mid-West Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago (III), March 10-12, 1986. For conceptual framework of policy process, see W.N. Dunn, Public Policy Analysis, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.), Prentice Hall, 1980, and Brain Hogwood and B. Guy Peters, Policy Dynamics, New York (N.Y.), St. Martins Press, 1983.

45. For uncertainties in issue creation and agenda building, see R.W. Cabb and CD. Elder, Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of

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Agenda-Building, Baltimore (MD), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972, and Anthony Downs, " Up and Down with Ecology—The Issue Attention Cycle" , Public Interest, Vol. 28, 1972, pp. 28-50. For unpredictability in implementation, refer to E. Bardach, The Implementation Game, Cambridge (Mass), MIT Press, 1977; and E. Hargrove, The Missing Link: The Study of the Implementation of Social Policy, Washington (DC), The Urban Institute, 1975—quoted by Renu Khator, op. cit.

46. Q.U. Khan, " A Model of Public Policy Implementation Process" , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 33, January-April, 1987, p. 37.

47. Kamla Chowdhry, " Bureaucracy and Development Tasks" in S.C. Dube (ed.), Public Services and Social Responsibility, New Delhi, Vikas, pp. 111-21.

48. Kamla Chowdhry, op. cit.

49. R,N. Haldipur, " Bureaucracy's Response to New Challenges" , in S.C. Dube, op. cit, pp. 57-110.

50. Nitish R. De, " Bureaucracy Obsolescene and Innovation" , in S.C. Dube, op. cit., pp. 57-110.

51. E.N. Mangat Rai, Patterns of Administrative Development in Independent India, London, Athlone Press, 1979, p. 5.

52. K. Subrahmanyam, " Policy Planning in India: Need for Specialised Service" , Times of India, September 29, 1986.

53. Ibid.

54. See M.N. Buch, " Victim of Politics" , The Hindustan Times, January 7, 1991, p. 13, J.B. D' Souza, " Uncivil Servants" , The Times of India, November 8, 1992, p. 14, and 1-2; and " Bureaucracy-Trouble Ahead" , Pioneer, January 26, 1992.

55. R.B. Jain, Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration, Delhi, Vishal, 1976, Chapters II and III.

56. S.C. Dube, " Public Services and the New Environment" , in S.C. Dube (ed.), op. cit., pp. 1-9.

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6 Political Control Over Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy in India has been a much maligned institution almost since the British colonial times, when it was viewed as an instrument of oppression and suppression of nationalist movements. In recent times, it has not only been criticised for its penchant to enjoy power while shrugging off accountability but also for almost everything—rising prices; crime-rates; communal riots; indifference and insensitivity to public needs and grievances; scams, economic offences and all-pervading corruption; and failure to achieve developmental results and delivering these to the people. Almost every political leader blames bureaucracy for his own failures and calls for greater political control over it and yet, when in power, does not hesitate to manoeuver it for his own personal gains.

BUREAUCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY IN A DEMOCRACY

In a democracy, it is axiomatic that the government be held accountable for all its actions. Accountability is the core characteristics of a democratic system. How can control be exercised over those to whom power is delegated? Democratic theory in the past implied that since power emanates from the people and is to be exercised in trust for the people within the government, each level of executive authority should be accountable to the next higher rung, right up to the top of the hierarchy. The executive authority as a whole is supposed to be

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accountable to the legislature and, thus, to the people. In modern times, however, this simple equation of accountability has undergone some radical changes. Most of the business of modern politics is executed through public bureaucracies which perform a variety of tasks ranging from provision of goods and services to particular groups and individuals to the regulation of stability of the society and socio-economic growth. Today, we not only live in an " organisation society" , but are increasingly coming to

live in one dominated by public bureaucratic organisations. Public bureaucracies and the officials, who populate them, often tend to be self-aggrandising, negligent, wasteful and unresponsive, hence the often negative connotations of the term ' bureaucratic' . Bureaucracies have become powerful political actors, and often that power is used in ways that deviate from the collective democratic intent. Bureaucracies—and the power they wield—thus often elude political control.

From another point of view, bureaucracies raise other kinds of problems that emanate from their structural characteristics. Bureaucratic organisations promise efficiency, order and stability; democracy calls for responsiveness. These may often become contradictory. The sense of the public will, which generally under girds democracy, particularly in respect to implementation of developmental programmes and policies, may call for special or particular treatment to which bureaucracy in its universality and neutrality is often averse. Thus, the most challenging issue that faces a democratic state and the administrative reforms today is not only the accountability of public bureaucracy per se, but also the ways it could be made responsible and responsive.1

POLITICAL CONTROL OVER BUREAUCRACY IN INDIA

The system of political control over bureaucracy that operates in India mainly follows the traditional orthodox model of parliamentary government, where citizens control their representatives in the legislature, and the representatives are supposed to control cabinet and the ministers and through them the public servants. In the development of Indian polity since Independence during the last five decades, this orthodox

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classical model of responsibility has been reiterated time and again, both by public officials and quasi-judicial pronouncements.2

However, such a view of accountability based on the twin principles of ministerial responsibility and civil service anonymity is becoming increasingly unworkable in most parliamentary systems. Over the last few decades, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility has weakened; for example, the practice of ministerial resignations for deeds of civil servants has almost disappeared, while there has been a constant erosion of the anonymity of civil servants as they have begun to be named in both public inquiries and other documents. Parliamentary committees have also required presence of senior civil servants when the matters connected with their departments are under discussion. At the same time, the complexity of modern governments and the amount of work handled by each Department is so great that no minister can possibly supervise all the administrative acts of even a very small Department.

Hence, it is unrealistic to expect ministers to be accountable for every act of their civil servants. Moreover, a minister's control over the bureaucracy is dependent upon his political strength, which in itself depends on the strength of the party system in a democratic country. Thus, the relevance of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility is being questioned in the present-day context of management of public programmes. While one may not go so far as to say that the concept of ministerial responsibility is now defunct, there is no doubt that it has become an ineffective convention, although both ministers and senior civil servants still wish to retain it.

Environmental Context of Political Control

The kind of constraints which operate on the system of bureaucracy in India can be divided into three categories. One category relates to cultural variable which poses the following question: In what ways and to what extent is receptivity to government-sponsored innovations determined or obstructed by characteristics of social contracts, particularly traditional authority relationships and cultural value patterns? The bureaucratic culture in India is still dominated by the value patterns set up by the British in the nineteenth century, and to

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that extent it serves as an impediment to innovation. A second category concentrates on factors of social inequality and is concerned with the ways in which patterns of class formation, patronage relationships and disparities in the distribution of resources affect the realisation of declared developmental goals. The third category includes the structural arrangements that a government employs in the procedures adopted by the administration, for example, its processes of consultation and decision-making or the form of participation or inter-agency coordination it follows.3 In this category, bureaucracies in general are subject to many dysfunctions, such as impersonality, proliferation of documentation, slowness, the tendency to mistake organisational conventions for ultimate goals, the tendency to develop a hidebound orthodoxy, lack of freshness and initiative as thought and action settle in familiar ruts.4

MECHANISMS OF POLITICAL CONTROL OVER INDIAN BUREAUCRACY

Let us now turn to an analysis of the operation of control mechanism in India. While the external aspects of such mechanisms largely relate to the legislative, judicial and public accountability, the internal control system operates within the realm of the executive branch and encompasses both the formal and informal restraints that affect bureaucratic behaviour.

Legislative Control

The problems of ensuring bureaucratic accountability to the legislature in a parliamentary system of government, like that of India, is one which is largely a matter of politics and not of law. Of the many functions of the legislatures, one of the most important is the control and overview of administration. The classical model of legislative activity which held that legislatures were essentially involved in law-making has not been replaced with one which takes into account the role of the individual legislators. Yet, however, legislators operate under some constraints, notably the influence of the executive on the extent of the involvement of the legislators in a given matter.5

The notion of legislative control over bureaucracy has been subject to two different interpretations. It may mean

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general political control or a detailed examination of governmental activities. General political control implies that the legislature has a right to express its agreement or disagreement with the way the government intends to orient or has oriented its activities.6 In the Westminster model of parliamentary government, such control - is secured through continuous and collective responsibility of the cabinet to parliament and the continuation in office so long as it commands the support of the parliamentary majority. The second interpretation involves detailed examination of government activities, which may cover both preliminary intervention, such as before a policy is adopted, and ex-post facto scrutiny, such as after the policy has been implemented.7 This meaning of control enables ' governments' to govern in the expectation that they can serve out their statutory period of office, that they can plan if they choose at least that far ahead, but that everything they do may be exposed to the light of the day and that everything they say may be challenged in circumstances designed to make criticism as authoritative, informed and as public as possible.8

Control means influence, not direct power: advice, not command; criticism, not obstruction; scrutiny, not initiation; and publicity, not secrecy. Here is a very realistic sense of parliamentary control, which does not inhibit the performance of the government.9

Instruments of Control

In the ever-expanding areas of administration, which are due to the proliferation of state activities in a modern democratic welfare state, parliamentary control has increasingly taken the form of ex-post facto supervision and control. It is in this sense of control that we must now examine the main instruments

through which parliament in India attempts to exercise control over the executive and the public services. There are:

1. Parliamentary Questions: Members can put questions to ministers about the working of their departments.

2. Motions for Adjournment on a matter of public importance provide an opportunity to the members

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to discuss the working of any Department.

3. Debates and Discussions on the floor of the House, whether legislative or budgetary, provide an important occasion to the members to review the functioning of administration.

4. Parliamentary Committees also exercise control. This is done through the following Committees: Estimates Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Committee on Public Undertakings, Committee on Assurances, and Committee on Subordinate Legislation and specialist subject committees.

5. Comptroller and Auditor-General's Audit of expenditure of public money is also used for controlling administration.10

Apart from the financial committees of Indian parliament, there are other scrutiny committees to whom the administration is answerable. The most important of these are the Committee on Government Assurances, Parliamentary Select Committee on Legislation, Committee on Subordinate Legislation, Committee on Petitions, and Committee on Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These committees keep a surveillance on many of the specific activities of the government relating to their respective areas. However, the parliamentary control mechanism in India is greatly handicapped in the absence of effectiveness of the specialised parliamentary committees, attached to all ministries/ departments of the government on the pattern of House or Senate Committees in the US Congress to scrutinise all matters falling under the purview of individual ministries and departments.

The evolution of specialised Departmental Standing Committees in recent years has been a significant development. Before the 10th Lok Sabha was dissolved in 1996, 17 such committees, covering among them all the ministries and departments of the Government of India, had come into existence. It may be of interest to analyse the past performance of the committees and find out whether these committees have achieved real meaning or they have just become merely part of a spoils system for distribution of perks and benefits.

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The standing committees are supposed to embrace the entire spectrum of the administration. In particular, they are to provide:

(1) a close pre-budget scrutiny of all estimates and expenditure before being voted by Parliament;

(2) an objective examination of the functioning of the government departments;

(3) a close scrutiny of the legislative proposals coming up before Parliament, and

(4) a review of the implementation of laws passed by Parliament.

The performance of these committees depends largely on the stature of their Chairmen and the calibre of their members. Some of the previous Standing Committees have worked exceedingly well. The Railway Committee, and the Committee on Industry have done well in questioning the bureaucracy on some of their key-decisions.11 This cannot, however, be said about the other committees. Even the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Bofors and the Bank Scam Committee, which took extensive evidence and examined a number of officials, failed to form a sharp and coherent picture out of a mass of material.12

Making Parliamentary Control Effective

In order that parliamentary control over the executive may be more effective, it has been suggested that all policies approved and laid down by parliament should be stated in specific terms. At present, government motions on policy matters are vague and too general. For instance, Parliament has never defined what Indian-foreign policy is or should be, despite debating it in every session. What is true of

foreign policy is also true of governmental policies in other areas, such as defence or food policies. The policy of Parliament at best can be gathered from the various speeches of its members and ministers from time to time. Speeches can never be precise. They are arguments, facts, opinions and intentions all put together. No administration can be effectively called to account on this basis. It will always find an escape route in the speeches

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for what it has done or has failed to do. Parliament should never encourage omnibus motions, such as " such and such policy or situation be taken into consideration and having considered it, the policy of government in regard thereto is approved" . What is passed by Parliament is this motion alone and not the government speeches which have been made during the course of the debate. It is because of the imprecise wording of the government resolutions that Parliament has been ineffective in enforcing what it wants and what it thinks it has accepted.13

Another suggestion for making parliamentary control more effective is to take away some of the most crucial but non-controversial issues from the purview of partisan debates on the floor of the legislature. In other words, the Member of parliament may be freed from party affiliations and allowed a free vote according to his conscience. In recent times, such freedom of voting has been allowed on many issues, in British House of Commons, such as Britain's entry to the European Economic Community, abortion laws, capital punishment, divorce, censorship of theaters and so on.14 Such a step in the Indian Parliament may be more helpful especially when there is a tendency to regard everything through partisan eyes, and many issues, particularly relating to administrative and political corruption, seem to get lost even when there is a general consensus to censure the concerned authorities among members of the ruling party and other opposition parties as a whole.

As the legislature cannot govern, it devices instruments for controlling the executive. A problem constantly under consideration in parliamentary democracies is the reform of legislative devices and instruments of control. Each device of control should occupy its proper place in the legislative mechanism, and preserve its identity. A suggestion for appointment of assessors or parliamentary commissions to strengthen the system of parliamentary control deserves great care and circumspection, as they may tend to cause erosion of cabinet responsibility and the sense of leadership in the administrative branch. Parliamentary commissions, however, may be periodically appointed to assess the tools of parliamentary control and suggest improvements. A recent

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study has suggested establishment of a permanent bureau of parliamentary control in the Parliament Secretariat. It is expected that this will facilitate a continuous examination of the problem of ensuring legislative control.

A foolproof mechanism of control operated by intelligent members who are animated by parliamentary tradition is essential for ensuring administrative accountability to the legislature.15

Whatever other institutions or functional units that may be developed for consolidating parliamentary control, in the final analysis, it is evident that the oft-quoted excuse that Members of Parliament lack opportunities to supervise and control executive actions and policies has no justification. The rules of procedure of the Indian Parliament provide for various effective techniques, but few of them are properly utilised. Parliament spends a good deal of time in sittings, approximately one-third of the total time available to it. Thus, spending more time on parliamentary sittings may perhaps hamper other activities of individual members, as it would disrupt a large number of hours, which many of them spend in parliamentary and other committee meetings. However, effective utilisation of the services, talents and interests of the individual Member of Parliament has so far not been made. Opposition members and backbenchers have very often felt neglected. The greatest obstacle to effective parliamentary control is perhaps the apathy shown by the majority of members towards constructive criticism and supervision of government policies and loss of precious parliamentary time in unnecessary procedural wrangles or shouting or sittings in the wells of the House. Seldom, if ever, have debates and discussions in parliament shown dispassionate analysis of government policies, which are very often discussed and motivated by party-politics considerations. The only remedy for this malaise, and it is not an easy one, is a change in the attitude of the individual Member of Parliament, who needs to rise above the narrow partisan outlook and to discuss the issues on merit.

Internal Control Mechanism

The internal control mechanism to secure accountability

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of public officials consists of two interrelated dimensions. In the first, control is exercised by either superior over subordinate or by parallel agencies in the executive branch of the government, which can be vertical or horizontal or both. This gives rise to the more relevant problem in terms of exercise of bureaucratic power, whether administrative decisions are based on full and accurate information and proper assessment of the individual case and whether the result, though not totally unreasonable, is less preferable in terms of individual fairness than some other course of action. The second is control

exercised by public servants on themselves by themselves, in dealing with the numerous ambiguous situations not covered by legislation, ministerial directives or departmental manuals, and where they have only their professional judgment and conscience as a guide. Although a variety of writers have agreed in the past several decades that bureaucracy has become too powerful to be controlled wholly by external institutions, and that, therefore, public servants need to possess a subjective or moral sense of responsibility, yet there has been no agreement on what such a code of responsible bureaucratic behaviour should contain and how the values it enshrines might best be nurtured in the public service.16

The first dimension of internal control mechanism is more viable in as much as in its nature and content, it consists of directing, regulating, supervising, advising, inspecting, evaluating, prodding and, if necessary, punishing the derelict. Such a control mechanism may express itself in the ministerial control at the top and concomitant administrative control within the hierarchy of an organisation. It can further be broken down in two specific areas: control before an action is taken, for example in prior approval of projects, promulgation of service standard, budgetary limitations on the magnitude of operation, approval of appointment of key subordinate personnel, all of which can be described as preventive and control after an action is taken, such as reporting, audit inspection and investigation, which is the punitive aspect.

The preventive aspect of such control mechanisms is of the type that is exercised by some parallel agencies for securing compliance to specific uniform rules and regulations, like the one exercised by the Treasury in Great Britain and the Ministry

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of Finance in India. The Government of India (Delegation) of Financial Powers Rules, 1958, 1961, 1962 and 1975-76, as amended to date, govern the system of sanction of expenditure, reappropriation of grants, internal audit and other financial aspects regarding grant of land, assignment of revenue and concessions. Similarly, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions regulates matters of general applicability to all services regarding common standards of recruitment and training, formulation of principles governing promotions, seniority, etc. Other staff agencies, like the Planning Commission, exercise a good deal of control and compliance with overall developmental policies of the government in respect of planned projects and developmental activities.

So far as the punitive internal control mechanism in the Government of India is concerned, apart from the traditional institution of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C&AG), which is a constitutional authority to conduct audit of accounts of the Government of India and report on

maladministration of funds of unauthorised or inappropriate expenditure, the two other institutions involved in such a process are the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), established under a Government of India resolution in April 1973, and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) established on the recommendation of the 1964 Santhanam Committee Report on corruption in Indian administration. While the former is concerned with the investigation of important cases under the Defence of India Act and Rules, such as hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering in essential commodities and, in addition, collection of intelligence relating to certain specific types of crimes, or crimes with all-India or inter-state ramifications or of particular importance from the special point of view (lately, it has been concerned with the investigations of scams and corruption charges against political leaders and bureaucratic officials in a big way), the CVC was to investigate public complaints against administrative action or inaction. In the structure that resulted, the suggested role of the Vigilance Commissioner as a grievance authority was whittled down, and it remained merely an inquiring authority in cases of corruption brought before it by the ministries or the departments. The traditional structure of departments and the indivisible control

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of secretaries over them did not permit the Vigilance Commissioner to reduce their authority or to weaker ministerial responsibility. This old bureaucratic structure constituted by bottlenecks, and many a time the CVC deplored the " gross delay" caused in various ministries, departments and public undertakings in implementing its advice for action against corrupt officials.17

The efforts of the Central Government to install Lok Pal, an ombudsman-like institution to hear public grievances against use or misuse of authority have not met with any success. Despite the introduction of various bills in 1968-69, 1971 and again in 1985 and in 1996 under United Front Government led by Prime Minister, H.D. Devegowda, and the intentions of the present Vajpayee Government (1999-), no consensus has yet emerged on the desirability of such an institution at the Union Government level. The experience of Lok Ayuktas appointed in a number of states in the Indian federal units has also been far from satisfactory, and it seems to support the view held by some scholars in the context of a developed nation like Canada that:

At best an ombudsman can only provide symbolic reassurance that the bureaucracy is under control and at worst, it could lead to complacency about the problem. Therefore, no useful purpose can be served by creating an office whose efforts depend on the illusory force of persuasive effort, because the cases in which he fails will be the very cases in which for his appointment to be effective, he should be able, but has not the power to succeed. Persuasion is a poor weapon against entrenched bureaucracy.18

From the Indian experience, it must be added that it is an institution that can become a pawn in the games that politicians love to play.19

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) as a Control Mechanism

In addition to the conventional methods of judicial review, adjudication and issuing of writs for exercising control over bureaucracy in respect of:

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(a) abuse of official discretion,

(b) lack of jurisdiction,

(c) error of law,

(d) error in finding of fact, and

(e) error of procedure.

Public Interest Litigation movement in India has brought about a distinct role of the judiciary in controlling public service. In recent years, the courts have issued a series of judgments directing an indifferent or a complacent bureaucracy to implement important policy decisions affecting public at large, e.g., the environment protection laws are being directed to be enforced by the judiciary when the bureaucracy failed to do what it is supposed to and compounded indifference with corruption. Similarly, police atrocities in Punjab have provoked severe condemnation by judiciary. In many cases, judges have simply been critical of what has happened and created mechanisms to ensure that the bureaucracy acts according to law. It has not been easy for the judiciary to find ways to enforce accountability in the face of the reality that carrying out of its orders depended on fellow officials. The judiciary has simply played a compensatory role to put other institutions back on track. Modest in its approach, exacting in its queries and relatively uncompromising in its directions, the judiciary has restored order out of chaos.20 In one controversial case, the judiciary has gone to the extent of sentencing, Mr. Srinivasan, one of the

top official of the State Government of Karnataka, for contempt of court in not carrying out its directions in a judgment arising out of a PIL.

Need to Check Over-Activism

This aggressive role of judiciary or the so-called ' judicial activism' has received an impetus in India in the last two decades for two reasons:

(1) there has been a perceptible decline in the performance of Parliament and Assemblies, because of frequent agitations by certain members not allowing conduct of its legitimate business, and

(2) the mal-performance of the bureaucracy. Activist

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NGOs (like Common Cause) have sought to involve the judiciary by resorting to PIL.

And the court is left with no alternative than to issue directions to the executive for taking corrective action.21 The judiciary's responsiveness has exposed numerous mega scams. This has also caused ' jitters' among a large number of politicians, who had amassed wealth by corrupt means and who were now finding the noose ' tightening' around them. The trend of judicial activism has set in largely because of the growing perception that the judiciary is the last resort to right the wrongs done by the bureaucracy and the inability and reluctance of Parliament to decide issues which it alone should. The system has become over-politicised and there is corruption even in the highest places. In such a situation, judicial activism is forcing politicians and bureaucrats to behave themselves. Although it is felt that the current judicial activism in different fields is a much needed step in the right direction, but it is necessary to guard against its becoming ' over-activism' , by taking certain steps like: (1) enforcing judicial accountability, (2) enforcing filling of PIL under Article 236 in the High Court rather than under Article 32 in the Supreme Court so as to allow scope for further review, (3) avoid ' overkill syndrome" by taking into account the feasibility, practibility, workability of the judicial decision, (4) issue of only general (as against specific) directions leaving their day-to-day enforcement to the bureaucracy, taking into account their financial commitments and expertise in the field, and (5) avoidance of substituting court's decision in place of the decision under challenge and many similar steps.22

Transfers as an Instrument of Control

In the realm of the theory of public personnel administration, transfers of officials serve as a tool of human resource management to train officials in different facets of work of an organisation, to provide the required exposure to acquire varied experience, and to help them in career advancement. Although there are policy guidelines existing in all departments spelling out the principles to be adopted while affecting transfers, but in the past few years all these guidelines

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have been flouted by politicians and at their behest by senior officers, to use transfer as a tool of punishment to tyrannise upright officials and to break the rule of non-compliant and non-cooperative ones. It is a common sight in the States and the Centre that MLAs and MPs seek transfer of officials purely on grounds of personal aggrandisement. So much so that getting officials transferred at their writ has become part of the prerequisites of a politician. One Chief Minister has even streamlined this by fixing a quota of requests for transfer an MLA is entitled to and communicating this to heads of Departments orally and informally. In this scenario, the command and control of subordinate officials pass on to the politicians. Senior officials are unable to use transfer as a tool of public administration.23 To escape the consequences of arbitrary transfers, they either resign as in the case of IAS officers like Avinash Dharmadhikari,24 or approach politicians. Each favour given has a quid pro quo and the politician extracts his pound of flesh at an opportune time. As one senior retired IAS official has put it:

This is the lunatic level to which we have brought political interference in administration. I state with some authority that no senior civil or police officer in this country today enjoys any genuine control over his subordinates because they have found lateral and parallel links outside the official hierarchy, through which they have their work done and which they exploit to cover their own wrong-doings. Therefore, far from being an excessively powerful and obstructive bureaucracy, we now face a situation in which the bureaucracy as a delivery system has virtually disintegrated.25

Far too long bureaucracy in India has been forced to put up with patently unreasonable transfers and postings on grounds hardly related to administrative matters. No sooner does a new political dispensation takes place in a state (or even in the case of union government, as has been seen in the recent quick transfer of powers from the Congress to BJP and then the UF government in June 1996), than the officials perceived as biased in favour of the previous regime got posted out to make

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way for other considered more friendly by the new regime. Political changes apart, most of the senior IAS officials also have to contend with the whims and fancies of their political bosses. Very often an

officer taking a forthright stance on a matter in line with the rules finds himself shunted of to a remote or undesirable place. Unless this practice is put to an end, it would be difficult to stem the rot that has set in the administrative system.

EMERGING ISSUES OF POLITICAL CONTROL

Compulsions of Democracy

The interventionist role of bureaucracy in the processes of socio-economic development poses certain problems in democratic politics. The growing trend towards democratisation in many developing societies and former East European countries has brought into sharp focus the dilemma of political control over bureaucratic apparatus. The concept of impersonal, politically neutral civil service prevailing in most Western nations did furnish a framework of ministerial and legislative accountability, which ensured democratic control over bureaucratic organisations. With the weakening of the concept and gradual politicisation of bureaucratic organisation, the traditional system of political control can no longer ensure that the bureaucracy can be held on check by the elected officials, and has been long recognised as an illusion. However, the search for an alternative model has remained incomplete. It will be appropriate to consider some of the specific issues arising out of the processes of democratisation and the role of public services in order to attempt an alternative model of political control over bureaucracy.26

Limits of Political Control

In a democracy, the primary means of control over administration is through the representative system. Without this political control, administration would itself be the top political institution, which would be an impossible assumption. Administration is in essence a subordinate function, and its subordination in representative government is presumed to be to the supremacy of the representative organs. The position of

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the representative organs as trustees for the people and the derivative function of administration fix the first canon of administrative ethics. This does not, however, mean that the representatives should " determine the course of action of the public servants to the most minute degree that is technically feasible" . The ideal of democracy does not mean that the representatives shall determine or even take note of all policy, it means rather that they shall be able to set forth guidelines of purpose and to take corrective action if the original purpose is perverted in detailed elaboration and execution. The function of the public services, on the other hand, is to represent, within the administration, the public purposes of the government, as expressed by political executives through legitimate political channels to bring the

general public's point of view to bear upon administrative decision, to provide leadership in developing policy, to exercise statutory powers vested in them as public officials, and to act for the chief executive in seeing that all of the laws are unanimously executed.

If these be the ideals, the question of the limits of political control is a very wide one. Do the public services have only a subservient role to play in the functioning of the government? Should the political executive be privileged to interfere in every administrative action or decision? Do the public officials have no autonomy in their operations? Should the political executives be allowed to order transfer in public services at there whims? Should the bureaucracy subserve to the demands of the political operators and the businessman/contractor friends of the political executives? Should the public services be made to bend the normal rules and procedures of the administration to cater to the caprices and whims of the political executives? What should be the limits of political control and the instruments through which such a control mechanism could operate?

Public Interest

The ' public interest' has for long been the standard that guides the administrator in executing the law, but the vitality of the concept has not been matched by clarity in its definition. To some, it is only a myth under which policy desired by the predominant will can be rationalised as that of the general

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interest, to others there is reality and integrity in the concept which is assumed rather than defined. The issue of ' public interest' as perceived by the political functionaries has often brought them into conflict with the administrative functionaries, who perceived it differently. Invariably the public servant had to give way to the political executive in carrying out his wishes and very often in the process has compromised his position or the principles. The questions that need, therefore, to be considered are: What constitutes public interest? Who is to define what public interest is? In a difference of opinion on any related issue, must the views of political executive always prevail upon the administrative functionary? Can the issue of ' public interest' be used as a pretext to punish the recalcitrant public servants who refuse to toe the lines of the political executive? Should the public administrator make his decisions on the comfortable bases of efficiency, economy, and administrative principles alone, or be also guided by the nature of ' public interest' , which reflects belief in the " dignity of man as the ultimate value" ?

Moral Dilemma of Public Administrator

This is perhaps the most fundamental and basic issue. Should the public services always act on the presumption that the political executive is always legally and morally right? Should they not be vested with the requisite legal authority to carry on the legitimate public policies and the mandates of the government? What should be the attitude of a public servant when he is faced with a situation of unreasonable demands for politician's favour from his own counterparts in the departments? Should he resign and be damned in order to uphold his integrity and moral consciousness? Or should he also allow himself to become yet another part of the corrosive and corrupt political system? What role can the various service associations, the press, the media and the public opinion perform in order to resolve this moral dilemma of an administrator? What should be an ideal code of conduct for public service? Should they have the freedom to act according to their conscience and yet not invite any disciplinary action, in case it violates the code of conduct?

These are some of the questions which defy any definitive

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answers. It is necessary that the issues be discussed not only from a purely theoretical perspective of a democratically responsible system of government, but also from the points of view of various political, sociological, economic and cultural factors which are responsible for such a tremendous gap between the ideal and the practice in public administration.

Political Control and Accountability

An in-depth analysis of these issues27 clearly highlights the fact that bureaucracy as an instrument of democracy has a fundamental role to fulfil, especially in the context of socio-economic and political changes in developing societies, as also in the erstwhile socialist systems. It is thus important to consider the internal as well as the external, the ethical as well as the metaphysical and situational as well as the institutional dimensions of its operation.

The discussions has to begin with an exercise in political thought—the scope of the judicious authority of the political executive. It is undoubtedly true that the ultimate decisions of a policy nature have to be vested in political authority, but it would be wrong to assume that they have the absolute authority, which in a democracy vests in the people. Within the framework of accountability to the people, within the framework of the Rule of Law, and within the framework of public interests, the political authority has to take decisions. These must constitute proper restraints on the authority of the political leadership and must also bound the bureaucracy in similar terms.

As professional administration, it is the duty of the public servants to have a dis-interested pursuit of public interest. The impartial concern of public interest constitutes the strongest asset of public services. If a bureaucracy is not sensible and responsive to public needs and public opinion, it often becomes a dead weight on society. Bureaucracies pose a problem for democracy if they make such broad governmental policy decisions through which they themselves short-circuit the electoral channels of public control. Electoral channels may not always be effective, but short-circuiting them further increases the potential for significant governmental actions to be taken in the name of the public without being influenced by it. This

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problem is lessened, or avoided, if the range of acceptable bureaucratic behaviour is in someway limited or constrained, so that the public exerts control over decision-making. Hence, the idea of constraint is the essential component of all mechanisms introducing checks on bureaucratic power. Constraints on bureaucratic behaviour may be affected through people's participation in administration, bureaucracy's pursuit of the public interests, building good clientele relations and a system of bureaucratic accountability and self-control.28

There may be many advantages of the State playing a dynamic, innovating role, stimulating other social institutions to change in keeping with the changing times. But this aggressive type of role presents a problem from the standpoint of democratic theory. Administrative self-restraint is a guarantee that the administrative rulers will be the representative of the people. However, professional civil servants, who have the security of tenure, are responsible, first and foremost, to their own professional standards. If those standards permit a forceful, imaginative policy-making role, then considerations of what the public really wants are likely to take second place to the civil servants' beliefs as to what is best for the public.29 In such situations, the conflict between the public's own perception of public good and a bureaucrat's professional viewpoint of the public good becomes inevitable indicating the need to resolve the ever present dilemma of bureaucratic responsibility for one's professional commitment or to public wants.


All modern governments suffer from the persistent preoccupation with procedures and functional rationality to the exclusion of ethical values and standards. It is not surprising then, to see that public servants view their domain as a rational, objective, and value-free, where expediency and technical considerations dominate the policy decisions of vital socio-economic consequences. Ethical dilemmas

faced by a public servant include many issues of contention, for example, if there is a conflict between an individual's privately held convictions and publicly held obligations, as determined by his

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organisation, what should he do? Should he interpret government policies and programmes according to his personal sense of right and wrong? Or, when a public servant feels that there is a clear-cut conflict between what he is required (by his senior officials or by the political leadership) to do and what he really thinks is right, where should his loyalty lie? Is a public servant committed to keeping information secret that might be embarrassing to the government of the day? What should an employee do when he finds certain indications of deliberate inefficiency, protection of incompetence, extravagant and unreasonable use of public funds, use of government equipment and machinery for personal use or subjective criteria used in recruitment or in the award of government grants or favours?30

To what extent, should a public servant support the political ideology practised by the current political leadership of the government? Or, when a person accepts public service employment, how much should he subordinate or abdicate his claims to private life, property and values?31 Obviously, neither the traditional concept of ' bureaucratic neutrality' nor a ' code of bureaucratic conduct' can cover all such situations or resolve such dilemmas. In addition to certain code of public ethics (determined in accordance with the prevailing socio-cultural-political norms in the society), a public servant needs to develop an inner sense of professional responsibility, refined by the considerations of ' humanism' , ' responsiveness' and ' public good' . As Dwivedi has so emphatically put it, " public responsibility" is multi-dimensional in nature, it flows upward and downward as well as outward and inward. Such a complex notion is bound to create dilemmas; consequently a responsible administrator would be well advised to be on guard against forces which might attempt to influence him to act otherwise." 32


1. For a detailed treatment of this dilemma, see John P. Burke, Bureaucratic Responsibility, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1986.

2. For example, in 1963, Lal Bahadur Shastri, former Railway Minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's cabinet, resigned from his ministership on the occurrence of a railway accident in Orissa, and claimed full responsibility for it. Similarly, Justice M.C. Chagla, who enquired into

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the affairs of the investments relating to Life Insurance Corporation in 1958, emphasised the doctrine of ministerial responsibility which led to resignation of the then Finance Minister, T.T. Krishnamachari. In contrast, the present (1998) Railway Minister Rambilas Paswan, despite a record number of train accidents during his tenure, has not chosen to accept responsibility or resign as minister, instead he has put entire responsibility on the permanent staff.

3. For detailed analysis of these constraints, see Martin R. Doombos, " Bureaucracy and Development: Where are the Constraints?" , Sudan Journal of Administration and Development, Vol. 2, 1974, pp. 7-16.

4. For a critical analysis of such dysfunctions, see Robert K. Merton, Reader in Bureaucracy, Glencoe (III), Free Press, 1952.

5. For detailed discussion on emerging function of legislatures and increasing role of legislators in the executive decision-making process, see Jean Blondel, Comparative Legislatures, Englewood Cliffs (NJ), Prentice-Hall, 1973, Allan Kornberg and Lloyd Musolf, Legislatures in Development Perspective, Allan Kornberg (ed.), Durham (N.C.), Duke University Press, 1970: Legislatures in Comparative Perspectives, New York, David McKay, 1973, and R.B. Jain, Comparative Legislative Behaviour, New Delhi, Uppal Publishing House, 1980.

6. See Christian Duminice, " Parliament's Role and Mission" , Parliamentary Studies, 1966, p. 18.

7. See Bernard Crick, The Reform of Parliament, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968, p. 79.

8. Bernard Crick, op. cit., pp. 79-80.

9. This was pointed out by a study group in a memorandum submitted to the Select Committee on Procedure. See UK, Select Committee on Procedure, Fourth Report, London, 1965, p. 139.

10. Rules of Procedure on Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha, New Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat; also refer to M.N. Kaul and S.L. Shakdher, Practice and Procedure of Parliament, Delhi, Metropolitan, 1968.

11. See V.V. Eswaran, " How Effective is the Committee System" , The Hindustan Times, July 26, 1996, pp. 11 and 7-8.

12. For details, see R.B. Jain, " The Craft of Political Graft in India: An Analysis of Major Scams" , The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 4. (October-December, 1994), pp. 335-70.

13. S.L. Shakdhar, " Administrative Accountability to Parliament" , Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 31 (1986), pp. 369-70.

14. For an analysis of such cases and the impact of free vote on legislative effectiveness, see Peter G. Richards, Parliament and Conscience, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1970.

15. A Balakrishna Nair, Parliamentary Control Over Administration, Trivandrum, Kerala University 1993, p. 232.

16. For a detailed analysis on this subject, see R.B. Jain, " Public Service Accountability in India" in Joseph G. Jabbra and O.P. Dwivedi (eds.), Public Service Accountability: A Comparative Perspective, West Hartford (Con.), Kumarian Press, 1988, pp. 86-100.

17. See B.B. Mishra, Government and Bureaucracy in India: 1947-76, Delhi,

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Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 297.

18. See R.M. Wilier Chitty, " The Case Against the Appointment of a Federal Ombudsman" , The Globe and Mail (Toronto), July 7, 1996, quoted in Robert P. Adie and Paul G. Thomas, Canadian Public Administration: Problematical Perspectives, Scarborough (Ontario), Prentice-Hall, 1987, pp. 142-45.

19. For an account of how an institution like Lok Ayuktas can be subject to politics, see R.B. Jain, Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration, Delhi, Vishal Publications, 1976, pp. 390-97.

20. See Rajeev Dhavan, " The Judiciary Cannot Stand Idly By" , The Times of India (Sunday Review), October 27, 1996, p. 2.

21. For an intensive discussion of judicial activism, see S.C Vajpeyi, " Judicial Activism" , a paper read at the seminar of the Delhi Regional Branch of IIPA, New Delhi, October 27, 1996.

22. Ibid., para 33.

23. See S. Subramanian, " Tyranny of Transfers" , The Hindustan Times, February 16, 1996, pp. 13 and 7-8; and M.N. Buch, " Bondage of Bureaucracy" , The Hindustan Times, February 10, 1996, pp. 13 and 3-8, see also a series of recent articles on the " State of Bureaucracy in the States of India, The Hindustan Times, November 27, 28, 29, 30, and December 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, 1996, mostly on p. 7 of each issue.

24. See Julio Reberio, " People Lose Faith When an Honest Officer Resigns" , The Times of India, February 23, 1996, pp. 11: 1.

25. M.N. Buch, op. cit.

26. For an extensive discussion on this topic, see R.B. Jain (ed.), Public Service in a Democratic Context, New Delhi, IIPA, 1983.

27. Ibid.

28. Judith E. Gruber, Controlling Bureaucracies: Dilemmas in Democratic Governance, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987.

29. Gary K. Bertsch, Robert P. Clark, and David M. Wood, Comparing Political Systems: Power and Policy in the Third World, New York, John Wiley 1986, p. 11.

30. See O.P. Dwivedi and R.B. Jain, India's Administrative State, New Delhi, Gitanjali Publishing House, 1985, pp. 257-58.

31. Ibid.

32. Comments by O.P. Dwivedi on Terry L. Cooper, The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role, by Port Washington (NY), Kennikat Press, 1982, published in Public Administration and Development, Vol. 3, No. 4 (1983), p. 384.

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7 Citizen's Charter: An Instrument of Administrative Accountability

INTRODUCTION

In the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, the concept of administrative accountability has primarily been tested on a single principle of responsibility—" the ministerial responsibility" —that is, the responsibility of the ministers of state to parliament.1 However, as has been discussed earlier, in recent times this concept has been found wanting in its ability to ensure democratic control of a large, active and increasingly complex executive branch of government.

Amongst various arguments advanced to augment this concept with other instrumentalities of administrative accountability is that " it is now incapable by itself of sustaining a system of administrative accountability or else is undesirable in this role because of its adverse effects on efficiency or on openness and responsiveness in government." 2 The relevance of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and its concomitant principle of civil service anonymity are being questioned in the present-day context of the management of public programmes and services. While one may not go so far as to say that the concept of ministerial responsibility is now defunct, there is no doubt that it has become an ineffective convention, although both ministers and senior civil servants still wish to retain it.

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Thus, the most challenging issue that faces most parliamentary democracies, especially in India, is not only the responsibility of public bureaucracy to the citizen's per se, but also the ways it could be made more prompt, responsive and cost effective.

Changing Notions of Administrative Accountability

Governments' accountability syndrome has been changing over the last half a century in almost all the democratic systems. It has gone beyond the bureaucratic or hierarchical notions of control and formal explanations through Annual Reports or periodical submissions of the public agencies. The issue of accountability now looks more pinpointing to the responsibility of individual agencies and functionaries rather than to political or bureaucratic authorities as a whole. In a recent article, Professor Bruce Stone of the University of Western Australia has identified five different notions of administrative accountability—parliamentary control, managerialism, judicial and quasi-judicial review, constituency relations and the market. The relationships within these systems are illustrated in Table 1.

TABLE I Relationships within Accountability Systems

Type of accountability system Basis of relationship Analogous relationship (Controller-Administrator)

Parliamentary control Supervision/command Superior-subordinate

Managerialism Fiduciary/contract Principal agent

Judicial/quasi judicial review Individual rights/ procedural obligations Appellant

Constituency relations Market Representation / responsiveness Constituent. Representative

Competition/consumer sovereignty Customer-entrepreneur

Source: B.S. Romjek and H.J. Dubnik, " Accountability in the Public Sector: Lessons from the Challenger Tragedy" , Public Administration Review, Vol. 47, No. 227, 1982, p. 36, Burce Stone, op. cit., p. 511.

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Parliamentary Control

Parliamentary control is obviously the traditional Westminster understanding of accountability as interpreted by Mill and Bagehot, that administrators should be continuously responsive to the concerns of members of parliament. It is related to three fundamental sanctions or powers available to parliament: its power to legislate, its power to withhold support from ministers, and its power to appropriate moneys. Such" responsiveness does not necessarily require active parliamentary supervision—the sort of continuous monitoring and detailed intervention that is associated in other contexts— but only envisages that prompt answers can be given and remedial action taken by ministers on issues under scrutiny by the parliament.

Managerial Control

The second aspect of control ' managerialism' is the corporate management approach to public administration, which has been a major component of administrative reforms in the 1980s and 1990s in many governments. Here, the emphasis is on " strategic, rather than detailed, control; an emphasis on agency self-evaluation, and reporting plus periodic, formal external evaluation, and a ' rationalisation' of agency responsiveness" . In distinction to parliamentary accountability, the managerialist view of accountability requires the agency to meet certain objective tests or to satisfy certain objective " specialised performance values." 3

Judicial/Quasi-Judicial Review

The third notion of accountability as judicial or quasi-judicial review is most evident in the imposition of legal values on decision-making through expansion of judicial and quasi-judicial review of administrative action. The scope of judicial review has been progressively widening in recent years, rules governing citizen access to review have been eased, and the courts have shown an increased desire to exercise review. In addition, advent of public interest litigation (PIL), as in India, has even prompted the judiciary to direct administrative agencies to take prompt action on certain issues of public interest, where these have been neglected by the public

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agencies. In other countries like New Zealand, adoption of a weaker, statutory bill of rights in 1990 has introduced a new set of " implied limitations on general discretionary powers" , while in Australia and Canada, a change towards constitutionalised administrative law has been quite evident through establishment of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal and adoption of entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedom, respectively. In distinction to ' parliamentary control' and ' managerialism' , which are " top-down" conceptions of accountability. Bruce contends the judicial version of control (along with constituency relations and market conceptions) is a " bottom-up" conception.4

Accountability to Clientele

The " constituency relations" approach to accountability is not only the traditional legislators' accountability to their constituents, but in broader terms it also acknowledges a ' downward' accountability to clienteles, and ' horizontal' accountability to peers and other reference groups. Besides the mechanisms of giving a particular groups or associations a right to nominate or elect members of a statutory authority's governing board, or giving opportunity to industry representatives to question the members of a regulating board, and to pass a vote of no-confidence in the annual general meeting, regular use of public hearing of interested groups by the advisory bodies of some regulatory agencies, the most important attempt has been made to ' strengthen' the voice of customer by strengthening the linkages between the agency and the clientele through the initiative of " Citizen's Charter" introduced for the first time by the British Government in 1991. The key aspects of the Charter are the requirements that public agencies publish commitments to standards of service, that there be independent monitoring and publication of standards achieved, and that mechanism be established through which the ' customer' can achieve satisfaction when standards are not met. The Charter includes various forms of compensation and alternative arrangements for service provision where agencies do not live up to their promises.5

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Accountability to Market or Customers

The fifth notion of accountability is related to the tendency of a more ' customer driven' attitude adopted in providing ' efficient' and ' prompt' public services to the citizens by creating opportunities for customers in ' exit' by means of ' denationalisation' and ' deregulation' . Thus, the British citizen's charter mechanism referred to above is predicated on a continuation of efforts to promote competition and otherwise build market initiative into the delivery of services.6 Although, considerable debate' is on in almost all developed and developing countries about the extent to which the market model can be applied to public services, and it is rare that all the conditions of consumer sovereignty are met in full in any transaction, but growing application of market principles in organisation of public services indicates contemporary relevance of the market conception of accountability. At the same time, clear practical constraints on ' marketisation' of a great deal of governmental activity, quite apart from normative considerations, suggest that its role will remain a relatively minor one in the public sector as a whole, especially in the context of developing countries.

Strategy of Introducing Citizen's Charter in U.K.

Until the decades of 1980s, growing state activity, increasing complexity of administration, consequential explosion of points of contact between the State and the citizen' , has made control of

maladministration and administrative injustice an impossible task for both an over-burdened court system and elected representatives. Even introduction of the idea of a system of Ombudsman has failed to secure a modicum of administrative accountability, which would ensure prompt, qualitative, and cost-effective services to the citizens.

Three Reform Steps Preceding the Charter

Since the time of Margaret Thatcher as the Prime Minister in 1970s, the Government of Britain has introduced the idea of rolling back the frontiers of State as a means of reducing unnecessary burden of State in the name of ' welfarism' . By early 1980s, the government was seeking ways of improving quality of public services without adding to their costs. A series

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of major reforms were instigated, aimed at injecting greater economy, efficiency and effectiveness into the public services. These were Efficiency Scrutiniser (introduced in 1979), the Financial Management Initiative (FMI in 1982), and the Next Steps Programme (NSP in 1988), which provided the foundations from which the citizen's charter was launched. In order to raise standard of public services by making them more responsive to the wishes and needs of the users. Prime Minister John Major launched the strategy of the Citizen's Charter in June 1991.

Its Main Four Themes

The four main themes to Charter strategy are quality, choice, standards, and value. It is based on the recognition that all public services are paid for by individual citizens, either directly or through taxes. Therefore, they are entitled to accept high quality services, responsive to their needs, provided efficiently at a reasonable cost. Where the State is engaged in regulating, taxing or administering justice, these functions too must be carried and fairly, effectively and courteously.7 The six key principles of Charter programme spelled out in detail at a later stage are setting standards, information and openness, choice and consultation, courtesy and helpfulness, putting things right and value for money. The Charter initiative embraces greater competition, independent scrutiny of public services, greater accountability and openness and a programme of management change to improve public services. British citizen's charter mechanisms are predicated on a continuation of efforts to promote competition and otherwise build market incentive into the delivery services. In the 1990s, the creation of a competitive environment for a government agency, where this can be done, is widely seen to be the best means of ensuring that the expectations of its customers are satisfied.

Cabinet Minister for Its Implementation

In order to implement the programme, the then Prime Minister John Major had appointed a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for carrying the programme forward. In Britain, the Citizen's Charter is now enmeshed with the Next Steps Programme, the continued commitment to privatisation and

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competition (with at least temporary regulatory features), the marketisation of public services and the withdrawal of government to an empowering justification. These foreshadow different governing functions for the State, the delivery of public services through markets, or their imitators, an accompanying change in orientation towards customer satisfaction (this is the visible face of the Charter), and a concept of citizenship based on rights and duties.8 The Citizen's Charter can also be viewed as rejecting a series of innovations within government designed to bring the rhetoric of contracts to bear on the provision of public services. It provides the opportunity to put in place a market system within the public services sector in the guise of empowering citizens.9 For the British public service, the Citizen's Charter became one of the most ambitious programmes for radical reform in the long history. However, the principles that underline it are not unique to British alone, more responsive public services are the common goal of many governments across the world.

Key Elements of Setting of Charters

The key elements in the setting of citizen's charters mentioned above can be spelled out as under:

1.Standards

Setting, monitoring and publication of explicit standards for the services that individual users can reasonably expect Publication of actual performance against these standards.

2. Information and Openness

Full, accurate information, readily available in plain language, about how well they perform and who is in-charge.

3. Choice and Consultation

The public sector should provide choice wherever practicable. There should be regular and systematic consultation with those, who use services. User's views about services and their priorities are to be taken into account for final decisions on standards.

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4. Courtesy and Helpfulness

Courtesy and helpful service from public servants who will normally, wear name badge. Service available equally to all who are entitled to them and run to suit their convenience.

5. Putting Things Right

If things go wrong, an apology, a full explanation, and a swift and effective remedy to be offered. Well published and easy to use complaint procedures with independent reviews, wherever possible to be introduced and maintained.

6. Value for Money

Efficient and economical delivery of public services within the resources, the nation can afford. And, independent validation of performance against standards.10

Several Charters by Public Agencies Enforced

A number of Citizen's charters developed by various public agencies have been in vogue in the United Kingdom since 1991. Titling a government document, a Charter implies a social contract and that rights are secured as a result. However, it may be noted that Charters are not expounding new legal rights or obligations but rather stipulating existing rights and detailing good practice, which exists in some cases and should, in the government's view be the norm. Similarly, the language of the various charters refer the users of the services by public offices by a variety of terms: citizens, clients, consumers, customers and lately users. Although there are significant distinctions between these categories, these are treated synonymously. Much of the rhetoric associated with the Citizen's Charter invests the initiative with the ability to empower users through greater opportunities to voice their desires, opinions and grievances. Within the six basic principles of the Charter Scheme referred to above—standards, information and openness, choice and consultation, courtesy and helpfulness, putting things right, and value for money, three aspects are of particular importance within the context of feedback mechanisms outlined in the

Charter programme. These are evaluations through an inspection system and survey of users; complaints—the grievance procedures and types of

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separation; and information—the publication of results, which permits cross-sector comparison.11

Charters Espouse ' Total Quality Approach'

The concepts of citizen's charter is although ostensibly designed to introduce the ' total quality approach' in improving the level of service in public organisations, and increase user improvement but inherently one of its most central concerns is the reorganisation of management structure and financial responsibility of the organisations involved in public service provision and delivery. The Charter Mark Scheme, a kind of " Olympic Gold" for public services12 goes so far as to encourage the use of ' (a) wide variety of quality assurance schemes...including British Standard 5750 (and its international equivalent ISO 9000)' . The link between management change and the improvement of the user's situation is based on the clear presumption that standard will be progressively improved as services become more efficient.13 The importance of managerial change in the government's plans for the future are apparent and as argued by Tritter, the structural changes which should be made clear separately from the Citizen's Charter and its claim concerning user empowerment.14 Since June 1998, the Charter Office in United Kingdom has been renamed as People First Unit, signifying the precedence of people over other things.

CITIZEN's CHARTER SCHEME IN INDIA

Recommendation of Chief Secretaries Conference (1996)

Sharing the concern for ensuring responsive, accountable, transparent, decentralised and people-friendly administration at all levels, and with the objective of restoring faith of the people in the fairness and capacity for administration against the prevailing frustration and dissatisfaction, the then Prime Minister of India, had inaugurated a conference of Chief Secretaries in 1996 called to develop " An Agenda for an Effective and Responsive Administration" to make the public services more efficient, clean, accountable and citizen-friendly. The conference inter alia recommended that accountability should be interpreted in a larger sense in relation to public

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satisfaction and responsive delivery of services, and a phased introduction of Citizen's Charter for as many service institutions as possible by way of citizen's entitlement to public services, collaboration of consumer organisations and citizen groups, the wide publicity to standards of performance, quality, timeliness, cost, etc., for public services, and promotion of periodic and independent scrutiny of performance of the agencies against the standards.

Action Plan in Chief Ministers' Conference (1997)

As a sequel, the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Services in 1997 evolved an " Action Plan on Effective and Responsive Administration" , based on the responses and reactions received from officials, experts, voluntary agencies, citizen's groups, media, etc. The three main areas of Action Plan that were discussed in the Conference of Chief Ministers on May 24, 1997 Were:

(1) making administration accountable and citizen-friendly;

(2) ensuring transparency and the right to information; and

(3) taking measures to cleanse and motivate civil services.

An implementation committee was set up under the Chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary to formulate ways and means to implement the above stated concerns of the Action Plan. Among the various other steps taken in this respect, a core group was formed under the Chairmanship of the Secretary (Personnel) for monitoring the formulation of Citizen's charter by identified Ministries/Departments with substantial public interface, and to assist them in finalising the Charter. As a result of the efforts of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), 43 Citizen's Charter had been finalised by the end of the financial year 1997-98 by various Central departments and agencies, and 14 by the governments of NCT, Delhi, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. Model charters have been prepared for public hospitals by the Department of Health, and for the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) by the

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Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs. The DARPG has been coordinating the entire exercise with the involvement of consumer groups.15 In order to monitoring the progress of initiatives taken by the Ministries/Departments with a substantial public interface for initiating citizens' charters, a core group

has been set up under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Personnel. So far, 61 Charters have been formulated which includes 27 Charters for public sector banks and 4 Charters for hospitals. NCT of Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh are among the states who have formulated Citizens' Charters for selective services.16

Role of Consumer Coordination Council of ' Common Cause'

The concept of citizen's charter in India was picked up and pushed forward by the Consumer Coordination Council (CCC) and its associate the ' Common Cause' (headed by H.D. Shourie) in association with the Cabinet Secretariat. Field surveys were undertaken by the CCC in the five areas of health care, electricity, banking, telecommunication and municipal services. Assistance of other consumer organisations was taken in developing and supporting this effort. Since then, 33 Charters have already been published by the respective service agencies, copies of which are freely available. The names of the institutions which have promulgated their Charters are given in Table 2 on next page.

A Tentative Assessment of Citizen's Charter

Although not justiciable but these Charters aim at affirming the commitment of organisation to the people that it will deliver its particular services promptly, maintain quality and that redressal machinery will be available where this service is not of the standard which it is committed to maintain. However, an analysis of various Charters indicates that at present there is no specific provision available in the various charters about the action that can be taken by an individual who feels that the commitments made by an organisation have not been fulfilled, and that as a consequence hurt or loss has been caused which needs to be compensated. It is desirable that service providers should become conscious of the need for action to compensate for any default on the part of their

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TABLE 2 Ministries, Department and Institutions which have Formulated Citizen's Charters

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment

New Delhi Municipal Council Government of India Land and Development Office

Delhi Development Authority Allahabad Bank Limited

Central Public Work Department Andhra Bank of India

Central Board of Excise and Customs Bank of Baroda

Central Board of Direct Taxes Bank of India

Life Insurance Corporation Central Bank of India

General Insurance Corporation of India Canara Bank

Public Distribution System, Ministry of Civil Supplies Corporation Bank

Ministry of External Affairs, Passport Division Indian Bank

Indian Railways, Ministry of Railways State Bank of India

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Bank of India

United Indian Insurance Co. Ltd. United Bank of India

The New India Assurance Co. Ltd. State Bank of Saurashtra

National Insurance Company Oriental Bank of Commerce

Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital Dena Bank

Source: Consumer Coordination Council, " An Insight into Citizen's Charter" , New Delhi, 1997 and H.D. Shourie, " Citizen's Charter to Promote Accountability" , Times of India, 10 April 1998, p. 11: 7, 8.

functionaries resulting in delay or loss in the provision of services. At present the only option that the citizen who suffers loss or hurt has to take the matter to consumer court for award of compensation.17

Findings of Ray's Study

Although it is too early to make any objective assessment of the functionaries of Charters and their impact on citizen satisfaction, and, therefore, any conclusions drawn are merely tentative, but an exercise at a review of the existing Charters in India, undertaken recently by Dr. C.N. Ray of the School of Planning, Ahmedabad, reveal that in the Charters undertaken for study, there is a great variation in terms of coverage, procedures, redress of grievances system and the information

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necessary for the citizens. Some Charters (like that of Delhi Development Authority) are very brief, while some are very detailed (e.g., Department of Telecommunications, or Passenger Services on Indian Railways). While many do not provide any information about the redressal functionaries (names,

addresses, telephone numbers, etc.), some other (e.g., Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion) do provide useful addresses for redressal system. However, in almost all cases, there is an absence of provision for any compensation for any loss or damage suffered by citizens in the absence of the targeted services not being provided by the concerned agencies.18 Dr. Ray makes a strong plea for:

(a) participatory process to be evolved in formulating any charter;

(b) procedural reforms so that the agency concerned has an in-built machinery for auditing and periodic monitoring of performance;

(c) Percolating of the role and relevance of the Charter right down the line to the officer who interacts with the user (the interface); and

(d) need to extend the charter scheme to private initiatives in public arena as well.19


There is no doubt that the Citizen's Charter strategy, if formulated and implemented in an objective, conscious, and committed manner to give the citizens their due can lead us " Towards Good Governance" . The most positive aspects of this programme relate to its emphasis on disseminating information to the general public and laying down some of the basic principles which should be the concern of any organisation involved in the delivery of public services.20 But there are a number of pitfalls and problems that need to be overcome, especially in the Indian context, if the strategy has to make any substantial impact on realisation and pinpointing of public accountability.

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Need for Greater Coordination and Consistency

One of the primary requirements for success of such a scheme is the need for a greater degree of coordination and consistency in terms of formulation of the Charter. Grievance procedures and monitoring need to be developed with consistency in their underlying principles, along with the necessary investment of time and resources. Charters should be based on people rather than given to them. There is a need to evaluate the services based on the experience of users, rather than the process of how and what is provided. The Charters should aim at maximum possible satisfaction of people's

needs in the shortest possible time and without any inconvenience. These should be built around multiple needs of users rather than being drawn from what the disparate service organisation presently offer. The assessment of users' needs and expectations is an essential condition, if the people's evaluation of the movement and public services are to be saved from meeting failure.

Implementing Standards

Also, it must be noted that it is somewhat easier to set standards, but difficult to implement. In the Indian context, availability of adequate manpower and national resources available to keep up these standards, particularly in the context of essential services to be provided at the local, rural and urban settings is a necessary condition for success of the scheme. There is need to lay down clear procedures in the most simple terms, interspersed with graphic illustrations and in the language(s) which the people at local level could easily comprehend (even using local dialects if necessary). It is often observed that Charter standards in many organisations may exist, but are seldom propagated to reach the users of the services. Most of them remain quite ignorant about the existence of such Charters. Dissemination of necessary information and adequate publicity through press, and other instruments of mass media, and prominent display at the reception lobies of the agency concerned will go a long way in making the citizens aware of their rights to avail of particular services.

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Efficiency of Grievance Redressal Machinery

Similarly, one of the most important conditions of the success of the Charter scheme is to strengthen the efficiency of its grievance procedure machinery. It has been observed that in many cases the Charters do not prescribe such procedures, or even the names, addresses or telephone numbers, of the officials to be contacted in case of any citizen not receiving his/her due or being harassed in order to fleece him/her by some unscrupulous elements in the bureaucracy. Often it has been noted that even where telephone numbers and addresses for such officials do exist, they are seldom available in their seats, or the telephone keeps on giving engaged tone or ringing all the time without any response. In the Indian administrative culture, there is no place for a courtesy of ' call back' , if a particular official is ' busy' in a meeting or is ' out' on inspection or tour. The harassed citizen has got to try again and again until he gets frustrated and gives up in disgust. Besides adequate provision for due compensation and apologies for any loss or hurt suffered by the citizens if standards are not being maintained, the charter agencies must demonstrate a sincere commitment to the convenience of the citizens and respect for their time and efforts. This calls for a drastic change in the attitude of the bureaucracy and work culture in the organisation. Apart from the fact that the members of the agency need to be conscientious and sensitive to the public needs and their inconveniences in coming to the office again and again. The existing common bureaucratic behaviour of " come again" , or " come tomorrow" , the " person is not on the seat" or the file is not available, or raising of one objection or the other at each visit of the user to

the office of the concerned officer will not help in the success of the Charter scheme, howsoever meticulously it may be formulated and established. There is further need for systematic coordination and team work at various levels of the agency involved in the delivery of services. The citizen is not interested in one section's reply that its work is over and the file is with another section for further action. He/she is interested in getting the work accomplished. Coordination of various steps or activities involved in the provision of a service is one of the most difficult and complex problems which needs to be tackled through establishment of an effective monitoring mechanism

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and assigned responsibility on the concerned official to see that the work is accomplished.

Protecting it from Political and Bureaucratic Influence

Another important aspect of the success of the charter scheme is to keep the whole system of public services away from political or bureaucratic influences. In fact, one of the specific conditions of the success of the charter scheme is that such charters must be implemented in a natural and fair manner to all irrespective of their status, political position or economic background. There is no place for politicisation of the Charter scheme in case it is to be made an effective instrument of accountability and good governance. A system of regular monitoring by independent consumer protection groups or an independent non-political board with representatives drawn from various consumer forums is a must for shielding the Charter scheme becoming a victim in the hands of political or administrative influence pedlars.

Offering Incentives to Personnel and Institutions

Finally, the Charter scheme's success is predicated on the incentives available to the officials and the institutions to perform as a ' team' with the maximum efficiency of their ' competence' , and with the sole objective of achieving ' performance' at the lowest cost. It is well known that in Indian administrative milieu, ' good work is not rewarded' and ' bad work is not punished' . The ' reward' and ' punishment' principle is simply out of existence from the dictionary of the Indian administrative jargons. Apart from recognising the agencies' performance with introduction of a sort of " Charter Mark Scheme" and recognition and honouring of individuals, for their excellence and meritorious performance, introduction of group incentive schemes, and monitory incentives for meeting the targets and excellent performance will go a long way towards achievement of the goals inherent in the Citizen's Charter Strategy. Otherwise the dangers are that it may merely turn out to be a massive and expensive cosmetic exercise in public relations without achieving the primary goal of citizen satisfaction—one of the essential conditions and a step " towards good governance" .

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1. For a debate on this concept, see R.B. Jain, " Public Service Accountability in India" in Joseph G. Jabbra and O.P. Dwivedi (eds.), Public Service Accountability: A Comparative Perspective, West Hartford, Conn., Kumarian Press, 1988, pp. 122-36; and Bruce Stone, " Administrative Accountability in the ' Westminster' Democracies: Towards a New Conceptual Framework" , Governance, Vol. 8, No. 4, October 1995, pp. 505-26.

2. Bruce Stone, op. cit., p. 513.

3. Ibid., p. 514.

4. Ibid., p. 517.

5. For details, see N. Lewis and P. Birkenshaw, When Citizen's Complain: Reforming Justice and Administration, Buckingham, Open University Press, 1993.

6. Ibid., p. 34, Quoted by Stone, op. cit., p. 520.

7. United Kingdom, The Citizen's Charter White Paper (Cmd. 1599, July 1991).

8. See for detail, Norman Lewis, " The Citizen's Charter and Next Steps: A New Way of Governing?" Political Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3, July-September 1993, pp. 316-26.

9. Jonathan Tritter, " The Citizen's Charter: Opportunities for Users' Perspectives" , The Political Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 4, October-December 1994, p. 397.

10. See UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, " Raising the Standards: Britain's Citizen's Charter and Public Service Reform" , London, Citizen's Charter Unit, November 1992, p. 6.

11. For details see, Tritter, op. cit., pp. 398-403.

12. United Kingdom, Cabinet Office, " Prime Minister Congratulates 1993 Charter Mark Winners" , Citizen's Charter News, October 27, 1993. Also see " The Citizen's Charter: Charter Mark Scheme 1994. Guide for Applicants" , Cabinet Office, Central Office of Information, February 1994.

13. See UK, The Citizen's Charter, Cmnd. 1599, op. cit., and The Citizen's Charter First Reports, (Cm. 2101) London, 1992.

14. Tritter, op. cit.

15. Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Annual Report, 1997-98, New Delhi, 1998, pp. 65-69.

16. See Vivek K. Agnihotri, " Government of India's Measures for Administrative Reforms" , a Note Submitted to ICSSR, Symposium on Administrative Reforms, New Delhi, 3 January 2000.

17. H.D. Shourie, " Citizen's Charter to Promote Accountability" , Times of India, 10 April 1998, p. 11: 7-8.

18. For a detailed analysis, see C.N. Ray and Rinisen Balasaria, " Citizen's Charter for Western Region States" , an approach paper prepared for a workshop on Citizen's Charter organised by the School of Planning, Ahmedabad, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, July 1998.

19. See C.N. Ray and Rinisen Balasaria, op. cit.

20. Tritter, op. cit., p. 413.

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8 Political and Bureaucratic Corruption

Corruption in all societies is as old as the power itself. However, the forms and manifestation of corruption have been continually changing. Almost all countries in the world today are plagued with the cancer of corruption irrespective of their stages of development. Corruption is not merely a distinguishing feature of developing countries, it is common even in the developed societies. However, its nature, volume and dimensions differ largely from country to country and from one environment to another1

Although the incidence of corruption in public life is a world-wide phenomenon, but in recent years it has assumed frightening proportions in India (the largest democracy in the world). It has not only spread to every part of the governmental machinery, but has had a more rapid growth among the professional politicians, the party men at all levels and even in the highest echelons of political leadership both at the state and the central levels. The record of no political party in India is better than that of any other on that score. The existence of a colossal public cynicism towards it, people's acceptance of corruption in public life and the feeling that those indicted of political corruption invariably go scot-free and in the process amass more " power, status and wealth" have led to a situation, where even the most determined efforts to fight the evil have

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failed miserably. It has given credence to Voltaire's notion that corruption is an evil that grows respectable with age. It has almost become a national pastime in India to talk about corruption, condemn others of corruption, but there is precious little that is done in practical pragmatic terms to curb the incidence which is having a cancerous growth in all sectors of the body politic. The government seems to be aware of the existence of the evil all-round, and is also aware of the possible ways to check its monstrous growth, but seems to be lacking in will to enforce such measures effectively.

This chapter is mainly concerned with an analysis of the nature of political and bureaucratic corruption in India, and its major implications with a view to examine some of the anti-corruption strategies adopted by the government in the past fifty years, and to reflect upon the measures to be adopted for making these more effective.

I. CORRUPTION IN INDIA: A HISTORICAL LEGACY

India inherited a legacy of corruption from its ancient rulers2 who always expected some gifts (in the form the nazarana) from their subject. One of the important aspects of the employee's function in those days was to milch the common folk to enrich the treasury of the rulers. Appointments to the key positions were made on family considerations. Most often, a " prime minister's son succeeded his father, a governor's son the governor, a judge's son a judge, a village headman's son the headman. Replacing relatives in good positions, irrespective of merit, gained merit in the eyes of the people." 3 Thus, nepotism as an evil was an alien concept in those days and the vocabulary had no proper word for it.

Bureaucratic and political corruption in India is also a legacy of the colonial system. As colonial governments were generally regarded as alien and hence illegitimate, consequently, cheating and deceiving such an alien power was considered a fair game. The roots of political corruption in developing states thus lie in the colonial order or native tyrannical rule from which they have emerged as independent democratic states. In colonial times, the government was carried on by the aliens, and the citizens developed an attitude of

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irresponsibility and felt obliged to thwart the government in every possible way, including cheating and other corrupt methods. The cheating of foreign devils in government came to be admired as a patriotic virtue.

Before Independence from their colonial tyrannical rulers, corruption was nourished in a number of developing countries by the colonial officials themselves, who encouraged corruption by accepting expensive gifts, jewels, money, favours and undue hospitality from the influential elite native groups to grant them undue favours either against other similar groups or to individuals for their own private gains. Examples abound in the Colonial Administration in India during the 18th-20th century, where the incumbent officials (whether British, French or the Portugese) amassed huge wealth during their tenure in India and had become the White Nabobs or Maharajas before leaving the country. Some of them had to even face trials in their own countries after their return for such misdemeanour conduct. But when that colonial system was replaced by an independent democratic system, the former attitude did not disappear at all, but has percolated down to the post-independence period with greater vengeance, and thus today cheating government is not generally considered by many as any immoral act. The value system of people in modern times has now declined to such lowest ebb that any exceptionally honest official behaviour comes as a pleasant surprise.

Consequently, in India, corruption has become a social phenomenon. It is widespread and is found increasing at a fantastic pace. There is hardly any area of activity that has remained wholly free from the impact of corruption. In fact, corruption has now been institutionalised and has become a commonly accepted way of life. In India, acceptance of bribes, commissions, under-the-table payments, and gifts, by the politicians or the bureaucrats are no longer frowned upon, and even subtle ways have been discovered to legitimize them as a part of normal life activities. In short, such an ethos has been created in the society that corruption has ceased to be regarded as a crime any longer.

Political Corruption: Various Interpretations

A large majority of people believe that political

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corruption, distinct from administrative one, cannot be so easily observed. But on the dimensions of political corruption in India people are quite familiar with the following issues:

The acquisition (through fraudulent and illegal means) of large areas of farmland by the senior officials and political leaders; the abuse and exploitation of official position to enrich themselves directly or indirectly by using their relations as proxies, grant of favour to members belonging to their caste by overriding the due procedure, and overlooking the claim of others by using favoured officials as instruments, the use of political position to defeat the purpose of judicial process; retention of corrupted but well-entrenched political bosses in order to prevent loss of power in relation to a political party; abuse of governmental machinery for party purposes; launching enterprises with government support and then enriching themselves; doing business with government in the name of firms owned by them but nominally managed by their wives; use of public funds held in by statutory bodies to bolster up business concerns who act as financiers of public parties; and misappropriation of public funds or the inability of governments to render accounts for public expenditure.4

Political corruption is thus, one of the species of wide-range, multi-dimensional nature of corruption but it can however, be distinguished from other types of corruptions. Broadly speaking, political corruption is the misuse of political power for private profits. In political corruption, money enters as a secondary factor in the anatomy of corruption. Here, political influence is pressed into service in order to please the political bosses or earning promotions. Political corruption implies corrupting the political life of a nation at all levels. In its broader aspect, it seeks to politicise all walks of life and in its narrower sense, legitimises unholy political actions for benefiting vested interests whether personalised or institutional.

II. CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN INDIA

An analysis of political corruption in India5 reveals some theoretical constructs and important characteristics which may be identified as under:

1. Political corruption corrupts the entire body politic whether individual groups, institutions or political process.

2. Political corruption implies exercising more of pressures and influence than the use of money power.

3. Political corruption becomes widespread when unethical political man assumes supremacy in decision-making.

4. Political corruption makes easy headway in a land of economic inequalities, social backwardness and moral decline.

5. Major manifestations of political corruption are defection, factionalism, and political bargaining.

6. Political corruption uproots all political systems but its off-shoots particularly destroy democracies in developing societies.

7. Political corruption differs from other types of corruption because its unethical effect demoralises the entire fabric of the society doomed in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness.

8. Political corruption in India has its roots in the colonial and feudal order, which is reflected even today in the functioning of the Indian political system. It has maintained a continuum despite the change in political elites and leadership.

9. Political corruption in India has promoted political patronage as against establishment of social and economic norms. Consequently, the successive elections, parliaments and legislation have failed to checkmate its ugly effects. The problem seems to have become monolithic beyond easy repairs.

10. In India, the continued existence of " practically one

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party rule" for almost four decades, the unconvincing opposition and political apathy of the common man have provided unintended support to the phenomenon of political corruption.

Political corruption has specific norms and goals; owns its structure, and manifests particular pattern of behaviour, which is much different from other types of corruption, such as bureaucratic, corporate, social, economic, legal, etc., though it may look identical with them in some of its aspects and ramifications. The study of political corruption is of utmost value in the Indian context, as other types of corruptions have emanated from it. Politics being the seat of power, the manifestations of corrupt politics are observable at all levels of power hierarchy. Political corruption becomes paramount evil in developing societies because masses in general are illiterate and poverty stricken. Political corruption may not prove so damaging in developed societies, but its offshoots may destroy the very fabric of a nation in a developing society.6

Thus, political corruption has made easy headway in such societies, which became suddenly democratic from a feudal authoritarian background without imbibing moral, social and economic values, which could, have worked as a bulwark against political deprivations.7

III. POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN INDIA: ITS VARIOUS FORMS

In simple terms, corruption is defined as the behaviour of public officials which deviates from accepted norms in order to serve private ends. In more sophisticated terms, corruption is a form of " behaviour which deviates from the formal duties of a public role..." However, as interpreted by Joseph La Palombara, there are three critical elements necessary to the concept; (a) There must be a separation of private and public spheres and an understanding that specific rights, duties and responsibilities pertain to the latter. (b) Political corruption does not exist apart from political institutions and roles and the specific individuals who occupy them. Unless one element in a transaction is in the public as opposed to the private sphere we

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cannot have political corruption, (c) The public official involved must behave in a way that violates a duty and/or responsibility, and this behaviour must serve private (i.e. non-public) ends. These ends may be directly associated with the public official or indirectly with his family, relatives, friends or organisations with which he has dealings. Behaviour may be active or passive. Inaction where the situation may call for action may also be a form of corruption.8

Minoru O' uchi suggests a four-fold typology of corruption: (a) Administrative Malfeasance, (b) Political Scandal, (c) Institutionalised Corruption, and (d) Foreign Sponsored Corruption. All four types of corruption can exist side by side and there is a close inter-relationship between the four types of corruption.9 Although it has been argued that corruption is economically wasteful, politically destabilising, and destructive of governmental capacity,10 yet there are scholars who hold that corruption can have positive effects too like reducing uncertainty and increasing investment, enabling an economic innovator to introduce his innovations, bringing an element of competition and efficiency into the economic system etc.,11 yet its negative effects far outweigh its so-called positive impact.

Thus, as Hilton Root has put it, " corruption is a political problem that has far-reaching economic consequences; opportunities are lost, innovation is deferred, entrepreneuralism and investment are aborted. When citizens perceive that government cannot credibly commit to the implementation of policy designed to increase economic growth, government loses support, re-election becomes improbable and questions may even arise concerning the durability of the liberalisation process and prevents the establishment of a credible policy, environment crucial to the success of the economic reforms." 12

The entire infra-structure in modern Indian society is built on the edifice of corruption. It has percolated down from top to the bottom. Very often political corruption in India takes place in collusion with the bureaucracy in the shape of huge kick backs in big national and international deals which go undetected and unpunished for obvious reasons. In India, the connection between corruption and the steady deterioration of the basic administrative system has not been adequately understood and focussed upon.

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This proposition is very well illustrated by a number of incidences of political corruption that have attracted public attention in India since Independence. The major such incidences include: 13

(i) Mudgal Affair (1951).

(ii) Jeep Scandal Case (1955).

(iii) The Mundhra Deal (1957).

(iv) P.S. Kairon Case (1963).

(v) Bakshi Gulam Mohammed (J&K) (1963-64).

(vi) Nagarwala Mystery (1971).

(vii) Exercise of extra-constitutional authority (by spouses, relatives and friends of politicians in power, the most significant being of Sanjay Gandhi during Emergency (1975-76).

(viii) The rise of professional politicians—the Antulite Phenomenon (1970s).

(ix) HDW Deal 1981.

(x) Fairfax Affair (1987).

(xi) Land Allotment case Bangalore (involving R.K. Hegde, Chief Minister of Karnataka) (1989).

(xii) Fodder scandal involving Balram Jakhar a former Speaker of Lok Sabha (1989).

(xiii) Airbus A-320 Deal (April 1990).

(xiv) Bofors Pay Off (1987-still continuing).

(xv) Bank Securities Scam (1991-92).

(xvi) Harshad Mehta's Suit Case Episode (1993).

(xvii) JMM Bribery Case against the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao (1992 still continuing).

(xviii) Cases against Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi and her husband, the former Chief Minister of Bihar (1999-2000 still continuing).

(xix) Tehelka.com Defencegate Scam (2001).

The kind of intrinsic damage that such cases of political corruption have done to the administrative machinery in India have not been appropriately evaluated.

Apart from the open acceptance of money or things in kind for favours rendered, political corruption in India has manifested in various ways. Prominent amongst these are:

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(a) Exercise of Extra-Constitutional Authority

Political corruption can take many forms, levels, magnitudes and frequencies. The most important arenas for political corruption are legislature, elections and the administration.14 Apart from the

traditionally accepted parameters of political corruption in these arenas,15 it has at least assumed two new directions in India. The first is the emergence of extra-constitutional centers of power who exercise enormous influence and authority on behalf of the legitimately constituted institutions and authorities. The irony in such situations is that while the conduct of legitimate authority in many cases had ostensibly remained above board, the sons and daughters or close relations of the constitutional authority amassed huge wealth, power and status by resorting to the exercise of undue influence. There are instances of proxy rules by the spouse of the Chief Minister of a State, who has been alleged of corruption in a public deal. Invariably in all cases, there has been a tendency on the part of the constitutional authority to protect their relations and portages, to pretend ignorance of their alleged corrupt deeds and even to resort to their defence in public whenever allegations of this kind had been made in the press or by the opposition.

Since the very first decade of Independence many top political leaders including some chief ministers, central ministers and even the highest office of the prime minister have been indicted by the inquiry commissions on such matters.16 Whether it relates to the activities of Surender Singh Kairon, Suresh Ram, Sanjay Gandhi, Kantlilal Desai, or Gayatri Devi, or Laloo Prasad Yadav, the issue of those aspiring for and wielding extra-constitutional authority, interfering with the process of governance and taking undue advantage of the positions of the high office held by the parents or spouses has come to the fore recently and in fairly quick interchange. The role of ambitious wives, husbands and other kinsmen contributing new elements of unsavouriness to the process of administration has come under severe criticism. The practice, however, still persists. The most significant question here is not one that concerns just personalities or individuals but the danger that emanates from the development of a political culture that will be detrimental ultimately to the welfare of the people.17

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(b) Raising of Political Funds by Professional Politicians

The other new direction in which political corruption has spread into the body politic in India has been the emergence of a new breed of politicians, who have become synonymous with what in Indian politics has recently been termed as ' the Antulites' . Politics in India has come to acquire the character of a big business, in which the fund raising qualities of a professional politician attract the largest premium. Elections having become an expensive proposition, the emphasis in each party seems to have shifted from honesty to capacity to raise funds through any manner and by any means. In the pre- and post-1975 emergency era, the erstwhile Congress Party was accused of raising a large amount of funds through donations in the shape of advertisements to a party souvenir, the costs of which were highly disproportionate to the amount of advertisement space bought by the big businessmen.18

Even in normal times, the leaders who are able fund raisers have generally come to the forefront. If a party is elected to office, it is these ' clever' and energetic fund raisers, who are often given charge of the economic ministries, which issue the largest and most important licenses and permits. It is clear that such fund raising activities consist largely of collecting substantial contribution from proprietors or directors of large commercial or industrial firms. These firms, before parting with the funds, naturally want to make sure that there will be a satisfactory quid pro quo. The net effect of this process, as an ex-civil servant puts it, " can only be to mortgage much of the political system to ' money-power." 19 Thus, the present procedure of raising election funds can be the biggest single source of corruption.

The fund raising capacity of an individual has reached its perfection in the manner A.R. Antulay, a former chief minister of Maharashtra, sought to establish one trust after another. Eventually he had to resign from the office following an indictment by the High Court of the state. However, he personified, as one commentator has put it, " a form of rule in which arbitrariness is not peripheral but essential" . " In the Antulay phenomenon" , he points out, " statecraft is severed from politics, manipulation replaces diplomacy, the arbiter of conflicting interests in society himself becomes a sectional

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interest opposed to the rest of society," and the state is robbed of its legitimacy as the regulator of civil society.

At the very heart of the Antulay phenomenon lies a confusion between the private and public spheres, the frequent merger of the one into the other. He not only sold political favours to his friends and private contacts, but also reduced politics to a trade in favours to be dispensed and bought. This took an unconcealed and particularly brazen form in the allotment of cement quotas for which high donations to Antulay's Trusts were the quid pro quo.20

In this game of exhorting donations, Antulay is not unique in the country, but represents a whole new crop of politicians—not necessarily limited to the then ruling Congress (I) but also belonging to other parties as well. The distinction between this breed of new politicians and the older generation of politicians, who were similarly indicted like Pratap Singh Kairon and Biju Patnaik, former chief ministers of Punjab and Orissa, is that they used their power often arbitrarily pruning down norms—not only to advance public interests, but also, and mainly, to achieve public goals. For the new politicians, power or authority is not, or primarily not, an instrument to subserve public goals. Hence, the blurring of the necessary distinction between the private and the public becomes in their case, easy and natural, almost inevitable.21

Writing about the corruption in public life with respect to the raising of funds during elections (particularly through souvenir on the eve of the Sixth general election in 1977), Arun Shourie, a well-known commentator of the political scene, has, after quoting original documents, shown that large funds were collected by the professional politicians and that even though prima facie cases had been established against them for illegally collecting large sums of money, the persons responsible have all been rewarded with high offices and the only person to pay the penalty was the person who investigated and wrote the document specifying the amounts and the account numbers with several banks. In disgust Shourie asks:

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When the people have no choice but to reinstate those who defalcated with a thousand millions in the last round will the latter not be emboldened to defalcate with a few thousand crores in the current one? Can intelligence agencies that swear one thing today and its opposite tomorrow, serve even the rulers, to say nothing of their doing any good to the country? Do we not minimize the problem when we look upon the politician as the corrupter of public life? What about the 1,151 enterprises, that donated the 1128 millions? Is the businessman less corrupt? Is the average citizen less?22

These are indeed very pertinent and formidable questions which seem to defy any answer today.

(c) The Kickbacks from Government Purchases: The Bofors Scandal

Perhaps the most celebrated case of political corruption, which has not been finally settled and has assumed international dimensions has been the alleged kickbacks in the purchase of Bofors 155m FH-778 guns. The Swedish Radio had in 1987 charged that a Commission worth 33 million Swedish Kroners (about Rs. 65 millions) was made to an Indian firm in respect of a deal worth billions of rupees for the supply of the Bofors guns. It was alleged that the Commission was paid in foreign exchange to the persons and friends nearest to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Joint Parliamentary Committee which inquired into the deal found nothing wrong, and absolved the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But the Government was indicted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for improprieties in the entire negotiations and the deal. There was such a public outcry against it that it became a major issue in the General Elections of 1989, which led to the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi's Government. The Central Bureau of Investigations is still pursuing the case to unravel the mystery of political kickbacks alleged to have been paid in the deal, but according to latest indications, the issue seems to how been pushed under the carpet even by the then Vajpayee Government (1998).23 The issue is again in the news as Hindujas of UK are being questioned about their role by the CBI

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(December-January 2010-11), and the allegation of corruption against Vajpayee Government by Tehelka.com, known as Defencegate scandal (March 2001).

(d) Bribing MPs to Save Government: Accusation against the Prime Minis and some Cabinet Members

One of the major political fall out of the Bank Securities scam of 1991 has been the accusation of bribe against the Prime Minister himself. In 1993, Harshad Mehta, the main accused in the present securities scam has alleged in a crowded press conference that he had personally handed over a suitcase containing Rs. 6.7 million to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao at his official residence at New Delhi's Race Course Road. Later another Rs. 3.3 millions were delivered to the Prime Minister's men. Although people were skeptic about Rao's involvement in the Scandal, but the opposition made it an issue for a ' No-confidence motion' against the Government. The hasty no-confidence motion brought out by the opposition parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party (Marxist) (CPM) in the Parliament was ignonimously defeated through clever manipulation of the managers of the Congress Party in power when they bought out a dozen of vote enough to defeat the motion. Even if one believed that Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had not accepted any money and even if one reckoned that the ruling regime was not corrupt, there was no way in which one could deny that the cynical act of buying over a dozen MPs represented corruption of a far greater magnitude than the kind of simple bribery that Harshad Mehta had accused Rao of. When MPs went into vote on the no-confidence motion, at least twelve were not voting on the basis of what they regarded as being the right decision for India. They voted because they have been bought. The success of the commercial transaction insured the defeat of the motion and survival of the Narasimha Rao government. As reported in the press, at least one of the defecting MPs appeared drunk on the floor of the Lok Sabha. The others looked pleased and prosperous. And the Congress said that the result of the motion proved that the people were not willing to believe that the government was corrupt. " Nobody in the Congress seemed to realize just how ironic it was." 24

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Incidently, former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao is presently facing enquiries and court cases in this incident of buying MPs though bribery to save his government. He resisted trial on the ground that democracy stood in danger of destruction, if techniques adopted to procure votes—whatever they may be—are subjected to judicial integrity.25 He is now awaiting judgement on the sentence after being convicted by the trial court along with Buta Singh, another Minister, who has been similarly convicted for the charges of bribery.26 It is indeed paradoxical and abhoring, that in the present coalition government led by the National Democratic Alliance of 18 political parties and other groups (where not

only the intra-alliance differences are sometimes acute and irreconcilable, but the opposition parties and groups are ever ready to censor the government and stage a walk out on the slightest pretext), all the MPs in Lok Sabha. Cutting across party lines should unite together as one to express concern at the Supreme Court taking up a PIL to examine whether the constitutional immunity granted to MPs was a blanket one, and kept them beyond the pale of law even in cases where they were accused of taking bribes to vote in a particular way in Parliament. They saw it as an unnecessary interference by the judiciary.27 So much for the political will to fight corruption!

The Harshad Mehta's suitcase episode demonstrates two realities about corruption in India. The first is that it is more widespread than before; and second is, that it hardly matters. There was a time when a minister who accepted money from industrialists was regarded as a bit of crook and treated with a certain disdain by his colleagues. Today, every other minister takes money from businessmen and many will not bother to deny it. Rather justify it on the grounds of rising cost of election expenses and explain that these funds can only be generated from private industry. Since no businessmen will part with money for nothing. There has to be a certain level of quid pro quo.2S

(e) Formation of Jumboo Council of Ministers

Another aspect of bribing the MPs/MLAs is through the inducement to give the supporting legislators berths in the Council of Ministers or give them lure of public offices to enable

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a party in minority or a particular political leader to continue in power resulting in the formation of jumbo sized governments. In the last ten years this has become a common feature of practically all governments both at the Centre and in many states having coalition governments. An extreme example is the constitution of the recent Government under the leadership of Chief Minister Rabri Devi in the state of Bihar after the recent Assembly elections (March 2000), wherein almost all the 66 members of the Congress I party, who lent support to Rabri Government in the coalition have been given berths in the Council of Ministers. One could argue that this is strictly a legitimate offshoot of the phenomenon of coalition governments, but in practical terms it amounts to a subtle aspect of political corruption, for it puts a huge enormous unnecessary burden on public exchequer, and the use of government money for keeping the legislators in one's flock against all norms of public morality and propriety, and further opens more opportunities for corruption by the incumbent ministers. Almost all political parties have been guilty of this practice in the formation of governments, particularly in the last four General Elections (10-13th Lok Sabha), and Assembly Elections during 1995-2000. Overbloated cabinets impair efficient functioning and set a bad example for all levels of bureaucracy. An administration steadily sapped in this manner is bound to collapse.29 State cabinets of 60 and 90 ministers send a clear

message to the bureaucracy that politicians are out to loot and not administer. Such politicians, in turn, nurture and promote sycophantic bureaucrats who help them in their loot. A bureaucracy steeped in such parasitic culture is not likely to be able to meet the challenges of modern governance.

(f) Money Laundering : The Jain Hawala Case

In February 1996, former Prime Minister Rao and some of his Cabinet Ministers, and about 60 other politicians belonging to different political parties and bureaucrats were implicated in an $ 18 millions Jain Hawala Case (money laundering scandal). It has been alleged that many political leaders including the then Prime Minister Rao, many cabinet colleagues and leaders in opposition like L.K. Advani were guilty of violation of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) and were receiving

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money in foreign countries by means of Hawala transactions through some businessmen like N.K. Jain and his brothers. Rao was also accused of his involvement in St. Kitrs's case and indicted in a vote buying bribery case involving some members of the Parliament (referred to above). At the same time allegations for taking bribes were made against him in a Delhi court by a British businessman, Pathak. Although the outcome of all these cases has not produced any conviction (except the vote buying bribery case), but the very fact that even the highest political authority has been dragged into the court of law for alleged incidence of corruption smacks of the all pervasive prevalence of political corruption from top to the bottom. In early 2000, all the accused politicians and bureaucrats in the Jain Hawala case have been discharged by the Court as there was no sufficient evidence to prosecute them. The Court held that merely some entries in the diaries of the Jains in some code words is not a sufficient evidence to hold them guilty of corruption.

(g) Other Forms/Cases of Political Corruption (1993-2000)

There have been a number of other financial scams and political scandals which had been reported in the press from time to time during the last few years, (a) Recovery of 3.66 crores of rupees from the residence of former Minister of Communication Mr. Sukh Ram through signing of dubious telecom contract involving also his secretary Mrs. Ghosh, (b) 139 crores Urea Import scam—due to a fraudulent contract signed in 1995 between National Fertilizer Company with a Turkish Company Karsan (in no country in the world, Rs. 139 crores would be paid in advance to any business firm to get any commodity, yet the officials in India paid that amount without getting an ounce of the urea—a fittest case of the misuse of office and outright dismissal from service, but no action taken against the guilty); (c) 5.25 crores New Delhi Municipal Committee scam, relating to irregularities in billing collection of electrical changes; (d) Petrol pump allotment case in which former Petroleum Minister Satish Sharma

allocated 15 pumps from his discretionary quota; (e) Housing allotment case, involving former Urban Affairs Minister Mrs. Sheila Kaul and P.K. Thungan, (f) Indian Bank case involving Chief Managing

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Director, who granted loans to dubious persons.

At the states level, the number of such cases are too many to be discussed in this brief account. The most important is the Fodder Scandal case and the purchase scam in Health Department of the state of Bihar involving many hundred crores of rupees which brought the down fall of the then Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav who was indicted of involvement in those cases. The other well known cases have been the allegation against the Chief Minister of Assam,

Mr. P.K. Mahanta in public security scandal: allegation against Ms Jaylalitha, a former Chief Minister of Tamilnadu in several corruption cases involving fifteen millions of rupees and 3 lakh dollars for her personal gains: allegations against M. Karunanidhi, Chief Minister of Tamilnadu accused of links with LTTE involved in the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which ultimately brought down the downfall of Gujral government at the Center in 1996. It is interesting to note than none of the accused persons in all these cases have been convicted. Indeed far from political wilderness, they are all enjoying political power in their own states, and in the case of Jaylalitha, her position (between 1998-99), was of a fulcrum on which the then Vajpayee Government of the Centre rotated, till it was eventually brought down by her in April 1999, when she withdrew support and the then Vajpayee Government fell just by a single vote. It is too well known an instance of how powerful a politician can be even though he/ she may be facing a number of cases of corruption in the courts of law. Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD Party's win in February 2000 Assembly Elections, and he being the de facto Chief Minister of Bihar by proxy despite being in the jail on corruption charges, is another example of how political corruption flourishes and get rewarded in this part of the world.30

One of the consequences of the widespread corruption and unaccountability in our political system has been that amongst the other nations of the world, India stands high in the list of the ' most corrupt' nations and virtually at the bottom in the international assessments of human development.31 Recently Transparency International, based in Berlin ranked 99 countries according to a corruption perception index in 1999 and India's rank is 73. A recent South Asian Human

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Development Report produced by the Mahbub-ul-Haq Centre in Islamabad has characterised corruption in South Asia as more widespread and dangerous than in other regions because it occurs at the top, is rarely punished and affects more than 500 million people. The report has also pointed out that corrupt money has ' wings and not wheels' and is smuggled abroad to safe heavens and not ploughed back into the domestic economy. Often corruption leads to promotion and not prison.32

IV. CRIMINALIZATION OF POLITICS AND POLITICIZATION CRIMINALS

Apart from the various forms of political corruption, India suffers from a combined process of politicisation and criminalisation of politics. Combined with other factors like politicisation of the police, it certainly poses a real threat to democracy. The most pernicious methods has been the use by politicians of the services of the anti-social elements at the time of elections. One of the most disturbing feature of the post-Independence era has been the trend towards the uninhibited use of muscle-power by the political parties in winning the elections. As muscle-power is mostly provided by criminal elements and mafia leaders, a close nexus came to exist between the politicians and the criminals. An impression also prevails that the greater a person was a ' goonda' (a ruffian), the higher was his rating as a useful element in the electoral malpractices, like booth-capturing, violance, intimidation and victimisation of voters. The weaker sections of our electorate are mainly hit by these practices.

There are two types of booth-capturing at the time of polls, i.e. silent and violent: both are the products of criminality. In a silent booth-capturing, detection of which and effective remedial action are not easy, the voters are given threats of dire consequences. They either forgo their right to vote or their votes are impersonated on a large-scale by thrusting bunch of ballot papers into the boxes kept at the polling stations. The very presence of strong handed and headed muscle-men at polling stations to oversee the operation according to their taste, make it possible either to coerce the weaker sections of the electorate to vote in a particular way or enable their ballot papers being

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freely handled by those musclemen.

Violent booth capturing takes the form of snatching and running away with polled ballot boxes or open destruction of ballot papers and other records. They are again the crude handwork of goons and goondas.33 In both these types of incidences, police is always hand in gloves with the criminal elements who are active as musclemen on behalf of their masters—the politicians.

Criminals Becoming Law-makers

Earlier when in difficulty at the hands of law-enforcing agencies, the criminals and mafia leaders would turn to politicians and seek their aid, and the latter were none-too-unwilling to come to their help as a quid pro quo for the help rendered by them at the time of elections. Later in recent years, the criminal elements and mafia leaders thought that, if because of their prowess and grip over certain sections of population they could get others elected, why should they themselves not fight elections. Many of them accordingly contested the elections and quite a substantial number of them were elected. Some of them have come to occupy ministerial chairs. According to newspaper reports almost half of the members of some of our legislatures are those with their names on the history sheets of the police. The nation is thus confronted with the ignoble phenomenon of criminalisation of politics. Experience also tells us that despite the public expression of abhorrence of criminalisation of politics, the political parties have been adopting such undesirable elements as their candidates at the time of elections. They were guided more in this respect by the electoral prospects of the candidate rather than his personal credentials and antecedents.34

Criminalisation of politics has also wrought havoc on the administration of criminal justice and the situation today is that it has become most difficult, if not well nigh impossible, to secure conviction of major culprits guilty of offenses like murder, grievous hurt, intimidation and rape because of the political interference in the police investigation of the crime and the consequent inability of the police to procure credible incriminating evidence as may warrant conviction of the culprit in a court of law. In many states, the former history sheeters

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against whom criminal cases are still pending in the courts of law have turned law-makers and ministers after winning elections, which has not only seriously jeopardised the legal process, but has also posed far-reaching ethical dilemmas and concerns.35

V. BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN INDIA: ITS VARIOUS FORMS

In addition to the phenomenon of political corruption discussed above, let us now consider some forms of bureaucratic corruption prevailing in India in the modern times. As has been argued earlier political and bureaucratic corruption go hand in hand.

Forms of what may be called bureaucratic behaviour differ from society to society. What may be publicly considered as the most reprehensible act in one society may not be given similar treatment in another

society. Consequently, the preparation of a list which includes all forms of bureaucratic corruption is difficult and may be dangerously misleading. However, following are the examples of activities, which are generally considered corrupt practices and unethical behaviour on the part of bureaucracy in many countries:

(a) Bribery, graft, patronage, nepotism, and influence peddling;

(b) Conflict of interest (including such activities as financial transactions to gain personal advantage, accepting outside employment during the tenure in government);

(c) Misuse of inside knowledge—for example, through acceptance of business employment after retirement or resignation, favouring relatives and friends in awarding contracts or arranging loans and subsidies, and accepting improper gifts and entertainment;

(d) Protecting incompetents;

(e) Regulating trade practices or lowering standards in such a manner as to give advantage to oneself or to the family members;

(f) Use and abuse of official and confidential information for private purposes.

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Such activities may produce many such costs for a society as: inefficiency, mistrust of government and its employees, distortion of programme achievements, waste of public resources, encouragement of black market operations, and eventual national instability. A situation called les chiffres dores is thus created which tolerates white-collar crimes against the nation by those who are its employees. Such costs may or may not be acceptable by a State, but at least a society should be aware that it is incurring them, and public officials should be sensitised for their existence.

Bureaucratic Corruption: The Obtuse of Bureaucratic Morality

Thus the must invidious form of immoral behaviour on the part of bureaucracy in India is the phenomenon of corruption. The all-pervasive incidence of corruption in Indian administrative system presents a picture of corrupt officials wheeling and dealing in bribery, extortion, nepotism and misuse of official position. It has given rise to a public misperception that unless proven otherwise a government servant in all probability is a corrupt official.

It must be noted however, that bureaucratic corruption in the Third World tends to differ from that of the industrialised countries in its scope and intensity. Where goods and services provided by the public authorities are far below the great demand for them, as in India, it is not uncommon to see people paying a small sum to a minor official for reserving a seat in public transportation, for being admitted in a hospital, for getting a telephone connection or license, or for meeting any other administrative need. Here, scarcity of public resources and almost unlimited demand by the community give rise to such corrupt and unethical practices. As the craving for material goods and benefits continues to increase, prices for such goods and services rise. Public officials who are in charge of the provision or regulation of such services will continue to face temptation, and some may try to avail themselves of whatever opportunities their position provides them. Their actions, in turn, tend to conform the prevailing public view that officials are generally corrupt. And, of course, nothing is so corrupting as a suspicion of corruption.

Other factors causing corruption and unethical conduct

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among public servants are job scarcity, insufficient salary, and the ever-increasing powers being given to them by the State to regulate its economy and social affairs. The evolution of civil societies was marked by the regulation of human conduct and inter-personal and inter-institutional dealings within a framework of civil, criminal and other laws and the society at large was expected to conform to given value systems and codes of conduct. But the regulations and systems which were evolved to impart objectivity and fairness to the mechanisms of governance did not invariably achieve this objective. This increased regulatory authority creates various opportunities for money-making, as for instance in connection with development planning, permits, contracts for construction, granting import-export licenses, collecting customs and other duties and strict accounting for foreign exchange. Experience has shown that the exercise of regulatory authority has actually contributed to an increase in corruption in various spheres of administrative control and enforcement.36

Administrative corruption in India has also been encouraged by the pervasive spread of the soft-state syndrome, a rigid bureaucracy, exclusivist process of decision-making in an over-centralised

government, abysmally low pay of civil servants and lack of stringent and effective internal control mechanism.37

According to N. Vittal, the present Central Vigilance Commissioner, Government of India, corruption flourishes in our system because of five basic reasons:

(a) scarcity of goods and services,

(b) red tape and complicated rules and procedures,

(c) lack of transparency in decision-making,

(d) legal cushions of safety we have built for the corrupt people under the very healthy principle that everybody is innocent till proved guilty, and

(e) tribalism or biradari among the corrupt who protect each other.

We say ' thick as thieves' not thick as honest people. Corruption is a low risk, high profit activity. He identifies five major players in corruption—the neta, babu, lala, jhola and dada—the

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corrupt politician, the corrupt bureaucrat, the corrupt businessman, the corrupt NGO and the criminal.38

A consequence of a valueless polity governing the country has been the continuing erosion of the integrity of the civil services. To achieve their short-term objectives, the political executive has been deploying pliant functionaries, handpicked on considerations of their caste, community or political affiliations, to man key assignments. This has resulted in the cadres of the various civil services, including the police and judicial services, being demoralised and their functioning adversely effected. There are no

more any role models— unknown persons of dubious distinction can get appointments to the highest posts in the country.39

VI. COMBATING BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN INDIA: A BR REVIEW

Being aware of the problem of corruption in administrative system, the Government in India has from time to time adopted various means to check it. In the pre-Independence days, during the World War II, the then British Government in India had in 1941 set up a special police force at the Central level, known as " The Delhi Special Police Establishment (DPSE), in order to check the war time corruption confined to lower or middle level functionaries of certain departments actively involved in war supplies and contracts. This was given statutory status by enacting the DSPE Act, 1946. With the creation of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in April 1963, the DPSE became a part of this larger anti-corruption police organisation. Meanwhile more legal powers to punish corrupt public servants were secured by the government with the enactment of " Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947." 40 These two instruments coupled with Commission of Inquiry Act of 1952 were by and large considered adequate to cope up with the degree and level of corruption prevalent at that time. However, over the years there has been a sharp decline in the efficiency and efficacy of the CBI and questions have been raised about its impartiality and competence as an investigating and a prosecuting agency.41

The Report of the Santhanam Committee (1964) and the

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Administrative Reforms Commission (1967) recommended the creation of the institution of Lok Pal at the Centre and the Lokayuktas in the States to investigate alleged cases of corruption against ministers. While the various state governments in the last three decades have experimented with the constitution, abolition, and reconstitution of Lokayuktas, the Centre has yet to establish the institution of Lok Pal (despite the five abortive efforts in 1968, 1971, 1977, 1979 and 1985 and the Lok Pal Bill of 1996, the latest reintroduction of the Lok Pal Bill in the Lok Sabha on 3 August 1998, and the promises of the Governments led by the BJP in the past three years). The miserable failure of the Lokayuktas, who had often become the victim of politics and their total ineffectiveness to check the monstrous growth of corruption is too well known and needs no documentation.42

The high level corruption in administration was supposed to be tackled by an Independent Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), created through a Government resolution of 11 February 1964, whose tenure kept on changing from initial 6 years to 3 years (1977) and again to 5 years (1990), making it weaker and more vulnerable. The jurisdiction of the CVC was extended in 1986 to cover the staff and

officers of the Public Sector Undertakings. Various Ministries and Government offices also established individual Vigilance Departments to keep a track on the complaints of corruption emanating in their offices. However, despite a large number of cases of alleged corruption investigated and reports submitted to the legislature, only a small percentage of cases have been recommended for prosecution.43 In pursuance of the directions of the Supreme Court in the Jain Hawala Case (Vineet Narain and Others vs. Union of India and others) to confer statutory status upon the Central Vigilance Commission, the Government promulgated the Central Vigilance Ordinance,1999 on 8 January 1999, but the bill replacing the above ordinance lapsed consequent to the dissolution of the Lok Sabha in April 1999. The Government has initiated action to reintroduce the Central Vigilance Bill in the present Lok Sabha (2000).44

In addition to the above mentioned efforts and simultaneous use of the various Inquiry Commissions appointed by the Government during the last fifty years of the

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Republic, there has not been any concerted, coordinated, effective and continuous fight to prevent corruption or prosecute and punish the corrupt—a miniscule of successful cases of prosecution and punishment notwithstanding.

In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of India's Independence, the then Prime Minister I.K. Gujral made an earnest call from the ramparts of the Red Fort to root out corruption and followed it up by the formation of a special cell in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), which was to play the role of a watchdog over the investigating agencies. However, it did not have much impact in bringing the black sheep in the bureaucracy to book. In a survey carried out by The Hindustan Times in certain key states like Tamil Nadu, Assam, Punjab, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Maharasthra, and Andhra Pradesh, reports revealed that although an increasing number of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers figured in corruption cases, the wheels of justice were not moving fast enough to punish the guilty. Procedural delays, political patronage and resistance from within the bureaucracy appeared to be helping corrupt officials evade the long arm of the law.45

The CVC Website

Recently the present Chief Vigilance Commissioner, N. Vittal has adopted a three-point plan to check corruption— simplification of rules and procedures, empowering the public and bringing greater transparency in publishing the names of those officials who misuse their authority and act against public interest, and the strategy of effective punishment. In his zeal to fight corruption, he took the advantage

of modern information technology and has created a website for the CVC and started by posting the names of 85 IAS and 22 IPS officers against whom the CVC had, since January 1, 1990 sought criminal/ departmental proceedings for major penalties. Although the blackened faces on the Net sent shivers down the bureaucratic spines, few had the gumption to stand up and protest. The two associations of IAS and IPS officers sat tight lipped. On 10 February 2000, the Punjab State Officers' Association passed a unanimous resolution condemning the CVC's action and demanding an apology from him for the " serious

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misdemeanour" , but no other state association responded to the lead. Meanwhile Vittal further escalated the battle by posting the names of another 78 Central Service Officers of Questionable integrity, in the two revenue wings of Income tax and Central Excise and Customs. Added to the list were a gaggle of officers belonging to the Indian Forest Service. Rubbing salt into the wound, Vittal also sent a circular to each of the 35 Central ministries and each Central Public Sector Unit, nationalised bank and insurance company asking for suggestions on how to develop a system of ranking them on a " Corruption Perception Index" as a result of the World Bank's observation that the Delhi Development Authority is the most corrupt organisation in India. Every year this list can be published, which would possibly help bring down the level of corruption. Although investigations against politicians are presently beyond the jurisdiction of the CVC, but Vittal had begun a crusade against tainted politicians too by asking the Income Tax Department to open tax-related allegations against them. This has made many politicians in all political parties jittery who condemned Vittal's references and observed that the sanctity of the CVC will get diminished by such actions.46

However, the CVC is feeling quite satisfied with his decision of the website. For in it he sees a psychological impact on those who have committed any financial irregularity in their official dealings. It has created public opinion against extraordinary delays in initiating action against corrupt officials. The Government is not reluctant to keep these tainted civil servants in sensitive positions as was being done till now. Finally, those who are on the right side of the Laxman rekha of corruption will not cross it because they are afraid that they will also be caught on the web.47 Encouraged with the success, the CVC is now contemplating launch of a new programme to identify the 10 most corrupt officials every year with a view to keeping a watch on the conduct of those whose integrity is suspect. Although through this exercise, it is hoped that the corrupt will know that they are being exposed and watched. This is expected to have a healthy deterrent effect.48 However, it remains to be seen as to what extent these initial steps are sustained in future and produce the desired results, as it is argued that the over zealousness on the part of the CVC might

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group together bureaucrats and politicians again and entangle the institution into a variety of legal and political controversies which would lead to his diminished role.

It is evident from the above account that combating bureaucratic corruption calls for (a) reducing opportunities and incentives for corrupt behaviour and increasing the sense of accountability on the part of public officials; and (b) effective implementation of anti-corruption measures, which would imply that measures should be logically consistent with regard to the phasing of a time table for speedy investigation and conviction; a strong political commitment to implement the strategies and enforcing anti-corruption measures; and people's active participation from below in the enforcement of administrative, legal and judicial measures, thus mobilising the public against corruption in public life. This brief review of the various instruments adopted and steps taken by the Government to check the menace of corruption over the last half a century reveals a pattern of adhocism and a hollowness of the claim of the commitment of the political leadership to eradicate corruption from the body politic in India.

VII. CORRUPTION IN INDIA: THE THREE PHASES OF PUB PERCEPTION

Corruption in India has passed through three different stages: " (a) gaining legitimacy, (b) widespread indulgence, and (c) shameless defense." 49 Apart from other social and economic compulsions, it has grown due to steep fall in the standards of political leadership and an overall decline in the moral and ethical standards in the society.

The early years of the Republic were the days when the lingering memory of the freedom movement and the high standards of rectitude in the matters of handling of public funds helped preserve some norms of public conduct in the business of the government. Things began to change thereafter, particularly after the death of Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri, and under Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the standards of public morality had begun to decline which further reached the lowest ebb under Rajiv Gandhi and his successors.

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Corruption in India has become a way of life in all fields of activities—more so in the field of politics. It has not only gained a widespread legitimacy and indulgence, but is now being defended shamelessly. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's statement on corruption in the late 1960s that " It was a worldwide phenomenon" heralded that dawn of the first stage of indulgence. It coincided with the enormous growth of black money (according to one estimate it accounts for 50 percent of the reported national income) and the emergence of money politics as a major factor in public life. When in the past, a scandal

like Mundhra deal appeared in the press, prompt action was taken by the Parliament. The Finance Minister, the Finance Secretary and the Chairman of the Life Insurance Corporation were all made to resign. In the new era (in late 1960s) when Tulmohan scandal case erupted in Parliament, no action was taken. Similarly, in the Nagarwala case (1970), no action could be taken, as neither Nagarwala nor the police officer investigating the case, lived to tell the tale.50

The next stage was one of widespread indulgence. Corruption now became the hallmark of Indian politics and administration. Its tentacles spread everywhere and tainted the reputation of even the Heads of the Government. The Westland Helicopter deal, the HDW submarine deal, the Bofors deal and the ' suitcase' allegations are well known examples. The recent corruption cases against Mr. B.P. Verma, Chairman of the Cerntral Board of Excise and Customs, March 2001, has completely shaken the government.51

The last few years have seen the emergence of shameless defense of corruption, when attempts are being made to cover it up. Examples abound, the Foreign Minister of India delivers a note to his counterpart in Switzerland asking him to hush up the Bofors case. When this gets known, he states in Parliament that he was not aware of the contents of the note nor did he remember who had given him that note. A judge of the Supreme Court is indicted for blatant corruption after the judicial security at the apex court but is bailed out from the impeachment in Parliament by the ruling party. In the securities scandal, a scamaster makes serious allegations against the Prime. Minister which are of course denied but no criminal action for defamation is taken against the former. The Law

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Minister lends some crecedence to the scamaster's allegation by saying that he had been frequently visiting his cabinet colleagues with suit cases. A Governor is found involved in another St. Kitts type forgery implicating a senior opposition leader, but the whole matter is soft-peddled. And when the opposition parties combine to table a motion of no-confidence in Parliament, making corruption the prime issue, the Prime Minister's reply to the motion is totally silent about corruption. Suitcase was the immediate provocation for the no-confidence motion. It also became the weapon for defending the motion.52

Thus corruption in political life in India has assumed almost criminal proportion and has ceased to provoke that amount of shock and disgust as it would have three decades ago.53 Corruption exists not only in the ruling party alone, but has infected the opposition and all other political parties in equal measures. Not even the ' Left' ensconced in its closely, guarded precincts can claim to be immune to it. Some of the popular parties of the regional level seems to be wallowing in corruption totally unashamed

and uninhibited. Inevitably, the administrative machinery including the top bureaucrats in many places have practically adjusted themselves to a corruption laden regime. In fact corruption at the political level is entwined with corruption at the bureaucratic level.54

Political corruption has invariably resulted into a sustained and systematic politicisation of the bureaucratic structure and has liquidated the command and control structures of the services, leading to indiscipline, inefficiency and unaccountability among the ranks. Being used as tools for executing unlawful orders and as agents to collect funds for their political masters, a progressively growing number of employees in every sphere of functioning have amassed fortunes through corruption. As a result of the politicisation of the administrative machinery, the law-enforcing agencies have got mixed up with the very elements whose unlawful activities they are expected to check and control. As the latter enjoy the patronage and protection of politicians a frightening triangular nexus has evolved between criminals, government functionaries and politicians. In addition, political instability and the progressive decline in the values of the polity has over the years seen the degradation of the Parliamentary system, damage to

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the functioning of the Cabinet, disregard of the Constitution and the rule of law, and a continuing erosion of the integrity of the civil services.

VIII. TOWARDS CORRUPTION-FREE GOVERNANCE

It is obvious that the government in India has failed miserably to make even a small dent or an iota of success in checking, leave alone eliminating the menace of corruption from public life. The various instruments used by the Government from time to time since Independence, like the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 (later modified in 1988), Commissions of Inquiries under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952,55 appointment of Santhanam Committeee to recommend measures for combating corruption, recommendations of the Administrative Reform Commission, Shah Commission appointed by Janata Government after Emergency, establishment of the institution of Lokayuktas in various states, constitution of the Central Vigilance Commission, investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, the system of Judicial Review of Political Corruption and the recent phenomenon of Public Interest Litigation (PIL), The Anti-Defection Law, The Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), Election Expenditure Ceilings have all failed to make the slightest deterrent for people resorting to corrupt practices. It is time that some radical measures are adopted to check this ever growing menace.

What then should be done to control corruption, what kind of strategies are necessary to curb it, and what kind of reform measures be given priorities to reduce its incidence have been the most recurring theme for debate and discussion amongst the Indian academics, scholars, policy-makers, journalists, political leaders, Commissions of Inquiries el. al.

The strategies frequently suggested at various foras of academic and political discussions, and in various thought provoking and scholarly writings fall into a number of areas for action: 56

(i) reform of the political process,

(ii) restructuring and reorienting the government machinery,

(iii) empowerment of citizens and mobilising the public

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against corruption,

(iv) creating sustained public pressure for change,

(v) comprehensiveness of the anti-corruption strategies to attack the causes of corruption,

(vi) political will to implement the strategies,

(vii) redefining the role of the state—removal of the state ownership and state discretionary controls,

(viii) recrafting of the electoral process to include regulation of legitimate sources of funding of elections, which is one of the basic sources of corruption

(ix) better institutional framework to deal with corruption and to bring about an effective detective and investigative machinery to bring the errant to book: 57

(a) revitalising and strengthening the existing anti-corruption laws and agencies (e.g., the existing Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, Delhi Special Police Establishment Act; strengthening it by a separate and comprehensive CBI Act to vest it with legal powers to investigate corruption cases of higher level politicians and officials throughout the country without the requirement of prior consent of the State governments, etc.,

(b) strengthening and depoliticising the existing offices of the Lokayuktas in many states, creating new institutional framework like the Lok Pal at the Centre,

(c) strengthening the autonomy of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner and giving it the power and status of an independent autonomous authority to conduct investigations, and constitution of an Accountability Commission freed from political control,

(x) simplifying administrative procedures and enactment of Freedom of Information Act,

(xi) deregulation of monopolies,

(xiii) speedy judicial trial in cases of corruption and effective enforcement of punitive judgements,58 and

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(xiv) establishing an anti-corruption cell in the Prime Minister's Office to be staffed by officials, who have the guts, the courage of conviction, with a missionary zeal to eradicate corruption, an impeccable integrity and personal honesty, who would have the time-bound mandate to get after the most corrupt.

Besides these concrete actions, there are scholars, who are optimistic about tackling corruption through the initiatives of civil society institutions. For instance, Samuel Paul argues that success of initiatives by

the civil society to challenge corruption are brighter than the chances of government initiating action on its own. Although he does not see the immediate possibility of the eruption of a mass movement to fight corruption, yet he thinks that there are other types of initiatives and actions that could exert increasing pressure for change. He gives three reasons in support of his argument: First of all, there are several people's initiatives already at work, challenging corrupt practices and other abuses of power. Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is, perhaps, the most visible manifestation of such initiatives. Judicial response to PIL has on the whole been positive. Other local movements challenging abuses and seeking access to information are in evidence in different parts of the country. There are sporadic protests and demands for reforms even from civil service associations in some states. The media have been active in highlighting these developments and helping with the dissemination of their progress and outcomes. The gain of such experience, expertise and confidence through a cumulative process and access through modern information technology will strengthen and accelerate people's initiative and will have a positive impact on the society, and the government will be forced to respond and to reform, even reluctantly. Admittedly the process has its own limitations and even some harmful consequences, but things have come to such a low level that it has become necessary to take some such unconventional steps to start cleansing the system.59


Combating corruption in India is not an easy task. Evidently, the main source of corruption has been politics, and it is there where the process of eradicating it has to start. Politics

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affects all aspects of peoples' lives. Elections which are the main planks to sustain a democratic polity have become the fountain-head of corruption. Way back in 1967, the present Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had said that every MP elected to the Lok Sabha began his parliamentary career by making a false statement—the statement of account of his election expenses. The amount of money that any legislator spends on his elections is many many times more than the farcical ceiling laid down by the Government for which he submits his account of election expenses. Having won the elections, these legislators try to recover their expenses in the first two years. What they get in the next three is a bonus.60 MP-ship has thus been reduced to a business. All political corruption flows from the necessity of political parties and politicians to raise funds for election expenses which in modern times have mounted to huge proportions. All legal limits in election expenses are violated with immunity. While crime of violence are handed with ruthless application of law, corruption and immorality are connived at.

The experience of India indicates that while the avowed objectives of the probe in various scandals and scams has been to find out the truth, in actual fact they seem to have had other objectives, namely:

(i) to seem to probe and delay the matter till public forgets the scandal,

(ii) to secure an instrument to smear the name of political opponent, and

(iii) suppress a politically damaging truth.

It is noteworthy that hardly any of these probes have led to the criminal prosecution of the indicted politicians.61

The various financial and political scams that have occurred in India point out to the emerging sophisticated pattern of political corruption. Financial bungling of such magnitude cannot take place and let off without any repressive punitive action unless those are backed by powerful politicians. Thus, corruption cannot be tackled if there is no high degree of personal integrity at the higher political levels. If the moral standards at the top are low, social values are bound to generate and lead to moral chaos and anarchy. Notwithstanding any institutional anti-corruption strategies that may be devised to

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combat the incidence of political corruption in any county— Election Commissions, Commissions of Inquiry Vigilance Commissions, Ombudsman et al.—a strong public opinion, an appropriate social climate which abhors the corrupt and the corrupt practices and a free and vigilant press can perhaps accomplish much more than any legal or institutional device in fighting the evil of political corruption. Ultimately it has to be a concerted attempt by the government and the people together.62

Apart from the above fundamental conditions, it must be emphasised that fighting corruption requires: (a) formation of a national coordinating body that should be responsible for devising and following up on a strategy against corruption, along with a citizen's oversight board; (b) the existence of a high powered independent prosecuting body to investigate and prosecute all such known cases of corruption; (c) and the setting up of special courts for trying such cases at a stretch so that the cases come to their legitimate conclusion without any delay; (d) thoroughly overhauling and reforming the

system of electoral laws and economic regulations minimising the temptation to indulge in corruption practice; (e) enactment of an appropriate legislation to limit the number of Ministries and Departments both at the Centre and the states so that the temptation of expanding ministries only for political gains could be minimised; and (f) by providing specialised technical assistance to anti-corruption agencies organising high-level anti-corruption workshops or strategic consulting or hiring international investigations to track down ill-gotten deposits overseas.

At the same time, it is also important that international institutions should take steps to encourage participatory approaches in developing countries in order to build consensus for anti-corruption drives and associated reforms. Civil society is likely to be a major ally in resisting corruption. More and more it is this ally that seeks concrete support from more developed Western countries and international agencies in actively combating corruption.63 International cooperation can help national leaders develop political resolve, and international action can convey the useful truth that we are all involved in the problem of corruption and that we must find solutions together.


1. See, L.M. Helmore, Corrupt and Illegal Practices: A General Survey and a Case Study on an Election Petition, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 . For dimensions of political corruption in USA, see, Fred J. Cook. The Corrupted Land: The Social Morality of Modern America, London, Jonathan Cape, 1967: and Susan Rope, Ackerman, Corruption: A Study in Political Economy, New York, Academic Press, 1978, pp. 15-84.

2. For an account of corruption in ancient India, during the Vedic period, see Upendra Thakur, Corruption in Ancient India, New Delhi, Abhinava Publications, 1970.

3. Khushwant Singh, " Are We a Corrupt People?" in Suresh Kohli (edj, Corruption in India, New Delhi, Chetana Publications, 1975, p. 10.

4. Dev Dutt, " In Politics" , Suresh Kohli (ed.), n. 3, pp. 78-79. For the political roots of corruption in India see, Surendranath Dwivedi and C.S. Bhargava, Political Corruption in India, New Delhi, Popular Book Services, 1967, pp. 11-18

5. See, P. Krishna Gopinath, " Corruption in Political and Public Offices: Causes and Use" in Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 28, No. 4, October-December 1982, pp. 897-918, S.P. Varma, " Corruption and Political Development in India" , Political Science Review. Vol. 13, Nos. 1-4, January-December 1974, pp. 157-79: J.B. Kriplani, " Corruption in Indian Politics, " Bhavans Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1, August 13, 1978, pp. 156-69: Surinder A. Suri, " Corruption of Political Life: Lack of Public Philosophy Main Cause" , Times of India, February 23, 1981, p. 8.

6. Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968), p. 59.

7. J.S. Nye, " Corruption and Political Development: A Cost Benefit Analysis" , American Political Science Review , Vol. 61 (June 1967), p, 416.

8. Joseph La Palombara, Politics Within Nations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1974), p. 406.

9. Minoru O' uchi, " A Study of Corruption—A Paradigm for Analysis" , The Yachiyo Journal of International Studies, Vol. IX, No. 4 (January .1997), pp. 19-20.

10. Arnold J. Heidenheimer et. al. eds.. Political Corruption: A Handbook (Transaction Publishers, 1990).

11. Nathaniel H. Leff, " Economic Development Through Bureaucratic Corruption" , American Behavioural Scientist, Vol. 8, No. 3 (November 1964).

12. Hilton Root, " The Economic Consequences of Corruption" in The Times of India( 20 September 1997, p. 13: 1-6.

13. For a detailed discussion on these cases, see R.B. Jain, The Craft of Political Graft in India: An Analysis of Major Scams, The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 55, No. 4 (October-December 1994), pp. 335-52.

14. Joseph La Palombora, Politics Within Nations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J; : Prentice Hall, 1974), pp. 408-10.

15. For an account of how elections are rigged in India and the kind of

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corrupt practices associated with it see, Arul B. Louis, " How to Rig an Election" , The Hindustan Times, 26 July, 1981.

16. For example, see the Report of Justice S.R. Das Commission appointed on 13 July 1963 to inquire into certain allegations against Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, the then chief minister of Punjab; Report of Shah Commission of Inquiry (Final Report, 6 August 1978), against the emergency excesses during 1975-77; Vaidyalingam Commission of Inquiry Report (6 February 1980), against Kanti Desai, son of the former prime minister, Morarji Desai, and Gaytari Devi, wife of the former prime minister Charan Singh.

17. See editorial, The Hindu, 9 February 1980.

18. For details of one such analysis of Souvenir Committee accounts before the 1977 General Elections see, Arun Shourie, " A Crumb for the Historian" in Indian Express, New Delhi, 11 April 1982. Also see A.G. Noorani, Ministers' Misconduct (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1973), p. 263. For DMK's ( a regional party in south India) method see Times of India, New Delhi, 18 October 1972 and Ibid., pp. 339-40 and 355. More recently the name Antulay has become inextricably bound up with the most sophisticated techniques of raising funds for ostensibly charitable, or party purposes, or for promoting more selfish interests.

19. See B.K. Acharya, " Root of Corruption: A Problem of Social Climate" , The Statesman, New Delhi, 12 November 1980.

20. P. Bidwai, " The Rise of the New Politician" , The Times of India, New Delhi, 19 January 1982.

21. Ibid.

22. Arun Shourie, n. 18.

23. See, India Today, 12 October 1998, pp. 20-21.

24. See, Veer Sanghavi, " Who is Afraid of Corruption" , Seminar (New Delhi), No. 913, January 1994, p. 69.

25. For some interesting examples of political corruption vs. political integrity in India, see " Reflections: Once Upon a Time" , The Hindustan Times , 4 January 1998, p. 13: 1-2.

26. The Times of India, 1 October 2000.

27. See The Times of India, 8 May 2000, p. 11: 5.

28. Ibid.

29. See Bloated Ministries, Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 4 March 2000, p. 13: 1-2.

30. While ostensibly being under detention on alleged charges of corruption, Lallo Prasad Yadav's party won the 2000 Bihar Assembly Elections making his wife Rabri Devi as Chief Minister and the running of the Government by proxy.

31. See Corruption Perception Index: Negative Values, in The Times of India, 10 August 1997, p. 15: 6-7.

32. See The Times of India, Editorial, 9 November 1999.

33. K. Ganesan, " Crime and Politics-I : The Growing Nexus" , in The Hindustan Times, 31 August 1992, p. 11: 3-6.

34. H.R. Khanna, " Who Follows Gandhi?" , in The Hindustan Times, 12

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December 1995, p. 13: 3-8.

35. Ibid. The classic case is that of former bandit Phoolan Devi who spent 11 years in jail after her surrender in 1983, was eventually released by political leaders belonging to her group and was elected an MP in the 1996 election on the strength of the caste vote. Although criminal cases are still pending against her, she contested again in the year (1998), but lost, but won again in 1999 elections. Another similar case is of Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raju Bhaiya, who was a Minister in the Kalyan Singh Cabinet (1998) in Uttar Pradesh, but has a number of cases pending against him. It is the enormous delays on the part of the courts to decide the cases that is responsible for preventing the criminals contesting the elections, see Sunil Sethi, " Criminal Virus in Body Politic" , The Times of India, 13 February 1998, p. 11: 12.

36. See N.N. Vohra, " Corruption and the Indian Polity" in Denouement (New Delhi), December 1999, pp. 7-10.

37. Srivatsa Krishna, " Anatomy of Corruption" , The Hindustan Times, 2 September 1996, p. 12: 1, 2.

38. N. Vittal, " Eliminating Corruption: Myth or Reality" , in Denouement (New Delhi), December 1999, pp. 11-13.

39. Vohra, n. 36.

40. The Act was later replaced by a slightly improved version in 1988.

41. For an analysis of the role of the CBI in combating corruption, see O. P. Sharma, " Combating Corruption in India the CBI Way: a Genuine Concern or Ad-hocism?" in Noorjahan Bava, Development Policies and Administration in India (New Delhi, Uppal Publishing House, 1999), pp. 103-22.

42. See for instance R.B. Jain, Contemporary Issues in Indian Administration (Delhi, Vishal Publications, 1976), pp. 390-97; Rajani Ranjan Jha, " Working of the Lokayuktas in India: Some Reflections" , a paper prepared for presentation at the Colloquium on Ombudsman, organised by the Indian Institute of Public Administration and the British Council, 8-10 March 1995, also see the Background reading material circulated at the colloquium, " Lokayukta in M-P under fire again" , The Hindustan Times, 11 September 1998, p. 11: 1-3, and " Toothless Watchdog, Editorial" , The Hindustan Times, 14 July 1999, p. 13: 1-2.

43. For a brief analysis of the working of the CVC, see P.K. Gopinath, " Central Vigilance Commission: A Profile" in Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July-September 1997), pp. 421-33. Also see U.C. Agarwal, " Galloping Corruption: Need for Effective Vigilance" in The Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 43, No." 3 (July-September 1997), pp. 434-40 and his " No honest effort to prevent corruption" in The Hindustan Times, 10 October 1997, p. 13: 7-8.

44. See Vivek K. Agnihotri, Government of India's Measures for Administrative Reforms, A note submitted to the ICSSR Symposium on Administrative Reforms, 3 January 2000.

45. See, The Hindustan Times, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9,10,11,12, and 13 November 1997, p. 7 of each issue.

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46. See India Today, 6 March 2000, pp. 29-35.

47. Ibid., See also The Hindustan Times, 21 February 2000, p. 9: 1-3, and The Times of India, 22 February 2000, p. 1: 2-3, 1 March 2000, p. 14: 6-8: 3 March 2000, p. 3: : 6-8 and 5 April 2000, p. 7: 3-4.

48. See The Times of India, 15 April 2000, p. 11: 6-8.

49. S.K. Sinha, " Combating Corrutpion: Need for Honest Political Leadership and Reforms" , in Indian Express, November 17, 1993, p. 16.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Nikhil Chakravarty, " Bofors, Big Bull and Corruption in High Places" , in Pioneer, June 16, 1993.

54. Ibid.

55. For a brief analysis of the work of a number of such Commissions, see R.B. Jain, " Fighting Political Corruption: The Indian Experience" in The Calcutta Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1983), pp. 1-22.

56. See for instance, S. Subramanian, " Political Corruption: A three-pronged attack" in The Hindustan Times, 6 November 1994, 13; 3-6; Minoru O' uchi, A Study of Corruption—A Paradigm for Analysis in The Yachiyo Journal of International Studies, Vol. IX, No. 4 (January 1997), pp. 1-50, U.C. Agarwal, " No honest effort to prevent corruption" . The Hindustan Times, 10 October 1997, p. 13; 7-8; V.A. Pai Panandiker, " Combating Corruption " , The Hindustan Times, 31 August 1999, p. 11: 3-8; Samuel Paul, Corruption in India: Who Will Bell the Cat" , Asian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 6, No. (June 1998), pp. 1-15; S.N. Sangita, " Anti-Corruption Strategies: Concepts and Perspectives" in Vigilance Newsletter, n.d., pp. 1-2, Harinder Baweja and Javed M. Ansari, " Tilting at Sleaze" , in India Today, 1 September 1997, Daniel Kaufman, " Corruption: The Facts" in Foreign Policy, Summer 1997, pp. 114-31; also see a special issue of Denouement (New Delhi), entitled " Corruption: The Destiny of Indian Society?" (December 1999), which contains contributions by N.N. Vohra, N. Vittal, Mamta Banerjee, Joginder Sigh, P.K. Shyamsundar, Chandan Mitra, S.S. Gill, Anil Divan and others. Also see Chandan Mitra, Corrupt Soceity: The Criminalisation of Indian Politics from Independence to the Nineties (Viking, 1997).

57. Srivatsa Krishna, " Cancer of Corruption" , in The Hindustan Times, 8 November 1997, p. 11: 3-8.

58. e.g. in 1997, the IAS Officers' Association in the state of Uttar Pradesh had attempted to bring to the notice of the Government the names of the officers, identified as ' most corrupt ' in their cadres, but not only the efforts did not meet with any success, worse still in some cases, the corrupt had been rewarded with plum posts and best of jobs, see " IAS Officers War Against Corrupt" , The Hindustan Times, 24 August 1997, p. 22: 5-8.

59. Samuel Paul, " Corruption in India: Who Will Bell the Cat?" in Asian Journal Political Science, of Vol. 6, No. 1 (June 1998), pp. 13-14. One offshoot of such developments have been the transparency that is reflected in the creation of a website by the present Chief Vigilance

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Commissioner N. Vittal, wherein the names of the officials charged with corrupt practices are being posted and updated for public information.

60. Chandan Mitra, Corrupt Society: The Criminalisation of Indian Politics from Independence to the Nineties ( New Delhi, Viking, 1997).

61. See for details, P. K. Balachandran, " Politics Devalues Probe Panels" , in The Hindustan Times, September 1, 1993, p. 7.

62. For a detailed analysis of the results of some Inquiry Commissions in India against corrupt practices see R.B. Jain, " Fighting Political Corruption: The Indian Experiences" , in The Calcutta Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1983, pp. 1-22.

63. Daniel Kaufman, " Corruption: The Facts" , Foreign Policy, Summer 1997, p. 130.

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PART III CHALLENGES OF CIVIL SOCIETY

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9 Citizen Participation in Development Administration

The very nature of ' development' calls for community involvement in the process of development. Although during the decades of 1950s and 1960s, many developing countries had adopted a centrist theory of development, the failure of these centrist policies, especially in the implementation of development plans and the delivery of benefits to a large section of the poorer community, started a re-evaluation of the practicability of the centralist strategies of development. During the 1970s, various politico-administrative decentralisation programmes, coupled with the evolution of a number of institutional devices to affect people's participation in development, were instituted in many developing countries.

After Independence, the Constitution-makers in India devised a political strategy that was essentially federal in character but heavily weighted in favour of centralisation. This was considered important to curb the secessionist tendencies at that time and to have a uniform economic development pattern. However, in recognition of the fact that uniform policies were not the answer for complete development of the country, the constitution-makers, through the provisions of the Directive Principles of State Policy, sought to establish a system of Village Panchayats (village councils) to involve the people at grass-root levels in decision-making process.

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This chapter is concerned with a brief survey of the principles and characteristics of citizen participation in development, along with the institutional innovations, which have been adopted in India for this purpose. In addition, it will analyze the new demands, actors and processes which are emerging in this respect, with a view to examining the relationship between the social actors and the state following the changes in the socio-political practices. Hopefully the experiences of India will help evolve some strategies of citizen-participation in the processes of development relevant for adoption in various developing countries.

I. DEVELOPMENT PHILOSOPHY IN INDIA

The philosophy of development which evolved under the stimulus of India's struggle for freedom from colonial rule attached great importance to the participatory approach. In fact, this approach was upheld for its intrinsic value and for its instrumental rule by the most important leaders in the national struggle.1 The basic premise of the participatory philosophy is spelled out in Mahatma Gandhi's statements: ' Man is the most wonderful machine in creation' , and ' technology must serve man and not lord over him' .2 His greatest statement supporting a participatory approach stated that people are the

roots and the state is the fruit; that the ' classes' at the top which are crushing the ' masses' at the bottom must get off their backs, and that true democracy cannot work through twenty men sitting at the Centre. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village.

In the centralisation-decentralisation continuum, the system of government that India inherited from the colonial period was in many respects more decentralised than centralised. With the arrival of a democratically elected government at the Centre and in the states, the balance was heavily tilted towards centralisation. However, decades of experience has yielded the lesson that centralised planning does not work well. In the meantime, mass politicisation has begun to generate a demand for participation, and it has become necessary to turn more towards a decentralised system of government and planning.3

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II. INDIA's STRATEGY FOR PARTICIPATIVE DEVELOPMENT: THE INSTITUTIONAL INNOVATIONS

Citizen participation in development and nation-building in India has posed a number of crucial issues, such as the adoption of new institutions at different levels between the citizens and the administration. Citizen involvement in development calls for improved mass-communication facilities so that the governmental agency responsible for development can reach the masses and learn their views on different areas of urban/rural development.

In 1959, the Government of India launched the Urban Community Development Programme which was designed to transform, socio-economically, the lives of villagers and urban slum-dwellers. It was called ' people's programme' , and included the participation of the people together with the local authorities.4 Some of the studies relating to urban development in India have shown that citizen's involvement can occur, even in a government programme, if those involved as animators are committed to the people and can develop their capacity to organize themselves for social and political actions. Such studies have recognised ' poor' people as the most important social and economic resource in urban development. Urban community development has great potential for building systematic linkages between physical improvements, social services and people's participation.5

However, as India was predominantly an agricultural society at Independence, development basically meant the development of rural Indian and rural society, although there is also the concomitant need for improvement in urban and industrial infrastructure for further growth plus work on the problem of linkages between urban and rural development. The discussion of citizen participation in development in India is thus related more to rural than to urban areas. In fact, since Independence, various

experiences in participatory development in India have taken place through community development programmes which have established the institutional framework of ' Panchayati Raj' institutions. In addition, there is also an infrastructure of cooperative bodies and government-sponsored development agencies and an

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encouragement of voluntary organisations to help and assist in development programmes.

Gandhi's Movement

Even before Independence, Mahatma Gandhi had already launched his constructive programme of rural development through the voluntary efforts of the people. He experimented with a self-sufficient and self-supporting village economy. The society envisaged by him was to be self-initiated and nonviolent, and the individual could have maximum freedom for himself, whilst still being part of his immediate community. The smaller community would be linked to a larger community until, ultimately, all became part of the larger world community.6

In his concept of rural development, he believed in decentralisation of social and political power, and was sure that the imbalance of power between urban and rural India would be removed through the mechanism of Panchayati Raj working as the basic and effective unit of the government, as it would enable rural India to have its share of political power. Gandhi planned to give shape to his ideal of the total reconstruction of rural society with the help of voluntary workers. The Gandhian model of decentralisation of political power was later taken up by the Panchayati Raj institutions which were introduced during the Second Five-Year Plan (1956-61).

The Community Development Programme

As part of the strategy to bring about socio-economic and cultural transformation in the rural areas, a massive community development programme was launched throughout the country in 1952. This programme drew its inspiration from the experiments in Albert Mayer's Etawah Project in the Uttar Pradesh in 1948 and S.K. Dey's Nilokheri Project in Punjab (now in Haryana) in 1950.

The Community Development Programme was launched throughout the country in 1952. Initially it covered 55 projects comprising 27,388 villages and 6.4 million people. However, within a very short

period of time it was felt that the programme needed to be extended to cover the whole country. Hence, a less intensive programme, called the National

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Extension Service, was formulated and put into effect on 2 October 1953. The CD programmes were described as ' all round rural development programmes, aimed at material development by encouraging rural people to create better living conditions through infrastructural facilities provided by the state.'

In fact, it was assumed that as the programme caught on and became acceptable to the rural people it would move from officially motivated self-help to self-motivated self-help. The goals of the Community Development Programme were:

1. to increase employment and production by the application of scientific methods in agriculture, including horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, etc. and the establishment of subsidiary and cottage industries;

2. self-help and self-reliance and the largest possible extension of the principle of cooperation; and

3. the need to develop a portion of the vast unutilised time and energy in the countryside for the benefit of the community.

It was assumed that the desired changes could be introduced into the villages through administrative machinery capable of providing infrastructural facilities and technical know-how. This would increase the rural society's growth potential creating economic prosperity, which would in turn begin to minimize, if not completely eliminate, poverty and social and economic inequalities. However, these expectations were not met as there had been no recognition of the fact that a new social order based on the values of democracy, secularism and socialism could not be easily implanted on a caste-bound feudal and hierarchical society without shaking off the age-old values and beliefs of the people, and reorganising the socio-economic structure.

In fact, the blending of centralised planning with the parliamentary form of government had created opposing pulls within the Indian polity.7 The logic of centralised planning was antithetical to people's participation. If the goals of development were already determined by centralised planning,

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the role of the bureaucracy, in the absence of a cadre-based political party, was to mobilize the people, and participation in its real sense was all but a total farce.

The main drawback of the CD programme was that it had been conceived in purely administrative terms, and remained primarily a bureaucratic activity where officials were ' target-oriented' and showed little sensitivity to the social process generated by economic programmes. Citizen participation was substituted by bureaucratic mobilisation which was directed towards achieving set development goals. The programme was not conceived in response to the ' felt needs' of the people. In addition, the human and material resources were inadequate considering the scale and magnitude of the task that was to be accomplished. In community development, there was greater dependence on the government for material resources and these were not supplemented by popular contributions, as had been expected.

Despite these shortcomings, however, the CD programme did succeed in shaking up the rural society from its extreme passivity and inertia, and gave it a momentous start. For the first time, it brought the people closer to the government through its bureaucratic apparatus and accrued political consciousness. It also familiarised people with many new concepts and techniques of agricultural development. Moreover, an awareness was generated that facilities which were being made available by the state could be used for general good, if access to them was not restricted by people of influence or the government.8

The Panchayati Raj Institutions

During the period of the Second Five Year Plan (1956-61), the National Development Council appointed a Committee on Plan Projects (Balwant Rai Mehta Committee) to examine the work of the Community Development and National Extension Service. The Committee's recommendations mark the beginning of a new experimental phase in people's participation in development through what has come to be known as the process of democratic decentralisation.

The establishment of a three-tier system of rural local self-government with full power to assume responsibility for local

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development was the core of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee recommendations. Rajasthan was the first state in India to introduce the Panchayati Raj system on 2 October 1959, which was followed by a number of other states, including Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. There were two main variants in the adopted Panchayati Raj model which depended on whether greater authority was delegated to Samitis (groups of villages) or Zila Parishads (the districts). By the 1970s, the Panchayati Raj system had been introduced in practically all parts of the country. The new institutional set up was intended to be as an experiment involving the poorest of the poor in rural areas in the process of self-consciousness or national reconstruction and to channel energies towards the refashioning of community life.

The Panchayati Raj institutions have been in operation in almost all states in India for nearly four decades, but with a number of variants in their structure concerning their decision-making, implementation and resource-allocation, staffing pattern, training and recruitment of staff and the degree of autonomy allowed to different units. A number of research studies have been conducted by various scholars in the functioning of the system on an empirical basis, and these have generally pointed to the limited extent of the involvement of people in decision-making at grass-roots level, the interactional resistance between the official and non-official functionaries, the paradoxical resistance and tensions of the system in operation, the problems of caste-elite domination and political influences, and more significantly the non-achievement of developmental goals.

While the Panchayati Raj institutions have acquired stronger roots in some states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka, these have not made any impact in other states due to a number of reasons, including the postponement of elections, declining and inadequate material and human resources, tensions between the officials and political leaders, and the lack of the very premise of popular participation in development programmes, which has been the raison d' etre of the entire concept.

The Ashoka Mehta Committee was set up to examine the working of Panchayati Raj system in 1977 by the Janata

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Government which came into power after the short aberration of 19 months of emergency regime imposed by the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi. It reviewed the Panchayati Raj institutions at various levels and noted that the system had passed through three distinct phases: the phase of ascendancy (1959-64); the phase of stagnation (1965-69); and phase of decline (1969-77). The Committee proposed some structural and organisational changes to revitalize the PR concept, but with the fall of the Janata Government in 1980, the recommendations were put into the cold storage. However, it is doubtful whether the changes proposed by the Ashoka Mehta Committee would have made any impact on the relationship between state and civil society in the absence of the realisation that the decentralisation of power had more deeper cultural problems rather than merely the organisational and managerial efficiency of the PR institutions. From 1980 until 1989, when a new proposal to revitalize the PR institutions by giving them a constitutional status was initiated by the Rajiv Gandhi Government, the PR institutions virtually remained in suspended animation.

The Rajiv Gandhi Congress Government presented the 64th Constitutional Amendment Bill in Parliament in May 1989 providing for a constitutional status of elected local bodies at village, intermediate and district levels. The Bill passed the Lok Sabha, but failed to secure a two-third majority in the Rajya Sabha by two votes in October 1989. Opposition was raised on account of the predominant role of the Centre in dealing with the Panchayats. Concern was expressed about the little flexibility of state governments to design a system of Panchayati Raj according to the specific present and historical situation of the different states.

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1993

In order to ensure a more participatory role of Panchayati Raj institutions and decentralised decision-making development, the Narasimha Rao government, enacted the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts in December 1992 which became effective on 24th April 1993. Those Acts gave Panchayati Raj institutions and urban local bodies a constitutional status and made it obligatory for all the states to

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establish three-tier system of Panchayats at village, intermediate and district levels. The state legislatures were then expected to plan and devolve powers for economic development and social justice. Most of the states have already enacted laws to establish new PR institutions with provision for the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Women in the elected bodies and ensuring Panchayats a fixed term of five years. The control of elections is vested in the State Election Commission and provision is also made for the audit of accounts under the auspices of the Comptroller and the Auditor General. These legislations have also made a provision for the constitution of State

Finance Commission every five years to review the finances of Panchayats and to recommend the principles for apportioning assignment of taxes to the Panchayats.

As a consequence of the Panchayati Raj Act, the number of local self-government institutions with directly elected representatives rose to around 500 bodies at district level, 5000 at block level and 2,25,000 at village level.

A district level Panchayat covers a population of approximately 1-2 million, an intermediate level Panchayat a population of approximately 80-200,000 and a Gram Panchayat comprising a village or a group of villages, a population of approximately 1500-8000, varying from state to state.

The Act provides for a mandatory three-tier system of local self-government institutions for states with a population above 20 million. Small states are given the option not to have an intermediate level Panchayat. The Act provides for direct elections of Panchayat members at all levels. The chairpersons of Panchayats at intermediate and district level are to be indirectly elected by, and from amongst, the elected members thereof.

As a result of the 73rd Amendment Act, almost all states in India have adapted the new pattern of Panchayati Raj institutions as a primary institutional structure for citizen participation in development administration in rural India. The citizen participation, especially of women at the grass roots level has certainly increased after enactment of such statures by the various states. At least people now become much more aware and conscious about the developmental efforts of the state due to the existence of a revamped PR system.

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The Participation Crisis: Growth of Development Bureaucracy

Since the early 1970s, simultaneously in addition to the ongoing PR institutions, a number of special rural development programmes were initiated by the government in order to cater to the demands of various target groups in the rural areas through the Integrated Rural Development and the Poverty Alleviation Strategies. These could be classified as:

(a) Sectorial programmes;

(b) Employment-oriented programmes;

(c) Area programmes; and

(d) Target-group-oriented programmes.

Sectorial programmes were farmer-oriented, and aimed at intensive agriculture development through improved technology. Employment-oriented programmes fell into two broad categories: target-group-oriented schemes, such as Small Farmers' Development Agency (SFDA), Marginal Farmers and Agricultural Labourers (MFAL), Tribal Area Development Programme (TADP), Hill Area Development Programme (HADP), Desert Development Programme (DDP), Women Development Programme (WDP); and continuous employment/income-providing schemes, for example, Rural Work Programme, Crash Schemes, Pilot Intensive Rural Employment Programme, Employment Guarantee Scheme, Food for Work Programme and National Rural Employment Programme. Later, the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP and the Self-employment to Educated Unemployed Youth (SLEEUY) have been launched to provide gainful employment for at least one person in every family in rural areas and opportunities for self-employment in urban areas.

Training of Rural Youth for Self-employment (TRYSEM) has also been expected to prepare 200,000 youths for self-employment each year. However, most rural employment programmes are operated as short-term measures rather than as permanent solutions to either employment or poverty problems, and offer low wages. The schemes, being grant based, are thus of only an ad hoc nature .

Programme such as the Backward Area Development

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Programme, Command Area Development Programme, Hill Area Development Programme, Desert Development Programme and Tribal Area Development Programme are included in the Area Programmes. The Target group-oriented programmes have included SFDA, MFAL and ERRP (Economic Rehabilitation of the Rural Poor). While under SFDA and MFAL, target groups have received loans in cash, the Minimum Needs Programme and ERRP were designed to serve the poor by quantifying their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health, education, water and sanitation. Resource problems

have reduced the effectiveness of the Minimum Needs Programmes. Antyodaya/ERRP identifies the poorest of the poor families in every block, assists them under the usual banking schemes with concessionary rates of interest. However, all the programmes are beset with the problem of improper identification of beneficiaries.

A very penetrating critical study on the functioning of rural development programmes has indicated that none of these programmes have made any significant impact on either poverty or on rural inequality. This failure has been inherent in the approach and methods adopted for these goals, and representative bodies have been replaced by a colonial pattern of administration. The people have been substituted by the state bureaucracy with serious short and long-term consequences for development and democracy.9

One of the arguments for the replacement of elected Panchayati Raj by the bureaucracy has been the belief that Panchayats could not be expected to emancipate the poor, dominated as they have been by powerful elements. However, it has been noted that despite total direction and control being in the hands of the bureaucracy, poverty groups have only peripheral access to IRDP resources, child development services or nutrition. The idea of the Antyodaya approach was to meet the poor in person, but the poor are still eluding the bureaucracy. It is the rural rich who are more aligned with development administration, and the nexus between the rural rich and the bureaucracy is also being backed up by the MLAs and MPs. The institutional arrangements for development thus continue to be top-heavy without the pillars of public support, and today democratic decentralisation is practically non-existent.10

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Cooperatives: The Institutional Innovation for Econo Participation

Although the cooperative movement in India started at the beginning of the 20th century, the first Five-Year Plan (1951-56) envisaged that all agricultural families would become members of multi-purpose village cooperatives. After the Third Five-Year Plan (1961-66), the cooperatives spread throughout India. To give support to the cooperatives, the National Cooperative Development Corporation and the Agricultural Refinance Corporations were established in 1962 and 1963 respectively, and by 1965, the cooperatives accounted for one-third of short- and medium-term loans and long-term credits for land development, irrigation wells and pump sets. In 1972, a number of multi-purpose farmer's service societies came into existence to help the weaker sections of the rural areas and were backed up by the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development. In practice, however, these societies did not benefit either weaker sections or small and marginal farmers or agricultural labourers. Only in some areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat did the cooperative movement actually succeed in involving people in

the development process. While Panchayats were envisaged as representing political participation, cooperatives were to provide a companion institution for economic participation by the people. However, cooperatives are now being supplanted by corporations (another administrative body) in almost all spheres e.g., handlooms, milk, credit marketing, scheduled caste development and even women's development.

III. NEW DEMANDS, NON-STATE ACTORS AND PROCESSES

New Areas and Actors in Participative Development

Realising the importance of participatory development, the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85), emphasised their importance of non-state and non-governmental organisations, both formal and informal in nature, as new actors, which could motivate and mobilize people in specific or general developmental tasks and meet the new demands of the growing sphere of developmental activities. The new areas where awareness and

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conscious participation of the people is critical for success were identified as :

1. Optimal utilisation and development of renewable source of energy including forestry through the formation of renewable energy associations at the block level;

2. Family welfare, health and nutrition education and relevant community programmes in this field;

3. ' Health for all' programmes;

4. Water management and soil conservation;

5. Social welfare programmes for weaker sections;

6. Implementation of minimum needs programme;

7. Disaster preparedness and management (floods, cyclones, etc.);

8. Promotion of ecology and tribal development; and

9. Environment protection and education.

The new actors who sought to be associated with these tasks were:

(i) youth and women's organisations at different spatial levels, particularly for promoting eco-development and environmental protection;

(ii) voluntary organisations of specific beneficiary or interest groups such as self-employed women, or farmers or people who have common economic interest such as marketing;

(iii) voluntary organisations engaged in general developmental work in an area or a specific activity;

(iv) farmers' organisations for the improvement of land and water management through irrigation projects, catchment areas in the hills and watershed areas in unirrigated regions;

(v) religious, social or cultural organisations or clubs (Rotary, Jaycees, Lions, etc.) which often undertake developmental activities in selected areas;

(vi) professional organisations or educational institutions which take up study, research and social action programmes as part of their professional or social commitments.

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In the field of rural development in India, a number of voluntary organisations have come into existence at the national level during the past two decades. These fell into three categories:

(a) the Techno-Managerial Voluntary Agencies, which work on the premises that the process of rural development can be accelerated through modern management techniques and technology,

(b) Reformist Voluntary Agencies, which try to bring about changes in the social and economic relationships within the existing political framework, and

(c) Radical Voluntary Agencies, which seek to challenge the existing production relations.

They attempt to organize the exploited against the exploiters through economic, health or educational programmes as an ' entry point' to mobilize masses for political action.11 Included in this category are also the voluntary organisations and movements begun for the purpose of environment protection, such as the ' Chipko Andolan' led by Sunderlal Bahuguna, the Narmada Valley Protection Movement led by Medha Patekar or the Sulabh Sauchalya Movement led by Bindeswar Pathak.

Such non-governmental organisations (NGOs) get a much more practical, people-based view of environmental issues than the state with its unimaginative, inflexible structure. Therefore, the viewpoint of the NGOs as the eyes of the state in terms of grass-roots monitoring of environmental quality needs to be properly recognised. The following organisations, listed by interests, are prominent among the national level voluntary agencies in India:

1. Agriculture and Allied Fields

The Bharat Krishak Samaj, New Delhi; the Young Farmers' Association, New Delhi; the Action for Food Production (AFPRO), New Delhi; the Appropriate Technology Development Association, Lucknow; and the Council For the Advancement of People's Action for Rural Technology (CAPART), New Delhi, which is a voluntary organisation for

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promoting people's awareness towards innovations in rural technological development.

2. Food And Nutrition

Catholic Relief Services, New Delhi; CARITAS, India, And Peoples' Action For Development, India (PADI), New Delhi.

3. Child Welfare

The Indian Council Of Child Welfare, New Delhi; The Balkanji Bari, Bombay; And The Federation Of Organisation Working For Children In India (FOWCI), New Delhi.

4. Harijan Welfare

The Harijan Sewak Sangh, New Delhi.

5. Tribal Welfare

The Bharatiya Adimjati Sewak Sangh, New Delhi, And The National Institute Of Social Work And Social Service (NISWASS), Bhubaneswar.

6. General Rural Development And Coordination Functions

The Bharat Sewak Samaj, Church Auxiliary For Social Action (CASA), New Delhi; The Asian Institute Of Rural Development, Bangalore; The Center For Agrarian Research Training And Education (CARTE), Ghaziabad; The National Christian Council Of India, Nagpur; The Association Of Voluntary Agencies For Rural Development (AVARD), New Delhi; The Ramakrishna Mission, Belurmath, Calcutta; The Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi; The Indian Council For Social Welfare, Bombay; And CARITAS, New Delhi.12

The Seventh Plan (1985-90) envisaged a more active role for the voluntary organisations in order to make communities as self-reliant as possible. These were expected to show how village and indigenous resources, as well as human resources, rural skills and local knowledge could be used for their own development. Furthermore, these were to be utilised to demystify technology and to introduce it in a simpler form to the rural poor, to train grass-root workers, to mobilize and organize the poor and generate a demand for quality services

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and impose a community system of accountability on the performance of village level government functionaries.

Recently India has seen a considerable shift in the attitude of the government towards the NGO/voluntary sector. Earlier the relationship tended to be one of patron and supplicant, with the state as the grant-giver drawing the parameters not only for performance requirements, but also for the structural and spending patterns to achieve these ends. This is now acknowledged often to have imposed conditions that were unrealistic and to have deterred many people or groups from seeking government support. However, these changes have failed to percolate down the line, particularly to the field level where day-to-day cooperation between the governmental and non-governmental sectors must become a reality, if the development objectives are to be realised.13

The way donor agencies see the role of NGOs in the development process, and character of their support to NGOs is undergoing changes in the context of the civil society debate. For example, the European Commission shifted its emphasis in the budget line " Decentralised Cooperation" , which was introduced in 1989, from a micro-level project approach -considering NGOs primarily as agents to deliver goods and services to the poorest—to a more programmatic and sectorial approach aiming at strengthening various power players in society within and outside the state sector.14

Donor agencies, while allocating more resources to NGOs in India, have also attached increasing importance to the evaluation of NGO activities. On behalf of the Overseas Development Institute, Mark A. Robinson who has carried out four detailed evaluations of NGO projects with international funding/summarizes the role and impact of NGOs in rural poverty alleviation as follows:

NGOs play a catalytic role in terms of enabling communities to define their own development priorities and innovative in regard to their willingness to experiment with new ideas but that their activities remain supplementary to those of the government, and in some case they duplicate existing services and programmes. Their record in alleviating poverty is uneven, although

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the evidence suggests that their performance is better than that of the government. On the negative side, NGOs lack continuity, they often work in isolation from, and sometimes in opposition to one another which fragments their efforts, and many depend heavily on external resources from foreign funding agencies. Managerial competence and technical expertise is often weak or poorly developed which reduces their potential impact, but the evidence suggests that NGOs continue to make an important contribution to rural poverty alleviation in India." 15

Given the large number and variety of NGO development work in India it is impossible to make any general assessment. It is, however, important to understand that private initiatives in the field of social work and development play a major role in India. Such initiatives also received increasing publicity. The important national magazine, India Today dedicated the front page title of its 15 January 1996 edition to " Helping Hands: Profiles of relatively unknown men and women across the country who have ushered in an extraordinary change in our lives" . The article brings out vividly the names of the " angels of change" and their activities and the variety of private development initiative all over the country.

The Panchayati Raj reform of 1993 has two major consequences for the Indian NGO sector. First the reform provides NGOs with opportunities to take up training projects for the newly elected representatives, in particular, women. As Manohar Gopelwar observed, NGOs indeed show a keen interest in contributing to the successful, implementation of the Panchayati Raj reform.

The NGOs involved in rural development work, training institutions, the community-based groups and other grass-roots organisations are also engaged in a serious dialogue with the concerned authorities in respect of the role of NGOs in strengthening the system of Panchayati Raj in the country.16

Second, the strengthening of local level politics might challenge the role of NGOs in village development. Senior elected members of Panchayats might behave in an assertive

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manner and challenge the client-patron relationship which many NGOs have established with their beneficiary community over the years.

The Panchayati Raj reform of 1993 has stimulated the discussion whether NGOs should play a more active role in politics or remain apolitical, as the large majority of NGOs have been in the past.

IV. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS: SOCIAL NON-STATE ACT VERSUS THE STATE

The foregoing analysis of India's experiments with participatory democracy highlights the importance of a number of social actors and institutions which can effectively perform the role of mobilising people for development. Such actors and institutions often seem to be identical. The gradual changes occurring in the socio-political culture and processes also precipitate such a conflict. In India, citizen participation in development has been an integral process of socio-economic and political change since Independence. The institutional, managerial, technological, infrastructural, participative and human development service-oriented changes have also affected its rural and urban social structure in terms of occupational diversification, social mobility, reduction in income disparities and changes in values and social relationships for integrated social living. Other factors, such as leadership, social consciousness, organisation and political awareness have also affected the process of participation necessitating a new relationship between the state and the civil society. Experiences in India have demonstrated that the state by itself can neither initiate technology or societal development nor mobilize people to accept its processes of change.

Recent events in the East European countries have further strengthened the role of new social actors in mobilising the people to accept the concomitant socio-political change brought out by a state through its bureaucratic apparatus and technological and material resources. Even if the state does succeed in physically delivering the minimum or the basic needs through centralised planning and bureaucratic implementation, people are unlikely to acquire the necessary

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capabilities and quality. Technology is an aid but not a substitute for the people's conscious activity as individuals, as groups, or as large collectives. A reorganisation of state power structure from village level onwards which institutionalizes the political participation of the masses, their role in policy-formulation, decision-making, economic bargaining, political and economic management, and which brings the dominant elite under the framework of community discipline is essential if the basic goals of development—transformation of the outlook of the people, inculcation of the spirit of self-reliance, generation of habit of cooperative action through popular bodies leading to enlightenment, strength and hope—are to be realised. In the most comprehensive sense of the term, participation implies the restoration of interaction, communication and dialogue between the forward-looking sections of the elite at the top or the people in authority and the people below impatient for a new socio-economic order. The conflict between the state and the emerging social actors and institutions must give way to cooperative endeavour towards development and to a long-term equilibrium between state and society—an equilibrium fundamental to the survival of democracy and human dignity and also for equality within society.


1. P. C. Joshi, " Participatory Approach to Growth and Social Change" , John Barnabas Memorial Lecture delivered at the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development, New Delhi, 5 February, (1988).

2. Quoted in Ibid.

3. Nirmal, Mukarji, ' Decentralisation below the state Level' , The Hindustan Times, Magazine Section, May 7, 1989, p. 2.

4. K.D. Gangrade, " Development and people: A Participatory Approach" in S.C. Bhatia, The Rural-Urban Continnum, Delhi: University of Delhi, 1985: 31-53.

5. R.K. Wishwakarma and Gangadher Jha (eds.), Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns: Problems and Strategic Policy Issues, New Delhi, Centre for Urban Studies, Indian Institute of Public Administration, 1983.

6. K.D. Gangrade, " Plan: People's Involvement" , The Hindustan Times, June 11, 1985.

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7. H.R. Chaturvedi and Subrata K. Mitra (1982), Citizen Participation in Rural Development, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH, 1982: 10.9.

8. Ibid.

9. L.C. Jain, et. al, Grass Without Roots, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1985, p. 96.

10. Ibid., p. 205.

11. Ghanshyam Shah and H.R. Chaturvedi, Gandhian Approach to Rural Development, New Delhi, Ajanta, 1983, p. 7.

12. 1. Uday Bhaskar Reddy, " Role of Voluntary Agencies in Rural Development" , in Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1984: p. 551 and Terry Alliband, Catalysts of Development: Voluntary Development in Rural India, Westport, Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 1989.

13. R.B. Jain (ed.), NGOs in Development Perspective, New Delhi: Vivek Prakashan, 1995, p. 75.

14. Alamgir, Mohiuddin/Elhaut, Thomas (1994), " Empowering the Rural Poor for Self-help: IFAD's primary objective" in Agriculture and Rural Development, Frankfurt A.M., Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 34-35.

15. Mark A. Robinson, Evaluating the Impact of NGOs in Rural Poverty Alleviation: India Country Study, Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Working Paper, 49, London, October 1991, p. 48. The study covers projects of the Rural Development Trust (RDT) in Anantapur District in Andhra Pradesh with funding from Action Aid; the Church Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) in Guntur and Krishna districts in Andhra Pradesh with financial suppport from Christian Aid; the Kanyakumari District Fishermen Sangams Federation (KDFSF) in South-west Tamil Nadu financially supported by Oxfam and the Arthik Samta Mandal (ASM) in the Krishna delta region of coastal Andhra Pradesh with funding from Save the Children Fund. See also Jain, R.B. (1995), NGOs in Development Persepective, (New Delhi: Vivek Prakashan).

16. Manohar Golpelwar, (1995), Role of NGOs in Panchayati Raj ; in Jain , S.P./Hochgesang, Thomas W. (eds.), Emerging Trends in Panchayati Raj in India, Hyderabad: National Institute of Rural Development, 1995, pp. 203-7.

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10 NGOs as the Non-State Actor in Public Administration

India has had a great tradition in philanthropic activities, social service and voluntary work. Apart from the instinct of philanthropy inherent in the individual as a kind of Dharma (duty) in the Indian philosophy

and culture dating back to the ancient times, a large number of charitable and voluntary institutions have emerged in India in the last two centuries to help the poor, the destitutes, the down-trodden, the handicapped, and the weaker sections of the society. Voluntary organisations engaged in social welfare activities, like helping the poor, spreading literacy and so on, have a credible record of achievement in India since the British times. Mahatma Gandhi's movements for national independence in the early part of this century was rooted in the ideal of social reconstruction, self-help and the upliftment of the poorest of the poor—the untouchables—through voluntary action.

I. EMERGENCE OF NGOs IN INDIA

Indeed, soon after Independence, Gandhi made a strong plea for disbanding the Indian National Congress (the political party which came into power), and transforming it into a Lok Sevak Sangh (Public Service Organisation), which was, however, rejected. Nevertheless the whole range of

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" constructive activities" of the national movement, spearheaded by the Indian National Congress were continued in the form of ' non-governmental agencies' to whom grants, legal entitlements and charters were made available by the Government. The followers of Gandhi and others who could not or did not wish to join the government or the ruling party established a number of voluntary (non-governmental) organisations to work closely with governmental programmes meant for diverse social strata from Harijans (the untouchables) and tribals to slum-dwellers, for setting up important sectors of a mixed economy—the development strategy adopted by the Government. Such agencies organised handicrafts and village industries, rural development programmes, credit cooperatives, educational institutions and retained a degree of autonomy in their functioning. To these were added a later generations of social work organisations, in the rural areas, in community development, panchayati raj and other bodies, and still more radical programmes like adult education through voluntary bodies meant to ' conscientise' the people. However, there has been a significant change over the years in the character of these organisations. " The general direction of this change" , as Marcus Franda has put it, " whether for groups inspired by religion, by Gandhi, by a political ideology, or by patronage politics—has run counter to the old ideas of welfare, charity, and social reform to emphasise professionalism, in the service of self-reliant community development." 1 Many of the Nongovernmental Organisations (NGOs) are now recipients of government funds, as they are being increasingly involved in promoting development efforts. As public policy tends to depend heavily on such organisations, it has motivated them to upgrade their technical skills and even to have regular salaried staff.

The second stage of the growth of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) in India came about in 1960s. The inequitous nature of the state and the inability of the government programmes to benefit

the deprived sections, led to the realisation that mere implementation of government schemes by the government sponsored agencies was not enough, and could in fact be counter-productive. This led to the emergence of a new set of more struggle-oriented groups. To

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day, there are a large number of such organisations struggling on behalf of the poor, the landless, the tribals, the bonded labourers, and many other social strata, that were being discriminated against both by the policies of state and the dominant elements in the social structure. These NGOs constitute a whole spectrum of different kinds of voluntary groups. There are the large NGOs with their headquarters, their branches and their bureaucracies covering the whole country, who are often in close liaison with ruling groups. The benefits of many developmental schemes in which they are associated do not really reach the poor. They seem to suffer from the same weakness that the government bureaucracy and political parties do. Thus, there is a distinction between the merely construction and development-oriented bureaucratic voluntary agencies, and those that are relatively small and working at the grass-roots, led by dedicated professional—career men who opted for working with the people. This new breed of voluntary organisations has grown in different sectors. They are working in many problem areas—like the problem of ethnic minorities, and of the forest people affected by environmental degradation in the north and in the east. These are others who concentrate on important aspect of bonded labour, of these who are forced to work below the subsistence levels—all this being the result of a fast changing national and international division of labour. These organisations have a lot of weaknesses. They are scattered, they operate only at the micro-level, they are not well coordinated among themselves; and they find it often difficult to work with each other. There are ego problems, leadership problems, and in certain parts of the country serious ideological problems. But they work at the grass-roots level and seen,1 to be the only link between the poor and the rest of the people.2

Recognition of the Role of NGOs by the Government

Since Independence in 1947 until the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85), there was little effort on the part of the Government to define the role of a voluntary agency or to recognise the importance of NGOs in the development process. The tendency until now was to equate the work of the voluntary agencies with only welfare activities and charity work.

Realising the importance of participatory development,

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the Sixth Five Year Plan Document, emphasised the importance of non-governmental organisations, formal and informal in nature, as new actors, which could motivate and mobilize people in specific or general developmental tasks and meet the new demands of the growing sphere of developmental activities. The Seventh Plan (1985-90) further accentrated the role of NGOs as indegenous resources in rural skills and local knowledge which could be used for development at the grass-roots. The new areas where awareness and conscious participation of the people is critical for success were identified as:

(a) optimal utilisation and development of renewable source of energy, including forestry through the formation of renewable energy associations at the block level,

(b) Family welfare, health and nutrition education and relevant community programmes in this field,

(c) ' Health for all' programmes,

(d) water management and soil conservation,

(e) social welfare programmes for weaker sections,

(f) implementation of minimum needs programme,

(g) disaster preparedness and management (floods, cyclones, etc.),

(h) promotion of ecology and tribal development, and

(i) environmental protection and education.

The new actors sought to be associated with these tasks were:

(i) youth and women's organisations at different spatial levels, particularly for promoting eco-development and environmental protection,

(ii) voluntary organisations of specific beneficiary or interest groups like, self-employed women, or farmers or of people who have common economic interest such as marketing,

(iii) voluntary organisations engaged in general developmental work in an area or a specific activity,

(iv) organisation of the farmers living in command area of irrigation projects, catchment area in the hills and watershed areas in unirrigated regions into

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cooperatives for improving land and water management without affecting the individuality of holdings,

(v) religious, social or cultural organisations or clubs (Rotary, Jaycees, Lions etc.) which often undertake developmental activities in selected areas, and

(vi) professional organisations or educational institutions which take up study, research and social action programmes as part of their professional or social commitments.

Today India has a vibrant NGO sector. Although there has been no complete census of NGOs, their total number is roughly estimated at about 1,00,000, of which only 25,000 to 30,000 are active. The largest number of such organisations listed at one place is 12,313 NGOs registered with the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 1976, as of 31st December, 1989, besides 726 unregistered NGOs under the ' prior permission category' . Since then there has been astronomical increase in the number of NGOs due to rising awareness and social concern, widespread poverty and deprivation, weakening governmental delivery mechanism, democratic spirit and increased funding.3

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF NGOs IN INDIA

The nature and character of voluntary agencies have undergone a noticeable change in recent times. In the past such agencies adopted a religion-oriented mass approach in an informal atmosphere, stressing on programmes of education, medicine and social reforms in their action plans. The services provided by its members were honorary and free of cost to the beneficiaries. At present, the agencies adopt nationalism-oriented group approach in a formal atmosphere, the objective being socio-economic development of the specified target group through paid, whole time and formally trained workers. They raise funds from the masses, take interest in government/ international aid and collect token fees for services rendered.4

Many of the voluntary agencies today are being

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sponsored by industrial houses, for publicity and image building, or for sentimental and emotional reasons for the welfare of one's own place, caste, or community or for availing of the tax benefits granted by the state or for economic benefits accruing to the industry on a long-term basis and realisation of social responsibilities of industry. However, to be more effective, these need to have proper coordination at the town/ district/state level with one another.

Although it is difficult to make a very specific distinction between a voluntary agency and an NGO in the Indian context, an NGO may take the form of a body or an institution registered under the Societies Registration Act, Cooperative Societies Act, Public Trust Act and the Companies Act with a general body, executive council, chief executive, paid staff and volunteers. Such institutions/organisations may be working at the local, district or state level and in diverse areas like formal education, adult education, women's education, setting up hospitals and dispensaries and other social service schemes. There are around 10,000 NGOs working in the field of social welfare alone, which got impetus from 1950s onwards with the establishment of the Central Social Welfare Board, which provided financial assistance for promoting and strengthening NGOs in the field of social welfare. The introduction of National Service Scheme in Colleges and Universities and the establishment of the Union Department of Youth Affairs and Sports led to the promotion of voluntary action for and by the youth and promote their participation in development. In the 1970s, voluntary agencies were set up to help implementation of developmental projects under the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). Educated young families moved to the rural and tribal areas and organised the rural poor through NGOs. However, an analysis of the NGOs working in different fields such as social welfare, rural development and other areas indicate that they are unevenly distributed field-wise. There is concentration of NGOs particularly in the metropolis and very few of these are working in the rural and tribal areas.5

In the field of rural development in India, a number of voluntary organisations have come into existence at the national level during the past two decades. These fall into three

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categories:

(a) The Techno-Managerial Voluntary Agencies, which work on the premise that the process of rural development can be accelerated through modern management techniques and technology,

(b) Reformist Voluntary Agencies, which try to bring about changes in the social and economic relationship with the existing political framework, and

(c) Radical Voluntary Agencies, which seek to challenge the existing production relations.

Their attempt is to organise the exploited against the exploiters. They also undertake some economic, health or educational programmes as an ' entry point' to mobilise masses for political action.6 Included in this category are also the voluntary organisations and movements started for the purpose of protection of environment like the ' Chipko Andolan' (hug the trees) led by Sunderlal Bahuguna, Narmada Valley Protection Movement or Sulabh Shauchalya movement. By the very nature of their functioning, such NGOs get much more practical, people-based view of environmental issues than the State, with its unimaginative, inflexible structure could ever get on its own. Thus, the view-point of NGOs as the eyes of the State in terms of the grass-root monitoring of environmental quality needs to be properly recognised.

III. ROLE OF NGOs IN INDIA

Although beset with many problems, the contribution of NGOs in India has been substantial in the areas of education— both formal and non-formal, health and medical services, social welfare services, youth development, etc. The NGOs have been known for their virtues for human touch, dedication, flexibility, self-reliance, and nearness to the community. However, because of the interaction with the government and the introduction of professionalism in their services, these virtues have to a large extent eroded. When the NGOs started getting government funds, their flexibility of operations has also diminished as they

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have to maintain a number of records and registers and engage themselves in much paper work that they have not does before. In fact, some of the NGOs at the national level are more bureaucratic in their functioning than the government agencies.

The utilisation of grants calls for rules and regulations which have not only stood in the way of flexibility in their operations, but also initiative, experimentation and self-reliance for which the NGOs were known.7 Worse of all, with such power and patronage, some NGOs have become highly politicised and tend to stick to the side of the power elite, then to the people whom they are to serve. The politicians have also developed vested interests in these organisations and have used them for their political gains rather than helping them to freely accomplish their goal of serving the clientele groups.

The Seventh Five Year Plan document (1985-90) envisaged a greater role of the voluntary agencies and the NGOs in the implementation of development. These are expected to:

(i) supplement government effort so as to offer the rural poor choices and alternatives;

(ii) be the eyes of the people at the village level;

(iii) set an example. It should be possible for the voluntary agency to adopt simple, innovative, flexible and inexpensive means with its limited resources to reach a large number with less overheads and with greater community participation;

(iv) activate the delivery system and to make it effective at the village level to respond to the felt needs of the poorest of the poor;

(v) disseminate information;

(vi) make communities as self-reliant as possible;

(vii) to show how village and indigenous resources could be used, how human resources, rural skill and local knowledge grossly under-utilised at present could be used for their own development;

(viii) demystify technology and bring it in a simple form to the rural poor;

(ix) train a cadre of grass-root workers who believe in

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professionalising voluntarism;

(x) mobilise financial resources from within the community with a view to making communities stand on their own feet; and

(xi) mobilise and organise the poor and generate awareness to demand quality services and impose a community system of accountability on the performance of village-level government functionaries.8

The Seventh Plan has given special importance to the role of NGOs in rural development. For the first time an amount of Rs. 150 crore (1500 million rupees, approx. 50 million US dollars) has been allocated as financial assistance to voluntary associations in their endeavour to uplift the rural poor. The Government of India has also encouraged the involvement of international voluntary agencies through coordinating organisations like the Central Social Welfare Board and the People's Action for Development (PAD), presently known as the Council for Advancement of People's Action for Rural Technology (CAPART).

Problems Affecting the Performance of NGOs

There are a number of problems confronting the NGOs. It has been found that many NGOs in India go out of existence prematurely for want of financial support. A few of them are forced to give up some activities half way through, and substitute some others for which funds are available, irrespective of whether agencies have the competence to undertake them. Ad-hoc grants from government or foreign agencies or charitable sources willy-nilly reduce them to run ad hoc programmes.

A major constraint for their operations, especially in sponsoring rural development work, is the paucity of suitable personnel. The personnel problem range from non-availability of qualified personnel to lack of commitment on the part of the employees. There is also the problem of shortage of specific categories of personnel that is full-time employees, part-time employees, honorary and voluntary workers. There are a large number of unemployed graduates and post-graduates who are

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keen to join the NGOs for economic considerations. However, many of them are typical white collar types with limited skill and motivation for the type of work turned out by the NGOs. When such people are recruited in large number, an NGO faces the problem of high turnover of personnel causing serious dislocations to the ongoing projects. Some NGOs place a premium on the loyalty of predilection for recruiting employees from their own kins for social or religious groups to which the sponsors or the voluntary organisation belong. Such personnel practices affect the image of the organisation. In some NGOs, serious conflicts exist between the white collar recruits and the management. This is mainly due to two reasons: (a) poor service conditions, low level of renumeration, inadequate allowances for travel and lack of security of service; and (b) denial of voice to rank and file employees by most agencies in decisions concerning policies and finances.

Thus, the organisational situation in most NGOs is not conductive to high levels of job satisfaction amongst the employees. Competent young men and women tend to leave the organisation in sheer disgust, or if they have no alternative, remain there with low morale. Once the key person gives up the organisation, the very survival of the institution becomes unsecured. Thus, building-up a viable organisational base turns out to be problematic for most NGOs, especially the new ones.9

The political environment also poses problems for the functioning of NGOs. While the Government and other funding agencies force the NGOs to be bureaucratic, the political environment compels them to be less impersonal and irrational. Often the leaders of political parties influence the NGOs in the selection of villages as beneficiaries for the latter's programmes and also in the recruitment of their personnel.10

IV. ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION IN INDIA AND THE NGOs

The policies of economic liberalisation ushered in India gradually since Rajiv Gandhi took over as Prime Minister in 1984, and now a wholesale reversal of the Nehru-Mahalanobis model of mixed economy as a result of the adoption of structural adjustment programme under the influence and

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guidance of the World Bank by the then Government of P.V. Narsimha Rao and his Finance Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, and continued by the present NDA Government as second generation of economic reforms has posed a number of dilemmas to the very concept of ' voluntarism' inherent in the functioning of the NGOs and their relationship with the state. The attempt to handover crucial segments of the economy to the private sector through policies of liberalisation and privatisation, tendency to undermine the bureaucracy and its procedures of public accountability, the diminishing emphasis on the role of public sector, shedding the ' socialist' myth, which had bred so much corruption and sloth in the economy, the concern for environment, care for women, tax concessions and loan arrangements to promote entrepreneurial talent and innovative experiments, supporting private and voluntary agencies, making appropriate constitutional changes to give real autonomy to local government and institutions of urban and rural development, with funds for undertaking ' development' instead of being ' dependent' on official agencies —all this is becoming a part of the official pronouncements, being, backed by policies that are designed to shift power and privilege from a centralised ' state' to " people's own efforts" . The announcement in the Seventh Five Year Plan as mentioned earlier, that the government wants to involve the voluntary sector, i.e., " the NGOs in the development efforts, and that it intends to do this by setting up a National Council (and State Councils) of voluntary agencies, that will itself regulate its affairs and establish a code of conduct for the NGOs to provide the basis of their accountability as they will not have to go through the onerous procedures of getting their proposals through various ministries, has caused considerable concern and anxiety amongst the NGOs.

The attempt of the Government in 1988 to set up a code of conduct for the NGOs met with stiff resistance. On the face of it, as Rajni Kothari has put it, " nothing could be more liberalising—indeed liberating—than this move. Among other things it will put an end to dependence on the foreign funds, give equal importance to small and medium-scale organisations against the large ones, which at the moment get a lion's share of both government and foreign funding, enable the NGOs to

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come together on a common platform irrespective of ideological and other differences thus putting an end to the present fragmentation, and through all this, to equip them to assume a major role in the development effort, and in reaching out ' to the people' , which the government itself is unable to do as has indeed been argued by critics so long.11

However, the move had raised a basic controversy. It is argued that a statutory bill and code of conduct are inimical to the spirit of voluntarism, that it will compromise the independence of NGOs and their capacity to highlight the plight. Such a move will increase rather than decrease the bureaucratic interference, and that it will, by driving a wedge between those who accept joining the council and those who don' t, polarise rather than bring together the NGOs sector. Critics were highly skeptical of government's intentions and felt that it was a move to ' coopt' the NGO sector and that the tying of receipt of government funds to subscribing to the proposed scheme was a step backward rather than a step toward.12

NGOs—An Instrument for Promoting World Capitalism?

The dichotomy between the code and the presumed voluntarism of the NGOs arises from the fact that both world capitalism and important global institutions involved in development—the World Bank, the IMF, UNDP,—various donor agencies and consortia etc.—are discovering in the NGO model a most effective instrument of promoting their interest in penetrating third world economics, particularly their rural interiors, which neither private industries nor government bureaucracies were capable of doing. Besides, they present an image that is far less threatening than that of the other two. The emerging view in global corporate sectors is that a freshly conceived private sector, including the NGOs will provide the new frontiers of a dynamic technological integration of the world economy. Thus, " the rapacious drive of a transnationalised, technologically driven, capitalism provides yet another shift in the capitalist thinking on the role of the state." 13

The policies of opening of the vast hinterlands, undercutting the monopoly of the state and creating an atmosphere for ' free enterprise' everywhere have been able to

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score two significant ideological points:

(a) the superiority of the market over the state as a means for rapid modernisation; and

(b) the superiority of the private firm and the voluntary agency over the regular bureaucracy and government departments for providing, a flexible, innovative and dynamic institutional framework for development.

" With the convergence of new technologies, new priorities for capitalist exploitation, new preference for the private sector and market economies, the state in the developing world has been both subdued and made an instrument of a new corporate world ' ruling class' ." 14

The shift from the government to NGOs is built on the growing criticism of the state in ' delivering development' as well as on the distrust of governments among United Nations and donor agencies in reaching target populations. There has been emerging over the last several years a preference for more autonomous development agencies than government bureaucracies. These take various forms: corporations, large-scale cooperatives, research and technical councils, ' voluntary organisations' , etc. Even major projects by government in areas like dairy framing, dryland and wasteland development, afforestation, development of rural technologies, and new exploitations of sea bed and islands are being set up on this model with their own autonomous boards and with no accountability to governments. It is a smart cooperative move that increases the sophistication of the new capitalist thrust. " The irony of it" , as Kothari observes, " is that by hijacking the whole concept of voluntary and NGO effort as a preferred mode of organising civil society as against the state bureaucracy, the ' new look state' , will also be able to marginalise and be ruthless on these elements in the voluntary space that refuse to fall in line, are too ' political' , or are unwilling to accept the disciplines imposed by a capitalist corporate state" .15

It has been argued that the comparative advantage of NGOs for participating in developmental programmes sponsored by the government is not that there is any shift in

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development strategy, but that they speed up development by by-passing bureaucracy. This is indeed the key consideration. The NGOs efficiency and flexibility as well as their amenability to privatised and individualised initiatives are the key factors which have been prominently reported in the international development aid and credit agencies reports that have emphasised the comparative advantage of the NGOs. This emerging stress on the NGOs as the new frontier of corporate capitalism which Kothari argues is to be taken serious note of.16

In India such a new frontier consists of two interrelated sectors. The first sector is small in the number of units, but very powerful in both strategic impact and the resources at its command. It consists of those voluntary agencies which short-circuit bureaucracies and facilitate the entry of global economic interests into the Indian Economy. These agencies are not accountable to either government bureaucracy or people's representatives. Amongst such type of agency in India is the National Dairy Development

Board, which although is a registered voluntary body working in rural areas, in actuality it is India's largest agri-business which runs a gigantic dairy project. It is through such bodies that much more power is wielded by global interests with the help of the Central Government through the convenient camouflage of an NGO profile. Similar trends are exhibited in even vast terrain of forestry, dryland farming, wasteland development and other new avenues of colonising the vast hinterlands of village India and tribal homelands. To this end, the Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD) has been instrumental in shifting the control still further in the direction of centralisation in which not only local communities but every state bureaucracies have been marginalised while management has moved up vertically towards higher levels of centralisation. The resource base of commercial forestry has moved out horizontally to appropriate people's commons, now conveniently called wastelands. This according to Kothari is straightforward colonisation of people's resources in which the corporate state with the NGO alliance becomes a new feudal lord.

It is in this dual role of the NGOs as diffusers of social movements, and catalyst and transmitters of a new phase of

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capitalist growth initiated from the North, based on ' internal colonisation' and privatisation of community resources, that the true context of the pivotal role of the NGOs and the voluntary sector can be seen in the Seventh Plan. The new front allows a new corporate expansion without anyone noticing it. It is these emerging commercial interests parading as NGOs that need to be made accountable to the public. It is they who need a code of conduct to provide a deterrent to their power and patronage. Kothari calls such NGOs, as GONGOs, (i.e. government organised NGOs), which according to him, " are able to create a new tool of control on the freedom of genuine voluntary expressions of social movements and democratic struggles of civil society." 17

The second NGOs sector that is sought to be brought in as a close ally of the GONGOs are the large number of development and the welfare NGOs who by themselves may not like the new privatisation thrust but are still willing to go along. For the government, they are useful tokens as local exhibits to boast about, as being part of the new delivery system, but in actual practice, they become an appendage clientele of the government establishment. Such NGOs are being promoted from the more universal trends towards global integration and from local destitution and exclusion of millions of people from developmental process, which such integration entails. It also gives the state, which is increasingly becoming repressive a benign look.18 This raises the question of appropriate relationship between the Government and the NGOs.

V. GOVERNMENT—NGOs RELATIONS IN INDIA

There is a considerable apprehension amongst intellectuals in India about the relationship between the state and voluntary associations which has always been a tenuous one. Many NGOs have grown large and powerful and have acquired ' say' in the moulding of official policies. Others, smaller and more mobile in nature have suffered due to political and bureaucratic intrusions. Both of them face a situation of becoming instrument of interests that are far removed and sinister. As Kothari observes, it is high time that

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people respond to dual imperative of the role of state being undermined by capitalist growth under the IMF and World Bank type institutions and delivered through GONGOs and of resisting control by such states over people's voluntary action. It is good time to investigate more carefully how in the new thrust for privatisation of the Indian economy, backed by centralisation of its institutions, the GONGOs are likely to become critical intermediaries that are substituting citizens, parties, and the state bureaucracies. The new forces of repression that are invisible because they are hidden behind an NGO facade and the new conditionalities that are sought to be imposed by the corporate state on the civil society in the name of making the NGOs accountable, more or less reflecting the conditionalities imposed by the IMF, World Bank, provide us with a catalyst movement for arresting the decay of our society and resuming the struggle for a just and equitable social order—against on emerging global monolith far more vicious than the old colonial regime.19

The interaction of government—NGOs in India relates to:

(a) policies and legislations affecting NGOs themselves or common people, especially disadvantageous sections,

(b) operational collaboration with programme with or without government funding,

(c) mutual perception and critique of each other's independent development initiatives, and

(d) peaceful protest movements of people in which NGOs are involved.

The interface between the two is a vertically multi-level and horizontally a multi-point complex covering a wide area. The number of Acts and legislations governing relations between the government and the NGOs are: Societies Registration Act, 1860, Indian Trust Act, The Trade Union Acts, Cooperative Act and Section 25 of the Companies Act under which NGOs are registered. Other Acts which directly affect the working of NGOs in India are the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 1976, now its revised version Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), regulating foreign funding of NGOs

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and the Income Tax Act, 1965 governing income tax liabilities and the obligations of NGOs, if any. Even the Commission of Enquiry Act has at times been invoked by the Central Government against the NGOs due to political vendetta.

The conflicts and problems between the government and NGOs arise from the absence of inadequacies of legislation and policies or non-implementation/mal-implementation thereof. Many of such issues and irritants have been frequently taken up by the NGO network with the ministries and authorities concerned. However, until now there is no joint Government-NGO mechanism for sustained dislodge on such issues and such a gap makes problem-solving pretty difficult. In some of the ministries/departments there are government bodies at the centre making these advisory or decision-making committees, where NGOs are represented. There are similar committees or fora with some NGO representation at the district level here and there. However, such fora facilitate only marginal participation of NGOs in policy-making. CAPART, which is a major instrument of Government of India for the funding of NGOs has representatives of NGOs on its general body, executive committee and standing committees. However, it still functions like a government department and NGOs are not able to influence its policies and functions.

As mentioned earlier there was no attempt in 1980 on the part of the government to regulate their functioning by proposing a Draft Bill on a Council of Rural Voluntary Agencies alone with Draft Code of Conduct for voluntary agencies. The move was strongly opposed by the NGOs as it was seen by them as the government's trap to police and control NGOs. Because of the strong opposition by the NGOs both the Draft proposals were dropped. However, later in the same year, a group under the Chairmanship of P.V. Krishnaswamy, Additional Secretary in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, was set up by the Central Government to review certain aspects of Government-NGOs relations. The Group submitted its report in the same year, which covered a wide area regarding the information-dissemination about government's programme, streamlining procedures, rules and regulations and documentation streamlining the release of funds to NGOs, flexibility,

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accountability, freedom of action and innovativeness of NGOs, institutional capacity building of NGOs, attitutional changes in government staff dealing with NGOs, a central coordination mechanism and operation collaboration and detailed policy statement on the place and role of NGOs.20

Thus, it can be said that the relationship between government and NGOs has been mixed and is likely to continue to be so in the prevailing socio-economic and political environment. There are areas of agreement and disagreement, of cooperation as well as confrontation. It has been generally observed that the more active, dynamic and radical the NGO is, the more troublesome is its relationship with government. There are numerous NGOs willing to cooperate with and even submit to the government wishes within the existing system. In course of time such NGOs acquire the character of spokesmen of the Government. There is another stream of social activist, NGO and groups who would confront the government on issues such as people-centred and people-led development, empowerment, equity, sustainability, popular participation, corruption, etc., and have adverse relationship in the interests of people especially, disadvantaged groups. However, a large number of NGOs are somewhere in-between seeking to build up a purposeful partnership with the government on people-centered and people-led development to realize their tremendous potential based on their autonomy, freedom, flexibility and dignity. They would agree and cooperate where possible and disagree, confront and fight democratically and peacefully, where necessary. There is need and scope for such partnership in India, which calls for further improvement in the policy environment for the functioning of NGOs.21

VI. PROFILE OF PERSONNEL OF NGOs

The Socio-Economic Background of NGOs Personnel

Although there is no comprehensive survey on the socio-economic background of the personnel constituting the NGOs, available at present in India, some individual researchers have undertaken studies of NGOs in a limited area and limited jurisdiction which are indicative of the general pattern of their backgrounds. In an empirical study of 33 NGOs spread over to

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3 geographical regions in the state of Andhra Pradesh, E.A. Narayana observe?, that an overwhelming majority of NGOs had come up in the 1970s, about a quarter of which were organised by individuals committed to the Gandhian approach. About 18% of NGOs are inspired by Christianism, while another 15% of the organisations were started by individuals, who were fired by the zeal to uplift the scheduled caste/ scheduled tribe and other poor strata of the society, 9% of them were rooted in belief of serving the destitutes and physically handicapped. Most of the NGOs are registered as societies or trusts, while

a few of them are rural development or welfare projects of Christian missions and some of these are branches of the national organisations.

The majority of the NGOs have an executive committee as well as a general body. The size of the managing executive committee of NGOs varies from 6 to 10. The tenure of their executive committee ranges from 1 year to 5 years. It has been found that more than half of the members of the executive are aged about 40 and about 30% of the committee members are in the 30-40 age group and the remainder members are below the age of 30. The governing bodies have a higher proportion of highly educated persons. More than three-fourth of the members on the managing committee are graduates and postgraduates and professionals and technical degree-holders. With regard to their occupational background, full-time social workers constitute the largest proportion (about 44%), followed by employees (18%), religious workers (14%), lawyers, doctors, politicians and businessmen (7%).22

Although, rural development was the main objective of the NGOs studied by Narayana, farmers made only less than 3% of the executive committee members. The number of employees in such organisations ranged from 7 to 600. The staff of NGOs included honorary workers, part-time and full-time and paid workers. Personnel policies and position of NGOs are far from satisfactory. There is frustration, cynicism, and the staff and the development workers do not feel highly committed to the programmes of the NGOs. Many of the NGOs are confronted by a dilemma in the sphere of leadership. Elitism, contrary to overt pronouncement seem to be a dominant tendency. In most cases, the founder secretary of the

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organisation does not like to provide an important place for the employees in the organisation including the other members of the managing committee. Both policy-making and finance are shrouded in mystery. Many of the NGOs consist of naive individuals without any understanding about the political environment in which they operate. However, many of them do develop strategies to relate themselves to the ongoing power-structure.23

Although the above NGO profile is not typical of many of the NGOs, and the socio-economic background of the personnel may differ from one NGO to another, the profile is somewhat indicative of the general characteristics of the people who constitute NGOs in India. It is however, true that in recent times, Gandhian or Sarvodaya workers or persons exhibiting the values of selfless service to the community have been gradually disappearing from the field and voluntary action. In the modern context, because of compulsions of bureaucratisation, record of sacrifice, coupled with high standard of rectitude and goal intentions, cannot ensure organisational viability. The traditional leadership that still serves in these

areas is quite sour about the new generation of social workers who attempt to make a career out of voluntarism and social service.24

The Impact of NGOs in Policy-making

NGOs in India have been trying to sensitize, organise and mobilise people of village, local community level and various other levels, and also interested groups particularly the poor to enable them to pursue self-development, fight for their rights and apply pressure on the government where needed. All these involve a process of education, organisation, struggle and reconstruction. Although NGOs have been quite successful in bringing to the attention of the government some of the burning problems in respect of development, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, ill-health, disparities, incidence of bonded labour, exploitation of women, children, tribals and weaker sections, women's rights, peace and social cohesion and communal harmony, equal opportunity to different social cultural ethnic and regional groups to pursue development and contribute to national regeneration, in the absence of any comprehensive

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study on the influence of NGOs on the formulation and implementation of policies in India, it is difficult to evaluate their influence on policy processes. Despite this, the impact of various NGOs in certain specific areas are indeed discernible.

Environmental Policy

One such area concerns the environmental policy and legislation on protection and security of environment. Since the beginning of 1970s a number of NGOs have emerged in India which have raised very crucial issues of environmental policies, like the need for forest preservation, the environmental impact, assessment of various multi-purpose dam projects, and to protecting rights of the people affected by the government's or industrial organisation's lack of concern for environmental hazards of the undertakings.

NGOs operations starting from the Chipko Andolan (Hug the Tree Movement), led by Sunder Lal Bahuguna, Save the Silent Valley Campaign, the Anti-Tehri Dam Study Committee, Save Narmada Movement, Anti-Barisal Project Movement and Bhopal Gas Disaster Relief Committees have made a considerable impact on the policy of the government in respect of environmental security.25 Not only that they have been successful in bringing to the notice of the government various aspects of the policy measures to be initiated in this field, they have also been instrumental (like the Society for Environment and Development in New Delhi) in helping the government to providing the inputs for the Earth Summit

in Rio in 1992. Various NGOs which came into being after the Bhopal Gas Disaster in 1984 have been instrumental in persuading the government to accept some of the minimum compensation and relief measures for victims of the greatest gas tragedy in the history of mankind. Similarly, many of the NGOs have successfully petitioned the Government of India as also the World Bank to make alternative changes and to reassess the impact of the Narmada Valley Project. As a result of their efforts, the World Bank was compelled to send one of its team for reassessment of the Narmada Valley Project and to evaluate the settlement of the evacuees from the area covered by the project.

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Women's Issues

Another area in which the NGOs have been quite successful in influencing the policy outcome of the government has been in the field of the welfare and development of women. The women's NGOs taking up women's causes have existed in India even before Independence, but it is only in 1970s that they have been more active and professionalised in their operations. The women's NGOs have been involved in organising women, securing their association and implementing development programmes, devising strategies for empowering them, changing the existing social structures, and raising the status of women as equal partners with men in the Indian society. As a result of a two-pronged strategy of struggle and development through cooperatives, labour movements, women's movements, women's literacy and health campaigns, they have been able to influence the enactment of a number of new legislations concerning women and amendments in the already existing laws relating to women's marriage and their rights. The more important legislations that have been enacted as a result of their efforts are the Anti-dowry Act, the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act, raising of the minimum age for marriages of girls, Anti-Sati Acts and getting a number of facilities and opportunities for educational and health benefits, equal pay for equal work, prevention of discrimination against women, establishment of women's bank, cooperatives and training of women's entrepreneurs and skilled workers, Organisations like All India Women Conference, Bhartiya Gramin National Memorial Trust, Self-Employed Women's Association have been quite active in raising women's issues and working for the upliftment of women. These have been some visible impacts on various policy issues concerning women's status and welfare. As a result of the pressures of the NGOs, the Government is seriously considering the enactment of Women's Reservation Bill which has been pending before the Government for sometime.

Other Policy Areas

Yet another area in which the NGOs have been quite effective has been the development activities and poverty alleviation programmes especially in the rural areas. The way

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some of the well organised and larger NGOs like the Amul Cooperatives which is India's largest agri-business and runs India's biggest dairy project have functioned as a registered society is seen as a model for NGO efforts in organising the agricultural farmers for cooperative development. Similarly, many of the cooperatives and federations in the areas of cooperatives of handloom, handicrafts and cottage industries, like the Khadi Village Industries Commission have been very active in influencing governmental policies for promotion of handlooms.

These types of NGOs have achieved more powers as pressure groups in their areas. Similarly, the Society for the Promotion of Wasteland Development have been quite effective in influencing public policies in the areas in which it functions. These NGOs have been successful because of the patronage of transnational agencies and the patronage of the government that gives them almost a monopoly of operation in the respective fields without being directly accountable to the public. Other success stories of the NGOs are in the field of urban housing, tribal development and tribal welfare policies, bonded and child labour policies. Campaigns by many NGOs have included issues such as right to work, housing rights, construction labour, and campaigns against big dams such as Narmada and Tihri. Apart from campaigns, rallies, marches, demonstrations, dharnas (sit-ins), fasts, dialogues, debates, sensitisation through media, etc., many of the NGOs in these areas have not only attempted to influence the legislative and executive processes, but also have at times brought about public interest litigations (PILs) to achieve their objectives.


The above brief survey of NGOs in India indicates a considerable shift in the government attitude to the NGO/ voluntary sector. Earlier, the relationship tended to be one of the patron and supplicant, the state as the grant-giver drawing the parameters not only for performance requirements, but also for the structural and spending patterns to achieve these ends. This is now acknowledged to have often imposed conditions that were unrealistic and to have deferred many from seeking

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government support. However, this changed thinking has failed to percolate down the line, particularly at the field level where day-to-day cooperation between the government and nongovernment sectors must become a reality if the development objectives are to be realised.

The government's approach to Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) promises to reorient the national development policies towards social transformation and recognise that meaningful development consists in mobilising the skills, strength and creative capabilities of the masses of the people and

securing their active participation. The approach paper goes further and speaks of people-centred development ensuring growth, equity and sustainability like NGOs have been doing. Besides, credentials of NGOs as regards their non-party and secular character, openness and commitment to democratic and peaceful means and service to the poor further widened the area of shared perspective on the type of NGOs considered acceptable for partnership of the government.26 However, in order to achieve these objectives, a better understanding between the government and the NGOs is needed to maximise national dialogue and cooperation and minimise confrontation. Government often becomes unresponsive and even avoids informal national democratic dialogue with NGOs. Sometimes NGOs may also be late or ahead of time or too rigid and negative, while raising the issues concerned. Thus, NGOs need to strengthen themselves with their unity and more professional inputs on technical aspects of the issues involved and/or better alternatives available as well as advocacy and mobilisational side. Often mass mobilisation as public issues by NGOs is criticised and maligned as foreign funded or foreign inspired. This is a very common but at times an unfounded criticism.

In India, foreign funding and social activism can hardly co-exist. NGOs seem to be quite clear about it and sensitive to it. Thus, activist groups generally refrain from accepting foreign funds and support their struggles and campaigns with funds from indigenous resources, though they face acute resource constraints. In the process, political parties in India are not favourably disposed to NGOs, as NGOs have hardly any place in their ideological-orientations. Many of the NGOs do, however, seek access points and welcome contacts with

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influential politicians and bureaucrats. A few NGOs are indeed fronts for political activists. Political parties' relationship with their own vote-bank comes in the way of their appropriate relationship with NGOs, and it is also responsible for government's lack of positive response to policy advocacy and mass-mobilisation on public issues by the NGOs.27

In the interest of promotion of NGOs, as effective instrument of people's participation, there is an urgent need of some fora at the national and state level which should be used for exchange of information, creating infrastructure for training, undertaking research, sharing of resources, expertise, etc., and to consider their common problems arising out of the voluntary action. The NGOs should have an opportunity for a dialogue with the government in order to redefine their role and demarcate the functions of agencies. This also calls for a thorough review of the grant-in-aid system itself in the context of future policy thrust of the NGOs sector in the field of social development.28

India is a pluralist society and the same is reflected in the composition and diversity of its NGOs. Because of the big size of the country and the multitudes of pluralist groups as the target of voluntary actions, a healthy competition between the NGOs is a natural condition for their success. However, because of various socio-economic and political factors, there is considerable unhealthy competition and division among them which needs to be minimised. A considerable area of existing understanding among NGOs with regard to people-centered development, democracy, decentralisation, people's participation, secularism, equity and sustainability, basic human needs and rights, self-reliance, social transformation, peaceful means, etc. provides a very sound basis for their unity.29 There is also a need for the NGOs to put their house in order as thousands of NGOs in recent times have defaulted in submitting their audited accounts to the donor and funding agencies and have faced derecognition and the deregistration.

Similarly, there is a need for linking isolated micro-level successes of widely scattered NGOs to generate sufficient pressures " to influence macro-level main stream transformative political process to improve the policy environment. It would require clear understanding and effective application of

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something like a two-dimensional dynamics of constructive work and its transformation into a non-party socio-political power." 30 Evidently, if the NGO's role in policy-making and policy implementation areas is to be strengthened the debate between the right of the state to restrict and regulate the activities has to be settled in favour of true decentralisation through the instrumentality of autonomous NGOs and building up a healthy relationship of Government—NGO partnership rather than repression on the part of the state to attain particular interests, or state adopting confrontation on some sensitive issues, or entering into a superior and supplicant relationship.


1. Marcus Franda, Voluntary Associations and Local Development in India, (New Delhi, Young Asia Publications, 1982), p. 10.

2. For a detailed discussion of this type of groups and their problems, see Rajni Kothari, " Voluntary Organisations in a Plural Society" in The Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 33, (July-September 1987), pp. 433-53.

3. For a review of NGOs in India, see AVARD, " Role of NGOs in Development—A Study of the Situation in India" , Final Country Papers, New Delhi, March 1991, mimeo (Research Team headed by P.M. Tripathi).

4. Kishore Chandra Padhy, Rural Development in Modern India (New Delhi, G.R. Publishing Corporation, 1986).

5. See D. Paul Chowdhary, " Role of NGOs in National Development" , Social Welfare, November 1988, pp. 4-6.

6. L.C. Jain, B. Krishnamurthy and P.M. Tripathi, Grass without Roots (New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1985), p. 219.

7. Chowdhary, n. 5, p. 5.

8. Government of India, Seventh Five-Year Plan, 1985-90 (New Delhi, Planning Commission, 1985), Vol. 2, pp. 68-70

9. For a detailed study of such problems, see E.A. Narayana, Voluntary Organisations and Rural Developjnent in India, (New Delhi, Uppal Publishing House, 1990), pp. 161-201.

10. Ibid.

11. Rajni Kothari, ' NGOs, the State and World Capitalism" , Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 21, No. 50, 13 December 1988, p. 2177.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., p. 2180.

16. Ibid.

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17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., p. 2182.

19. Ibid.

20. The Recommendations of the Commission are Reproduced in AVARD, n. 3, Appendix IX, pp. 222-24.

21. For a detailed study and discussion of some case studies on this aspect see, AVARD, n. 3, pp. 88-173.

22. For a detailed study see E.A. Narayana, Voluntary Organisations and Rural Development in India (New Delhi, Uppal Publishing House, 1990), pp. 183-201.

23. Ibid., p. 201.

24. Ibid.

25. For a brief survey of the role of NGO in the environmental protection, see R.B. Jain, " Role of Non-governmental Organisations in Environmental Protection: Some Experiences in Indian Cities" , in Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 30 (April-June 1984). Also see R.B Jain (ed.), NGOs in Development Perspective (Delhi, Vivek Prakashan, 1995).

26. Towards Social Transformation: Approach to Eighth Five Year Plan, 1990-95, (New Delhi, Planning Commission, Government of India, 1990).

27. See AVARD, n. 3, pp. 162-63.

28. See Chowdhary, n. 5, p. 6.

29. AVARD, n. 3, p. 152.

30. Ibid.

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PART IV CONTEMPORARY CRITICAL ISSUES

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11 Criminal Justice Administration

The criminal justice system is the most ubiquitous features of all societies—both the ancient and the modern. It is based on the deep rooted principle that the human beings in a society behave in such a manner that the social objectives of living together are maximised and the non-harmonious or antisocial behaviour can be minimised through the exercise of the coercive power of the state. However, at the same time to safeguard individual liberties, it has to be ensured that such coercive powers of the state are neither arbitrary nor unbridled. This multifaceted social concern is the prime determinant of the tone and quality of the criminal justice system (CJS) that prevails in a society—especially in a democratic one.

This chapter is concerned with an analysis of the present status of the criminal justice system (CJS) in India. More specifically it focuses attention on the problems of dysfunctionalism and politicisation of the police administration in India and identifies areas of violation of integrity and ethical concerns with a view to suggest certain remedial measures to revamp the system. The Indian case study should also be helpful in providing an understanding of some of the ethical problems and dilemmas of integrity in police service on a global level.

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I. THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN INDIA

The criminal justice administration as an integrated system represents an organised social response to crimes in and against the society. The CJS has three major components—the police, the judiciary and the correctional services—the prison. While each of the component part performs its own allocated functions in a CJS, the major responsibility for initiating the process rests on the police—whose role has been spelt out as maintenance of order and prevention and detection of crime. The role of the judiciary is perceived as of adjudication and interpretation of laws, and the role of the correctional institutions—the prison is security control of those who are entrusted to them in the final stages of the CJS. The three components of the CJS function as a relay race. In a race of this kind, it is not enough to have good individual runners, but also the team-spirit necessary for winning the race. The three subsystems must strive together in coordination with each other to achieve the consensus goal of effective control of anti-social behaviour.

For long, the three components of CJS in India have functioned in isolation, each pursuing its own organisational goals with little interaction amongst them. Added to these are the complexities and contradictions inherent in the functions of the components. From police we demand willy nilly effective social protection, while safeguarding the rights of those who have little respect for them. From judges, we expect that they are not only just, but appear to be so. In prisons, we seek compassion while inflicting pains. These contradictions within each sub-system's functioning have been mostly responsible for their isolationist attitudes. It is only in recent times that the need for greater harmony than what is obtained in the operations of the components is being felt and articulated. The decisions taken at different stages may be conflicting and contradictory, and the strategies may be divergent and even subject to critical scrutiny by other components, but they do form part of the total process of the system. Although they are expected to strive towards a common goal, but as each of the component part is structurally independent, their relationship is amorphous. They may vaguely share the broad objectives of crime control, but

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each of the component has its own priorities, values, standards of evaluation, methods, skills and specific environment in which it functions. In consequence, rather than work in harmony, the CJS in practical operation generates conflicts both at the ideological and operational levels. The ideological conflicts arise from the manner in which each of the component perceives its own role and accepts the value gamut of the total system. Operational conflicts emerge from the fact that each component tries to maintain its unique position and identity in the system.

At the heart of the CJS in any country, there is a paradox—an inverse relationship between the amount of discretion which the agents of law have and the status which they enjoy. In the CJS in India, the greatest amount of discretion is possessed by the police officers. The trigger mechanism of the criminal justice process is in the hands of the police officer, and not with the lawyers, prosecutors or judges. Though the authority and discretion given to police officers around the world is remarkable, at the same time among all the agents of the CJS, they have the lowest status and prestige within the system.

The criminal justice system in India has shown unmistakenable signs of wilting in recent times. Police has failed to achieve a reasonable degree of public acceptability and display serious cracks in its organisation. Courts are dogged with hundreds of thousands of cases resulting in the enormous delay and irritations in the system. And the prisons euphemistically named correctional institutions are totally out of tune with the reformatory ideology which dominates their panel policy. The CJS in India by and large reveals a disconcerting degree of hollowness, a deepening sense of frustration and a lack of direction.

It is a system in which hardly three per cent of the persons prosecuted by the police, under the Indian Penal Code, get convicted. It is also a fact that neither the guilty are speedily brought to book nor the innocents are spared of harassment. The investigation procedures remain as outmoded as during the pre-independence days when Justice Sir Walsh of Allahabad High Court had the occasion to comment: " Whereas the English detective begins with his available witnesses, and works his

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way up to the discovery of truth, the Indian sub-inspector begins with the accused, and from him works his way up to witnesses" .1

India is a peculiar case of a soft and permissive State with stern and stringent laws. It combines the disadvantages of both. While on the one hand it suffers from the fallouts of softness and permissiveness, on the other, it is subjected to severe criticism for having draconian laws. As a result, neither the objectives of strong laws are attained nor the country's image is effectively protected from the onslaught of national and international human rights bodies.2

II. CHANGING PATTERN OF CRIMES IN INDIA

The CJS in India has been greatly affected by the changing pattern of crimes and the crime rate in India which have undergone unprecedented changes since Independence. The impact of increasing democratisation, growth of population, westernisation, industrialisation, urbanisation, economic growth, the mass communication revolution in satellite TV and social development has produced several radical changes in the social system and its values. The cumulative affect of these factors has resulted in the disintegration of the family, growing unemployment, slackening of discipline and decline of standards in educational and other political, social and economic institutions, growing political unrest, existence of gross social and political inequalities, growth in vehicular traffic, increased socio-political demonstrations, violation of minority rights, bad labour relations in industry, violence at sports and athletic meets, increased political turmoils and incidence of terrorism and secessionist movements, desecration of religious places, communal riots, agrarian disputes and economic grievances, sub-human and sub-conditions of living in slums, increasing incidence of corruptions and loss of values in all walks of life and most deplorable of the consequence the decrease in the proportion of law-abiding citizens.

The changes in the Indian society during the last 50 years of its independence, have brought in its trail a number of changes in the pattern of criminal activities. As against the

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traditional crimes, new types of criminal activities are emerging—smuggling, gun-running, kidnapping, heists, mass killings of particular minority groups, looting at gun-points, political assassinations, drug-trafficking, terroristic activities like indiscriminate bombing at public places and destruction of public and private properties. Apart from excesses against minorities, crime against women and children, dowry deaths, increasing incidence of kidnapping of children, VIPs, and business executives for ransom, exhortation from business houses, wanton killings for revenge, gang wars among criminal mafias, sophisticated white collar crimes, bank frauds, hawala (money laundering) transactions against Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, illicit immigrations, environmental crimes, computer crimes, blood selling, trade in human organs and other medicine-related crimes in genes and more recently domination of film world by foreign mafias and underworld dons, etc. are increasingly being reported from all over India. The criminals are not only getting professionalised, but are using the most modern high-tech, scientific knowledge of cellular phones and remote control methods even to the extent of using human beings as living bombs in perpetuating their activities. In some ways, criminals are acquiring more expertise than the police themselves, which in India is still mostly handicapped by outdated, and backward means at their disposal for detecting and arresting the criminals. What is worse is that crime is becoming acceptable without having any social stigma attached to it.

The Increasing Crime Rates

The crime rate in India has been increasing steadily every year. At the time of independence in 1948, the incidence of crimes under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was 6,25,000 for a population of 342 million. In 1978, it increased to 1,313,564 for a population of 635.8 millions, i.e. an increase in crime rate from 183.2 to 205.8 per thousand. It is estimated that towards the end of this country, there may be 10 million offences under IPC and 25 million offences under other Acts and special laws.

A study conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 1995 indicates that crime in the metropolitan cities was much higher as compared to other areas of the country. As

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against the crime rate of 584 for one lakh (100,000) population for the whole of India during 1995 the crime rates of major metropolitan cities are: Bangalore (14011), Calcutta (4172), Mumbai (1879), Lucknow (1454), Madras (1568), Ahmedabad (9917), Pune (665) and Delhi (601). According to the study, the incidence of total cognizable cases in India during 1995 was 53.8 lakh as against 49.7 lakh during 1994 showing an increase of 8.3 per cent. The incidence of the Indian Penal Code offences during 1995 was 17.1 lakh as against 16.4 lakh during 1994 indicating an increase of 4.7 per cent. In non-IPC (Local and Special Act cases), there were 37.7 lakh cases during 1995 as against 33.3 lakh during 1994 showing an increase of 10 per cent.3

Other major crimes that have attracted special attention are the new rackets concerning trade in human organs reported from Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, drug trafficking through export containers from ports of Mumbai and Tuticorin (Tamil Nadu), smuggling of arms, ammunition and explosives such as RDX on a large scale especially in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, the North East, UP and Bihar, Hawala rackets and money laundering, forgery and theft of share certificates and cheating rackets involving investments in real estate.

Last and not the least, kidnapping for ransom has now become a multi-million business and a lucrative profession for the modern day criminal. The crime trends indicate that combating economic crimes, organised crimes and corruption, has become an important challenge for law enforcement agencies in India.4

What is more ominous is the trend of violent crimes. The incidence of violent crimes increased from 55,726 in 1961 to 2,32,554 in 1993, thus rising by 317.3 per cent during this period. The increase in

crime has been accompanied by a gradual fall in the conviction rate. While in 1971, 62 per cent of the IPC cases ended in conviction, in 1993, it had fallen to 45.9 per cent.

Another disturbing trend is the increasing tendency of cases under trial. The total number of criminal cases pending in the magistrates and sessions courts in the country had gone up from 45.5 lakh in 1976 to 136.5 lakh in 1992-93. In addition, 3.04 lakh cases were pending in high courts as on December 31, 1993.

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How extensively and intensively crime has spread, and is spreading, in India, is evident by a report in the Indian Express in November 1992 that makes very depressing reading. The statistics given in the report say that in the country " there is at least one cognizable crime every seven seconds, one panel offences every twenty-seconds, a property crime every minute, theft in every one and a half minutes, violent crime every four minutes, murder every fifteen minutes, and a rape every fifty-two minutes" . The paper adds that ' long-term trends clearly show a marked increase in incidence of crime: a less than proportionate increase in registrations; a growing backlog of investigations, prosecutions and trials, and a declining role of convictions" .5

The " less than proportionate increase" in the registration of criminal acts would seem to show not only that duty evading or criminally inclined police refuse to register cases and accept FIRs. It also seems to indicate that people have less and less faith in the sincerity, honesty, and efficacy of authority in the country. There is ample evidence to show that the rate of convictions is declining; and that, for all the ministerial tom-tomming and official self-praise, investigation of crimes and corruption is distorted or for some other reason unsuccessful— almost invariably.6

The data presented above thus reveals a rising trend in crime, more so in violent crime, a declining rate of convictions and an increasing tendency of cases under trial. This means that more and more people are committing crime and getting away with it. Cases are settled after a long time. Justice is being delayed and denied. Obviously, the criminal justice system has failed in achieving its objectives.7

The radically changing character of the society and the consequent abnormal spurt in the crime ratio has put a great strain and severe crisis on the CJS in India. There is first a decline in policing, which is much more serious than is known. Police lack the basic knowledge of crime and criminals, with the result that they are unable to conduct proper investigations and have to shoot down criminals, some of them petty

and undeserving of such harsh punishment, or make arrests indiscriminately. The way in which Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA) has been misused is an

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indication of police inefficiency and perversity.8 The fraternity of lawyers is unwilling to talk to reform, and holds up every measure that is required to speed up trials by threats of strike. The accumulation of court cases waiting for decisions is in millions. The ten-year time-frame in a case of brutal murder is not uncommon.9 Although it can be argued that the economic crisis is at the root of most of the problems of police administration in India, but the proliferation in police delinquency as we shall see later is more due to the vicious police-politician nexus that is growing stronger day-by-day.

III. POLICE ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA

The police administration in India is still governed by the Police Act of 1861 designed by the British colonial masters as " an instrument for prevention and detection of crime" . A spate of other legislations, e.g. Civil Procedure Code of 1859, Indian Panel Code in 1860, Code of Criminal Procedure 1861, Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 (which was repealed after India gained Independence), and Indian Evidence Act in 1872 conferred institutional framework in the form of police stations, jurisdictional areas, and a hierarchy of officialdom in the form of ranking of officers from constable to inspector-general of police. In the district, the Superintendent of Police was responsible to the Collector (the District Magistrate), and the Inspector General of the Police (IGP) to the provincial government. The main function of the police is enforcement of law through a hierarchy of officers, structured on the military pattern with rank and positions, disciplines, parades arms and a feudalistic culture. The orientation of the Act is bureaucratic and not democratic. It is the duty of the police to " obey" all orders of the competent authority, assuming that orders are legal and justified.

Obviously in such a system the police has no orientation to any of the values of the Constitution of independent India, which came into force in 1950 e.g., justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, human dignity, unity and integration of the nation. There is also inadequate concern in the functioning of the police in implementing legislation inspired by the Directive Principles of State Policy. Also prominent are the human rights violations

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due to insensitiveness of police. There are instances of torture and use of third degree methods in detention. The constitutional mandate is considered over-bearing, superfluous, unnecessary, and

unsophisticated, and not in tune with the demand for ' real' policing whatever it means. Though in some respects the police system has responded to the technological changes in the period of more than a century but these have been neither standardised nor all pervasive. Most of the police stations in rural areas are still on outmoded wireless systems and even have no telephones due to acute paucity of funds—the police being the state subject. The overall impact of these factors has been that the police has faltered on the implementation of social legislation, matters pertaining to human rights, and delivery of justice. The police continues to be exploitative influencing the unawry people who are unacquainted with the subtelties of law, its procedures, rights, and their enforcement. Despite the tremendous changes taking place in the society and the need for transparency in the working of the government, the police system continues to be working in utmost secrecy, is authoritarian, power struck, legalistic, mechanical and neither firm with criminals nor polite with citizens. The response is reactive and not proactive, directed to dealing with crime and criminals and not the problems of citizens in their multi-faceted dimension.10

The police in India is not only a symbol of state powers, but also enjoys some extraordinary powers. The most awesome power is to arrest people and lock up. According to a report, the police in 1988 arrested six million persons including two million women, subjecting them to interrogation, inconvenient questioning and searching. Such powers cast awesome responsibility on the police to exercise them with civility and under no circumstances misuse them. The misuse of this power has given the Indian police a bad public image.

IV. CRIMINALISATION OF POLITICS AND POLITICISATION OF CRIMES

India suffers from a combined process of politicisation of crimes and criminalisation of politics. Combined with other factors like politicisation of the police, it certainly poses a real threat to democracy. Politicians make true use of the services of

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the anti-social elements. Booth-capturing, violence, intimidation and victimisation are parts of electoral malpractices. The weaker sections of our electorate are mainly hit by these practices. " Your votes would be cast by us. Do not take the trouble of visiting polling stations to vote" . This is the kind of pre-election intimidation. You having dared to disobey our commands, forfeited your right to be under our employment. You are displaced from our land. This is the type of postelection victimisation. Thus, fear psychosis on the one hand and economic dependence on the other cumulatively produce the result of depriving the poor electors of their sacred right of franchise. To a pointed question by the Chief Election Commissioner in the past to a voter in a western UP rural constituency why, despite adequate police protection in his area, he did not choose to vote—he had not handled any ballot paper for the last 20

years then—pat came the reply: " It is all right you provide police protection today. Will I get the same protection tomorrow when I continue to live among these people?" So long as the removal of fear-psychosis and economic emanicipation remain distant goals for them, there is no escape from the deprivation of their electoral right."

There are two types of booth-capturnig at the time of polls, i.e. silent and violent, both the products of criminality. In a silent booth-capturing, detection of which and effective remedial action are not easy, the voters are given threats of dire consequences. They either forego their right to vote or their votes are impersonated on a large-scale by thrusting bunch of ballot papers into the boxes kept at the polling stations. The very presence of strong handed and headed muscle-men at polling stations to oversee the operation according to their taste makes it possible either to coerce the weaker sections to vote in a particular way or enable their ballot papers being freely handled by those musclemen.

Violent booth-capturing takes the form of snatching and running away with polled ballot boxes or open destruction of ballot papers and other records. They are again the crude handwork of goons and goondas.12 In both these types of incidence, police is always hand in gloves with the criminal elements who are active as musclemen on behalf of their masters—the politicians.

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Criminal Politicians Nexus

One of the most disturbing feature of the post-independence era has been trend towards the uninhibited use of muscle-power by the political parties in winning the elections. As muscle-power is mostly provided by criminal elements and mafia leaders a close nexus came to exist between the politicians and the criminals. An impression also prevailed that the grater a person was a ' goonda' (a ruffian), the higher was his rating as a useful element in the electoral process. Earlier when in difficulty at the hands of law-enforcing agencies, the criminals and mafia leaders in return would turn to politicians and seek their aid and the latter were none-too-unwilling to come to their help as a quid pro quo for the help rendered by them at the time of elections. Later in recent years, the criminal elements and mafia leaders thought that, if because of their prowess and grip over certain sections of population they could get others elected, why should they themselves not fight elections. Many of them accordingly contested the elections and quite a substantial number of them got elected. Some of them came to occupy ministerial chairs. According to newspaper reports almost half of the members of some of our legislatures in mid-nineties were those with their names on the history sheets of the police. The nation was thus confronted with the ignoble phenomenon of criminalisation of politics. Experience also tells us that despite the public expression of abhorrence of criminalisation of politics, the political parties have been adopting such undesirable elements as their candidates at the time of elections. They were guided

more in this respect by the electoral prospects of the candidate rather than his personal credentials and antecedents.13

Criminalisation of politics has also wrought havoc on the administration of criminal justice and the situation today is that it has become most difficult, if not well nigh impossible, to secure conviction of major culprits guilty of offences like murder, grievous hurt, intimidation and rape because of the political interference in the police investigation of the crimes and the consequent inability of the police to procure credible incriminating evidence as may warrant conviction of the culprit in a court of law. In many States, the former history sheeters against whom criminal cases are still pending in the courts of

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law have turned law-makers and ministers after winning elections, which has not only seriously jeopardised the legal process, but have posed far-reaching ethical dilemmas and concerns.14

The Vohra Committee Findings

Since the days of Emergency during (1975-77), there has been a growing tendency in India to politicise crime and police system for political game. The Shah Commission (1977-79), which enquired into the excesses committed during the Emergency, had observed that " the police was used and allowed themselves to be used for purposes some of which were, to say the least, questionable" . The rule of law in modern India has been undermined by the rule of polities. The most disturbing trend has been that a large number of police officers are getting politicised. There is a growing nexus between the politicians, criminals, bureaucrats, and police, which, as later mentioned in the Vohra Report (1993) " is virtually running a parallel government, pushing the state apparatus into irrelevance" .

The Vohra Committee, headed by the then Home Secretary, Mr. N.N. Vohra was set up on 9 July 1993 " to take stock about the activities of crime syndicates and mafia organisations which had evolved links and were being protected by Government functionaries and political personalities" . It submitted its report on 5 October 1993, but the Government shelved it for 18 months claiming that it was an internal administrative report till it was cornered by the opposition and directed by the Speaker to lay the report on the table of the House. The Report of the Vohra Committee was laid on the table of both Houses of Parliament on 1 August 1995 after consistent pressure from the opposition to expose the criminalisation of politics.

The report says " that there has been a rapid spread and growth of criminal gangs, armed senas, drug mafias, smuggling gangs, drug peddlers and economic lobbies in the country, which have over the years, developed an extensive network of contacts with the bureaucrats/Government functionaries at the local levels, politicians, media-persons, and strategically located individuals in the non-state sector. Some of these syndicates

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have also international linkages including the foreign intelligence agencies.15

The Report points out that in certain states " like Bihar, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, these gangs enjoy the patronage of local level politicians, cutting across party lines, and the protection of Government functionaries. Some political leaders become the leaders of these gangs, armed senas and over the years, get themselves elected to local bodies, State Assemblies and the national Parliament. Resultantly such elements have acquired considerable political clout seriously jeopardising the smooth functioning of the administration and the safety and property of the common man, causing a sense of despair and alienation among the people 16

The report gives a sketch of how the mafia starts its operations from petty crime at the local level and graduates from illicit distillation/gambling/matka/prostitution to include smuggling in the port cities and real estate operations in the towns and cities. " Over times, the money power thus acquired is used for building contacts with bureaucrats and politicians and expansion of activities with impunity. The money power is used to develop a network of muscle power which is also used by politicians during elections" , the report adds.17

The CBI told the committee that " crime syndicates have become a law unto themselves. Even in smaller towns and rural areas muscle men have become the order of the day. Hired assassins have become a part of these organisations . . . The nexus between criminal gangs, police, bureaucracy and politicians has come out clearly in various parts of the country. The existing criminal justice system which was essentially designed to deal with the individual offences/crime is unable to deal with the mafia; the provision in law with regard to economic offences are weak; there are insurmountable legal difficulties in attaching/confiscation of the properties acquired through mafia activities" .18

The report also points out:

Certain elements of the mafia have shifted to narcotics, drugs and weapon smuggling and established narco-terrorism networks, specially in the States of J & K, Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The cost of contesting elections

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has thrown the politicians into the lap of these elements and led to a grave compromise by officials of the preventive/detective systems. The virus has spread to almost all the centres of the country; the coastal and the border States have been particularly affected . . . The Bombay blast case and the communal riots in Surat and Ahmedabad have demonstrated how the Indian underworld has been exploited by the Pak ISI and the latter's network in UAE to cause sabotage, subversion and communal tension in various parts of the country. The investigations into the Bombay bomb blast cases have revealed extensive linkages of the underworld in the various governmental agencies, political circles, business sector and the film world . . .19

" ... The linkages developed by crime syndicates get generally confirmed when pressure is mounted on the agencies concerned not to take action against the offenders or to go slow in the cases against them. Such pressures are mounted either immediately after a raid is conducted or at the time when prosecution is about to be initiated. Pressures are also exerted whenever corrupt and undesirable officers are shifted from sensitive assignments (preventive customs divisions at the airports, sensitive collectorates in the Central Excise, etc.).20

V. VIOLATION OF INTEGRITY IN POLICE SYSTEM IN INDIA

The police in India is notorious of violating some of the fundamental norms both legal and moral expected of the operation of a security force in a democratic and civil society. The police system in India functions mostly in a negative manner. While the term ' maintenance of law and order' may sound positive, in actual terms, it means the practice of negativism in various forms: the regulating and stopping of people, the fining of people, the searching and interrogating of people, the tear-gasing and cane-charging of people and even opening fire on them. These very restrictive police roles go against the natural human urge of free will and generate not only unpopularity and even hostility, but also fear of the

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people. The service-oriented, citizen-protection-oriented and crime prevention-oriented role of the police has never really been comprehended or given its due place in practical terms by the police

organisations themselves. The common perception about police in India has been that it is brutal, tyrannical and corrupt.

These contradictions and misconceptions about the role of police are responsible for a number of dual practices in the police, for example, the police responds to the pressure to reduce crime by not registering a large number of reported cases or by registering crime under less heinous offences. In other words, managing of statistics has taken the place of implementation of anti-crime measures. Such a response is, in fact, counter-productive, because not enough gets known about the actual state of crime to the police and other concerned agencies for taking counter measures to check crime. The only beneficiary of this policy are the criminals and yet the police leadership and the Government have been giving their tacit approval to it. The most dangerous consequence of this practice is that when a large number of police officials themselves share this misperception about their role, they start taking recourse to short cuts, and at times to illegal methods, to control crime.21

The hypocritical attitude towards police performance is responsible for many of the distortions in its functioning. While the police is exhorted to strictly adhere to the rule of law in public utterances, many senior bureaucrats and political rulers see no contradiction in giving more than tacit approval to its blatantly illegal actions. The enforcers of law must not be allowed to commit illegal acts on the plea that there is no other way they can control the situation because of practical difficulties.22 Another serious area of violation of integrity amongst the police force in India is its infliction by the forces of casteism and communalism, which goes against the very fundamentals of the police philosophy, which require the force to function impartially as an agent of law, unaffected by caste or communal considerations. Members of the minority communities or those belonging to lower castes have often perceived the police as a biased and partisan agency. A number of judicial enquiry commissions set up to enquire into communal and caste riots have commented adversely on the

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police for showing discrimination in the handling of such disturbances. The National Police Commission in its Sixth report referred to the stringent criticism received by it from many responsible quarters that police often did not act impartially and objectively. The problem of police being affected by communalism or casteism is linked not only to the problem of increasing hold of communal forces over others in the society, but also to that of gradual and continuous erosion of the authority of police as an agency of law which has occurred in this country over a period of time. The philosophy of police neutrality, embedded in the concept of the rule of law has not merely been devalued, but in fact, subverted to serve the interests of powerful people and sanctions of society. One of the methods used for this purpose by the political leadership has been to post such officers in important and sensitive districts as are always willing to toe their line. Appointments and postings of officers in almost every

state in India, more particularly in UP and Bihar have been governed not by their secular credentials or professionalism but by their caste or religious affiliations and by their liability to accept and implement all types of orders—right or wrong.23

Another area of lack of integrity in the policy system in India is the meaning in police jargon of the words " interrogation" and " encounter" and consequent show of brutality. Any one who has seen and heard a suspect being " interrogated" by the police would bear witness to the kind of torture that is perpetrated to solve crime. Seeing is not really necessary. Hearing the screams of pain provides information enough about the nature of the " question answer" session in progress in an interrogation cell. It is truly as if police familiarity with methods of torture is part of the syllabus during training period. Women police, supposed to be the " gentler sex" , are no less prone than their male colleagues to torture of suspects. There are innumerable examples of custodial deaths—deaths from interrogation of suspects in custody. " Encounter" are a familiar way for the police to kill off those suspected of being terrorists, those who are dacoits and bandits, those who are described as " naxalites" . The exercise of brutality in extracting evidence/confessions from suspects/ witnesses, or while retaliating an onslaught on the public or

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even clearing traffic congestions or driving away miscreants has been a common feature of police system in India.24

Another modus operandi adopted by police in many places in India which is another example of the loss of integrity and ethical conduct is first to arrest " a dreaded criminal unofficially" and announce reward on his head. A couple of days later the police makes the formal arrest and the reward goes to their pocket, which is then equally distributed among team members.25

The integrity and impartiality of the police in India is severely jeopardised because the police have all along been constantly under the thumb of not only the politicians but the civil servants too. Being ordered around by elected political masters is understandable, but they have not simply accepted the fact of being bossed around by the IAS fraternity. In a paper published by the Bureau of Police Research in 1979 entitled, " Manipulation of the Police" , it was stated that " excessive control of the political executive and its principal advisers over the police has the inherent danger of making the police a tool for subverting the process of law, promoting the growth of authoritarianism, and shaking the very foundations of democracy" .26 Despite this warning, police accountability is still governed by the Section 3 of the Police Act of 1861, which provides that " except as authorised under the provisions of the Act, no person, officer or court shall be empowered by the state government to supersede or control any police functionary" . However, in actual practice, in spite of this restrictive clause, the state governments

have framed rules and issued executive instructions from time to time which is contrary to the spirit of Sections 3 and 4 of the Police Act, under which the police was made de jure as well as de facto authority, totally subservient to the executive. The worst consequence has been that the politicians got the police so used to their own purpose that they found it difficult to loosen the strings of control resulting in the unsavoury spectacle of a growing nexus between the criminals, police and politicians.27

In many cases, the police is a party to the organised crime. Organised crime through membership of known gangs which undertake illicit and criminal activity at the behest of bosses with better economic resources at their command is

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visible in the urban areas. It also exists in the rural areas in the form of informal private armies used for suppressing protests of the landless poor. The individuals who mastermind crime and those who serve as their tools remain outside the normal political process and are available for use by whosoever is willing to pay them—politicians included. The police themselves are often seen by the public as a party to the crime and violence perpetrated by the gangs and as beneficiaries of the protection money system with which the criminal gangs harass the business community. The atmosphere of bribery, corruption and crime which has vitiated public life has grown in dimension to an extent that it has invited pointed attention of the judiciary as one consequence of the failure of the governments to actively pursue problems of poverty alleviation.28

Police and the Violation of Human Rights

The police administration in India has been consistently accused of glaring human rights violation by the various human rights watch agencies and national and international civil liberties associations. One of the recent reports of such an organisation highlights poor prison conditions, arbitrary arrests, lengthy pre-trial detentions, prolonged detection under trial, legal and societal discrimination against women, extensive societal violence against women, female bondage and prostitution, discrimination against scheduled castes and tribes, child prostitution, trafficking and infanticide and child labour and the most reprehensing the deaths in police custody.29

India signed the UN Convention Against Torture and other forms of Cruel and Inhuman and Degrading or Punishment on October 14, 1993. Two days earlier a National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) was established in India on 12 October 1993 by an ordinance. The Commission's record during the last four years of its functioning has not only established its credibility, but has dispelled the doubts about its

commitment to the cause of human rights in India, its success in making India adhere to the Convention Against Torture is in no small measure responsible.

One of the successes of the NHRC lies in the scrapping of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act (TADA).

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enacted in 1985, it was meant to deal with the insurgency situation in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and was to be a temporary measure, but it remained in force for ten years until May 1995 when it was not revived after the expiry of its extended term. The Act has been one of the most draconian measure at the hands of the police which not only shifted the burden of the proof of innocence to the individual, but made confessions before police officers admissible as evidence, contravening a Fundamental Right under Article 20(3) of the Constitution. It also diluted the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code in respect of the time limit for investigation of offences and grant of bail to the accused.

Although the NHRC did not shirk denouncing terrorism but juxtaposed the rejection of terrorist and violent activities with standing up for the life and liberty of victim of excesses by the police and other security forces. In the process it established the need to respect the human rights of citizens while tackling insurgency, because ultimately the problems underlying terrorism have to be tackled politically. The two approaches have to go on simultaneously. Winning over the populace and keeping them against violence are as vital as putting down violence. Although the battle against TADA has been won by the lapse of the law, there are hundreds of TADA cases pending in the courts and the NHRC is rightly pursuing its campaign for their disposal.30

The other area where the NHRC has met with some success is the issue of deaths in police custody. According to the sources of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India custodial deaths registered a 100 per cent jump from 444 in 1996 to 888 in 1997. Custodial deaths are globally perceived as one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations. To curb the growing incidents of custodial deaths, the NHRC has been working hard to make-law-enforcing agencies accountable ever since it came into being in 1993. Due to its efforts, the state authorities have woken up to regular reporting to the Commission about such deaths. The factual reporting to the Commission became a practice only after the NHRC wrote to all chief ministers and chief secretaries and issued a circular making it mandatory for all state agencies to report about custodial deaths to the Commission within 24 hours of the

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incidence. The close monitoring and sustained presence of the NHRC have brought to the fore the actual magnitude of the problem. It has also unmasked the truth about how state agencies have been trampling upon citizen's fundamental rights.31

In its annual report of 1995-96, the NHRC has urged " the implementation of the second report of the Police Reforms Commission aimed at insulating the investigative work of the police from extraneous pressures" . Implementation of many of the basic and salutary recommendations of the National Police Commission to bring about the required changes in the police performance and behaviour pattern is the need of the hour if a modicum of integrity is to be secured in the functioning of police system in India.

VI. INSULATING POLICE FROM POLITICS: SOME REMED MEASURES

A National Police Commission (NPC) was set up in November 1977 under the Chairmanship of Shri Dharam Vira, a former senior ICS officer to undertake a comprehensive review of all aspects of the police system in the country. Some of the findings of the NPC were critical of Governments' misuse of the police during Emergency (1975-77) for subverting lawful procedures and serving political ends; intelligence organisations being misused for collecting information on political parties and individuals, the decline in the political executive, leading to interference and extraneous pressures being exerted; growth of vested interests and the police being used to put down political dissent; the police openly cultivating politicians, and conviction evolving among the personnel that careers did not depend upon their professional performance; the infringement of the command and control structures through interference; development of malafide nexus between the police and the politicians, leading to collusive corruption; and the general public impression that the police is meant to serve only elite groups who can get their jobs done through pressures or bribes.32

The National Police Commission made most important seminal recommendation to insulate police against politics. It

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recommended that every state should establish a Statutory Security Commission (SSC) to insulate the police from political interference of a partisan type. It was to be headed by the State Minister-in-Charge of police and comprising two MLAs, one from the ruling party and another from among the opposition parties, appointed on the advice of the Assembly Speaker; four members to be appointed by the Chief Minister, subject to the approval of the State legislature, from among retired High Court judges, retired

senior civil servants, and eminent social scientists, or academicians. The state police chief would be the ex-officio Secretary of the SSC which would function on the lines of the State Public Service Commission. This body was to ensure that political forces do not attempt to use the police for their personal and party ends. To restore the capacity of the police to resist political interference, extraneous pressures and illegal orders, the NPC recommended a statutory tenure of four years or upto the date of retirement or next-promotion for all police officers. The premature removal of the police chief would require the prior approval of the SSC except when the incumbent had been awarded a punishment. Further, any officer who has served as the state police chief shall, on retirement, be debarred from re-employment under the State or Central Governments or in any state/central public undertaking.33 The basic aim of the commission is to make the police subservient to the law first, and only thereafter to political dictation.

There is also need for:

(a) Clear orders that the SHO must not move in a locality with the elected representatives for their support.

(b) There should be no attempt by those in authority to encourage police killings to deal with crime outbreaks except when they are justified by law.

(c) Transfer must only be ordered by those authorised to pass orders. The tendency to give all powers of transfer to State Governments is contrary to discipline. The power of transfer and disciplinary control entrusted to the Directors-General and Superintendents of Police must not be usurped by

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the government

(d) Regular inspection of thanas must be insisted upon, and a formal report drawn up which must be seen and commented upon by senior officers.

Many verbal orders are issued by ministers and other political leaders regarding the conduct of police operations. Even while a riot is going on and there is need for police impartiality as ordained by law,

police are given verbal instructions on who to arrest, who to release and what line to take regarding leaders. In consequence, there have been many riots which have been uncontrollable, and the army had to be called out to restore order.

Verbal instructions to the police were strongly deprecated by Jayaprakash Narayan who advised Charan Singh, then Home Minister (1977-79), to constitute a police commission so that clear orders on the subject may be issued. Interference in the course of investigation and making use of the CBI and State anti-corruption agencies against political opponents have to be stopped. The same goes for the imposition of orders under Section 144 of CrPC to suit political parties, and the withdrawal of cases purely on political grounds.34

Another important area in which radical changes are required relates to posting, transfer and promotion of police personnel. Both in its First Report (February, 1979) and its Eighth and Final Report (May, 1981), the National Police Commission, has taken a consistent stand that the police should not be made subservient to the politicians and political executives. In order to free the police from political meddling, it is necessary that all posting, transfers, and promotions should be done by a duly constituted Central Police Board or its branches spread over in various states. The New Police Act should oust the jurisdiction of ministers in the aforesaid matters.

In the present context, the police in India are accountable only to their political masters. This has to change. The ultimate accountability of the police is to the law of the land. For this drastic changes are necessary in the Police Act of 1861. The NPC also made a recommendation to constitute a Criminal Justice Commission at the centre, supported by a similar arrangement

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at the state level. This is worth consideration. The follow-up of the Vohra Report, which has shown a nexus between politicians and the under-world, has been held up because the work of the different agencies, engaged in the criminal justice system, is not interlinked. One agency does not know what other agency is doing. If the increase in crime is to be checked, it is necessary to have a body which will constantly monitor the performance of different agencies of the system.35 Only an integrated approach to improving police administration is likely to achieve satisfactory results.

VII. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

The above analysis of the functioning of police administration in the criminal justice system in India clearly brings out the distortions and the dilemmas of the unethical behaviour and the lack of integrity on the part of the police personnel. No wonder some of the critical observations of the National Police Commission containing " references to the malafide use and dysfunctioning of police for personal and political gains were eventually repudiated from the text of the NPC reports." 36

Although some of the recommendations of the NPC relating to police housing, modernisation of the mechanisms, welfare programme for the personnel, improvement in the wage structure of the constabulary and the training of the middle and lower echelons of the State police forces have been implemented since then, but action on some of the basic recommendations, e.g. replacement of the old Police Act of 1861 by a new Police Act or amendment of Criminal Procedure Act, Indian Panel Code and Criminal Procedure Code, strict enforcement of discipline, conduct rules, graduate constabulary and ruthless weeding out of corrupt personnel, selection of the head of the State Vigilance or Anti-corruption Bureau from a panel prepared by a committee headed by the Chairman, Central Vigilance Commission and mode of appointment and tenure of the Chiefs of State Police, and the establishment of State Security Commission have not been implemented by any of the State Governments so far.

The provision of " magisterial enquiry" into allegations

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against the police in the context of the use of third degree methods, false encounters, custodial deaths, use of excessive force, etc. which are germane to human rights and legal requirements has not led to much improvement as an effective instrument of control and accountability of the police. There is so much of a tie-up between the police and the " magistracy" that not even in a normal percentage of cases the magisterial enquiries have found fault with the police. This is so not because the police was not guilty in many cases, but because of the century-long traditional links (not necessarily always desirable) which have been forged between these classes of magistrates and the erring policemen.37 It is necessary that such mandatory magisterial enquiries be conducted by impartial retired magistrates and the findings be immediately acted upon. Despite the fact that there are a number of institutional arrangements like the Vigilance Commissions, Anti-Corruption Act, Mandatory Magisterial Inquiries and the watch dog of Human Rights Commission, the incidence of violation of integrity in police administration are far too many, too frequent and too widespread to be tackled effectively by the existing arrangements. Not only there is need for the police leadership to be sensitive to the reports of police highhandedness and alleged corruption, but these have to be pursued with greater seriousness and should not be dismissed casually as mere isolated incidents. Corruption and highhandedness in the police can take a far more sinister turn than in any other department of the government. An independent institution of Police Ombudsman to enquire into cases of alleged highhandedness,

unethical conduct, loss of integrity and excesses is a dire necessity to be urgently established in every state of India along with a comprehensive high powered Criminal Justice Commission to make recommendations for improvement in the totality of the CJS in India as a long-term strategy.


1. Quoted by Bal Krishan, " Is Justice Fair Enough" , in The Hindustan Times, 24 July 1995, p. 9: 3, 4, 5.

2. Ibid.

3. As reported in The Hindustan Times, 6 September 1994, p. 1: 1-3.

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4. Ibid.

5. As quoted by Rakshat Puri, " Malaise—Curable or Chronic" , in The Hindustan Times, 17 November 1992, p. 13: 7-8.

6. Ibid.

7. See G.P. Joshi, " The Central Government and Crime Control" , in The Hindustan Times, 28 May 1994, p. 13: 7-8.

8. K.F. Rustamji, " Failure of the Police" , in The Hindustan Times, 18 November 1997, p. 11: 3-8.

9. Ibid.

10. See P.S. Bawa, " Society, Democracy, and Law Enforcement in India" , in O.P. Dwivedi, R.B. Jain and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi (eds.), Governing India: Issues Concerning Public Policy, Institutions and Administration (Delhi, B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1998), pp. 175-177.

11. K. Ganesan, " Crime and Politics-I : The Growing Nexus" , in The Hindustan Times, 31 August 1992, p. 11: 3-6.

12. Ibid.

13. H.R. Khanna, " Who Follows Gandhi?" , in The Hindustan Times, 12 December 1995, p. 13: 3-8.

14. Ibid. The classic case is that of a former dacoit Phoolan Devi (now an M.P.) who spent 11 years in jail after her surrender in 1983, was eventually released by political leaders belonging to her caste group and was elected an MP in the 1996 election on the strength of the caste vote. Although criminal cases are still pending against her, but she recontested the election again (1998), but lost. She contested again in 1999 and won. Another similar case is of Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raju Bhaiya, who was a Minister in the Kalyan Singh cabinet in Uttar Pradesh, but has a number of cases pending against him. It is the enormous delays on the part of the courts to decide the cases that is responsible for preventing criminals contesting the elections, see Sunil Sethi, " Criminal Virus in Body Politic" , The Times of India, 13 February 1998, p. 11: 12.

15. See Document, Vohra Committee Report in The Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 41, No. 3 (September 1995).

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., also see The Hindustan Times, 2 August 1995, p. 1: 3-5 and p. 20: 1-4.

18. Vohra Committee Report, Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. See Ved Marwah, " Decline of Police-I : System to Blame" , in The Hindustan Times, 26 October 1993, p. 13: 3-4.

22. Ved Marwah, " Decline of Police-II : Adhocism won' t do" , in The Hindustan Times, 22 October 1993, p. 13: 3-4.

23. For a detailed discussion on this issue, see G.P. Joshi, " Sectarian Virus in the Police Force" , in The Hindustan Times, 12 November 1996, p. 11: 7-8.

24. For a detailed account of such cases, see Rakshat Puri, " Vajpayee on the Police" , in The Hindustan Times, 28 February 1996, p. 13: 7-8; and Maxwell Preira, " Police and Society" , in The Times of India, 21 October 1995, p. 12: 6-7.


26. Quoted by Vimmy Sahay, " Are they mere pawns?" , in Sunday Magazine, The Hindustan Times, 1 December 1996, p. 5: 3, 4, 5.

27. Ibid.

28. See M.S. Gore, " The State, the Police and the People" , the 9th I.B. Centenary Endowment Lecture, Reprinted in JNU News, New Delhi, January-February 1997.

29. See Report in The Times of India, 8 February 1998, p. 1: 2-4.

30. For further details of the success of the NHRC, see G.S. Bhargava, " Focus on Civil Liberty" in The Hindustan Times, 9 December 1997, p. 13: 3-8.

31. See The Times of India, 14 February 1998, p. 9: 3-4.

32. For a discussion on these issues, see N.N. Vohra, " Role and Functioning of the Police" , in The Hindustan Times, 11 August 1996, p. 13: 3-7.

33. Ibid.

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34. K.F. Rustamji, " Failure of the Police" , in The Hindustan Times, 28 April 1997, p. 12: 4-7.

35. See Kuldip Nayar, " Police in India : An Ailing Force" , in The Pioneer, 27 November 1997.

36. See Vohra, n. 32.

37. See T. Ananthachari, " Making the Police Accountable" , The Hindustan Times, 1 September 1994, p. 13: 7-8.

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12 Managing Foreign Affairs

The formulation of foreign policy and managing foreign relations is not only a complex issue of the choice of goals and interests of a nation-state in the perspective of an international setting, but is also the outcome of the interaction and influences of a variety of individuals, organisations and host of administrative agencies and institutions dealing with different subjects having far-reaching implications for foreign policy, aims and goals. Almost all countries of the world establish a nodal agency often called the Foreign Office, Department of States, Ministry of External Affairs, etc., which does most to initiate,

manage and coordinate the efforts of all such institutions to prescribe and achieve the objectives of its foreign policy.

In India such an agency is known as the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which has been one of the key and most important Ministry in the entire governmental system. This chapter is concerned with the study of the organisation and functioning of the Ministry of External Affairs and the role that it plays in conducting the foreign affairs of the Government of India and its relationship with other organisations and agencies, which in one way or the other influence the foreign policy processes. It does not however, purport to be a comprehensive or a critical study of all the processes of foreign policy-making, or the decision-making in the MEA, or the various issues of Indian Foreign Policy, but reflects on the composite role that the

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MEA plays in relation to the conduct of India's international relations.

I. EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

The evolution of the present Ministry of External Affairs in India can be traced back to the times of East India Company's rule during the 18th century, when the affairs of the foreign nations in India formed part of the business of the Secret Department of the Supreme Government. Following the Charter Act of 1833, a separate Secretariat for the Government of India was set up in 1843, consisting of four departments including Foreign Department, which consisted of Political, Foreign and Secret Branches. With the introduction of the portfolio system, in 1859, the members of the Executive Council of the Governor-General of India were for the first time put in change of various departments, and the charge of the Foreign Department was retained by the Governor-General himself.

In 1914, the Department was renamed as Foreign and Political Department, consisting of two branches, the Political Branch and the Foreign Branch. The former dealt with matters relating to or emanating from the Indian princely states and the areas outside India, which were administered by the Government of India. The latter branch was responsible for matters pertaining to the frontiers of India, the territories outside India, etc. The branches were headed by separate secretaries. In 1937, the two branches emerged as the Political Department and the External Affairs Department.1

The work relating to the Indians overseas, was however, placed under another Department which was headed by an Indian. The subject was dealt within a Section, first in the Education Department and then

in the composite Department of Education, Health and Lands. The Indian Overseas Section was hived off from the Department of Education, Health and Lands, at the time of its trifurcating in 1945. The Section was entrusted with the additional work connected with the country's relationship with Burma (now Mynamar) and other ruled territories and was designated as the Commonwealth Relations Department.2

Until the time of formation of Interim Government before

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Independence in 1946, India's relations with foreign countries were, thus, dealt with by two departments, viz. the External Affairs Department and the Commonwealth Relations Department. The need was then felt for having a singular Department to conduct India's foreign relations, whether with the Commonwealth nations or with others. The change was brought about in the middle of 1947, when the two Departments were merged to form the Department of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations in August 1947, after India gained Independence.

The Ministry of External Affairs took over the subject ' external publicity' from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in 1948. In March 1949, the appendage ' Commonwealth Relations' was dropped and the Ministry was renamed as the Ministry of External Affairs. Excepting for some minor changes here and there, and setting of some new divisions due to the increase in its functions, the Ministry has not gone any basic structural changes since then, despite the wide scope of its activities in the present times.

II. FUNCTIONS OF THE MINISTRY OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

The Ministry of External Affairs is responsible for a variety of functions. Apart from the core responsibility of conducting external affairs and relations with foreign states and Commonwealth countries, the Ministry has jurisdiction over all matters affecting foreign diplomatic and Consular Officers and UN Officers and its specialised agencies in India; Passports and visas excluding the grant of visas or endorsements for entry into India; Extradition of criminals and accused persons from India to foreign and Commonwealth countries and vice versa, and general administration of the Indian Extradition Act, 1903 (XV of 1903), and extra territoriality; Preventive detention in India for reasons of State connected with External and Commonwealth Affairs; Repatriation of the nationals of foreign and Commonwealth States from India and deportation and repatriation of Indian nationals of foreign and Commonwealth countries to India; All emigration under the Indian Emigration Act, 1922, from India to Overseas countries and the return of

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emigrants; immigration to India from the Union of South Africa or any other country to which the Reciprocity Act may apply; and All Consular functions.3

The Ministry also looks after the travel arrangements for traders, muleteers, porters and pilgrims from India to Tibet region of China (Mansarovar) and vice versa; Liaison work connected with the Education Ministry's cultural scholarships schemes and nomination of private students of Indian origin domiciled abroad to reserve seats in medical and engineering colleges in India; the political pensions paid to foreign refugees and descendants of those who rendered services abroad; Ceremonial matters relating to foreign and Commonwealth Visitors and Diplomatic and Consular Representatives; Himalayan expeditions and permission to foreigners to travel beyond the " Inner Line" ; Coordination and development measures in border areas; and United Nations, Specialised Agencies and other International Conferences. In its housekeeping functions, the Ministry has control over Indian Foreign Services Branch ' B' ; External Publicity; Political treaties, agreements and conventions with foreign and Commonwealth countries.

The Ministry has also responsibilities over pilgrimages to places outside India including the administration of the Port Haj Committee Act, 1932 and the Rules made thereunder and Indian Pilgrim Ships Rules, 1933, and pilgrim parties from India to shrines in Pakistan and vice versa and protection and preservation of non-Muslim shrines in Pakistan and Muslims shrines in India in terms of Pant-Mirza Agreement of 1955; Abducted Persons (Recovery and Restoration); Evacuation of non-Muslims from Pakistan to India; Protection of rights of the Minority Communities in India and Pakistan (except rehabilitation of Muslim migrants who have returned from East Pakistan to West Bengal under the Nehru-Liaquat Pact; rehabilitation of Muslims internally displaced in West Bengal at the time of communal disturbances on the partition of the country; and restoration of mosques and other places of religious worship to Muslims in West Bengal); Non-Muslim migration from Pakistan and Muslim migration from India; Recovery of advances granted to the evacuees from Burma, Malaya, etc., during the years 1942-47 and residual work

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relating to refugees given asylum in India during World War II.

The Ministry issues notification regarding commencement or cessation of a state of war and deals with piracies and crimes committed on the high seas or in the air; offences against the law of nations committed on land or the High Seas or in the Air; Inquiries and statistics for the purposes of any of the subjects allotted to this Ministry; Fees in respect of any of the subjects allotted to this Ministry; Offences against laws with respect to any of the subjects allotted to this Ministry; Hospitality grant of the Government of India; Demarcation of the land frontier of India; Border raids and incidents on the land borders of India.

The Ministry accords diplomatic flight clearances for non-scheduled chartered flights of foreign civil and military aircraft transiting India and overseas matters relating to the Continental Shelf, Territorial Waters, Contiguous Zone and question of fishery rights in the High Seas and other questions of International Law; Economic and technical assistance given by India to the Government of Nepal under the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic Development.4

III. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

After Independence in 1947, since the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru was also the External Affairs Minister and therefore, it was considered desirable to have a senior officer as the administrative head of the Foreign office to supervise and coordinate the activities of the Ministry and to advise the Prime Minister on policy matters. From 1947 until the death of Nehru in 1964, the Ministry of External Affairs was headed by a Secretary General. When Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded Nehru, he appointed Swaran Singh as a whole-time Foreign Minister, and therefore there was no longer any need for a Secretary-General. The last incumbent of the post also retired the same year, whereupon the post was abolished. The political head of the Ministry at present is the Minister for External Affairs, assisted by one or at times two Minister of State for External Affairs, and the administrative head is known as the Foreign Secretary.

The organisational structure of the Ministry has

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considerably increased since the last fifty-four years of India's Independence. Beginning with one Secretary-General and two Secretaries, the Ministry is now headed by a Foreign Secretary, and has four Secretaries and three Additional Secretaries. The Secretaries supervise the basic organisation of the Ministry of External Affairs, consisting of 31 Divisions, which can be broadly classified as territorial, functional and administrative. Each division is headed by a Joint Secretary or a Director (who has a lower rank than the Joint Secretary), depending upon its size and importance. Currently, the different divisions

can be classified under three categories: (a) Territorial Divisions, (b) Specialised Divisions, and (c) Administrative Support Divisions.

A. Territorial Divisions

The following are the Territorial Divisions in the Ministry of External Affairs. Each Division is responsible for the work related to its territorial jurisdiction:

1. Africa,

2. Americas (AMS),

3. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Maldives (BSM),

4. Central Asia (CA),

5. East Asia (EA),

6. Europe East (EE),

7. Europe West (EW),

8. GULF (Gulf and Haj),

9. Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan (IPA),

10. Latin America and Caribbean (LAC),

11. Northern (Nepal and Bhutan),

12. Southern, and

13. West Asia and North Africa (WANA).

B. Specialised (Functional) Divisions

The Specialised Divisions are those which perform special functions relating to the conduct of foreign affairs and formulation and implementation of foreign policy. The following are the Specialised Divisions in the MEA:

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1. Coordination,

2. Consular (Consular, Passport and visa and overseas Indian Cell),

3. Economic and ITEC (Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation),

4. External Publicity,

5. Foreign Service Institute (FSI),

6. Investment Publicity Unit,

7. Legal and Treaties (L&T),

8. Multilateral Economic Relations,

9. Policy Planning and Research,

10. Protocol (including Conference Division),

11. SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation),

12. Special Unit,

13. United Nations, and

14. Special Kuwait Cell.

C. Administrative Support Divisions

1. Administration,

2. Bureau of Security (BoS),

3. Establishment, and

4. Finance.

In addition to three Divisions, the MEA has under its control about 203 Embassies and Missions spread out in different parts of the world. The Ministry not only looks after the House-Keeping and maintenance functions of these field offices, but has important role in interpreting, evaluating and collating various inputs provided by them in foreign policy processes.

As could be seen from the above description, the Ministry of External Affairs is responsible for the work connected with foreign affairs, consular representations, Indian Foreign Service, emigration, passport and visas, etc. At the same time it also administers various laws such as Indian Emigration Act (1972), Reciprocity Act (1943), etc. It discharges its functions through various modes like political, economic, military and cultural diplomacy and performing functions like propaganda, intelligence, policy planning, personnel planning and coordination.

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IV. THE ROLE OF THE MEA

In the discharge of its functions, the MEA performs different types of roles, which may be categorised as political diplomacy, economic diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, military diplomacy, policy planning and research, coordination, etc.

Political Diplomacy : The Role of the MEA

Basically, with regard to the conduct of political diplomacy and as a source of input in foreign policy-making, the MEA performs three important functions:

(a) Reporting,

(b) Processing of Information, which includes, collecting, collating and evaluating all the empirical data and assessments received from various resources and transforming these into concise, coordinated and readable beliefs, and

(c) Advising, which is usually done by the Heads of Indian Missions abroad on imminent urgent matters or senior officers, usually the Foreign Secretary on a continuing basis.5

One of the pre-requisite of conducting political diplomacy and foreign policy-making in any country is the availability of accurate and detailed information regarding general international situation and political and economic developments in all parts of the world. The gathering, collating and an objective evaluation of information constitutes the basic task of the Ministry. The primary duty of the MEA is to maintain a continuous supply of information to those in the position to give shape to foreign policy perspectives by means of accurate and perceptive reports on current events and interpretative advice and analysis. The various Embassies and Missions of India located in different parts of the world serve the eyes and ears of the Government and policy perspectives are developed on the monopoly and special reports sent by the Missions and India's representatives in the UN and other international organisations and agencies from time to time. Simultaneously a great deal of diplomatic activity takes place

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on the basis of specific and special communications from the Heads of Missions to the Foreign Secretary of the MEA in the semi-official letters or confidential classified communications. However, in recent times there has been a substantial decline in the importance of political reporting because of the phenomenal expansion and development of international press, spectacular and revolutionary changes in the information technology by means of satellite channels, electronic internet modes and the advent of open or democratic diplomacy through Summit meetings or negotiations between the Heads of States or the Foreign Ministers through international conferences. In the changed circumstances, the more important function of the foreign missions abroad is to provide on objective assessment of the political situation or developments based on local observations from India's points of view. It is thus necessary to reduce the staff connected with political reporting in the missions abroad and increase that of research and planning units at the MEA. Unfortunately, the functioning, structure and compositions of the MEA's field offices do not so far indicate the necessary rethinking on the part of the MEA. A good deal of superfluous political reporting often based on local newspaper reports, goes on all the time and relatively little attention is paid to the study and assessment of the political situation by these offices.6

A good deal of diplomatic activity also takes place through the foreign missions located in New Delhi. Personal discussions and exchange of views on various international problems, delivery of important letters from their governments, submitting Notes of Protest, Notes Verbale, Aides Memories, etc. and other representations of various descriptions made at the MEA by foreign missions in New Delhi, constitute an important source of raw-material for the making of foreign policy. In addition, the MEA also receives a certain amount of information through its covert intelligence system, which sometimes gives the government a deeper insight into a political crisis in a foreign state and in theory at least constitutes a valuable supplement to the overt information received from other sources. The processing of information into concise, coordinated and rationale brief or policy position papers on specific international problem, on each state and region is the

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task of the MEA, which involves three inter-related functions of documentation and research, evaluation and coordination.

Until recently this main function of MEA was performed by the Historical Division, which was merged in 1966, into the newly formed Policy Planning and Review Division. During the period 1947-64, when Nehru was both the Prime Minister and the Minister of External Affairs, his individual role was most dominating in his pre-conceived opinions on matters of foreign policy, but after his death in the post-Nehru era no foreign minister or even when the Prime Minister himself or herself was the Minister for External Affairs, had such a predominant vision of India's foreign policy goals, the role of Foreign Secretary became more important because of more frequent consultations by the Minister for External Affairs with the senior officers of the MEA. Although it had been a welcome new development, but excessive reliance on advice from below on the part of Foreign Minister has led to the loss of bold initiatives on his part in the making of foreign policy.

The MEA and its officials—the bureaucracy within thus perform the task of not only taking a vast majority of decisions of a routinised and non-innovative character on a day-to-day basis, but is also responsible for defining the broad fundamentals of highly controversial and political decisions, which are formally taken by the political executive. To perform these tasks effectively, the network of bureaucracy in the MEA has grown considerable during the last fifty years. The current strength of foreign service officers serving at the head quarters and abroad is around 3,5807 This quantitative expansion has resulted in the increase of diplomatic missions from 104 in 1970-71 to 129 in 1976-77 and to 140 in 1990-91. At present the total number of missions abroad are 203.8 The Ministry's image within the country is generally favourable, as there has been no major criticism either in the press or by any political parties, except that it has been sometimes attacked for its bureaucratic attitude, shortcomings, errors and even for its haughtiness particularly the treatment meted out to the Indian citizens visiting Indian missions abroad.9 But its work or the expansion of its work has really never been challenged.10

However, in recent years the role of the MEA in foreign affairs has been somewhat declining. It no longer remains the

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sole centre for decision-making in foreign policy. Because of factors like the importance of covert international information, the increasing globalisation of India's economy, and the accretion of India's involvement in foreign affairs, bilateral, multi-lateral and global aspects of international relations, and many conflict situations like constituting peace-keeping forces in many parts of the world under the UN aegis or bilateral involvement in Sri Lanka's ethnic dispute (Indian Peace-Keeping Forces (IPKF) in Sri Lanka), has brought into limelight the role of many other institutions and organisations in foreign affairs.

Within the Ministry itself, the Policy Planning and Review Committee, established in 1966, presided over by the Foreign Secretary has emerged as the core agency for greater coordination. Among its members are the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Secretary of the Minister of Commerce. Besides whenever foreign policy matters concerning other Ministries of the Government are discussed, the Secretaries of those Ministries are co-opted as members. The powers of the MEA have been further eroded with the establishment of the Prime Minister's Secretariat, the office of the Prime Minister (PMO), and since the time of Lal Bahadur Shastri's Prime Ministership (1964-66) its growing importance as a critical centre of decision-making in foreign policy. The establishment of a larger National Security Agency (NSA, discussed later in this chapter) whose advisory council is expected to contain an array of personalities representing different functions and even professions is likely to make a further dent in the role of the MEA as being the centre-stage in foreign policy-making.

However, the most important development diluting the role of the MEA has been the emergence of economic dimension as the key aspect of international relations. The growing liberalisation, the advent of market economy and its globalisation has made economic diplomacy as the main fulcrum of India's foreign policy. It has not only resulted in the strengthening of the Ministry's economic wing, but has also increased the powers of other economic ministries."

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Economic Diplomacy

Basically, the MEA plays an important promotional, facilitating and enabling role in India's efforts to project and promote abroad her economic capabilities and interests— bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally. The Economic Division and the Multi-lateral Economic Division (MED) provide key inputs for India's economic policy-making in terms of gleaning the relevant experiences of other countries and institutions.. In the emergence of the new phase of intense international economic interaction, the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of which India became founder member, the on-going review of the Bretton Woods Institutions—the IMF and World Bank—as well as the economic role and functions of the UN, the evolution of G-7 as well as G-77 perspectives, the consolidation and formation of regional economic groupings, like South Asian Free Trade Association (SAFTA) under the

aegis of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SARRC), and economic interaction with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the MEA has come to perform an important role in ascertaining positions and rallying support on issues of vital interest to the present and future growth and well-being of the Indian economy.

In its informational role, the MEA responds to enquiries from Indian Missions and provide them the informational wherewithal to carry out their economic and commercial functions effectively. It also participates actively in trade promotion efforts of Government and industry particularly in terms of informing and catalysing participation of foreign business in Indian Trade Fairs and Indian business in foreign trade fairs, and through seminars, road shows, buyer-seller meets, etc. It also contributes to crisis management as well as crisis prevention on a number of trade-related problems affecting India's exports and inputs, e.g. countering perception about some of India's export sectors using child labour in its products, linking up India's Small Scale Industry (SSI) with successful Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in other countries, and stimulating private sector initiative for SSI cooperation with countries in Africa and South-East Asia.

The Economic Division of the MEA is associated with a number of economic policy bodies of the Government of India,

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whether it be of inter-ministerial nature or on the boards of public sector undertakings/industry associations. Following the Pillai Committee Report of 1966, which showed considerable awareness of the need for a re-orientation of the work of the Foreign Service in terms of foreign economic relations, necessary steps were taken to expand the Economic Division, which at present is headed by a Secretary (ER) assisted by two Joint Secretaries and several other officials and a relatively large research staff. In addition, a number of senior economic and commercial posts especially designated as economic and commercial counsellors have been created abroad in several important missions. However, the recent trends in most other countries to the opening up of economic posts abroad or in the Ministry to persons outside the Foreign Service, like business executives, and University Economists or associating economic experts from various fields with the MEA in the advisory capacity has found little support with the mandarins of the MEA in India. Even the participation of the members of the Indian Economic Service is found wanting.

The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme is the primary instrument for promoting technical and economic cooperation with developing countries on official bilateral basis. In September 1995, the ITEC Programme, Special Commonwealth African Assistance Programme (SCAAP)

and Aid to Disaster Relief were hived off from the Economic Division so as to give greater focus on India's economic diplomacy by expanding and broadening India's Economic Cooperation with Developing Countries (ECDC) and Technical Cooperation with Developing Countries (TCDC) activities under ITEC and SCAAP Programmes.12 Thus, with the growing importance of economic component in India's foreign policy, economic issues have become important and will continue to attract greater attention of the MEA in the times to come.

Trade and Investment Promotion

India launched its economic reforms programme towards liberalisation and globalisation in July 1991, which brought out wide ranging changes affecting virtually every sector of the economy. With this development the MEA has also been concerned with playing an active role in facilitating the process

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and projecting the India advantage and mutual benefit to her trade and investment partners abroad. The Ministry's investment promotion exercise includes dissemination of sector specific information, in collaboration with concerned Ministries, preparation of a composite brochure like " India means Business" , and " India-Business Perspectives" external economic publicity, preparing diskettes on the profile of Indian economy, utilising opportunities of visiting foreign Heads of State, Government and other dignitaries, Ministers and prominent economic personalities to highlight the opportunities for economic collaboration and business tie-ups. In the discharge of these responsibilities, the MEA maintains close liaison with the concerned Ministries/Departments of the Government of India, the apex chambers of Commerce and Industry and various think tanks and industrial research organisations like Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and Indian Investment Centre (IIC). It is also closely involved in various investment promotion seminars organised in India by other Ministerial as well as apex chambers and other economic organisations, like INVESTMART organised in 1996 by the Ministry of Industry in collaboration with the UNIDO.

Cultural Diplomacy

The post-World War II era has seen increasing reliance of governments on cultural diplomacy as a means not only to project their cultural image and traditions abroad, but also to strengthen cultural relations between countries to promote tourism and establish points of contacts between academics, scientists, technologists and artists for mutual advantage and gains in India. The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) was formally set up in 1950 as an autonomous institution first under the then Ministry of Education and later under the aegis of the MEA with the primary objective of establishing, reviving and strengthening cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries.

The main activities of the Council are: Administration of scholarship schemes on behalf of the Government of India for international students; Exchange of scholars, academicians, opinion-makers, artists and writers; Exchange of exhibitions; Exchange of performing arts groups; Organisation of and

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participation in seminars and symposia; Administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award; Organisation of the Maulana Azad Memorial Lecture and the Maulana Azad Essay Competition; Maintaining Indian Cultural Centres abroad and supporting special bilateral programmes; Establishing and maintaining Chairs and Professorships for India Studies abroad; presentation of books, publications and musical instruments, etc.13

All major cultural activities with the foreign countries are channelled by the MEA through the ICCR, which has cultural centres in Georgetown (Guyana), Faramshibe (Surinam); Moscow (Russia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Port Louis (Mauritius), Berlin (Germany), Cairo (ARE) and London (UK). However, in many other important countries like Iran, Uzbekistan, France, the United States, Japan, Nigeria, etc., there are no cultural centres to inculcate friendly relations with these countries, where the work is more or less discharged by a Cultural Attache working in the Indian Mission. Recently, the Estimates Committee of the Indian Parliament recommended the establishment of more cultural centres in such countries, and the appointment of an eminent public figure proficient in the field of art and literature as the Director General of the ICCR selected in consultation with the Minister of Culture, instead of a Joint Secretary from the MEA, which has been the practice hitherto.14

Military Diplomacy

As foreign policy of a nation is closely linked with its defence policies, the conduct of foreign affairs does involve some military aspects. Despite the fact that India has not been involved in any military pacts, alliances or counter alliances, invariably, however, it has been unwittingly dragged into three wars (four wars if Kargil war of 1999 is also counted) on its borders, and has to depend for purchase of defence material and military equipment from abroad, as also to carry on the mandate of the United Nations in constituting peace-keeping military forces. The political ' and military issues become interconnected. The MEA has, therefore, to perform some functions of military diplomacy, which can be classified into (a) strategic, (b) operational, and (c) observational.15

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The strategic functions relate to the nature, direction, magnitude of possible threats to the state's security, and global military-cum-political issues affecting India's national interests like regional military alliances, control of nuclear weapons, disarmament, and collective security. Although the ultimate responsibility of strategic decision-making lies with the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees of the Cabinet, and of the Cabinet itself, but the MEA has a specific responsibility for evaluating the impact of global politics, military developments on India's national interest. During Nehru's times, because of his strong and dominating position in world affairs and Indian foreign policy, no institutional set up for politico military planning or implementation of such strategies was set up. This aspect has even been largely ignored in the post-Nehru era. The efforts towards the establishment of a National Security Council described below is intended to fill this great void. Till such time this becomes a real effective institution, the MEA has to rely upon the work of its own services or Military Attaches sent by the Ministry of Defence in some of the selected Embassies and missions, who although work under the Ambassadors or heads of these missions, but report directly to the Ministry of Defence. A regular system of coordinated evaluation of reports by the MEA and the Ministry of Defence, training of young foreign service officers in military diplomacy and the induction of outside experts at the senior levels is urgently needed for a satisfactorily conduct of military diplomacy.

Intelligence

As political and military diplomacy are intertwined, the foreign policy making of any country is also based upon accurate and prompt intelligence available to the concerned decision-makers. Unfortunately, India has been one of the countries, which has to suffer heavily due to the lack of intelligence information, particularly in India's debacle over Sino-India border war in 1962. Public outcry over this issue had prompted the political leadership to restructure the Indian intelligence service into two separate organisations. While the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which already existed before it was made responsible for dealing with domestic intelligence, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was established on 1

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October 1968 with assigned task of monitoring all aspects of foreign intelligence. Initially, it was put under the Minister of Home Affairs, but later formed part of the Cabinet Secretariat. RAW collects overt information either through research, or through its agents or its external network and evaluates information and passes it on in a few select decision-makers. RAW also plays an operational role and carries out training programmes of persons, or groups of persons, who are finally used to advance a specific aspect of India's foreign policy.16

Although stripped of its powers after Emergency in 1977, RAW has considerably grown and acquired more powers, because of its growing professionalism in establishing a wide international network and it being brought directly under control of the Prime Minister's Secretariat. Besides RAW, there are other intelligence agencies like the Military, Naval and Air Intelligence Directorates, and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The Military Intelligence (MI), together with the IB and RAW constitute a Joint Intelligence Committee, which has somewhat suffered a decline in recent years. Although in the absence of any concrete evidence it is difficult to measure the exact level and quality of influence that RAW has made on the foreign policy-making processes in India, there is no doubt, however, that it has emerged as the most important and effective institution in feeding the MEA with information which is sometimes not available from overt sources.

The National Security Council

During the present decade a proposal for the setting up of a National Security Council (NSC) has been frequently mooted by practically all political parties or coalition of political parties at the helm of the Government. A Security Council is required to consider the external threat scenario and take a medium and long-term view on the subject taking into account strategic defence policies. It is argued that in these days of globalisation and integration with the world markets there are likely security threats in areas involving telecommunications, space and high technology, food security and energy. These are aside from the traditional subjects such as internal security covering such areas as counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence. The security implications of evolving trends in the

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world economy on India's economic and foreign policies, external economic threats in areas such as energy, commerce, food and finance, trans-border crimes such as smuggling and traffic in arms, drugs and narcotics need to be evaluated both on long-term and short-term basis. While there is some coordinated planning in some areas, there are still no means for a comprehensive and wide ranging analysis of all the factors which can have an impact on country's security and national interests. Indian administration has come to rely on fire-fighting methods of tackling problems only when they begin to take a serious turn. In this approach long-term measures are rarely applied or thought of. The necessity of coordinated planning and analysis cannot therefore be wished away. An NSC need not duplicate the planning process already in place, but can evolve its own methods of working without disturbing the present set up.17

No decisions were taken by the V.P. Singh Government in 1989-90, when the proposal was first made or by the subsequent Governments of Narasimha Rao (1991-95), United Front Governments led by Deve Gowda (1995-97) and later by Inder Kumar Gujral (1997-98), as there have been a number of

controversies surrounding its constitution and functions.18 However, the present BJP Government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee constituted a three-member Task Force on 4 April 1998 under the chairmanship of former Defence Minister K.C. Pant, with Jaswant Singh, the Deputy-Chairman of the Planning Commission, and Jasjit Singh, Director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis to go into the role and constitution of the NSC . The Task Force recommended that the National Security Council be formed on a priority basis and should consist of a Cabinet Committee of National Security headed by the Prime Minister in order to undertake long-term strategic planning, formation of a national security strategy, coordination of current decision-making and intelligence assessment. The proposed council should have a National Security Adivsor with the rank of a Cabinet Minister to assist the Prime Minister.19

Stating that the need for the NSC had become " more pressing" after the nuclear test of Pokhran II, the report says that the national security should not only be viewed in military

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terms but should also cover the broad spectrum of domestic peace, economic well-being and financial viability, trade policy, technological strength and foreign policy. This suggestion was made as the Task Force felt that the national security management requires integrated thinking and coordinated application of political, military, diplomatic, scientific and technological resources of the State to protect and promote national security goals and objectives. However, the proposed NSC, as seen by the Task Force in the Indian context, would function within the Government and would be answerable to the Cabinet and the Parliamentary system.

On the constitution of the proposed NSC, the Task Force in its report has suggested that the Cabinet Committee of National Security, presided over by the Prime Minister, should be the apex body of decision-making. The organisation below that level would include a National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and three other divisions. The divisions will undertake long-term strategic planning and formulation of strategy of national security; coordination of current decision-making and follow-up of policy implementation and coordinated intelligence assessment for national security planning and management. These three wings of the proposed NSC would have a system of boards to examine options and adopt an integrated approach to planning, coordination and intelligence assessments. Each such wing would be provided with small officer-oriented secretariats for analysis and coordination support.

It seems that the Task Force has made a conscious effort to keep the size of the proposed organisation to a minimum with greater emphasis on modern information technology and office management systems for greater security and efficiency.20

The proposed NSC, though formally announced in 1998 was constituted through a government resolution only on April 16, 1999. It is a committee of five cabinet ministers (Prime Minister, Minister of external affairs, defence, home and finance) and the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission with the National Security Adviser (NSA) as the channel for servicing the NSC. The role of the council is to advise the government on integrated thinking and coordinated application of the political, military, diplomatic, scientific and technological

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resources of the state to protect and promote national security goals and objectives. However, its roles comes into conflict with that of a Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS), which consists of five cabinet ministers who are also members of the NSC. The cabinet committee, as a decision-making body in respect of current issues, meets as often as necessary. The NSA attends it in his capacity as principal secretary to the Prime Minister. No wonder the council has not so far (until October 2000) met even once. Since there does not appear to be a clear understanding of the two different and distinct role of the CCNS and NSC, observers have questioned the existence of two different bodies. Either the NSC should be abolished or the CCNS be renamed the NSC. If the NSA is to perform its expected role, it is argued that it should immediately by provided with a dedicated secretariat, staffed by specialists in different disciplines and a full time NSA. The NSC needs long-term assessments on all its areas of responsibility and specialists to produce desired policy inputs.21

Policy Planning and Research

Policy Planning and Research is one of the core Divisions in the MEA, which is actively engaged in preparing briefs, background papers on important topics/issues in the rapidly changing international situation covering issues of medium and long-term interest to India's foreign policy and immediate reaction to unfolding events. It also serves as the nodal point for interaction with Joint Intelligence Committee, the University Grants Commission and its affiliates and Area Study Centres attached to various universities. It also extends financial support to institutions in different parts of the country for conducting seminars and conferences on important policy issues and also finances study and research projects undertaken by scholars and academic organisations on subjects relevant to MEA. In addition it has also the responsibility for scrutinising foreign publications both official and private, for any incorrect depiction of India's international boundaries, and maintains a library equipped with modern information

technology equipments and with large resource material, which provides various documentation, bibliographical and other information services.

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In recent years there had been an increasing tendency everywhere to ensure frequent association of experts and specialists with administrators and diplomats in both formulating and implementing policy processes. Special skills and technical knowledge are required concerning such subjects as foreign economic policy, press relations, legal aspects of the policies of specialised topics such as sea bed and intricacies of disarmament. However, in the Indian administrative system, association of such outside experts on a continuous basis in the foreign policy-making process or even in other policy-making arenas is an exception rather than an accepted practice. The civil service system in India with the Indian Administrative Service (a generalist service being on the top) does not provide opportunities for induction of such specialists in the actual planning or implementation of public policies, more so in the MEA, which still operates in a conservative environ of ' mystery' and ' secrecy' . Sometimes even the association of well-known experts as personal adviser to the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister in the MEA becomes a highly volatile political issue. In 1996, the association of Professor Bhawani Sen Gupta, a veteran academic, formerly of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and from the Centre for Policy Research had raised such a controversy that Mr. Inder Kumar Gujral, the then Prime Minister was compelled to revoke his appointment as Principal Foreign Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister.

In a recent review (1994) of the MEA, the Estimates Committee of the Indian Parliament expressed concern at the downgrading of the Policy Planning Division, being headed by a Joint Secretary incharge reporting to Additional Secretary, which previously was being headed by eminent personalities and at one stage by persons with the status of Minister of State/ Cabinet Minister. The Committee strongly recommended that the Division needs to be strengthened suitably both in terms of manpower and equipment. At the same time it strongly urged to expeditiously implement a suggestion made by a former Foreign Secretary to establish a Policy Planning Board consisting of 12 to 15 eminent experts drawn from outside the Government to advise the Government on Foreign Policy matters.22

The only outcome of these suggestions has been that the

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Policy Planning Division is now headed by an Additional Secretary reporting directly to the Foreign Secretary. The proposal for an Advisory Board still remains to be implemented. In January 1995, a report submitted by the Indian Foreign Service Association to the MEA suggested that Foreign Service Institute

be upgraded with an Academy, with IFS officials, and other professionals as faculty members, which should link its training programmes at all levels with similar institutions abroad. But the recommendation has not been acted upon so far.23

However, the policy cell of the division strike remains down-graded and in doldrums. In fact, the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs in its 1998 Report recommended the setting up of a Research Policy Cell on an urgent body' s, but the NSA has not bothered to follow up this suggestion. As a former diplomat observes, perhaps the government is not keen to listen to professional inputs and honest and independent views on foreign policy issues, and hence this inaction.24

Problem of Coordination

Along with establishing an integrated forward looking foreign-policy planning and formulation process, the MEA faces a bigger challenge of coordination between it and other important concerned ministries like Defence, Commerce, Foreign Trade, Information and Broadcasting, Finance, Atomic Energy, Education and Home Affairs. The principles of inter-ministerial coordination were laid down by the Pillai Committee Report of 1966, which placed the responsibility of consulting with other ministries solely on the Foreign Office. At present; there is no well-defined procedure for coordination of work between the MEA and other ministries. The Cabinet Secretariat and the various standing and sub-committees like the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committees of the Cabinet do at times ensure a modicum of coordination between the concerned ministries and the MEA, but the arrangement is far from satisfactory, which reflects only a kind of adhocism on the part of the decision-makers. In the context of growing complexities of international relations, liberalisation, globalisation and economic and political regionalisation, it is of utmost importance that some kind of an institution on the lines

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of a Foreign Policy Planning Council be established for this purpose or the functions be entrusted to a Policy Planning Board suggested above.25

V. THE LEADERSHIP FACTOR : THE PRIME MINISTER, FORE MINISTER, THE PARLIAMENT AND THE MEA

In the realm of foreign policy process, the leadership style of the Foreign Minister, his relations and equation with the Prime Minister and the political support with which he presides over the MEA, along with his own ideological postures and orientation in foreign policy matter, are important elements in the outcome of particular policies. In a parliamentary form of government, although the cabinet is the ultimate decision-making authority, which in foreign affairs functions through a Foreign Affairs Sub-

Committee, but many of the foreign policy pronouncements depend upon the personality and interests of the Prime Minister and his interests in foreign affairs. So long as Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister, the Cabinet was over-shadowed as far as foreign affairs were concerned. Since he was his own Foreign Minister, the role of the Cabinet in foreign policy-making was negligible. Nehru entrusted the administration of foreign policy to the members of the ICS and princes of the former native states, and had little time to supervise and control the administration of foreign policy. Nehru drew his intellectual and political inspiration from his own extensive knowledge of history, politics and international relations. Although a great visionary, he was undoubtedly the sole architect of India's foreign policy, but he failed to give the nation an institutional framework for administration and implementation of his bold and visionary policies. Nehru continued both idealism and realism in his foreign policy postures, but his tendency to make an initial idealistic commitment has been described as the " Nehruvian art of foreclosing the government's freedom of action and policy in the future.26 In retrospect the nation had to pay a very heavy price of such idealistic decisions and pronoucements in the post-Nehru era and even during Nehru's time itself.

A number of Foreign Ministers have presided over the destiny of the MEA after Nehru's death, except in the brief

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period of I.K. Gujral's Prime Ministership (1996-97), when he himself was his own Foreign Minister. A systematic attempt had been made in the post-Nehru era to develop the institutions necessary for the detailed formulation and implementation of foreign policy. The Policy Planning and Review Division, the Policy Planning and Review Committee, the Economic Division, the Coordination Division, the research units of the various territorial and Functional Divisions, the new set-up for external intelligence, and the various new institutions as discussed above have come into existence or become activised in the post-Nehru era. In the process, the bureaucracy of the South Block (the Head Quarters of MEA), dominated by the members of the prestigious Indian Foreign Service an elite corps of public services in India had become quite powerful with regard to their policy-making and advisory role of the MEA. Although there have been occasions when the bureaucracy has been publicly rebuffed by a highly individualistic and impulsive Prime Minister basking in the glory of the greatest ever parliamentary majority of his party (e.g., the public dismissal of the Foreign Secretary A.P. Venkataswaran by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1987), the major foreign policy decisions in Rajiv Gandhi's time were taken by him with heavy infrastructural support from his own secretariat, RAW and some of his close political advisers whom he had brought in from outside.27 It was since this time that the impact of Prime Minister's Office (the PMO) began to be effectively felt on the foreign policy processes and initiatives. During V.P. Singh's tenure as Prime Minister (1989-90), decision-making process in foreign affairs was decentralised and the Foreign Minister and his Ministry had gained a virtual autonomy to take a wide range of foreign policy decisions. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister (1991-96) had great interest in foreign affairs and

contributed greatly to the decision-making process although his political position was as uncertain and weak as that of Morarji Desai, V.P. Singh, and Chandra Sekhar. After the change of government in 1996, both during Prime Minister Deva Gowda's short tenure (1996-97), when I.K. Gujral was the Foreign Minister and during the latter's own tenure as Prime Minister (1997-98), when he was his own Foreign Minister, he dominated the foreign affairs resulting in the pronoucement of the so-called

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" Gujral Doctrine" in foreign relations.

The present Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's position has been the most precarious one in terms of his political support and the stability of his government having the burden of leading a coalition government composed of 23 political parties markedly different in their interests and commitments. Notwithstanding the fact that he has reserved the portfolio of Foreign Minister to himself, he has relied much more on his own political advisers in his office (office of the Prime Minister). In the annoucement of Pokhran Nuclear Test-II on May 11, 1998, and India's Nuclear policy with considerable adverse reactions from within and outside India resulting in the extreme steps of economic sanctions imposed by the United States of America and Nuclear blast by Pakistan in retaliation, he has relied considerably on the advice of a former diplomat Brajesh Mishra, the Principal Secretary and the Head of the PMO, and his close aides Jaswant Singh, Chairman of the Planning Commission and political advisor Promod Mahajan in the PMOs office. Both Mishra and Jaswant Singh have now become the most authoritative voice on Indian foreign policy, who are often seen closeted with the Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath,28 and the Minister of State for foreign affairs Vijayraje Scindia. (Both the incumbents have now changed (October 2000), K. Raghunath was replaced by Lalit Mansingh (and now by Chokila Iyer, the first woman Foreign Secretary) and Vijayraje Scindia by Ajit Panja). Jaswant Singh has now become the Minister for External Affairs and Brajesh Mishra combines both the posts of National Security Advisor and Principal Secretary and Head of the PMO.

Apart from the leadership role of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister on the foreign policy processes, the legislative wing of the government, through its committees ranging from the Estimates Committees, Public Accounts Committees, Consultative Committees on Foreign Affairs and the recently established Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs have exercised a critical role influencing the acceptance and continuance of particular foreign policy postures. Although there is a difference of opinion as to the extent the legislature has provided the MEA with a quality public scrutiny of foreign policy either through a tug-of-war

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between the government or the opposition or through a consensus of what is politically feasible or whether the executive dominance over foreign policy-making is total, but the fact remains that parliamentary scrutiny and leadership in foreign and allied matters has been only marginal. There is a strong case in strengthening the role of the newly established Standing Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs to provide the necessary political support and guidance to the executive and the MEA in respect of foreign affairs rising above the narrow political partisan interests.29


The above analysis of the role and functions of the MEA clearly indicates the major landmarks and shifts in its evolution as an instrument for foreign policy-making and managing foreign affairs. As is evident, despite the dominant role that has been played by the political leadership in laying down the basic foreign policy objectives and goals, the MEA has been the core agency responsible for conducting the political, economic, military and cultural diplomacy around the world. In recent times it has emerged as the main institution handling all the bilateral and multilateral political and strategic negotiations with other countries, but most importantly in engaging itself in sorting out major economic and commercial interests of the nation in the changed environment of globalisation and liberalisation when the world has been reduced to the concept of a global village. The MEA has kept itself abreast of the changing international environment and has modified its organisation and work procedure from time to time to reflect the changing national interests and goals generated by the domestic and international pressures. As an agency it has done commendable work in negotiating with various international institutions and the numerous agencies and offices of the United Nations and sought to ensure that the Agenda of Development is not altered to the detriment of developing countries and that the significance of international cooperation in the transfer of resources is not lost sight of in the emphasis on national strategies. It has responded well to the demands of growing political and economic regionalisation and helped in

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establishing and maintaining numerous institutions under the aegis of Non-aligned Nations' movement, the interests of the southern countries, particularly in the implementation of Agenda 21 and meeting the challenges of environmental concern. It has helped in the successful establishment of the SARRC, SAFTA, and North-South Dialogue under the UNCTAD, GATT and the WTO. It has been manned by one of the most professional officers of the Indian Foreign Service, which has provided the backbone for its human resources. Despite the fact that in the process of its growth, it has had its share of ups and downs, and has sometimes faced unsurmountable problems of foreign policy planning and coordination with numerous domestic and foreign agencies, but in the end it has certainly emerged as the key institution in the management and control of foreign affairs. Notwithstanding the technological, information and communication revolutions, which have changed the character of modern world

politics and economy, and the art of diplomatic negotiations, the role of the MEA still cannot be undermined. Indeed it has become even more crucial in managing foreign relations in all these aspects.


1. For a critical background of the evolution of the Ministry of External Affairs, see Indian Institute of Public Administration, The Organisation of the Government of India (New Delhi, Somaiya Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1971), pp. 47-53.

2. Ibid.

3. See IIPA, Organisation of the Government of India, n. 1, pp. 48-99.

4. See Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, Report 1996-97 (New Delhi: 1997), Appendix I.

5. For details on this subject, see J. Bandopadhyaya, The Making of India's Foreign Policy: Determinants, Institutions, Processes and Personalities (Bombay, Allied Publishers, 1970), pp. 154-71.

6. Ibid. p. 162.

7. See Government of India, Minister of External Affairs, Report 1995-96 (New Delhi, 1996).

8. Ibid.

9. See Estimates Committee, 1994-95, 45th Report on Minister of External Affairs—Foreign Mission, 10th Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi, August 1994, Para 3.75.

10. Harish Kapur, India's Foreign Policy, 1947-92: Shadows and Substance

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(New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1994), p. 156.

11. Ibid., p. 158.

12. Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, Annual Report, 1995-96, p. 121.

13. Ministry of External Affairs, Annual Report, 1995-96 (New Delhi: Government of India, 1996), p. 154.

14. See Estimates Committee (1994-95), 45th Report on Ministry of External Affairs—Foreign Missions, 10th Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha Secretariat, August 1994, p. 105.

15. Bandhopadhyaya, n. 5, pp. 177-82.

16. See Kapur, n. 10, p. 172.

17. See Shubha Singh, " Need for a National Security Council" in Pioneer, 19 February 1998.

18. See, for example, Raja Menon, " Strategic Decision-Making" in The Hindustan Times, 30 July 1996, p. 11: 3-8, Jasjit Singh, " National Security: Internal and External Challenges" , 20 September 1996, p. 10: 3-5, B.S. Raghavan, " National Security" , The Hindu, 20 April 1998, Amulya Ganguli, " Strategic Fallacies" , The Hindustan Times, 29 June 1998, p. 13: 3-8. Editorial, " National Need" , The Times of India, 27 June 1998, p. 12: 9.

19. See The Hindustan Times, 27 June 1998, p. 1: 3-4.

20. Ibid.

21. See K. Subrahmanyam, " Stillborn NSC: No Culture of Strategic Thinking" in The Times of India, 14 November 2000.

22. Estimates Committee Report, n. 9, p. 110.

23. See Vinod Sharma, " IFS Introspect" , in The Hindustan Times, 26 June 1995, pp. 12-24.

24. See, The Times of India, Government and Business, 26 January 2001, p. 1: 2-8.

25. Bandhopadhyaya, n. 5, p. 222.

26. Quoted by Bandhopadhyaya, n. 5, p. 263.

27. Kapur, n. 10, p. 195.

28. See Saha Naqvi Bhaumik, " In the Court of Chief Atal Bihari Vajpayee" , in India Today, 15 June 1998.

29. On the effectiveness of Parliamentary Committees see, Arthur G. Rubinoft, " India's New Subject-based Parliamentary Committees" , Asian Survey, Vol. XXXVI, No. 7 (July 1996), pp. 723-37, and Subhash C. Kashyap, " Doing Without Secrecy" in The Hindustan Times, 16 November 1992, p. 13: 3-5. Also see, Manohar Lal Sondhi (ed.), Foreign Policy and Legislatures : An Analysis of Seven Parliaments (New Delhi: Abhinav Publishers, 1988), P.M. Kamath, " Foreign Policy Making in India : Need for a Committee System to Strengthen the Role of Parliament" in Strategic Analysis, May 1987, and Kapur, n. 10.

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13 Management of Environment*

During the last half a century, protection of environment has emerged as a major problem of present society. Man's desire for more joy and comfort has led him to exploit nature's free goods to the extent of reducing its natural capacities for self-stabilisation. Up to now, man has been indiscriminately manipulating the environment and nature to fulfil his narrow selfish interests. In the process he has sometimes left the environment so badly mauled and mutilated that it is proving harmful to the humanity itself. As a consequence of this outright disregard of the impact of those activities on the environment, a number of crucial problems and policy issues relating to protection and conservation of environment have arisen in almost all countries of the world. These issues had become one of the top priority items on the international agenda in the 1990s. These are also accepted as such by the government of most countries although many scholars argue that the issue of environmental protection after reaching its zenith in 1970s has started to lose its momentum in many developed countries. This may well be true in some, but

* This chapter is partly based on the author's earlier study : R. B. Jain and Kanchan Sharma, ' Implementation Machinery for Environmental Protection in India' in The Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 35, No. 3 (July-September 1989), pp. 405-421.

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perhaps not in all the advanced countries of the world. In the developing societies, such issues have only recently become true matters of grave concern giving rise to the problems of formulation and implementation of concerted policy and institutional strategies for constructing effective environmental protection and management systems. Despite the economic resource crunch and political instability, the developing countries are getting increasingly conscious about the environmental issues. Many of these countries today are engaged in enacting new environmental laws and establishing enforcement machinery and network for preventing environmental pollution and saving it from further degradation.

In India, people have been conscious about environmental problems ever since the vedic times. It is clearly mentioned in its ancient scriptures that nature and humankind (ie. prakriti and purush) form an inseparable part of the life support system. This system has five elements—air, water, land, flora and fauna—which are interconnected, interrelated and interdependent and have co-existed.1 All these have caused the problem of environment pollution.

However, in recent times, it is only since 1971 that the Government of India has taken commendable initiative to inject environmental considerations into the process of planning for national development. These include comprehensive preparatory activities for India's participation in the Stockholm Conference (1972): the setting up of National Committee on Environmental Planning and Coordination

(NCEPC), constitution of state environment committees, undertaking of environmental protection, formation, in November 1980, of a full-fledged Department of Environment (DOE) at the Center, programme for spread of environmental awareness through a spate of seminars, World Environment Day celebrations and eco-development laws. All of these are indicators of Government's recognition of the need to check environmental degradation, and to plan for environmentally sound development. Today India is one of the leading countries amongst the Third World to have institutionalised its environmental concerns in a big way, and that too within a span of only two decades since the Stockholm Conference of 1972,

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when the then prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi made the historic statement that ' poverty' was the worst pollution in the Third World Countries.2 Besides the various institutions that have been established by the Government of India since then more than 500 Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) are also dealing with the environmental issues today. In addition, legal disputes including court battles on environmental issues are proliferating everyday. Recently, the Indian Parliament has also been specifically concerned with the environmental problems, in as much as it has constituted a specialised subject Committee on Environment to exercise control and vigilance over governmental agencies on environmental protection and management.

This chapter attempts to make a brief survey of the various steps taken by the Government of India to construct and develop an effective environmental management system. Inter alia, it also seeks to explore the strength and weaknesses of such arrangements. Hopefully such an analysis may be helpful in identifying some of the common problems of environmental management in the Third World countries, and to examine the extent to which the Indian system could serve as a model for such arrangements in other low developing societies.

The chapter is divided into five sections. The first section deals with the nature of environmental problems in developing countries in general, and in India in particular. In the second section, an attempt is made to survey the constitutional, and legal framework instituted to deal with these problems. The third section surveys the network of administrative agencies and institutions established to manage environmental issues. The fourth section describes the various action plans undertaken by the government of India in pursuance of its environmental policies, and the last section analyses the various problems in the effective implementation of environmental policies. The chapter concludes with some observations on the overall efficacy of the Indian model for environmental management, and its relevance for other developing countries.

I. NATURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

The nature of environmental problems is different in

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developed and under-developed societies. In developed countries, these problems have emerged due to the advancement of scientific and technological development, whereas the environmental problems of developing countries are in large measure those that have arisen from the lack of development. There are problems; in other words, of both, rural and urban poverty. In both the towns and the countryside not merely the quality of life but the life itself is endangered by poor water, housing, sanitation and nutrition facilities and by sickness, disease and natural disasters. There are problems which affect the great mass of mankind. It is also true that problems arising out of the process of development are also evident in these countries. Indeed as the process of development gets underway, the latter type of problem is likely to assume increasing importance (as India is facing now-a-days). The process of agricultural growth and transformation, for example, involves construction of reservoirs and irrigational systems; clearing of forests; use of fertilisers and pesticides, etc. These processes certainly have environmental implications. Similarly, industrialisation results in the release of pollutants and react on the environment in a number of ways.3

It is clearly evident that environmental deterioration is not a new phenomenon. But both the rate of deterioration and its critical impact have risen sharply in the years since the Second World War. In the post-Second World War period, environmental pollution has emerged as one of the main health hazards in the West. Rapid population growth, fast industrialisation and urbanisation, the technological explosion and the patterns of economic growth have all directly contributed to growth of this irritant. While growth has brought extraordinary benefits, it has not been accompanied by sufficiently farsighted efforts to guide its development.

In India, the environmental pollution is a multicausal phenomenon. The principal reason of this pollution is rapidly increasing industrialisation. The indiscriminate and mushrooming growth of industries in and around residential colonies has complicated the scenario. The smoke from the chimneys, the untreated effluents discharged in river and canals, and mixing of chemical gases in the atmosphere are the three main sources of industrial pollution.

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Since Independence, India has made tremendous progress on all fronts. We are, today, among the first fifteen industrialised nations of world. We have also achieved near self-reliance in core sectors such as, iron and steel, crude refining and petrochemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, fertilisers and engineering goods and many essential commodities. Transformation has some costs associated with it. These are in the form of generation of solid, liquid and gaseous pollutants.

Of the various kinds of pollution (air, water, land, noise, radiation and odour) that affect the quality of life in India, water pollution is by far the most serious in its implications for the health and well-being of the citizens. The major sources of pollution of natural waters, including coastal waters, is the discharge of industrial and residential wastes from cities, towns and industries. Most of the cities and towns in India do not have sewerage treatment facilities, and where they do exist, such facilities are in the form of primary treatment. According to the Central Board for Water Pollution, only eight cities in India are provided with complete sewerage and sewage treatment facilities. Thus, most of the community and industrial waste finds its way into water courses without treatment, rendering the water downstream unsafe. The problem is further compounded by agriculture run offs, which contain chemical nutrients, pesticides, and other hazardous chemicals, the use of which is continuously increasing. Another survey carried out by National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) on pollution of rivers and streams in different parts of the country indicate that between 50 percent to 70 per cent of the pollution load in a stream is contributed by domestic sewege and the rest by industrial wastes. In a predominatly industrialised area, this ratio may be reversed in respect of industrial wastes.4 It is generally accepted that 80 per cent of all diseases are due to water-borne infection. Thus, the problem of water pollution is gigantic one.

The problem of air pollution is also associated with industrial growth and urbanisation. It is contributed mainly by industrial, domestic and vehicular sectors. The problem of air pollution, although it is not as major as those faced by highly industrialised countries, never the less presents itself in large

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cities of the country. Apart from industrial units, automobile is another source which add to air pollution to a considerable extent in urban areas. Delhi's case is a pointer to the future. According to J.N. Dave, it is the most polluted city in the country as far as vehicle exhausts are concerned. Dave and his team of researchers conducted a survey and found that 400 tonnes of pollutants are emitted every day by nearly 5,00,000 vehicles. This amounts to 34 per cent of the smoke and dust emitted in the city, a higher proportion than anywhere else. What is worse is that over the past decade the pollution in Delhi has increased to 75 per cent.5

The indiscriminate felling of trees for timber and firewood and fastly shrinking forest area is the country's another major factor for disturbing the ecological balance. The percentage of forest areas is shrinking drastically. The latest satellite data confirm that India is losing 1.3 million hectares of forests a year, nearly eight times the annual rate put out by forest departments.6 Commercial exploitation of the forests and faulty land-use are the two factors responsible for deforestation.

Specifically, the pressure on natural resources in India from an increasing population of 850 million in 1998 to 1,000 million at the end of 2000 A.D. has resulted in:

(a) Of the 266 m ha considered productive, about 175 m ha are degraded in varying degrees (arid, alkaline, saline waterlogged, ravines, etc.). About 90 m ha are actually degraded chiefly on account of a loss of tree cover and top soil, leading to floods and droughts.

(b) Depletion in forest cover to about 19 per cent of the total geographical area, instead of the desired 33 per cent. India has only 2 per cent of the forest land of the world but supports 16 per cent of the world population.

(c) shortage of fuelwood and fodder for rural needs, leading to pressure on our forests.

(d) Threats to faunal and floral species and biological diversity because of disturbance of their habitat.

(e) Adverse impacts of developmental activities such as mining, power generation, industrialisation and irrigation.

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(f) Degradation of fragile ecosystems, such as mangroves, wetlands, beaches and hill areas for reasons, such as over-exploitation, lack of tree cover, ill-advised agricultural practices, tourism and indiscriminate building activities.

(g) Pollution of water from domestic and industrial waste.

(h) Pollution of coastal areas and seas.

(i) Air pollution due to emission from industries.

(j) Increased production, transportation and use of hazardous chemicals.

(k) Degradation of the urban environment because of rapid expansion and inadequate basic services.

(1) Global warming and depletion of the ozone layer, (m) Lack of sufficient environmantal awareness. The consciousness began only in the 1970's not only from concerns voiced around the world, but from our own immediate experience also.7

The blind land reclamations programme have further contributed in disturbing the ecological balance. A sharp decresing population of wildlife also has a telling impact on environmental hazards.

The accumulated results of the above mentioned factors has been that a poor and underdeveloped country like India is confronted with a very serious problem of environmental pollution. Earlier, it was thought that environmental pollution is a problem of affluent West, but it is becoming more of a problem of the poor orient.

II. CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL PROVISIONS FOR ENVIRONMEN MANAGEMENT

India is one of the very few countries of the World which has enshrined in its constitions a commitment to environment protection and improvement.8 The environmental law is a new division of law. The environmental law appears to be of recent origin but it is not a sudden creation. Many provisions dealing with the environment are scattered in pieces and found in the different enactments of this country. Although some provisions

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in the Constitutions relating to improvement in the quality of life had been made since its proclamation in 1950, but a direct reference to environmental protection and improvement was introduced with the Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act of 1976. It was perhaps the UN Conference of Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, which significantly influneced the government's awareness regarding the necessity of legal and orgnisational framework for protection of environment. It has interjected a new dimension to public responsibility by making it obligatory for the Central Government, state government and every citizen to protect and improve the environment.9

The 42nd Amendment Act has made certain changes in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. In the Concurrent list after entry 17, entry 17A was inserted which provided for ' forests' . Originally, forests were a subject of State list. As there was no uniform policy followed by the State in respect of protection of forests, this subject was transferred to list III. Now on this subject the parliament and the state legislature both may pass legislation. The subject of protection of wild animals and birds was also transferred from list II, entry 20, and inserted in list III, entry 17B.10 Further the Amendment Act for the first time introduced a new entry, 20A in list III after entry 20. Entry 20A deals with population control and family planning. Today, the greatest pollutant is the number of people the enormous increase in population is mainly responsible for the modern environmental problems.11

The legal sanction to protect different segments of environment in India, has been provided by successive enactment of certain other laws. During the period immediately after independence, decision-makers were more interested in the problem of economic development in general; therefore, environmental issues were largely ignored. It is a well known fact that Pandit Nehru had tremendous interest in wildlife, but the honour goes to Indira Gandhi for enacting the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It is clearly evident from the title of the Act that main objective is to protect the wild animals and birds, particularly the rare species, such as the lion and the great horned rhinoceros, which are fast disappearing. The Wildlife Protection Act was followed by the Water (Prevention and

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Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. This is another major and significant Act in environmental protection in India. The Act came into force in 12 states. The intention of the Government of India was to extend the Act to the whole country and hence a provision was made in the Act (Section (3) of the Act)—that any state can adopt the Act and the Act would come into force in that state from the date of adoption.12 The objective of the Act is to prevent and control water pollution and also to maintain and restore the wholesomeness of water. For achieving the objectives of the Act, provisions were also made for setting up of Central and State Boards for prevention and control of water pollution in their respective areas.

Of all the environmental problems facing the country, the problem of deforestation has received maximum public attention. Despite the law on the subject (Indian Forest Act, 1927) deforestation has reached such a state that it has created havoc in the economic system. Thousands of trees are killed daily for commercial and non-commercial purposes. But one must appreciate the fact that when the enactment was made in 1927, the socio-economic and political conditions were vastly different. In order to accommodate diverse interests associated with forest resources, under the changed socio-economic and political environment after independence, the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 was passed by the Government. The Act was further amended in 1988. Under the Act, the Central Government may constitute an Advisory Committee to advise the Government regarding grant of approval under section 2 and any other matter connected with the conservation of forests which may be referred to it by the Central Government.13 The Central Government makes rules for carrying out the provisions of the Act.

The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, is another important Act which has been passed by the Government of India. It was also amended in 1988. The Act makes provisions for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution, for establishment of Boards for conferring powers and functions relating thereto for matters connected therewith. These Boards have been empowered to establish air laboratories, to enable them to perform their functions efficiently.

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Recently, the Government of India has enacted another important Act in order to protect the environment, known as the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which has been brought into force with effect from November 19, 1986. The Act was passed for the following objectives: protection, regulation of discharge of environmental pollutants; handling of hazardous substances; speedy response in the event of accident threatening environment; and giving deterrent punishment to those who endanger human environment safety and health.14 The Act is said to be a more effective and bold measures to fight the problem of pollution as compared to all the previous laws in this regard. Under the Act, the Central Government has been empowered to take all appropriate measures to prevent and control pollution and to establish an effective machinery to achieve this objective. The Act has adopted a new stand with regard to the question of locus standi so that now even a citizen has the right to approach a court provided he has given a notice of not less than 60 days of the alleged offences and has intention to make a complaint to the Central Government or the concerned authority. The Central Government has been vested with powers of entering and inspecting any place through any person or agency authorised by it. The Act also authorises the Central Government to issue direction for the closure, prohibition or regulation of any industry's operation or process. It also authorises Central Government to stop or regulate the supply of electricity or water or any other service directly without obtaining a court order.15

In 1991, a new Act, the Public Liability Insurance Act was passed in order to give compensation for damages accuring to the public out of the industrial pollution accidents. It provides for mandatory insurance for the purpose of providing immediate relief to the persons affected by accidents occuring while handling any hazardous substance.

Besides these environmental legislations, it is interesting to note that the basic criminal laws of India, namely, the Criminal Procedure Code, 1988 as revised in 1973 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860, as well as some of the mercantile laws like the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 have also sought to regulate environment albeit in a limited way. Sections 133 and 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code empower the state organs

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to instantly prevent any injury or nuisance to public safety and public interest following from action or omission causing pollution which the authorities concerned identify and interpret as such. Likewise Sections 269, 277, 219 and 426 also provide respectively for protection of environment by punishing negligent acts likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life activities, which corrupt or foul the water of any public spring or reservoir, pollution of water bodies other than springs and reservoirs, as may be deemed a public nuisance and any pollution to a water body which can be treated as a mischief. Similarly, the Merchant Shipping Act provides for action against marine pollution specifically. These legislations do empower the state agencies to prevent deterioration of environment and also cast responsibilities on them to promote and improve environment.

III. THE ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT NETWORK

Amongst the various administrative institutions that came into existence after Mrs. Indira Gandhi's visit to the Stockholm Conference were the National Committee on Environmental Planning and coordination established in 1972, followed by the Central Board for the prevention and Control of Water Pollution in 1974, Department of Environment in 1980, and the Ministry for Environment and Forests (MEF) in 1985. In addition to these, Departments of Environments were also established in 20 States and three Union Territories of India. The Central Pollution Control Board and State Control Boards have come into existence in 21 states. A new body Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education has also been established along with the National Wastelands Development Board in 1985, besides the Indian Board for Wildlife which had already been in existence since 1952.

MEF—The Nodal Agency

The present integrated Department of Environment, Forests and Wildlife, in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MEF) may be regarded as a nodal agency for environmental management in India. The Ministry serves as a focal point in the administrative structure of the Central

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Government for planning, promotion and coordination of environmental and forestry programmes. Its functions fall into three major categories; custodial, regulatory and promotional.16 The custodial functions relate to those functions, where the MEF itself accepts the primary responsibility of controlling environmental deterioration. Functions, such as pollution monitoring and control, eco-regeneration, assessment of wildlife conservation, and development of wastelands fall under this category. The regulatory functions of the MEF are the most visible, such as setting extensive guidelines for Minimum National Standards (MINAS) for each specific industries, i.e. pesticide, caustic soda, etc. The promotional functions relate to MEF serving as the major centre for collection and dissemination of environmental information and data. In 1970, the MEF established an Environmental Information System (ENVIS) network, which also provided a link to the Global Information Network and the UN Environment Program (UNEP) network.

The Ministry's main activities include survey and conservation of natural resources, protection of environment and its regeneration, and development of the degraded parts of the environment. The main tools utilised for this include surveys, impact assessment, control of pollution, regeneration programmes, research to evolve solutions, extension, education and training to augment the requisite manpower collection, collation and dissemination of environmental information and creation of environmental awareness.17

The Organisation of the MEF was comprehensive and elaborate. Comprising several agencies and divisions, the MEF offered one of the most impressive environmental laws enforcing networks in the world. As the following figures indicate, in 1989, at the apex of the orgnisation was the Minister of Environment and Forests, assisted by a Minister of State (both were political position) and followed by a full-ranked secretary (a permanent civil service position). From the functional point of view, the MEF was divided into eighteen divisions. In addition, there were two separate and administratively independent units, Ganga Project Directorate and the National Mission on Wastelands Development, that reported directly to the Secretary. Divisions were further

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assisted by 11 autonomous agencies and 6 associated units. The autonomous units were only assisted by the Ministry, while the units were under the administrative control of the Ministry.18

A notable feature of the MEF was its increasing diversification and specialisation : Forest conservation was added as a division in 1987; and in 1988, two additional divisions, Hazardous Substances Management and Forestry International Cooperations, joined the list. The Ministry also grew in its staff strength. The Department of Environment, Forests and Wildlife (house in New Delhi) had the technical and clerical staff of 1,171. A slow albeit steady growth marked the expansion of department: 684 in 1986, 970 in 1987, 1,056 in 1988, and 1,171 in 1989. The figures indicate an increase of 41 per cent from 1986 to 1987; 9 per cent from 1987 to 1988; and 11 per cent from 1988 to 1989.19

The Parliamentary Committee on Environment

In order to exercise surveillance over the various schemes, drawn up by the Government in the realm of environmental management, it was felt imperative that Parliament should exercise a closer and constant watch on the working of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and allied Departments through its own standing committee, which would examine all facts on the problem of environmental degradation, oversee the implementation of various programmes and make suitable recommendations to the Government. Thus, the Parliament, on 20 August, 1989, constituted a Standing Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Forests which consists of 22 members—15 from the Lok Sabha (the lower and popular House of the Parliament) nominated by the Speaker, and 7 from the Rajya Sabha (the upper House of the Parliament) nominated by the Chairman. The term of the members of the committees is not to exceed one year from the date of its constitution.

The functions of the Committee are:

(a) to examine such of the activities of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and allied Ministries as may seem fit to the Committee;

(b) to report what economies, improvements in

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organisation, efficiency or administrative reform consistent with the policy approved by parliament may be affected;

(c) to examine the Annual Reports of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and allied Ministries with a view to finding out whether the expenditure incurred was commensurate with the results achieved;

(d) to examine such of the plan protects/activities of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and allied Ministries as may seem fit to the Committees or specially referred to it by the House or the Speaker; and

(e) to evaluate and suggest measures for the survey and conservation of flora, fauna forests and wildlife prevention and control of pollution; aforestation and regeneration of degraded parts of the environment.20

The Committee although constituted in 1989, has started functioning in earnest only in 1992. As there have not been many extended sittings of the committees, it is too early to assess its impact and effect on the environmental management in India.

IV. ACTION PLANS

It will be appropriate at this stage to discuss briefly below the details of various action plans to curb environmental pollution as envisaged by the different departments associated with the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Control of Water and Air Pollution

The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 continued to be implemented through the Central Pollution Control Board and the State Pollution Control Boards. During the year 1988-89, Goa and Tripura have constituted State Boards.21 With this all the states excepting the states of Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram have constituted their State Boards. Following the enactment of the

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Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, more responsibilities have been placed on the Central and state boards. The Cental Board, in collaboration with the Department of Ocean Development, established 173

monitoring stations all along the 6,000 km of the Indian coast for purposes of water quality measurement. The programme also involves the State Pollution Control Boards.

Thirty-four, national ambient air quality monitoring stations were sanctioned during the year 1988-89 out of which nine are operational. The National and Zonal Task Forces set up to pursue the implementation of effluent standards in industries, have been reconstituted. So far, 3,270 prosecutions have been launched by the Central and State Pollution Control Boards since the enactment of the Water and Air Acts in 1974 and 1981 respectively. Under the Environment Protection Act 1986, the Central Government has taken action against 47 units, which resulted in close down of 28 units and 19 units have been directed to set up their effluent treatment plants.22

To multi-parameter continuous ambient air monitoring stations were installed in Delhi with financial assistance from European Economic Committee (EEC).

Eco-Regeneration and Development : The Ganga Action Plan

An action plan was drawn up in 1985 for cleaning the polluted stretches of the river Ganga. To oversee its implementation, a Central Ganga Authority was set up by Government of India's Resolution dated February 16, 1985.23 The authority is under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister and its membership includes Chief Ministers of UP, Bihar and West Bengal. The steering committee has identified schemes to be taken up under the Ganga Action Plan for the states of UP, Bihar and West Bengal. So far 262 schemes have been sanctioned under the Ganga Action Plan at a cost of Rs. 250.44 crore covering the states mentioned above. Of these 50 schemes have been completed and the rest are in progress.24

Wasteland Development

The National Wasteland Development Board was established in May 1985, primarily to formulate, coordinate and catalyse programmes for management and development of Wastelands in the country. Computer-based monitoring cells

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were set up in 15 states to monitor and evaluate various projects in afforestation, social forestry, etc. An interdisciplinary committee of the representatives of the Land Development Banks (LDBs) has been constituted to make policy recommendations for promoting greater involvement by LDBs in afforestation projects.

The scheme of Rural Fuelwood Plantations is being implemented in 159 fuelwood deficient districts in 25 states and the Union Territory of Delhi.25

Besides its regular programmes for afforestation and wasteland development, the National Wasteland Development Board has initiated new schemes of aerial seeding for development of remote and in accessible wastelands in various hills, mountains, etc.

Survey of Natural Resources

Flora

The Botanical Survey of India (BSI) conducts its activities on the survey, identification and exploration of the plant wealth of our country. Under the plant conservation programme, a Red Data Book on Indian Plants covering 235 species has been published and plant survey in certain priority areas of Andaman and Nicobar, Sikkim, UP, Jammu and Kashmir, South Western Ghats and Pondicherry, were initiated by BSI and 25 per cent of the work was completed during the 1987-88. The BSI garden planted 560 plants of 50 species of rare and potentially useful plants for conservation and multiplication.26

Fauna

The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has been engaged in the survey of faunal resources and collection of baseline scientific data with regard to their taxonomy, ecology, behavioural patterns, impact of pollution, etc. One hundred twenty-six Faunostic Surveys, covering various ecosystems of 40 districts of several states of the country were conducted by the ZSI.

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Conservation of Natural Resources

1. Forest Conservation

In the implementation of the provisions of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, greater emphasis is being laid on compensatory afforestation while allowing diversions in unavoidable cases, of forest land for non-forestry purposes.

The New National Forest Policy lays emphasis on maintenance of environmental stability, restoration of ecological balance and preservation of the remaining natural forests. In view of the symbiotic relationship of the tribal with the forests, the policy emphasises meeting the basic needs of the tribals living within forests. Afforestation and tree planting to meet the needs of the poor in one of the aims of the policy.

Afforestation was taken at from the First Five-Year Plan. Upto 1985 only 6 m ha. was covered. The loss assessed at 9.17 m ha between 1972 and 1985 alone. The National Wastelands Development Board (NWDB) was established in 1985. In three years upto 1988, 5.04 m ha were planted. The overall achievements in the VIIth Plan were over 9 m ha.

The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 has been amended to facilitate its stricter implementation and to provide for penalties for violators. During the year 1988-89, diversion of 18,765 hectares of forestland was permitted for development projects under strict conditions of compensatory afforestation.27 The six Regional Offices have been set up to monitor and evaluate ongoing forestry development projects.

2. Wildlife Protection

National Wildlife Action Plan was adopted in 1983. The Indian Board for Wildlife is the apex Statutory Body, with Prime Minister as Chairman. Amendments to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 have been initiated to make the laws more effective. Sixty-seven National Parks and 394 sanctuaries have been set up so far all over the country representing four per cent of the total geographic area. Captive Breeding and Rehabilitation Programmes were continued to cover nine species, including the endangered ones. Under the ' Snow Leopard Conservation Project' , it has been decided to create a network of 12 Snow Leopard Reserves throughout the Himalayas. The 17th Tiger

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Reserve has been established in Tamil Nadu. These 17 Tiger Reserves cover 26,643 sq. kms in 13 states.28 The project Tiger launched in 1974 has had great success. The Wildlife Institute of India was established at Dehradun in 1982.

3. Biosphere Reserves

Out of the 13 identified potential sites for setting up Biosphere Reserves, four have been set up so far. These are located in: Nilgiri in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, and Nanda Devi in UP (now in Uttranchal), Nokrek in Meghalaya and the Great Nicobar in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

The divisions in the Ministry dealing with impact assessment have been strengthened to cope with the expanded work. Two hundred fifty-two development projects were appraised during 1987-88, out of which 96 were cleared. Thirty-two projects were rejected out of which six were on grounds of environmental incompatibility. Narmada Control Cell has been created in the Ministry for follow up action on the environmental aspects of Narmada Sagar and Sardar Sarovar Projects. The Doon Valley has been designated as an ecologically fragile area under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. An expert group for recommending norms for determining ecologically fragile areas in the country has been set up.29 The EIA and approval of all projects which require approval by the Government of India, and which require diversion of forest land, have been made obligatory. Guidelines were issued by the Ministry for mining projects, industrial sitting, river valley projects, development of ports and harbours and development of beaches.

Environmental Research

Under the environmental research promotion programmes, research projects have been executed by universities, R & D institutions and NGOs concerning studies on impact of developmental activities on natural ecosystems, survey and monitoring of environmental indications, alternative approaches to environmental parameters, pollution control, energy use, instrumentation, etc. The entire area of

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forestry research was recognised during 1987-88. The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) has been set up at Dehradun to coordinate research. In addition to the Institute at Dehradun, four more research institutes are being set up at Coimbatore, Bangalore, Jabalpur and Jodhpur.

Environmental Education, Awareness and Information

Under the scheme of Centers of Excellence, two centers, viz., the Ecological Research and Training Center at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Center for Environmental Education at Ahmedabad have been established in 1984 for strengthening country's environmental education, research and training base. During the year 1987-88, the Indian Forest College was upgraded to the status of National Forest Academy and named after the late Indira Gandhi.30 Another institute named

Gobind Ballabh Pant Himalayas Paryavaran Evam Vikas Sansthan was established in 1988 near Almora (UP) now in Uttranchal to develop integrated sustainable development strategies by coordinated research. Wildlife research is carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

Thirty-one week training courses were organised to train about 800 officers of the Indian Forest Service. November 19 to December 18, 1988 was observed as National Environment Month (NEM). During the NEM, National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi, organised a large number of programmes for various target groups. A national environmental awareness programme was launched in 1986 as an annual feature in which more than 200 NGOs carry on the campaign aimed at different section of the population through all the media.

Pollution Monitoring and Control

Standards have been notified for 26 industries and under enforcement by the Central and State Pollution Control Boards. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 was enforced in 80 cases to take stringent action against continuously erring industries, and over 3,500 prosecutions were launched against erring industries throughout the country. 300 Water Quality Monitoring Stations and 106 Air Quality Monitoring Stations were established throughout the country. Out of 4,056 large and

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medium industries in the country, over 50 per cent have installed effluent treatment plants. Use-based zone and classification of the 14 major rivers in the country has also been completed.

Control over Hazardous Substances

The Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 provides for control of hazardous substances. Draft rules have been prepared for notification of hazardous chemicals and control of manufacture, storage and transportation, and disposal of such substances and wastes. A crisis management plan for chemical accidents is prepared and a Central Crisis Group set up. Guidelines for similar action at State and district level issued. Fourteen states have so far prepared on-site and off-site emergency plans and set up state level coordination committees.

Global Warming and Ozone Depletion

The action plan in this respect aims at: Reduction in pollution from thermal plants, energy conservation, promotion of non-conventional energy sources, steps to check deforestation and promotion of

afforestation, coordinated study of ozone levels in the Indian Middle Atmosphere Programme, initiation of studies on the impact of possible rise in sea level and participation in international fora and support for global action.31

A detailed analysis of the budget allocations of the Ministry of Environment and Forests since 1985 clearly reveals that a significant proportion of the budged allocations goes to Ganga Action Plan and Wasteland Development Project. It is also evident that relatively their share is increasing overtime. This shows the manifest bias of the statist policy on environment, whereas Wasteland Development Project is basically meant for augmenting the agricultural output. The Ganga Action Plan has more or less urban bias in favour of cities located along the river coast and to appeal to the Hindu sentiments.

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V. PROBLEMS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF ENVIRONMEN PROTECTION

The preceding sections make it explicit that Government of India has taken a large number of steps in constitutional, legal and administrative fields, in order to protect the environment from further degradation and pollution. In spite of such efforts made on part of both the Central and state governments, the problem of environmental degradation and pollution has not been controlled to the extent to which it can be. The fault must lie with the institutional set-up or with the people, or with both.

To understand the causes of our failure to tackle environmental problems, one must have some idea of the kind of perceptions that different sections of our society, including our planners and decision-makers, have of such problems. Around the time of Stockholm Conference, people in India were not very much aware about the developments related to environmental hazards. Even the most educated classes in our society considered all references to the environment in India to be merely fashionable conservation subjects at best, borrowed from among the issues considered important by the advanced nations. The academics and the professionals were, of course, fully aware of the environmental hazards but only in narrow sectoral contexts, such as public health, forestry, etc. What was not perceived was the totality of the linkages between these problems. Towards the mid-seventies, high-level committees were set up to look into environmental safeguards but little was really accomplished in practical terms. This was partly due to the usual bureaucratic perversity and inertia towards any innovative thinking. It was also due to one basic misperception. This was the tendency even in the minds of well-intentioned planners and government technocrats, to think of environmental protection as new and additional sector of government for which fresh allocations of men, money and material would have to be found amidst other competing demands of traditional sectors, like industry, agriculture, transport, health,

energy, education. Environment, thus, was not seen as a dimension having to do with the wise management of physical and human resources in each of the above mentioned

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sectors. Because of these misperceptions and a lack of sincere commitment in following up ' paper initiative' it is not surprising that governments, both at the centre and states, have achieved very little in building a firm institutional base in order to tackle the staggering environmental challenges that face us. One crucial function that the government will have to undertake itself at various levels and to varying extent is in environmental appraisal. It has to become an integral part of all planning programmes. To achieve this goal, methodologies appropriate to Indian conditions must be worked out32 and analysts, trained for the job.

(a) Weak Legislative Measures

Over the last decade or so, though new legislative enactment related to the environment have paved the way for protection of environmental resources, yet several problems still persist. Any one, who closely reads the provisions in these Acts, may wonder why no perceptible steps have been taken by the authorities for their enforcement. One of the serious problems in implementing these laws is that the importance attached to environmental protection is of much recent origin, as such it has not got penetrated deep into the government working, and public servants continue to work with the same glaring neglect of environmental factors as before. Despite the presence of these provisions, we find squalor and unhygienic conditions in villages, towns and cities. This shows there is a laxity in the enforcement of the legal provisions.

From legislation point of view, some loopholes in the Acts hinder the progress of implementation. For instance, Acts have been passed to control the air and water pollution, but they have lost their significance in the absence of similar steps not taken for the control of noise pollution. So the requirement is to have a coordinated and broader policy. In particular, one of the main defects of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 itself is that it is not uniformly applicable to the whole of India. In India, water of rivers is subject to the jurisdiction of different states. This is the main obstacle that comes in the way of framing a uniform law and adopting a national policy.

With the coming into force of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 in November that year, the Government

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succeeded in pushing through a cleverly tailored piece of legislation. While at one level, it gave legislative form to the environmental concerns of the people, the Act continues to give ample protection to the interests of industry. Clearly the Act was not a legislative necessity. For after all there already exist over 300 Central and State Government Acts which generally or specifically deal with such matters. The problem has always been in implementing them. In fact, ironically enough, the new act does not make earlier legislation invalid. There are inadequate linkages in handling matters of industrial and environmental safety.

If the authority contemplated by the Central Government to be charged with its implementation is similar to those of pollution control boards, then it is feared that the entire exercise is foredoomed to failure. This is so because the boards seem to have adopted a soft line vis-a-vis the industry and prefer to be persuasive rather than punitive.33 Although the judiciary in India has been quite severe on the executive for not being able to implement the environmental laws strictly and have passed several strictness against it in a number of Public Interest Legislation (PIL), e.g. in the case of Taj Mahal and the shifting of polluting industries out of Delhi, but these alone are not enough. They in turn also create some counter pressures, which again add to the problems of both the executive and the judiciary.

The Act is criticised on the ground that its radical approach regarding the scale of locus standi is rendered ineffective by the requirement of 60 days notice, which gives a long enough time to the offender to make amends and escape liability under the Act. This is a loophole which needs to be plugged.

Yet another criticism is that there is undue centralisation under the Act and power is vested in the central Government and even the authorities constituted to implement it are subject to the supervision and control of the Central Government.34

In the context of events after Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984 and the growing awareness among all sections of the people, the Act was a political necessity. For one thing, the increasing pressure being put on the government to take cognizance of the appalling status of industrial safety was not merely a lay

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instinctive response in the wake of the Bhopal disaster. During the last few years, several state governments have set up expert groups to study the situation and everyone has come down heavily not

only on industry but also on the regulatory machinery as well. In Punjab, for instance, the committee found that the government did not even know the total number of registered factories—while Industries Department listed 80,000 units—the factory inspectorate recognised only 10,000. Of the 258 factories inspected, only one had any kind of pollution control equipment.35

The Act is also surprisingly silent with regard to conservation of forests which is a subject of supreme importance in a country like India. One would naturally expect an appropriate amendment to rectify this lacuna in this revolutionary piece of legislation and studying areas where it may be worthwhile to enact new ones.36

(b) Failure of Research Efforts

Another point of criticism is that billions of rupees have so far been spent by the Government of India on environmental research without any development. Under the Man and Biosphere Research Committee, research projects have been funded all over the country. Neither the selection of the projects for research funding, nor the practical application of the fruits of research have been anywhere near adequate. In the early stages of the programme, a majority of the projects submitted for approval were little more than classical problems of botany, zoology, medicine, public health, town planning, etc., which had been camouflaged by adding a reference or two to environment and ecology. The concept of multi-disciplinary studies, aimed at solving the real life environmental issues, was practically absent.

(c) Lack of Proper Coordination and Cooperation among Administrative Institutions

Lack of proper coordination and cooperation among the administrative institutions is an important loophole in the whole institutional set-up. Greater degrees of coordination and cooperation is needed for the implementation of environmental programmes, between Central, state and local governments,

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between different administrative institutions and ministries, and between institutions themselves. If environmental crisis is to be overcome, the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Eco-development agencies will have to make efforts to ensure that environmental awareness spreads to bureaucracies within the government. Environment should not be regarded as just another sector of development. It should form a crucial guiding dimension in each department and ministry.

In 1987, a conference on the ' New Environment Protection Act' sponsored by the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi and the Consumer Education and Research Center, Ahmedabad mooted a proposal to establish a National Environment Protection Authority (NEPA) with various subgroups, like an environment impact assessment group, environment courts, an interim relief cell, and a standards and enforcement divisions. The NEPA should consist of about 20 eminent public citizens, scientists, several activities, representatives from labour, industry consumers and women's groups and governmental officials.37 The functions of this agency would be to monitor implementation of various environmental protection laws in the country, and to serve as a coordinating body on environment protection measures taken or proposed to be taken by various state governments. However, so far, such an agency has not been established in India.

(d) Non-recognition of an Appropriate Role of NGOs

A further weakness of the present official programme for environmental protection is its lack of recognition of the crucial role that NGOs can play in complementing the Government's own efforts. A large number of NGOs are working in India on various aspects of environmental protection. By the very nature of their functioning, such NGOs get a much more practical, people-based view of environmental issues than the government in terms of the grassroots monitoring of environmental quality. This needs to be properly recognised. In turn, steps should be taken to strengthen the NGOs, to enable them to perform the above mentioned functions.

However, many of the NGOs in India have been working at cross purposes. In the case of the Narmada River Valley

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Project, a host of NGOs have come up who are supporting conflicting claims, policies and steps in respect of the interests of the inhabitants affected by the construction of dam in the area. Thus, here is a need to channelise the NGO moment toward concentrated efforts to protect environment rather than let them become rival groups for political gains. In this respect there is a need for some form of an apex NGOs body as a federation to provide the much needed guidance and expert resources to the hundreds of NGOs working in the field.

Highlighting weakness in Government of India's present approach to environmental protection does not in any way change one basic fact. This is that in the present Indian sociopolitical setup no environmental programme or improvement on any significant scale can take place without the direct or indirect involvement of the Central and state governments and people themselves. Very creditable work by

private groups in fields, like social forestry, rural sanitation, environmental education, etc., has been done—notwithstanding, it is governmental intervention at all levels—whether by providing finances or other incentives or expertise or equipment and other infrastructure support—that will determine the success or otherwise of environmental management programmes. This is not necessarily a very desirable state of affairs, but it is a hard reality that must be faced and ' internalised' by all those concerned about the environment.38

(e) Pretentious Policy Approach

In a recent study it has been suggested that the widening enforcement gap in the environmental policy in India is caused by the pertentious policy approach adopted by the government. Besides several contextual and behavioural factors, it has identified five major factors, which reveal the irrationality of assumptions and facility of applying these assumptions to the real world.39 The factors include: (a) the unit cost of regulation and enforcement on the part of those who are responsible for enforcement, i.e. the local bureaucrats, (b) the high cost of compliance for industry or for other destructive forces, and the unwillingness of the industry or other sources to comply the bureaucratic orders, viewed as unnecessary and in conflict with the interest of the industry, (c) the existence of

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' centralised federalism' leading to a dominant centre weak states federalism in India. While the centralisation of environmental decision-making process was considered to be necessary to avoid the overlapping of jurisdictions and to assure the uniformity of environmental standards, but the arrangements under the environmental policy created a double protection shield for government—state government could protect themselves by accusing the Central Government for failing to provide adequate funding, while the Central Government could put the blame on to state government for failing to implement laws, (d) the rising bureaucratic power and rivalry, which create another source of environment difficulties. The environmental bureaucracy suffers from the lack of essential resources that determine an agency's place in the bureaucratic network : information, clientele and legal support. The scarcity of these resources hampers the growth of the power of the environmental bureaucracy. Consequently, it fails to compete with other bureaucratic agencies. Even though there has been an increase in the size of the environmental agency's budget, the power of the agency in India is severely limited, and (e) the politicisation of bureaucracy in general, and the environmental bureaucracy in particular. This leads to a situation in which bureaucratic authority can be used to reward political loyalties. Appointments and appropriations in this context become the instrument of securing political support. Among the consequences of the politicisation of the bureaucracy are the erosion of the bureaucratic neutrality, and the increasing gap between policy expectation and policy performance.40


The Responsibility for Environment Protection

The problem of conserving the environment while proceeding with necessary development is a colossal one. It is so huge that in a country like India, it presents a great challenge to those who have to implement the policies and programmes. The problems encompass many fields, and therefore, vast areas of the subject are handled at the national level by various ministries and departments of the Government of India.

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However, India being a federal system, much of the action in this field has to be decentralised and entrusted to the states. It is mainly the state governments, who have to carry out the necessary measures. The implementation of environmental policies and evaluation of their impact would necessary have to be devolved on the local administration and the local self-governing institutions in the cities, towns and villages.

At the behest of the NCEPC, established in February 1972 to provide a focal point in the structure of the government where environmental considerations could receive close attention in an integrated manner, almost all the states and the Union territories of India have established environmental boards/committees with the terms of reference almost similar to the national committees. These boards/committees are chaired by the respective Chief Ministers because it was thought that chairmanship by the head of government would give stature and executive authority to the boards. An official of the Union Department of Environment, which is responsible for evolving national policy on environment commensurate with the needs of development, is invariably a member of the State Board Committees. This arrangement has been thought necessary to enable good liaison between the national committees and the State Boards.

However, at present the state environmental committees or the state departments of environment lack necessary technical expertise. These administrative bodies suffer in their work and effectiveness due to utter paucity of staff. A further handicap is the non-availability of funds or financial support for setting up necessary expert committees, visits to project sites, and preparation of environmental appraisal of projects handled by state governments. The situation is really serious, in the sense that in most states, these environmental committees are not at all active. Financial stringency, coupled with inadequate attention being paid by state government, to whatever meagre environmental departments/committees that exist there is affecting the dedication and motivation of the centre's leadership and its officials. The same can as well be true of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment which lacks the necessary

technical expertise at its disposal. It is doubtful whether in the absence of a proper and objective analysis of

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complex technical, socio-economic and political factors, the Committee could really make any headway in exercising legislative control over the management of environmental institutions.

The net result of this state of affairs is that at the decentralised levels of administration, i.e. the districts and the cities, the official institutions, which are charged with the responsibility of action for protection of environmental concerns are unable to act effectively. It is time that India sets up a National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA) as has been done in many other countries, allowing the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and its counterparts in the states to function not only to control pollution but also to protect environment.41 The main obligation of the state to meet its constitutional requirements—such as enact appropriate laws, rules and regulations; set up enforcement and review mechanism; and invite the public to participate in the environmental policy process—remains largely unfulfilled. Despite the indifference shown by the administration in the cities and towns in India in either enforcing the laws to protect the quality of environment or to take constructive or punitive action in preservation or improvement of environment, the voluntary NGOs and the judiciary, in some cases, have been quite active in bringing to the notice of the administrative authorities in the cities the damages caused to the environment as a result of government's development policies or commercial exploitation of the forests or wildlife by private organisations. The NGO's crusade against the Silent Valley Project, the Mathura Refinery, the West Coast Fertilizer Plant, the Dal Lake Project, the Berisal Project, The Narmada Valley Project and the famous Chipko Andolan provide some hope for creating awareness in public and authorities about the kind of catastrophe the people in India are heading for through environmental degradation.

The above analysis of the legal and institutional structure of environmental management in India may be replicated as an effective model for such a system in many developing countries, as the environmental problems of these societies are almost of the same nature emerging out of the common factors of:

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(a) extreme poverty,

(b) uncontrolled population growth, and

(c) the developmental challenges.

However, as the case study of India illustrates, mere construction of a legal and administrative infrastructure is not a panacea to solve the problems of environmental degradation in these countries. Coupled with an appropriate administrative infrastructure, the political will to enforce environment polices, working out the institutions in the most objective efficient and effective manner based on techno-economic and social considerations, people participation, and a bold approach for a reconciliation between the established goals of development and the newly-found goals of environmental protection are essential conditions for the success of any strategies relating to environmental preservation in any society.


1. Ramakrishna Mission, Cultural Heritage of India, Vols. I, II and III, 1972.

2. Indira Gandhi, ' Man and his Environment' , (Address by Mrs. Indira Gandhi at the plenary Session of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment at Stockholm, Sweden, 14 June, 1972).

3. United Nations, Development and Environment, 1972, pp. 7-8.

4. Arun C. Vakil, Economic Aspects of Environmental Pollution in India, Bombay, Arun C. Vakil, 1984, p. 98.

5. CSE, The State of India's Environment : 1984-85, The Second Citizen's Report, Center for Science and Environment, New Delhi, 1985, p. 13.

6. Ibid., Also see, S. Bhatt, Environmental Protection and International Law, New Delhi, Radiant Publishers; 1985, p. 1.

7. See Maheswar Prasad, ' Environmental Problems and Action in India' in Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 35, No. 3, (July-September 1989), pp. 634-35.

8. Suresh Jain and Vimla Jain, (eds.), Environmental Law in India, Indore, The Lawyers Home, 1984, p. 3.

9. Forty-second Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976.

10. S.M. Jain (ed.), Legal Control of Environmental Pollution, New Delhi, Indian Law Institute, 1980, p. 3.

11. Ibid.

12. Suresh Jain and Vimla Jain (eds.), op. cit., p. 38.

13. Forest Conservation Act, 1980.

14. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

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15. Ibid.

16. Renu Khator, Environment Development and Politics in India (Lenham, MD, University Press of America, 1991), p. 90.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. See Subject Committees: A Backgrounder (New Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat, September 1991), pp. 6-8.

21. Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Annual Report, 1988-89, p. 6.

22. Ibid.

23. Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Annual Report, 1985-86, p. 4.

24. MEF, Annual Report, 1988-89, op. tit., p. 7.

25. Ibid., p. 8.

26. Ibid., p. 3.

27. Ibid., p. 4.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., p. 5.

30. Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Annual Report : 1987-88, p. 8.

31. Prasad, n. 7, p. 637.

32. Thomas Mathew, ' Governmental Response to Environmental Needs in India' , India International Center, Quarterly, Vol. 9, Nos. 3 and 4, December 1982, pp. 240-42.

33. Refer Ecology, Vol. 1, No. 3, August 1986, p. 89.

34. Ibid., p. 91.

35. Refer Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXII, No. 4, January 24, 1987, p. 106.

36. Thomas Mathew, op. cit., pp. 243-44.

37. See Times of India, April 10, 1989, p. 7, Col. 5-6.

38. Thomas Mathew, op. cit., p. 247.

39. Khator, n. 16, pp. 104-17.

40. For details, See Ibid., pp. 119-24.

41. See The Hindustan Times, 21 March 2001, p. 9: 1-4.

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PART V METHODOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL CONCERNS

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14 Research Methodology in Public Administration: Need for a Orientation

Having made a modest beginning as a branch, field or sub-division of political science, Public Administration has, during the last fifty years, emerged as a separate and self-conscious discipline of study in a number of Universities in India. The major changes in the theoretical orientation of the discipline that have occurred during this period include the development of fields such as administrative policy-making, organisational theory and the analysis of the effect of change on public agencies. Although the concept of 'new public management' which has received a good deal of attention from scholars in the field in recent times in the West does not seem to have made a substantial inroad on the study and teaching of the subject in this country, however, the approach that views the goals of public administration as bringing about social equity and desired social change is well nigh recognised.

One of the specific developments which has enlarged the and the field of public administration in recent years has been the way in which human relationships have come to be considered at the root of many of the problems facing the administartion. The modern emphasis on organisational theory and political aspects of administration have tended to integrate

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theories of public administration with those of the other social sciences. Thus, the students and practitioners of public administration no longer regard it as an isolated and somewhat mechanistic discipline, but an inter-relation of traditional disciplines relying heavily on the findings of such social sciences as economics, social psychology, psychology and anthropology. Additionally public administrationists have recently begun to appreciate that the "public" in public administration can no longer be conceived in simple institutional terms. "Public", as noted by Nicholas Henry, "must be cast into philosophic, normative and ethical terms; 'public', then becomes that which affects the public interest. The field is beginning to call this new dimension of the public interest, 'public affairs."1

Despite the basic agreement on the so-called 'imperialistic' approach to the study and teaching of public administration in India, it is ironic that the progress of its development in this country has been rather slow, archaic, haphazard, and fraught with recurring misgivings about the viability of the subject itself. This has culminated into a situation where the individual or institutions who are interested in the discipline or in any way concerned with its teaching or research, although clamour vehemently for its due recognition by other social scientists as well as by those who take top decisions on educational and personnel policies, but do precious little to lend it an inherent strength and dynamism of its own. Scholars in this field have been less concerned with developing its substantive content, and the body of knowledge which are vital to enrich any discipline particularly as diversified and profound as public

administration. This state of affairs reflects two serious but inter-related problems facing the discipline in the country.

One refers to the paucity of scholars possessing adequate research competence in the field and the other a lack of due appreciation and understanding of the research methodology and techniques employed in the field of public administration. Both of these phenomena involve a causal relationship with each other. A systematic effort at increasing the research competence in the field, involving both the scholars and specialised governmental and non-governmental institutions, is

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urgently called for, if the discipline is to grow in status and attain a sense of maturity. As a preliminary to this, an attempt is made in this chapter to analyse the various programs in Research Methodology given in public administration courses at some of the academic institutions with a view to suggest further improvement.

Courses in Research Methodology

A discussion at a Seminar on Teaching and Research in Public Administration held in New Delhi some time back, and a perusal of the contents of course given at various Institutes of Public Administration and University Departments in Public Administration in India at the M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. level reveal an overall agreement on the necessity of equipping students with the basic social science research methods. Despite considerable diversities in such course offerings, the courses in Research Methodology are heavily oriented towards the methods used in other social science. It seems pretty clear that the scope of public administration is too extensive to place its study exclusively in any one discipline. If public administration is termed as a "discipline", then it is the discipline of an order different from political science or sociology. Its substance is derivative from more basic disciplines, and its methodology is largely one of synthesis. Thus, the topics covered generally include Nature and Object of Methodology; Various Methods of Analysis; Preparation of Research Design, Techniques of Data collection; Organising; Analysis and presentation of Research findings and so on. The emphasis on each of these aspects varies with different Departments. The basic social science methodology is further supplemented by a course (special or built-in) in Statistical Concepts and Techniques giving an impression that the facility of statistical analysis is an essential component for use in the analysis of phenomena relating to public administration. In recent years emphasis is also being made methods of information technology for data collection. The study of survey methods and techniques, also occupy a place of prominence in such courses.2 However, in actual practice at some places, teaching of Research Methods has been reduced to a mere formality, in as much as no attempt is made to relate the theoretical background of the methodology course

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with their practical application in researching concrete problems. In a majority of cases, the knowledge of research techniques gained by the students remain dormant, in not being able to find any outlet for its practical manifestation.

Such an approach to the study of methodology seems to be based on the assumption that methodology really is more a matter of attitude, a way of thinking, than it is of technique. One cannot think of any peculiar or special methodology that would apply to the study of public administration. Generally speaking, the techniques that are used in the behavioural sciences should by themselves be sufficient enough to cater to the needs of scholars in public administration, at least in the initial stages. However, even these remain grossly under-exploited by Indian scholars for researches leading to theory building and development of discipline in this part of the world. The two survey of researches undertaken by the ICSSR some years ago has very elaborately pointed out to this deficiency which need not be repeated here.3 The emergence of a number of specialised Institutions and a vast literature in the field since then has not materially improved the situation. It is little consolation to see the number of graduates and the professionally trained personnel in different aspects of government's work increasing day by day, which does not in any way enhance the status of the discipline as such, rather helps in earning it the notoriety of swelling the ranks of the unemployed.

Survey Research

Apart from the traditional library research methods that have been used by the scholars in a number of studies leading to a research degree (which are relatively less as compared to other social science disciplines), one finds survey research as the only other popular method used in studying public administration phenomena, particularly in the study of bureaucratic behaviour. A number of such studies that have appeared in the last few years4 have successfully used this method as a cross-disciplinary approach of the social science used to further the study of human social behaviour. Survey Research method has been used by all these scholars as a technique of scientific investigation that are utilised to gather

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data from the field in order to generalize results from a sample of a larger population and universe. They have been quite successful in focussing their concern to a specific problem of bureaucratic behaviour and are able to arrive at generalisations, which albeit have limited universal applications. The objective behind these studies being limited there could have possibly been no coordination in an effort leading to

theory building at a macro-level. A majority of these surveys were designed for analytic or diagnostic purposes to test hypotheses about relationships between variables, based on structured data gathering instruments so as to facilitate quantification of responses into categories and numbers, in order to optimize the capacity for summarisation and generalisation of the results. There have been a lesser attempt by scholars to use the survey methods as a hybrid of survey and experimental method, as a controlled field experiment which has the ability to generalize, while at the same time controlling the effects of extraneous influences leading to a more reliable theory construction. Nor there have been many attempts at social science laboratory research leading to more practical problem-solving of administrative issues or policy-formulations in the programmes for the social and economic development. Cross-national and cross-cultural studies, which attempt to develop comparative, and hopefully equivalent-concepts and operations to test the validity of a proposition in more than one culture and one or more national settings have been conspicuously absent in the emerging literature in public administration in this country.5

Recently some efforts have been made by the Indian Institute of Public Administration in collaboration with the British Council, the University of Birmingham and the Civil Service College in London to research specific critical policy areas of contemporary concerns with a view to arrive at certain specific suggestions for improvement and reforms. The two volumes on Governance and Poverty (2000-2001) are indicative of this trend.

The 'Genetic' Explanations of Administrative Elite

Many contemporary studies on the socio-economic background of administrative elites in India have made use of the survey interview method of data collection and have relied

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heavily on computer for correlating their attitudes in terms of their biographical data.6 There has been no attempt in making use of a wide-ranging historical perspectives, which allows one to consider the process by which role attitudes are acquitted against a background of political, economic and social change. Such an approach—called as genetic explanations of contemporary differences in role perceptions—is more dynamic than the survey interview method, which can only explain certain phenomenon in a limited way—and has still less capacity for predictions.7 Instead of treating variance in perceptions or attitudes as culturally determined, i.e., residual factors after other aspects of the contemporary social situation have been explained, the genetic approach seeks the origins of these differences in specific past behaviour. At some moment in the past a formal institution gets established, a behaviour pattern adopted, a value acknowledged, which might have been initiated by an identifiable individual or group of individuals. Identifying these origins as unique events is the work of historiography

in the narrow sense. What is more important is the sociological perspective in determining how and why a pattern of social behaviour become institutionalised, i.e., widely repeated and accepted in a segment of society. This calls for a judicial blend of the sociological approach and the application of theory of history in as coherent a substantive comparison as possible. With the limited exception of some work done by historian B.B. Misra in this direction, all the studies relating to the administrative elites in India fall short of this type of indepth analysis.8 The historical method of research in the field of public administration needs to be tampered with such sociological orientation for more meaningful and indepth studies.

The New Research Techniques

Some of the new methods of techniques affecting the practice of public administration have been made possible by recent developments in scientific and technological fields. Training in some of these has been considered as absolutely essential in many social science disciplines. The more enterprising of the Departments and Institutions of Public Administration have added courses on:

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(1) computer and electronic data-processing;

(2) a series of quantitative-oriented tools, known as "management-science" techniques; and

(3) the systems (or total systems) approach.

In one way or another, all of these methods involve information-processing and an attempt to provide decision-makers with more objective and more reliable information, taking into account more relevant variables than heretofore possible.

The study of the administration of decisions has become a focal point at which investigators from many different disciplines can learn from each other. In the field of business management, a number of behavioural scientists, challenged by the writings of Herbert Simon, are exploring both the individual and the group aspect of the hierarchy of decisions. Strangely enough, such an approach or methodology has not been sufficiently used in the study and analysis of the decision-making processes in public administration. The decisions taken by Government are more vital and affect a large number of citizens. The technique used for such investigation is only a slight variation of the survey research method.

Writing on this aspect, Donald S. Tull and Gerald S. Albaum, differentiate between two types of survey research problems, the decisional and the basic. Decisional problems are, as the name implies, those (or which the survey is being conducted to provide information for making a pending decision. Basic research problems are those concerned primarily with advancing the level of scientific knowledge. The essential methodological difference between the two types of research lies in the admissibility of investigator's judgement in the collection and analysis of data. In the properly designed basic survey research project, a concerted effort is made to collect the data so that they are objectively verifiable: the only sampling errors are random in origin and stochastically predictable: systematic errors are measured and non-judgmental means of analysis are employed. Competence in design and care in implementing it are relied upon to produce a working approximation of these objectives.

In the properly designed decisional research project investigate judgment is used to supplement and in some cases

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supplant these non-judgmental procedures. The principle involved, applicable to both the research project as a whole and to each element of it, is to weigh value versus cost of information.9

The theoretical models for pure research in business seem to be coming largely from new forms of mathematical analysis, as well as from new behavioural concepts. Work in each abstract fields of endeavour requires a special competence, but it presents a growing opportunity for the curious research specialist.

Other Methods of Inquiry

The foregoing analysis of research methodology techniques available to scholars of public administration clearly illustrates that because of its broad scope and complexity of the subject matter, almost every method of inquiry could be applied in the development of theories of Public Administration. However, all methods including the traditional methods of: (1) recollected experience, (2) deductive reasoning, and (3) empirical observation, could not be applied with the same success. As observed by Lynton Caldwell, research for operational validity and greater productivity may need a scholar to put greater reliance on two other methods of inquiry: (a) Heuristic analogy, and (b) Inductive inference.10 Both of these methods have had little impact either in research projects leading to theory-building or in the training courses in research methodology in the field of public administration in India.

The method of heuristic analogy implies a recourse to model building and to simulation of administrative behaviour. This can be effectively utilised as a substitute for the less feasible control experiment in actual administrative situation. Heuristic analogy can contribute directly to the realistic study of the dynamic process of the administration and indirectly through its use in the study of complex system of all kinds. The developments in computer technology has definitely aided in this type of research techniques. Inductive inference as a method of research and theory-construction draw upon all other methods insofar as their data are amenable to objective testing. It has been claimed that this method is valuable for the advancement of reliable knowledge. However, such a method involves:

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(1) devising alternative hypothesis,

(2) devising appropriate experiment with alternative outcome, and

(3) repeating procedures to obtain the elimination or refinement of sequential hypotheses.11

It is clear that we can not answer the question "What is new and consequential in the methods for the study and analysis of phenomena in Public Administration?" in very precise and clear terms. The methods available for the conduct of studies in public administration are changing in many areas and many of the advance methods basically remain in an experimental stage. Even those which have been well recognised and widely adopted are by no means in common use in the Indian situation.


What then can be done to improve the present situation is the vital question that needs to be pondered over in greater depth. There is no doubt that the research methodology courses in public administration would have to rely heavily on the methods and techniques as applicable to other social sciences but with far greater orientation and contextual relatively with the practical application in the field of public administration than hitherto emphasised. The courses in research methodology would have to be redesigned keeping an overall perspective of the problems and areas of research in public administration. There is perhaps still some truth in Professor Charlesworth's observation of some years ago that "method in public administration cannot be standardised and prescribed: method is the man himself." In the "innovative, the creative, the controversial, and the influential parts of our literature, there are no appropriate rules of methodology. In the minuscula, the pedestrian, the predictable and the common-pattern type of writing, it is clear that procedure governs both matter and form."12 If this

is true, it would seem that much of our progress in attaining research competence would depend upon how best and in what proportion we are able to assimilate the various components of basic social science research methodology to suit

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the special requirements of our discipline.

Simultaneously there is a need to change our teaching methods for courses in research methodology. We will have to get away from exposing the students merely to a theoretical background of research methodology techniques. Theoretical knowledge would have to be supplemented by practical workshop experiments or supplied knowledge at every stage of their training. At the same time, there is a need to bring all those who are engaged in various types of research studies or teaching in research methodology courses in the field of public administration on a common forum at least on a periodical basis. This would enable them to share their experiences in the use of research methodology, which might eventually lead to the development of a new line of thinking in this direction.

Finally, it would be a good idea, if some sort of Clearing House for Research is established by the ICSSR, or by the IIPA, which could possibly coordinate the efforts of individual scholars and researchers in the field, so that the micro-studies conducted by the individual scholars on their own initiative may be used for theory-construction at the macro-level. Unless some such steps are undertaken to revamp the training programmes of research methodology in public administration courses and enrich its substantive contents, the discipline may not be able to reach the status that it so well deserves.


1. Nicholas Henry, Public Administration and Public Affairs (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall Inc., 1975), p. 17.

2. This is clear from the Courses in Research Methodology offered in the field of Public Administration at different Universities in India.

3. Indian Council of Social Science Research, A Survey of Research in Public Administration, Vols. I & II, (Bombay, Allied Publishers, 1973) and the Second Survey undertaken by Kuldeep Mathur in 1986.

4. See for example, Ramashray Roy, Bureaucracy and Development: The Case of Indian Agriculture (New Delhi, Manas, 1975); V.A. Pai Panandiker and S.S. Kshirsagar, "Bureaucracy and Development", (New Delhi, Centre for Policy Research, 1976), mimeo; Prem Lata Bansal, Administrative Development in India (New Delhi, Abhinav Publications, 1974); N.K. Singhvi, Bureaucracy Positions and Persons: Role Structures, Interactions and Value orientations of Bureaucrats in Rajasthan (New Delhi, Abhinav Publications, 1974); Avadhesh Prasad, The Bloc Development Officers: A

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Portrait of Bureaucracy in India (Patna, 1976); H.R. Chaturvedi, Bureaucracy and Local Community Dynamics of Rural Development (Bombay, Allied, 1977); K.K. Panikkar. Community Development Administration in Kerela (Delhi, 1974); Kuldip Mathur, Bureaucratic Response To Development: A Study of Block Development Officers in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (Delhi, National, 1972); G.K. Prasad, Bureaucracy in India: A Sociological Study (New Delhi, Sterling, 1974).

5. A very interesting example of cross-cultural, cross-national research is project by Hursh Cesar and Pradipto Roy, et. al. Diffusion of Innovations in Rural Societies, 1965-69, sponsored by the United States Agency for International and administered by Department of Communication, Michigan State University (Rogers et. al., 1969). This project concerned with community development programmes in Brazil, Nigeria and India, having different languages and cultures with the objective to develop cross cultural generalisations about the process of the diffusion of innovations in each country.

6. See for example, V. Subramaniam, Social Background of India's Administrators: Study of the Higher Civil Services in India (New Delhi, 1971).

7. A very good illustration of the use of such an approach is furnished by John A Armstrong, The Administrative Elite in Europe (Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1973).

8. See B.B. Misra, Bureaucracy in India (Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1977).

9. Donald S. Tull and Gerald S. Albaum, Survey Research: A Decisional Approach (New York, Intertext Books, 1973), p. ix.

10. Lynton K. Caldwell, "Methodology in the Theory of Public Administration" in Jones C. Charlesworth (ed.), Theory and Practice of Public Administration Scope, Objectives, and Methods (Philadelphia, 1968), p. 218 (Monograph 8 in a series sponsored by The American Academy of Political and Social Science and American Society for Public Administration.

11. Ibid.

12. James C. Charlesworth, "A Report and also some Projections, Relating to the Present Dimensions and Directions of the Discipline of Public Administration" in Ibid., pp. 335-36.

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15 Comparative Study of Public Administration—Problems andProspects

The task of interpreting Public Administration is indeed formidable. There are a number of ways and methods used by researchers to study public administration, each of them capable of revealing different facts of administrative reality in the context of differing environment. Researcher have used historical, inductive, case study, and survey methods to study the phenomenon of administrative reality. However, the comparative method of study of public administration has been advocated as the most scientific to discern and predict administrative phenomenon. Yet it has perhaps been the most problematitc and most difficult to be used in the study and research in public administration. An attempt is made in this chapter to analyse the various problems of the comparative method of the study and research in public administration, especially in the Indian context.

EMERGENCE OF COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The search for the construction of a science of public administration brought home the fact that this depended among

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other things, on success in establishing propositions about administrative behaviour that transcended national boundaries. In his essay, "The Science of Public Administration", published in 1947, Robert Dahl had argued that, "the attempt to create a science of public administration with universal or even generally applicable principles was handicapped by the threes basic problems of values, individual

personality and the social framework1 He pointed out that "the comparative aspects of public administration have largely been ignored, and as long as the study of public administration is not comparative, claim for a science of public administration' sounds rather hollow."2

The need for comparison presented many problems. To begin with any attempt to compare national administrative systems must acknowledge the fact that administration is only one aspect of the operation of the political system. This inevitably means that comparative public administration is linked with the study of comparative politics. Work in comparative public administration Has, thus, closely followed comparative political analysis. In the United States both movements, viz. of comparative politics and comparative public administration have been characterised "by the comparative youth of their participants, by a general commitment to the outlook identified with behaviouralism by an effort to be interdisciplinary in interests and techniques, and by an effort to arrive at concepts, formulas, and theories that are truly universal, bridging and embracing all cultures."3

Interest in comparative public administration also grew out of the fact that beginning with World War II continuing into the post-war military occupations, and accelerating with the many technical assistance programs of the United States, the United Nations, and private foundations, the American students and teachers of public administration by hundreds have found themselves engaged in professional work in foreign lands. This exposure to foreign, often non-Western, governmental systems and cultures has stimulated a sense of 'comparativeness' in general, and in particular has raised questions about either the appropriateness or the sheer possibility of transferring familiar administrative devices or applying what had been presumed to be good or scientific principles of administration in diverse settings.4

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Thus, in order to meet the needs of new policy areas of technical assistance administration, important strides have been made in the evolution of the study of comparative public administration. Consequently, the students of comparative public administration, aware of the intellectual developments in comparative sociology, anthropology, and other areas, became interested in developing theoretical constructs with a cross-cultural, cross-national, and cross-temporal relevance in their field. They recognised that hypotheses developed in the American cultural context, in order to be valid as part of the success of public administration should be tested in cross-cultural settings.

The ultimate objective of the comparative public administration movement, as Caldwell observed, has been "to hasten the emergence of a universally valid body of knowledge concerning administrative behaviour—in brief to contribute to a genuine and generic discipline of public administration."5 Comparative Public administration thus delineates an area of concern and a methodological orientation

that differs from the traditional approach of merely juxtaposing the description of a number of similar administrative institutions in different countries at one place. It offers to study the administrative processes and organisations for the purpose of answering common problems and questions. It attempts to identify the characteristics of various administration in terms of certain established analytical categories in the light of which identification of administrative phenomena becomes possible for as many administrative systems as feasible. It further purports not only to examine similarities and differences in the norms, institutions, and behaviour of administrations, but also to account for them and aim toward the development of a body of knowledge so that policy recommendations can be made and trends predicted. It is in this sense that it becomes a matrix from which theories emerge. At the same time, it serves as a laboratory for their testing. As Dwight Waldo has put it:

To compare is to examine similarities and differences simultaneously, the effort is bent forward to two main ends: (i) to discover, define and differentiate the stuff (politics or administration) to be compared, wherever in

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the world it may be; and (ii) to develop criteria of differentiation that are useful in ordering and analysing the 'stuff once it has been identified. In this task, the contemporary stock of provoked or fashionable concepts in the social science (as well as those 'indigenous' to political science) has been drawn upon extensively. The works of Max Weber and Talcott Parsons, structural-functionalism as conceived in various sources, the concept of culture, the decision-making scheme, communications theory and cybernetics, systems theory—all these and several more sources have been drawn upon by both movements.6

Trends and Models in Comparative Public Administration

The Comparative Administration Group of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) has done some pioneering work in strengthening the comparative public administration movement. A draft statement in 1961 described comparative public administration as "the theory of public administration applied to diverse cultures and national settings—and the body of factual data by which it can be examined and tested."7

The study of comparative public administration has given rise to problems of methodological concern and of conceptual focus. Scholars have been greatly preoccupied with the construction of models and typologies of political regimes and institutions and the delineation of geographic-cultural areas—an activity prominent also in and shared with comparative politics. The range of concepts associated with

the term 'bureaucracy' and its ideal type has been extensively used. The so-called action theory and the concepts and language of structural-functionalism have often been involved, and the related and overlapping but different and broader concept of ecology is also frequently set forth as important. Equilibrium theory, particularly the idea of a 'system' with 'inputs' and 'outputs', is prominent. Most of the popular concepts and phrases of contemporary behavioural sciences are being used, and there is reference, for example to matters, such as communications theory and multi-variate analysis.

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The Bureaucratic Model

The bureaucratic model has been enthusiastically adopted by students of comparative public administration in developed countries as a means of measuring the actual administrative institutions observed against an 'ideal-type' model of rational administrative organisation, that is, organisation perfectly developed to fulfil some set programme objective. The model was first developed by Max Weber and has since been further developed, applied, criticised, and altered. The model is so well known that it need not be elaborated here. Following Max Weber, political scientists have generally assumed that only an advanced society with a culture featuring legal-rational concepts of authority would be capable of sustaining administrative structures approximating the bureaucratic model.

Dwight Waldo has found the bureaucratic model useful, stimulating and provocative, its advantage and appeal being that it "is set in a large framework that spans history and cultures and relates bureaucracy to important societal variables, yet it focuses attention upon the chief structural and functional characteristics of bureaucracy."8 He correctly points out that not much empirical research has actually been done on the basis of the bureaucratic model.

However, American students of public administration— who had a tendency to resist the abandonment or serious modification of the bureaucratic model as they moved from the realm of advanced complex nations to that of the nations still undergoing modernisation—have been beset with the malady afflicting comparative study in general: the tendency to put the structure first and to assume that the function performed by a given structure in one cultural political context will carry over to a similar structure in another context. This accounts for the frustration of American specialists in public administration when they have attempted to apply their expertise in the role of technical advisers to the governments of Asian and African countries. Invariably, they have found that the structure set up along the lines of classical principles has failed to behave as expected or even to display standard aberrations familiar in the Western settings. Most perplexing has been the difficulty of maintaining stable boundaries between the administrative

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organisations and the political environment. On the one hand, achievement criteria have been violated, often in a wholesale fashion, as political considerations of personal loyalty, ideological parity, or both have become predominant as personnel policy. On the other hand, administrative agencies have shown a tendency to step beyond the brands of their assigned functions and to seek a role, sometimes in the absence of clear political initiative in charting the direction and pace of modernisation of their countries.9

Among scholars who have contributed to the studies of comparative bureaucratic systems, are Monroe Berger, Alfered Diamant, Ferrel Heady, Robert Presthus, and Michael Crozier. The emphasis in most of the writings on comparative bureaucracy appears to be on the interaction between the administrative sub-system and the political system in which it exists, although some attention has been paid to other dimensions of administrative ecology.

Rigg's Prismatic-Sala Model

The most prominent model builder in the comparative administrative movement is Fred W. Riggs. As his thinking evolved, he has developed not only a model but a series of overlapping and interrelated models. Riggs then came out with his well-known model of "prismatic society."10 In this model, Riggs has changed the key terms from "agraria-transitia-industria" to "fused society", "prismatic society" and "refracted society" (later redesignated as 'diffracted' society). It is based on the structural-functional approach, and delineates societies according to different social structures.

The three ideal-typical categories of societies are thus constructed on the basis of the extent to which rules in various organisations are exclusive or overlapping. The fused society has almost no specialisation of rules, whereas the refracted society is at a high level of structural differentiation and the prismatic society forms the intermediate category. In the prismatic society, a high degree of formalism—discrepancies between norms and realities—overlapping and heterogeneity exists. Riggs has argued, therefore, that in a prismatic environment, institutional or formal structural analysis is likely to produce a disappointing outcome, since what might

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normally be expected to result from a particular administrative system on organisational patterns fails to appear because of a big gap that exists between the formally prescribed norms and the effectively practiced action.

These models emphasise ecology, and Riggs is primarily concerned with examining how public administration functions are performed by different types of structures. His approach emphasises an open system perspective that has had increasing influence elsewhere in the social sciences. However, his systems models lack the dynamic qualities developed in many other open system models, for in them he has not analysed the process of refraction from a developmental perspective. He also does not appear to have worked out fully the implications of his theory on public administration. This is, however, not to underestimate the value of his theory, which, as Chapman believes, "deepens our insight into some of the underlying problems of administrative development in transitional societies."11 His prismatic theory may, perhaps, be especially valuable in understanding the pathology of public administration, as it may be useful for diagnosis in the same way that principles help in the diagnosis of certain administrative malfunctions. What is noteworthy in Rigg's provocative suggestions is that he is attempting to place the administrative sub-system into a larger system and to show both its functional relationship thereto and its conceptual consequences. To the extent that Riggs and others sharing his assumptions have provided a framework for further undertaking in the field, the study of comparative public administration has moved further to date than have the other sub-fields of comparative political systems.

The Developmental Model

Closely related to the study of comparative public administration is the study of developmental administration. Developmental administration, an indispensable tool in the attainment of the goals of the 'good' society, has attracted the mainstream of comparative administrators seeking ways and means to improve administrative performance and to strengthen the planning and execution of development programmes. The idea had its origins in the desire of wealthier

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countries to aid poorer countries and more especially in the obvious needs of the newly emerging nation-states to transform their colonial bureaucracies into more responsible instruments of social change.

Developmental administration, thus, encompasses the organisation of new agencies, such as planning organisation and development corporations: the reorientation of established agencies, such as departments of agriculture; the delegation of administrative powers to development agencies; and the creation of a cadre of administrators that can provide leadership in stimulating and supporting programmes of social and economic improvement. It has the purpose of making change as attractive as possible.12 Strictly speaking, it may not be referred to as the "applied side" of comparative public

administration, as there is no sharp distinction in intent, concepts, and involved personnel between the two. Those interested in developmental administration are interested in and draw on many sources other than comparative public administration; and some of them are trained in (and identify themselves with) disciplines other than political science or public administration.13

Comparative administration and development administrations are often used interchangeably. Though, thirty-five years ago such usage would have been appropriate, but now a distinction between them is useful. Comparative administration has largely fallen by the wayside. It gives an image of political scientists interested in varients among legal and party systems who also describe and explain cross-national differences among bureaucratic practices.

On the other hand, development administration has come to mean the study and practice of induced socio-economic change in the developing countries. The image is transformational, directive and cross-cultural. In the field of development administration, various shifts in perspective have occurred during the last four decades and the emphasis has now moved from induced development to sustainable development for human prosperity.14

Decline of Grand Theories

Rigg's theory of prismatic society epitomised the search within the academic community to build comprehensive

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theories, which can explain the irrational, pre-scientific and introductive bureaucratic behaviour that was prevalent in developing countries.15 Those who were interested in inducing change translated theorising into an enclave mentality, which focused on the introduction of new institutions into environments dominated by old social forms. The question was how to plant an enclave of new modern practices into a traditional environment and have it survive. This search was conducted under the title of "institution building".16

In the early 1960s, the practitioner of development administration also followed an enclave approach. Establishment of local universities, institutes of public administration and administrative staff colleges followed this pattern as did the focus on civil service structures, position classification and similar concerns of Central Government.17 Administrative modernisation was regarded as a technical things

export of western administrative methods and practices into the newly emerging independent nations. The Marshall Plan provided the model.

The international situation was changing and by the mid-1950s new concerns were emerging. Major donor agencies, like the World Bank and US, AID, adopted a project-by-project approach to development. With the relation and recognition of the importance of agricultural sector, projects became area-based and placed within semi-autonomous implementation units with a life span co-terminus with the end of project funding. This introduced a concern for smaller scale, more immediate issues surrounding the many obstacles to implementation and management of projects.

Problems in the Application of Models

The foregoing brief review of some of the models constructed by American public administrationists for the study of public administration on a comparative basis raises a number of questions about their application in understanding the administrative systems in the developing world.

Which particular model is most appropriate, and for what purpose, and where should it be applied? The central problem in the study of comparative public administration is that it is large enough to embrace all the phenomena that should be

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embraced without being, by virtue of its large dimensions, too unwieldy. The second problem is of relating the universal and the unique in one system. The idea of universals runs through administrative study, for example, in the assertions of the "founding fathers" to the most sophisticated of our contemporaries in the field. But to make comparisons implies not only the identification of the universals but also discovering a criterion of differentiation.

The choice of models thus is intimately related to the choice of a research strategy and to the most effective employment of limited resources. None of these models listed previously may present a perfect analysis of contemporary administrative scenes in diverse cultural settings. But if carefully used, they do serve as a framework for analysing different aspects of administrative phenomena in a comparative perspective. These models may be useful in revealing more clearly the social, economic and political basis on which administrative institutions depend. In public administration, they are impressionistic and non-quantitative, it is only when we understand their limitations that we can use models intelligently and safely to help us toward an understanding of administrative behaviour.

Inadequacies of Comparative Public Administration

The experience of comparative public administration brings out clearly that what lasts rests on the logic and processes of the approach and not on the locus or the focus problem. Whether the problem is relevant or irrelevant or how many people will profit from it are secondary questions.

However, scholars of comparative public administration did not understand this. No doubt they had lofty ideas, but they did not develop, or even realise, the need for a methodology for empirical analysis. Thus, it was inadequately developed as a social science.

Scholars of comparative public administration developed grand theories but they did not put them to empirical testing. A pre-requisite of scientific theory building is that it proceeds from what we are relatively certain about, and makes imaginative leaps via hypotheses towards what we do not know. These leaps are in a testable form. The theories and

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models developed here were based on what we did not know and it was not possible to test them.18 The failure of comparative public administration to test empirical theory in a systematic way and its inability to frame theory in testable terms was best articulated by Henderson, when he said that a major part of the difficulty apparently "was the inadequate base in comparative administration, its lack of experience and traditions for empirical research, which limited students who could not operate from a firmer base than comparative public administration."19 Similar views were echoed by Sigelman.20

Comparative public administration is floundering at a time when other social sciences have finally come to appreciate the centrality of bureaucracy and bureaucrats in the political process. Unless specialists in comparative administration move quickly toward fostering a tradition of systematic theory building and testing, their moment will pass them by.

Secondly, comparative public administration had strong prescriptive motivations. However, it could not develop a viable applied aspect. The need for practical application which was central in the early formative period became "a very weak urge."21 The practitioners wanted to be informed about what they did not know. The grand theories of comparative public administration did not prove very useful to them in this respect. Most of what comparative public administration scholars had to say was "useless

to the statesman".22 It failed to provide help or guidance to the practitioners in solving and removing obstacles to development.

Thirdly, diversity has been the hallmark of the comparative public administration movement. While acknowledging that "dissension prevails" with no agreement on "approach, methodology, concept, theory, or doctrine," Riggs considered this "a virtue, a cause for excitement,"23 normal in a preparadigmatic field. The discipline "started with no paradigm of its own and developed none." No orthodoxy was established or even attempted. The result, according to Savage, "has been paradigmatic confusion, as much a part of Comparative Administration as it is held to be of its parent field, public administration."24 This failure to draw the boundaries and set the rules of comparative public administration as a field of study has been one of the main complaints of its critics. This led

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scholars to pursue its study and research in their own ways. William Siffin at Indiana University, by sticking to the original agenda, produced the first teaching material for comparative public administration. Ferrel Heady and Nimrod Raphaeli at the University of Michigan produced another general text. In short, at each major school of public administration, different intellectual leaders pursued different paths. The scholars, apart from developing a comparative theory "had no other central focus".25

In addition to these shortcomings, for which Comparative Public Administration itself was by and large responsible, other factors over which it had no control made its future bleak.26 First, Comparative Public Administration has been a victim of circumstances. It was born in the 1960s which were characterised by a surge of interest in the newly independent nations, the Cold War competition to win the people or at least the leaders of these countries through technical cooperation and aid programmes, and attempts to speed up development in these countries through modernisation, institution-building, and technology transfers. All this enthusiasm received a jolt in the 1970s because of the energy crisis, the failure of the New International Economic Order, a world trade depression and the decline of international development efforts. One of the first casualties was funding for various activities in Comparative Public Administration.

Second, one of the most serious threats to Comparative Public Administration was growing disillusionment with what had been its major component, namely, development administration or rather the development bureaucracy, as a spearhead of modernisation. Development aid and administration set out to modernise the administrative systems of the Third World in the image of Western public administration with a "professionally oriented, technically competent, politically and

ideologically neutral bureaucratic machinery"27 and generally to westernise poor developing countries of the world. Westernisation turned out to be quite difficult at best, and impossible where countries did not want to be westernised. An implementation gap soon appeared and widened. The gap between the "centre" and the "periphery" was widened instead of narrowed in both relative and absolute

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terms. Instead of development and "nation-building", turmoil and fragmentation proliferated throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. With the theatre of Cold War moving from Central Europe to the Third World, the myths of mutuality of interests and western benevolence quickly broke down. As for the validity of the standard model, industrial capitalist societies began, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, to experience significant dislocations.28 Urban crises, energy crises, cessation of growth, unemployment, breakdown of public institutions and public morality, all had the effect of dampening the early optimism about the ability of the First World administrative technology to solve problems. At the same time, most nations of Europe and North America experienced development and recurrent fiscal crisis.29

Revitalisation of Comparative Public Administration

In spite of the shortcomings, the future of comparative public administration does not seem bleak. Even its bitter critics acknowledge its contribution and utility. Critics like Jones, Jreisat and Jun acknowledge the contribution of a large number of studies in the accumulation of knowledge.30 Critics like Savage and Siffen, who were also associated with the comparative administration movement, also acknowledge its specific accomplishments. Savage, for example, points out that comparative studies "have shed a bright light on the existence and importance, in many settings, of the public bureaucracy," and have repeatedly emphasised the importance of the administrative factor in political analysis.31 Siffen, while analysing efforts to export administrative technology, credited the scholars of comparative administration "for inquiring into the reasons for technology transfer failures, and commends their attention to environmental factors as inhibitors in attaining developmental administration objectives."32

Almost all the critics have pointed out the lack of paradigmatic consensus in the discipline of comparative public administration. What should be the basis for consensus? Here we find most critics "are embarrassingly silent or vague."33 For example, Jreisat suggested "conceptualisation of critical administration problems at the 'middle range' level and involving institutions rather than entire national administrative

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systems."34 Sigleman thinks that the future of comparative public administration lies in studies of bureaucracies.35

Recent commentators, unlike their predecessors, have made some new suggestions to improve comparative studies. These suggestions pertain to methodologies to be used, data to be collected and subjects to be studied. For example, Jun criticises the structural functional and bureaucratic models and pleads for a different conceptual framework, namely, a phenomenological approach.36 Both Savage and Springer argue for choices in comparative studies among different levels of analysis.37

The problem of data for research is another serious drawback of comparative public administration. Most of the work forming the field's slim theoretical conceptual core is now quite dated. Research becomes meaningful only when reliable data are brought to bear on theoretically significant propositions. Since the field has not reaped the benefits which accrue from the interaction of theory and data, the underdevelopment of Comparative Public Administration, like the socio-economic under-development of the developing countries, has taken on aspects of a vicious circle.38 The strategic problem for students of Comparative Public Administration is to break out of the circle. A meaningful line of attack could be initiating strategies of data collection and maintenance. What is immediately needed is not so much a new vocabulary or a conceptual lens, but the availability of a data series which would facilitate the testing of a myriad of previously untested speculations and the building of theory.

At the Macro-Level

There is little hope, even in the long-run, for the emergence of reliable macro-level data on bureaucracy in any historical depth for even a handful of nations. If by no other logic than the process of elimination, then, students of bureaucracy must generate judgmental data if they are to test macro-level theories.

At the Micro-Level

The future of Comparative Public Administration lies in micro-level studies in examinations of the background, attitudes

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and behaviours of bureaucrats and those with whom they interact. As a matter of fact, many potential significant micro-level studies have already been undertaken but, unfortunately, many of them are not

published and, therefore, remain largely unknown. Some are published in journals devoted to specific geographical areas, and pass unnoticed by a large portion of their potential constituency in comparative administration. Ironically, much of the best micro-level work in bureaucracy is being done by scholars who would probably not identify themselves as students of public administration but rather approach their analysis from the perspective of mainstream political science or sociology.

Though some fascinating micro-level research is being done, yet two problems have been especially acute. First, only the exceptional research project is cross-national in scope. If comparative administration is to build and test theories which are generalisable across the national borders, then a truly cross-national data base must be maintained. Second, the existing literature is scattered and diffused. Different scholars with different research perspectives use different instruments to interview different types of bureaucrats in the examination of different problems in different nations.

In order to overcome these difficulties, it is suggested that an archive for Comparative Public Administration research be set up. Its central purpose would be to facilitate a cumulative research tradition by disseminating information on existing data sets and making the data sets themselves available for secondary analysis.

INDIAN STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The study of public administration through comparative method opens up immense possibilities of fruitful and meaningful research. However, in contrast to the historical method, this has been utilised on a very small scale by the researchers in India. The reason is that the significance of comparative method of research has not been fully understood by many students of public administration. Most of the works that have been published in the name of comparative studies

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are no more than a juxtaposition of the account of one institution in a particular country over the account of the same institution in another country. Most other works in the field give an account of a foreign institution or practice and in the end make a small comment comparing it with some such similar institutions in India without adequately taking into consideration the range of variables and the cross-cultural patterns which make the analysis difficult, if not impossible.

A brief survey of the literature on comparative public administration undertaken by me some time back indicates a very limited use of the comparative method by Indian scholars to interpret public

administration phenomena in a scientific and comprehensive manner.39 It seems that, barring the bureaucratic model, other models have not been made use of in the study of public administration in India. The three dimensions of comparative research—namely, the vertical comparison (comparison between national administrative systems), the horizontal comparison (analysis of administrative processes over a period of time), and the study of administrative institutions and processes across national boundaries with a new orientation and approach—have yet to be explored fully by Indian scholars of comparative public administration.40

It is fitting to mention here the findings of some of the research studies that have used the bureaucratic model to understand the dynamics of the Indian bureaucratic system. This is an example of how the Weberian model of bureaucracy can be fruitfully employed to interpret bureaucratic phenomena in a cross-national perspective.

A basic conclusion emerging from one of the pioneering studies in this direction undertaken by V.A. Pai Panandikar and S.S. Kshirsagar is that the general constructs of bureaucratic41 theory as evolved by Weber and others provide a useful basis for both practical and broader theoretical and comparative purposes. To the extent that the study identifies the universality of structural characteristics of bureaucracy, it supports Heady's thesis that for comparative purposes bureaucratic structure presents a meaningful starting point.

The study reveals, however, that structural and behavioural characteristics in Indian bureaucracy are only moderately related; that the functional content of the

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bureaucracy, the type of office and its level of mass contact to meet programmatic needs, and the level of its skill composition have a significant bearing on the behavioural characteristics. This finding has theoretical as well as practical implications.

Theoretically, it implies that bureaucracy is not a static phenomenon with certain standard structural and behavioural characteristics in more or less comparable proportion. Bureaucracy is a far more dynamic phenomenon in which is functional content, and the mass contact inherent in its objective, and several other factors influence its behavioural characteristics. What is more, the behavioural characteristics appear in turn to modify or alter the bureaucratic structure itself.

The study has, thus, revealed the limitations of the existing theory of bureaucracy for understanding the bureaucratic phenomenon in the developing countries like India. The Weberian model of bureaucracy, thus, at best serves as a starting point of the study of civil service systems.

Behavioural Orientation of Development Bureaucracy; Comparative Analysis

Many public administration scholars in India have in the past three decades attempted to study the behavioural aspects of development bureaucracy in different socio-economic or urban/rural set-up. While the dominant trend in the 1960s was to study the socio-economic background of India's higher administrative and other functional services,42 the later years saw a number of studies on different aspects of the perceptions, orientations, attitudes and practices of the bureaucrats engaged in developmental activities.

Such studies have used systematic sampling and survey techniques to learn about the social backgrounds of politicians and administrators, their perceptions of and attitude towards each other, and their self-perceptions of their role in policy-making and politics. Although these studies are valuable in themselves, "these are essentially a historical. They cannot explore effectively questions of where such attitudes and perceptions come from, and how and why such political administration have come to hold them."43 While it is not possible for me to attempt to make a detailed survey of all such

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studies, it would be appropriate to describe the methods and framework used by one of my former colleagues. Kuldeep Mathur, to identify the 'self-images' of the developmental bureaucrats and to "evaluate their perceptions of the outstanding behaviour and practices of their public administration system."44

In his comparative analysis of the perceptions of the same level of officers in the two adjoining Hindi-speaking states of North India, viz., Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the author has at the outset identified certain geographical, socio-economic and political factors which present a different background for the officials of the two states. In the background of such differences, the author has, through the factor-analysis technique, attempted to develop the major dimensions of bureaucratic thinking and perceptions so as to establish an empirical pattern of the reactions of the bureaucrats to the changing environments. He has further attempted to develop a typology of differences in the perception and reactions of the bureaucrats of one State from the other and to correlate such differences, if any, to the

differences in the socio-economic and political background of the officials. For such an analysis, the author has used the technique of survey research and computer data-processing to develop the profiles of the bureaucrats and has employed discriminant analysis method to find out whether the orientations of the Block Development Officers (BDOs), who are at the base of the hierarchy in implementing development plans, differ in the two States along the perception-dimensions.

His findings sustained the hypothesis that states may be different in bureaucratic orientation. Sufficient answers could not be given as to why the bureaucrats differed. However, for a further line of investigation, it may be very fruitful to develop the particular features of each state or a cultural region to discover what ecological influences go in to mould the behavioural orientations of bureaucrats. For example, the characteristic of political interference in administration has come out in many studies on North Indian States. It may be useful to carry out such type of analysis in other states of India to establish the generality of the phenomenon.

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TEACHING COMPARATIVE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA

A recent survey of the offering of public administration courses undertaken by a Study Team of the Curriculum Development Centre in Political Science of the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, has noted that the relatively marginal attention that the discipline of public administration gets in a wide range of universities is puzzling45 since it has had in terms of time, a pronounced period of growth in the country. In fact, so-extensive has been its scope that it has been organised within departments totally dissociated from departments of political science. The more beneficial aspects of such autonomy—greater disciplinary rigour, if they have indeed materialised—do not seem to have appreciably, or perhaps even marginally, helped in enlarging the range of public administration core and optional courses (quite apart from enhancing the disciplinary quality or originality of existing courses) in departments of political science. It would appear that the more adherent aspects of autonomous development are more prominent. Political Science departments seem to have left "Public Administration" to "autonomous development", and seem only too relieved to have the necessary academic space for intensive study of other areas and concerns. This may not be justified in many cases and it would be of the essence of any curriculum development programme to bring the study of Public Administration back into the mainstream of a study of politics within political science departments.46

The same survey noted that teaching in Indian universities on comparative public administration is mostly done through a few optional courses at the graduate level (M.A. Political Science of Public Administration) under the titles of: (a) Comparative Administrative Systems in Developing Countries, (b) Comparative Administrative Systems in Socialist Countries, and (c) Administrative Systems in Western

Democracies, and (a) Comparative Public Policy, and (b) Theories of Bureaucracy at the M.Phil level. In the case of comparative study of administration in developing countries, the cover contents endeavour to evaluate critically the viability of the various models for comparative analysis of

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administrative systems, and help appraise the concept of development administration with a view to theorising on administrative practices and institution-making in developing countries. In the case of comparative study of administration systems of socialist countries, the courses attempt an appraisal of Marxist-Leninist ideas of social management and their situational variations when these are implemented in different community systems of Asia and Africa. In the comparative study of Administrative Systems in Western democracies, the courses endeavour to examine the issues involved in the theory and practice of administrative institutions/structures in some of the Western democracies like, the USA, UK and France. The University of Delhi has introduced comparative public administration course, including the study of American, British, Canadian, French and German administrative systems. In the M.Phil, programme of Comparative Public Policy and Theories of Bureaucracy, more emphasis is placed on theories of public policy and bureaucracies in the light of practical experiences of some developed and developing countries (mostly India).

The two surveys on Research in Public Administration commissioned by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, first covering the period until 1969 and the second covering the period 1970-79, have both lamented the lack of buoyancy or achievements, either in the academic or practical worlds of public administration's continuing relevance to the needs of the country. Reporting on the progress of research in the Second Survey (1970-79), Kuldeep Mathur pointed out the distortions in the discipline created by an inordinate research emphasis on the "institutional view of public administration". In his view, the researchers in India have failed "to offer conceptual frameworks relevant to the Indian situation". Acceptance of the "instrumentality paradigm", he argued had led to an overemphasis on techniques and skills and blurring of distinction between public and private administration. The general trend in public administration research, as observed by him, has been to accept bureaucracy as an impersonal apparatus and ignore the socio-political context within which public administration is situated. Calling for a shift in emphasis with a view to developing public administration as a social science discipline, Mathur recommended adoption of policy analysis orientation in

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public administration research under which public administration would be viewed "as the implementation strategy of Public Policy."47 Mathur's general remarks are also applicable to the teaching and research in Comparative Public Administration in India. It is time now to accept the

inadequacy of bureaucracy, which has been thus far the main focus of concern in many studies in comparative public administration, and switch to a policy analysis perspective. It will see public administration in a problem-solving perspective and establish a relationship between policy design and implementation strategy in a comparative framework, including an analysis of the various socio-economic and political processes that influence its courses. This may help to understand why one policy gets implemented, and not another in different societies and even within the same society. This would also make public administration discipline as a whole more 'socially relevant' and situated within the socio-economic and political context that shapes it and gives meaning to it.

PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN INDIA

Evidently, study of comparative public administration is fraught with many difficulties. The basic problem is one of competence in comparative research methodology. But that is not the only problem. Even if it is assumed that a researcher knows the techniques of comparative methods of study, there is always the difficulty of "model building" that is to choose between various concepts and models of comparative research or to develop a theory of hypothesis around which a generalisation applicable to many administrative systems can be built and tested.

An Indian scholar, in particular, faces difficulties with respect to the non-availability of data and material, particularly across national frontiers. The prohibitive costs and the time involved may itself deter a researcher from venturing in this direction. Further, there are difficulties arising from the nature of the data, which some governments may regard as confidential and which, therefore, may not be easily available to a researcher. There are other difficulties that arise from the range and nature of variable that must be used in the study of

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comparative administration. Some variables are simply not capable of being measured precisely. A researcher may use certain general or cross-national variables (e.g., psychological or socio-economic variables), but the unique character of each administrative policy and organisation must, in some form be measured if comparisons are realistically to account for the presence of a particular type of administrative phenomenon. Difficulties also arise from the interplay and interrelationships among the norms, structures and behaviour of the administrative systems. Models and theories must take into account all these factors. Further, any meaningful comparative research must take into account the study of the societies as wholes, so that they may be subjected to comparative analysis. Obviously, this requires an interdisciplinary approach to the study of administrative phenomena. In India, the study of public administration through an interdisciplinary approach has yet to begin on a serious footing. Models are difficult to build, and researchers have found the comparative method of research more

difficult than the empirical or behavioural approach techniques that have, to some extent been perfected.

Agenda for Further Research through Comparative Method

The list of difficulties just presented does not suggest that comparative research in India is not possible, nor that there are no avenues open to research on a comparative basis. Indeed the national frontiers of India present a veritable paradise for researches in comparative administration.

In the first place, there is ample scope for comparative research in various administrations of the States and the Union Territories in India. The socio-economic and cultural factors, which have both similar and dissimilar features in various regions of the country, present a challenge to a researcher to make a scientific inquiry into the study of administrative institutions, programme administration, and policy implementation on a regional basis. An inquiry into the causes of dynamism through which the same institutions work in a particular Union Territory or State and the slow pace at which they work in other region would be a worthwhile area for study as a means of improving administrative organisation in various regions. If the States or Union Territories are included in the

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survey more often, the greater is the possibility of "administrative theory-building through empirically tested generalisations about Indian administration". Such research, if undertaken by Indian scholars would also obviate the subjective element that is likely to crop up in researchers who have been exposed to only their own political culture, for example, of the Western type. With some imaginative and concentrated efforts on the part of professional institutions and universities, a unified programme to study various administrative phenomena on cross-regional basis could perhaps be drawn. This will help build up a substantial amount of literature on the basis of which future researchers may develop improved research models for comparative study.

Secondly, there is considerable scope for researchers with a comparative approach in respect to policy and programme administration in public and private settings. This will be especially fruitful in comparing the performances of public and private enterprises, particularly with reference to the same industry. The development of the public sector on an unprecedented scale has confronted the government with the problem of running those enterprises on a basis in which they could generate sufficient dividends necessary for the establishment of a socialist welfare state. Horizontal studies over a period of time of nationalised industries (e.g., it would be interesting to compare the performance of the banning industry before nationalisation and after nationalisation over a period of time, alongwith a comparison of, say,

consumer satisfaction with banks in the private and public sectors) would indeed be logical and meaningful.

Thirdly, vertical comparisons of various aspects of functional administration between the national, regional and local governments open an extensive field for researchers. It is generally admitted that administration at regional and local levels is weaker when compared with that at the national level. This may perhaps be a universal phenomenon. In the Indian context, however, it would be beneficial to undertake such exercises with a view to locating the factors that hamper the growth of sound administrative practices in many areas. The combination of comparative methods and empirical analysis will, it may be hoped, open up many bottlenecks of

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administrative processes.

Finally, comparative studies, on a cross-national basis, provide vast potentialities for scientific and meaningful research toward the identification of a universal administrative plane. Admittedly, such studies would have to be undertaken with considerable planning, insight, and an adequate knowledge of the unlimited range of variables that are involved in the interplay of administrative processes across national frontiers. However, the difficulties are not altogether insurmountable. To begin, cross-cultural studies can be undertaken on a regional basis (e.g., with respect to administrative phenomena in South Asian countries) with a little systematic effort. For instance, a common theme for a comparative analysis could be the impact of public administration on the developmental process with reference to South Asian countries or with reference to Latin American countries or East African countries. Another theme for comparative and historical exposition could be the impact of the British Administration on the development of public administration in various erstwhile colonies. Yet another comparative study could be an analysis of the planning and decision-making processes in various countries.

Research Areas in Comparative Administration

Comparisons can also be made between various aspects of administrative processes in India and some other developed countries, like the Scandinavian countries, and so on, with a view to testing the validity of administrative generalisations evolved through regional comparisons and for the purposes of determining the overall performance of an administrative system in terms of goal achievements. For instance, a common framework in this context can be an analysis of the administration of social services and welfare activities with respect to as many systems as possible.

Some other suggested topics are as under:

1. Impact of social structure on the development of bureaucracy and its procedures,

2. The natural calamities and disasters and the administration,

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3. Technological developments and public administration,

4. Public administration and political development,

5. Social, economic, system and administration (ecology),

6. Imperial traditions: their impact on administration,

7. Political agitation and administrative response,

8. Administrative load and popular demand,

9. International Bureaucracies and World Organisations (IMF, World Bank, OECD, etc.),

10. Methods and strategies of organisational change and development,

11. Bureaucratisation and debureaucratisation,

12. Comparative public enterprises,

13. Comparative national planning,

14. Comparative economic policy and regulation, and

15. Comparative Foreign Policy Administration.

However, all these suggestions are based on the assumption that the research will be undertaken with reference to a common framework to point out similarities and dissimilarities and to account for them or to test the validity of certain generalisation through empirical studies of as many systems as possible. Only then can comparative studies be scientific and more meaningful.

CONCLUSION

Since post-World War II, tendencies in comparative public administration are still being analysed and illustrated, we cannot really conclude the survey of public administration. In the contemporary development of discipline nothing has really concluded. There is still some vagueness and dilemma as to the claim of public administration to be a self-contained academic discipline. At this point, we can only say that the study of comparative public administration, in spite of its many vagaries, has reached at least a new consensus upon concepts, methods, and analytical approaches capable of yielding a broad and precise science of administrative institutions. It is possible that at a later stage we will be able to develop better research

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strategies for comparative public administration, once we have been able to gather enough empirical data about administrative behaviour in as many systems as possible, particularly relating to the developing world, which has very little empirical data to offer for any meaningful comparative study leading to theory construction.

The future of comparative public administration thus need not be confused with the separate disciplinary identity. Savage, Jun and Riggs all question separate recognition of it as a field of study. Savage thinks they have been "absorbed into the larger Political Science and Public Administration."48 Jun is of the view that as an isolated field, it has served the purpose and now it "should become an integral part of the larger field of public administration, which can be enriched by placing it in a world context."49 Riggs also foresees convergence but in the sense that it "will become the master field within which American public administration will be only a sub-field."50 Comparative Public Administration has changed the paradigm of public administration. It has made scholars and practitioners aware of the world of public administration outside the West. It has entrenched international, comparative and development administration within public administration instructions and research. It has revealed that the most compelling problems of mankind and, therefore of administration, were global and could not be solved in a narrowly Western framework.

The need of the time is therefore, not to strive for restoration of autonomy to the discipline of comparative public administration but to incorporate comparative perspective in the traditional national study and research in public administration. By looking at the problems from a comparative perspective, public administration will be widening its horizon of interest and thereby would be in a much better position to offer relevant and practical solutions to the problems being faced by the mankind. In this sense, comparative public administration is much more relevant today in the emerging era of globalisation than many scholars tend to perceive.

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1. Robert A. Dahl, "The Science of Public Administration: Three Problems", Public Administration Review, Vol. VII, 1947, pp. 1-11.

2. Ibid.

3. Dwight Waldo, "Public Administration" in David L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, Vol. XIII, New York, The Macmillan Company and The Free Press, 1968, p. 151.

4. Ibid.

5. Lynton Caldwell, "Conjectures on Comparative Public Administration" in Roscoe Martin (ed.), Public Administration and Democracy, Essays in Honour of Paul H. Appleby, Syracuse (New York), Syracuse University Press, p. 230.

6. Dwight Waldo, "Comparative Public Administration Prologue, Performance, Problems and Promise", Symposium on Business Policy, April 8-11, 1963, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, pp. 11-12, mimeo.

7. Ferrel Heady and S.I. Stokes (eds.). Papers in Comparative Public Administration, Ann Arbor, Mich, Institute of Public Administration, 1962, p. 4.

8. Dwight Waldo, "Comparative Public Administration", op. cit., pp. 28-29.

9. David M. Wood, "Comparative Government and Politics", in Stephen L. Wasby, Political Science: The Discipline and its Dimension: An Introduction, Calcutta, Scientific Book Agency, 1970, pp. 516-7.

10. For an introduction to the prismatic-sala model, see Fred Riggs, "The "Sala Model: An Ecological Approach to the Study of Comparative Public Administration", Philippine journal of Public Administration, Vol. VI, 1962, pp. 3-16; and also see his, Administration in Developing Countries, Boston, Houghton Miflin, 1964.

11. Richard A. Chapman, "Prismatic Theory in Public Administration: A Review of the Theories of Fred W. Riggs", Public Administration, Winter, 1966, p. 423.

12. G.F. Gant, Note on Applications of Development Administration", Public Policy, Vol. XV, 1966, p. 200.

13. See John D. Montgomery and William J. Siffin (eds.), Approaches to Development: Politics, Administration and Change, New York, McGraw Hill Book Company, 1967; and F.W. Riggs (ed.), Frontiers of Development Administration, Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1970.

14. See O.P. Dwivedi, Development Administration: From Underdevelopment to Suitainable Development (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1994).

15. Fred W. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society, Boston, 1964.

16. See for example, Joseph W. Eaton (ed.), Institution Building and Development, London, Sage, 1972.

17. See, Milton J. Esman and John D. Montgomery, "The Administration of Development", in Peter T. Knight (ed.), Implementing Programmes of

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Human Development, Washington, DC, World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 403, 1980.

38. Robert T. Golembiewski, Public Administration as a Developing Discipline: Perspective of Past and Present, New York, Marcel Dekker, 1977, p. 145.

19. Keith M. Henderson, "A New Comparative Public Administration" in Frank Marini (ed.) Toward a New Public Administration: The Minnowbrook Perspective, Seranton, Pa., Chandler Publishing Co., 1971, p. 239.

20. Lee Sigelman, "In Search of Comparative Administration", Public Administration Review, 36, No. 6 (1976), pp. 621-25.

21. Henderson (No. 19), p. 239.

22. Keith M. Henderson, "Comparative Public Administration: The Identity Crisis", journal of Comparative Administration, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1969). Also see Herbert H. Werlin, "The Theory of Political

Elasticity: Clarifying Concepts in Micro/Marco Administration", Administration and Society, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1988), p. 65.

23. Riggs, No. 10, p. 7.

24. Peter Savage, "Optimism and Pessimism in Comparative Administration", Public Administrative Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (1976), p. 417.

25. Gerald E. Caiden and Naomi J. Caiden, "Towards the Future of Comparative Public Administration", in O.P. Dwivedi and Keith M. Henderson (eds.), Public Administration in World Perspective (Amos, Iowa University Press, 1990).

26. Ibid.

27. O.P. Dwivedi and J. Nef, "Crises and Continuities in Development Theory and Administration: First and Third World Perspectives", Public Administration and Development, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1982), p. 60.

28. H. George Fredrickson, "Public Administration in the 1970s: Development and Directions", Public Administration, Vol. 36, No. 5 (1976), pp. 564-5. Also see Carl W. Stenberg, "Contemporary Public Administration: Challenge and Change", Public Administration Review, Vol. 34, No. 5 (1976), p. 507.

29. J.O. Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York, St. Martin Press, 1973), pp. 40-63).

30. Ferrel Heady, Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (New York, Marcel Dekker, 1979), p. 32.

31. Savage, n. 24, pp. 420-22.

32. Heady, n. 30, p. 30.

33. Ibid., p. 33.

34. Jamil E. Jreisat, "Synthesis and Relevance in Comparative Public Administration", Public Administration Review, Vol. 35 (1975), p. 663.

35. Sigelman, n. 20, p. 624.

36. Jong S. Jun, "Reviewing the Study of Comparative Administration: Some Reflections on the Current Possibilities", Public Administration Review, Vol. 36 (1976), pp. 643-44.

37. Peter Savage and J. Fred Springer, "Empirical Theory and Development Administration: Prologues and Promise", Public Administration Review,

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Vol. 36 (1976), pp. 639-40.

38. Caiden and Caiden, n. 25.

39. For a detailed analysis, see R.B. Jain, "Research Methods in Public Administration: A Critical Study of Important Works in Historical and Comparative Methodology", Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. XVII, No. 4, October-December 1971: and Indian Council of Social Science Research, A Survey of Research in Public Administration, Vol. 2, Bombay, Allied Publishers, 1975, pp. 509-20.

40. R.B. Jain, "Comparative Aspects of Public Administration", in Robin W. Winks (ed.), Other Voices, Other Views, Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1978, pp. 260.

41. V.A. Pai Panandikar and S.S. Kshirsagar, Bureaucracy and Development Administration, New Delhi, Centre for Policy Research, 1978.

42 See for example, V. Subramaniam, Social Background of India's Administrators, New Delhi, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1971: D.N. Rao, "Disparities of Representation among the District Recruits to the IAS", Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. IX, No. 1, January-March, 1963; R.N. Trivedi and D.N. Rao, "Regular Recruits to the IAS: A Study", Journal of the National Academy of Administrative, Vol. 5, 1968, pp. 50-80; and C.P. Bhambhri, "The Administrative Elite and Political Modernisation in India", Indian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. XI, No. 1, January-March, 1965.

43. See David C. Potter, India's Political Administrators, 1919-1983, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, pp. 11-12.

44. See Kuldeep Mathur, Bureaucratic Response to Development, Delhi, National Publishing House, 1972.

45. See University Grants Commission, Report of the Curriculum Development Centre in Political Science, New Delhi, University Grants Commission, 1990, p. 174, (mimeo).

46. Ibid., pp. 175-76.

47. See Kuldeep Mathur, "Whither Public Administration" in Kuldeep Mathur (ed.), A Survey of Research in Public Administration, New Delhi Concept 1986.

48. Savage, n. 19, pp. 419-22.

49. Jun, n. 31, p. 647.

50. Fred W. Riggs, "The Group and the Movement: Notes on Comparative and Development Administration", Public Administration Review, Vol. 36 (1976), p. 652.

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16 Search for a Theory of Public Administration

Perhaps no other discipline in social sciences has acquired such a controversial character about its nature as that of public administration. Due to its growing significance and role in the system and processes of the organisation of power, it has frequently been a subject of theoretical and practical deliberations from various disciplinary angles. A multiplicity of new paradigms, theories and models have now been extended beyond the formerly accepted boundaries of public administration, invading related social science disciplines as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology and ethics. The kind of issues with which an inductor, researcher, and a practitioner in public administration must now grapple with go far beyond its traditional compass. The various problems before them now include phenomenological versus revolutionary patterns of scientific growth, normative versus empirical approaches to administrative research, structurally-based versus process-oriented concepts of administrative behaviour and repressive versus liberating strategies of public policy formation and planning. Administrative reality is thus conveyed today as a different collection of multiple reality held by diverse individuals, groups, and sub-cultures within the field.1 And yet despite this tremendous growth in the contents and approaches to the discipline, a concerted theoretical foundation has so far

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continued to elude the practitioners and theoreticians of public administration for a variety of reasons. An attempt is made here to discuss briefly some of the issues involved in the scholars' search for a 'theory' of public administration.

OBJECTIVES OF A THEORY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

The diversities described above pose a threat to the academic side of the development of public administration theory because of the traditional requirement that any respectable field for inquiry be able to agree upon a fundamental theory that shapes its approach to the phenomenon it studies. The abundant theories in public administration deal with things bigger and smaller than public administration, but not with public administration itself. On the one hand, they deal with all administrations, all organised cooperative effort, all decision-making, all social organisations, all human behaviour, of which public administration is part; on the other they deal with unique practices, specific organisations, special administrative case studies and particular administrative sub-process that constitutes part of public administration. But few deal with the meaning of public administration. Instead they accept public administration as a giver of the polity or culture. At public administration level, the theories are mainly descriptive and analytical and studiously objective to that, following behaviouralism, they stick to the facts and describe public administration as it really is, not what it purports to be or should be.2

If public administration is to be defined as "man's attempt through government to harness natural and human resources for the purpose of approximating politically legitimated goals by constitutionally mandated means," then according to Professor Stephen K. Bailey, "the objectives of public administration theory are to draw together the insights of the humanities and the validated propositions to the task of improving such process of government."3 As suggested by him, four overlapping and interlocking categories of theory are required, if improvement in the processes of government are, in fact, to take place. These are: (i) descriptive-explanatory theories concerned with "what" and "why", (ii) normative theories

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concerned with "should" and "good", (iii) assumptive theories concerned with preconditions and "possibilities", and (iv) instrumental theories concerned with "how" and "why". Improvements in practice depend upon the artistic interrelating of these theoretical systems in terms of specific objectives in time and place. A theory of public administration must identify its total field of relevance, not because it will attempt explanation of everything that is relevant, but in order to obtain as far as possible an accurate estimate of the form, scope, and internal-external relationship of the phenomenon.4 Unfortunately, the state of theoretical inquiry in each and all of these categories is contradictory and spotty at best. In some cases, it is virtually non-existent. To state the need is to confess the gap-5

Descriptive-Explanatory Theory

One of the objectives of public administration theory is to refine the existing typologies and to invent new ones. Without further typological refinements it is difficult to imagine how progress can be made in developing descriptive-explanatory theories which have much operational relevance. As an illustration, the concept of hierachy was one of the theoretical propositions through which the early observers of public administration described relationships and explained behaviour. In more recent times in the newer concept of hierarchy administration is viewed as a series of formal and informal linkages. The manager is seen as a broker as well as a director. The single pyramid of hierarchy has been replaced by a multiple pyramid with centripetal points.

Descriptive-explanatory models are thus no easier to construct in public administration than in any other field: but certainly one objective of public administration theory, drawing upon humanistic learning and upon social behavioural science, is to devise and to refine such models. We cannot improve what we cannot describe and explain.6

Normative Theory

The objective of the normative theory is to establish future states prescriptively. In public administration, normative theory may include such diverse uptopias such as "happy

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citizen" on the one hand, and an idealised cat-pool on the other. Norms may be set to maximize such vague and ambiguous goals as efficiency, responsiveness, accountability, economy, employee morale, decentralisation, ethical probity, internal communications, innovation, participatory democracy, a manageable span of control and a host of other articulated or assumed values.

The fact is, however, that normative theory in public administration is in substantial disarray. For one thing, it is quite impossible to separate internal agency norms from value questions at issue in the polity generally. And yet, the supreme objective of the administration postulates are essential. How do we know that improvement has occurred unless value goals are established as a measure of approximation?7 Thus, normative theory in itself has been a much sought after goal of public administration theory.

Assumptive Theory

But even if descriptive-explanatory and normative theories were clear and widely agreed upon, they could not singly or together lead to improvements in administrative practice. As pointed out by Bailey, public administration theory has been particularly lax in setting forth what might be called "assumptive" propositions : propositions which articulate root-assumptions about the nature of man and about the tractability of institutions.8

But, by and large, public administration theory has developed without any evidence of a careful evaluation and articulation of assumptive theories. Administrative models for metropolitan government, executive-branch reorganisation, improved personnel systems program-budgeting, and inter-agency co-ordination have, more often than not, come a cropper because of a failure to posit realistic assumptions about the nature of social men and the ponderousness of institutional intertias.9

Every public administrator has operating assumptions about human nature and about institutional tractability. But few public administration theorists have refined and articulated their own assumptive propositions. Lasting improvement in administrative practice will depend in large measure upon the

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ability of social and behavioural theorists to formulate a consistent and focussed image of men's personal and institutional capacity. Public administration theorists must help in this process.

Instrumental theory is the operating "then" of "if then" propositions. If an administrative system operates in such-and-such a way because of this and that, if decentralisation would improve performance in realising politically legitimate goals by constitutionally mandated means, if relevant men and institutions are deemed tractable, then what are the techniques, tools, and timing of progress. This is what should be this concern of the instrumental theory. Bailey thus believes that it is within this framework that public administration theory must attempt to fashion descriptions of reality, postulates of betterment, sophisticated assumptions about the capacities of men and institutions, and workable tenets, instrumentation which can improve both the ends and means of democratic government.10

A PHILOSOPHY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

To the oft repeated question whether there is a philosophy of public administration, the answer of many scholars have been an unqualified 'No.' No administrative philosopher or theoretician has yet succeeded in synthesising in the grand Aristotelian manner the vast content of administrative thought into a unified and systematic framework. Some theoreticians have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to strengthen the conceptual basis of the administrative process.11 However, as the materials are found across the wide spectrum of separate fields of knowledge and are scattered far and wide in numerous books and professional journals; no sense of unity has been achieved. Nothing in administrative theory today approaches the general unity of thought or the consensus as held by professors of political theory about the content of their subject-matter during the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. A syllabus on the philosophy of public administration today in all probability would reflect few communalities either in major figures and their works or even the strategy of approaching the

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subject. This situation is both a strength and a weakness. It is a strength to the extent that intellectual ferment and experimentation are maximised. The disadvantage is that a student seeking a predigested and unified field of study may be frustrated and may question both the contents and the boundaries of public administration itself. "The philosophical approach to public administration thus may perhaps be the most difficult of all to master because of the intangible nature of its key concern—the moral justification for the exercise of public power and coercion in a democratic society."12

Trends in the Philosophy of Administration

While the emerging trends in the philosophy of administration in the USA are quite known, similar trends in other systems have not received much attention. For instance, there is a considerable literature on administrative philosophy which can be described as primarily British. The British philosophy of administration is associated with six administrative pioneers—Wallas, Haldane, Beveridge, Sheldon, Urwick and Stamp, and with more alternative and radical doctrine of Beatrice Webb and Harold J. Laski. In Britain from the beginning of the 20th century, there was a strong ethical and moral approach to society and streams of thought from different sources covered to produce and strengthen an ethical quality in political thinking, a desire to see individual activity in harmony with social good. The emergence of the British Philosophy of Administration went hand-in-hand with this general concern for the social goods. While at this time, the spread of ethical thought in Britain was captured in the doctrines of the British Philosophy of Administration, the United States on the other hand was influenced more by the importance of science than of ethics—a development which has been called by Dwight Waldo as 'the second phase of the industrial revolution.'13 This optimism towards science became translated into the American administrative doctrines. F.W. Taylor, and other pioneers of scientific management movement, gained a band of enthusiastic followers in the United States, whereas Britain responded to the scientific management movement with caution and scepticism. The philosophical approach to administration in Britain, which combined science with ethics, placed less faith on pure science.14

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In another sense, the British Philosophy of Administration emerged from a less academic background than the American doctrines and this factor still influences the study of administration in Britain today. British academics at the turn of the 21st century are still uncertain whether public and business administration are academic disciplines in their own right and if so, where they should be located in the university structure? British scholars are still seeking to develop the academic disciplines of public and business administration (although the study of business administration appears to be progressing more favourably in Britain than public administration).

However, a more positive effect of the British Philosophy of Administration today has been the renewed interest in a philosophy of administration. In the United States, there is now considerable evidence of disenhantment with the simple science of administration, which predominated again in the 1960's and this time influenced more substantially the theory and practice of British administration. There is now a fresh revival of ethics. This development in the US has led to the emergence of 'the New Public Administration.' Yet, its message reflects many of the ideas of the earlier British Philosophy of Administration. There is alarm about a 'runaway technology' and a call for organisations to reduce social

and psychic suffering and to enhance life opportunities for workers inside and outside the organisation. Second thoughts are being given to scientific techniques, such as the PPBS, and vigorous attempts are being made to define ethical guidelines and examine the teaching of ethics of administration.15

Existential Phenomenology

A sort of philosophical movement in public administration that seems to have emerged lately in the US is the contribution of the existential phenomenologists. This movement is based upon the belief that the nature of the universe is unpredictable and no rational scheme can fully explain it. Despite the advances of science and physics, the universe is not 'ordered'. Therefore, no matter of fact can be stated as absolute truth, for any relationship between things is subject to change at any moment. Existential phenomenology is

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consequently based upon the recognition that belief is always belief and cannot be anything more.

For the existentialist, administration is not thus a visual phenomena (organisation charts and other "tools") but emotional. They contend that public administration must redirect itself to abandon its prejudices against emotion and feelings. The intellectual-rationalisation of the head must give way to the feelings of the heart. The scope or size of organisations must be proportional to the needs of the situation. Existential phenomenology implies a sympathy for decentralisation rather than centralisation, as the former will be conducive to maximum interpersonal encounters. Existential phenomenology reflects an "administrative optimism" based on a future of manifold and unbounded possibilities in contrast to administrative pessimism that has dominated much of traditional administrative thoughts. Man's future need not be in competition with other men and alienation from man's own institutions. With a redirection of the approach to the conditions and nature of human existence, man is capable of living in a free and fulfilling communion with all other men. The existential approach raises a crucial question, "Is public administration possible?" One observer notes, "Not only is the future manifold and unbounded, but Public Administration would cease to have any boundary whatever."16

Public Administration: Some Problems in Theory Construction

Difficulties in theory construction in public administration arise from two specific considerations. First, it seems clear that the actual scope of public administration is too great to place its study exclusively in any one discipline. If public administration is termed a "discipline", then it is a discipline of an order different from political science or sociology. Its substance would be derivative from more basic

disciplines, and its methodology would be largely one of synthesis. Second, the construction of valid theories of public administration requires especially the continuing assistance of behavioural science and the study of the complex mega-systems. It is difficult to see how a valid theory of public administration can be constructed in the absence of a validated theory of administrative behaviour.17

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The construction of a theory of public administration is further limited by several problems. Some of these stem from the fat of 'public administration' being public. An accurate definition of publicness requires the backing of a general theory or philosophy of public administration, the need for which has long been realised.18 None has proved generally acceptable outside the specific culture from which it was derived. The closest to date has been the extension of the general concepts of the French Revolution to democratisation, creative human relations, public initiative, developmental goals and internationalism, to which lip service has been paid by international bodies, professional societies, political parties, and governments. Further synthesis is impeded by difference in political values and academic controversy over normative or behavioural stress. Any theory of public administration presupposes a general theory of politics or social action or living. For elitists, it would have to incorporate motives of political leadership, public interest, rational order, societal responsibility, and mass loyalty. The Utopian nature of a theory is recognised by those who have sought to provide a lead.19

Public administrationists recently have begun to appreciate that the "public" in public administration no longer can be conceived in simply institutional terms, which have been the terms traditionally favoured by the field. "Public" instead must be cast into philosophic, normative, and ethical terms; "public" then, becomes that which affects the public interest. The field is beginning to call these new dimensions of the public interest, "public affairs". The public/private, public interest/ profit motive tensions represented by the administrative science paradigm do nothing to alleviate the problem of locus for public administration. Of these tensions, that of the public interest as it relates to public affairs is the most important. Without a sense of the public interest, administrative science can be used for any purpose, no matter how immoral. The concept of determining and implementing the public interest constitutes a defining pillar of public administration and a locus of the field that receives little if any attention in the context of administrative science, just as the focus of organisation theory/management science garners scant support in political science. It would seem, therefore, that public administration should, and perhaps

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must, find a new paradigm that encourages both a focus and a locus for the field.20

Apart from the problem of 'publicness,' public administration theory shares some problems with administrative theory and has additional problems of its own. First, as Caiden observes, the theorists fritter away scarce resources on internecine warfare, instead of pushing ahead with their mutual task of seeking an acceptable paradigm. The battles scare off the practioners and destroy the practical worth of such theory. Second, there is an overabundance of untested theory, for very little theory is abandoned. But the solution is not to call a moratorium on all further theory until existing theories have been tested and verified. More practicable would be the establishment of laboratories for theory validation as at present the gap between pure theory and practice is not filled by applied theory. Third, the whole field is confused. The core concepts need clarification. Where does administrative theory stop and organisation theory start? Can "administration" and "organisation" be defined accurately? Does administrative man exist? How do administrative sub-processes differ between organisational and non-organisational settings? Can administrative sub-processes be considered apart from administrative objectives?21 It is not always clear that the theorists themselves recognize that they need to answer these kinds of questions satisfactorily to themselves before they begin. They only succeed in adding to the existing confusion. Fourthly, much theory seems obsessed with bureaucracy's search for rationality, legitimacy, stability, order, security, conformity, and much appears as advice to bureaucratic elites on how to maintain their position and still get the most out of the subordinate masses. The theorists tend to look downward and inward, rather than upward and outward, mesmerised with bureaucratic organisation and reluctantly conceding that society could be administered in other ways. Fifthly, some place, distinctive or otherwise, has to be found for public administration theory. While public administrators borrow much from administrative theory, administrative theorists borrow little from public administration. Until administrative theory takes public administration more fully into account, it cannot justify its claim of universality. Public administration

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theory, in contrast does not claim universality, but if it borrow so much and neglects its own field, it cannot claim distinctiveness. In any case, theory should remain relevant. By neglecting its own province, public administration theory is in danger of becoming irrelevant.22 Such a list of difficulties presents a vertiable challenge for public administrationists to construct a universally valid theory of their discipline.

PARADIGMS OF ADMINISTATIVE THEORY

The development of administrative theory has been regarded by some as a social process governed in part by the nature of beliefs about work and interaction in public organisations. The role of paradigms, theories and models in this process is thus critical. Although the development of contemporary public administrtation has been ambiguous and uncertain, but it seems to have been in the past affected by at least three recognizable traditions or paradigmatic viewpoints: Conventional Public Administration

(CPA), Scientific Public Administration (SPA) and New Public Administration (NPA). Each loosely articulated tradition or viewpoint enjoys considerable legitimacy among nominally different groups in the field. The latest paradigm is of the New Public Management which is discussed later.

THE CONVENTIONAL PARADIGM

The search for a dominant theory, began when Woodrow Wilson asked the American scholars to forget their "paper pictures" of good government and study how administration really worked. By telling scholars to study the administrative systems of France and Prussia, Wilson established four guiding assumptions. First, the science of administration would be based on a single organisational prototype universally applicable to all political regions; second, any good science of administration would have to divorce itself from the field of politics; third, the guiding value of the science of administration would be efficiency; and fourth, efficient public administration would require a single dominant centre of governmental power. Wilsonian guidelines led scholars to find new theoretical bases

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for the discipline. A recourse was made to the bureaucratic model that synchronised with the scientific management, development of classical organisation theory and the emergence of the so-called principles of public administration. The principles could be built up into a framework from which a general theory of administration would emerge.

THE SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM

The Wilsonian paradigm was strongly attacked by Herbert Simon, who demonstrated that the basic principles of administration, being overtly precise, would produce inefficiency. The principles were either too generalised to be useful or too elaborate and too couched in jargons to be readily understood. A more scientific and empirical approach was necessary so that general theories could emerge from the study of practical experiences. The empirical school of thought coupled with the emergence of the human behaviour school attempted to make administration a more scientifically studied discipline. The major thrust on the social systems of the organisations and its application were carried further by the decision-making school originating in Herbert Simon's Administrative Behaviour (New York, 1947), in which he pointed out that there was no connection between the perfections of administrative processes, as then conceived in the POSDCORB formula, and the attainment of objectives. The missing factor was correct decision-making, by which he meant the optimum rational choice between alternative courses of action. Simon's search for rational decision-making models led him into mathematical theory and cybernetics, which was later joined by economic theorists, whose techniques of rational economic analysis seemed conveniently suitable, to economic practioners in governmental business who were seeking better ways of economic forecasting and decision-making. On

a limited scale mathematical models were also employed with success in decision-making, organisational design, budgeting, construction projects, research and development and supplies and storage. But as the other administrative-theory schools indicate, its basic premises are wrong. Administration is not logical, nor can it be reduced to mathematical symbols. The

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evolving "normal science" of administration has yet to accept a common paradigm that will provide the necessary consensus for a common field of inquiry (that is, a discipline). It is still open to novelty and innovation. Once it reaches the state of a normal science, efforts will hopefully be directed to the problems that arise in the context of the paradigm.23

However, having torn down the principles of administration, Simon failed to erect any alternative model in its place. The rejected alternative, the theory of democratic administration was resurrected in the 1960s by a group of scholars well removed from the mainstream of American public administration — the public-choice economists. These scholars viewed the citizen as the ultimate source of administrative power, not because they saw the citizen as a rational consumer of public goods and services. But the institutional rules and arrangements came to be associated with the power of the citizens to express their preferences because these institutions limited power choice control by a single centre of power, reduces the capability of a large administrative system to respond to diverse preferences among citizens for many different public goods and services and cope with diverse environmental conditions. To respond to the preferences of the public and to avoid the institutional weknesses created by a dominant bureaucratic form, the government must divide administrative power and offer it to the citizen in many different forms. Many scholars therefore argue that the real challenge of the theory of public choice is to create a democratic theory of administration that accentuates diversity.24

THE NEW PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PARADIGM

The established wisdom of public administration was further challenged in the late sixties by a group of younger scholars and practitioners, who under the inspiring leadership of Dwight Waldo, the doyen in the field of public administration, met at Minnowbrook and pleaded for a more humane, pro-active public administration. Their challenge to the old ideals of scientific, value-neutral scholarship became known as 'New Public Administration', the third major new trend in public administration paradigm. The New Public

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Administrators were characterised as "humanistic, dubious about technology, anti-nationalist, reformist, and generally doubtful of the ability of present organisations to adapt to a fast changing society."25 The most striking feature of the New Public Administration is its bias against positivism. They dubbed the empirical social science research as irrelevant, dull, narrow, and barren. Instead they turned to phenomenology and existentialism to create a bridge to a post-bureaucratic society, in which the administrator is expected to be pro-active and the organisation is restructured to allow it. The New Public Administration protagonists want to experiement with new style of administrative leadership that would replace the old management technologies, sometimes rejecting all or most of the ideas and practices associated with science and convention. Spokesmen for New Public Administration have sometimes claimed, but more often implied, that its propositions and principles are integral parts of a revolution in epistemology and administrative theory. Such claims appears sufficiently factuous to require no response whatever, especially since negative reactions may themselves dignify ideas pretending to a label of "revolutionary" which they do not deserve. Nevertheless, New Public Administratioin has made comparatively important contributions to the critical examination of selected issues in the field. These issues— scarcely raised by Conventional Public Administration or Scientific Public Administration—include the status of logical positivism as an ideal for social sciences, the potential for more open participative processes within and between organisations and the impact of administrative theory as a repressive ideology which maintains an unacceptable status quo.26

THE THREE PARADIGMS : A COMPARISON

The three paradigmatic viewpoints discussed above have been compared by Dunn and Fozouni on the basis of issues involved in each one of them. These are:

(a) The Nature and Growth of Knowledge (Science),

(b) The Nature and Role of Human Actors (Man),

(c) The Nature and Role of Public Organisations in

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Societal Change (Organisation),

(d) The Impact and Implications of Spatio-temporal Considerations (Time and Space),

(e) The Impact and Implications of Different Programs for Research and Teaching (Research and Teaching), and

(f) Goals, Content and Styles of Policy Formation (Policy).27

The resultant picture is demonstrated through the table on the following page.

The above comparative overview of the themes, theories and premises of the three paradigmatic viewpoints has raised a problem in classification, but as the authors maintain, this framework has been useful in drawing distinctions rather than dichotomies and explore both similarities and differences. A second and more important use is directly related to the growth of theory and research: the framework allows scholars to explore ways in which paradigmatic viewpoints converge. Thus, the more or less exclusive focus on alleged conflicts, anomalies, and puzzles which characterize recent writing on the subject may be avoided. There are significant points of convergence and continuity between themes, theories and premises associated with each paradigmatic viewpoint.28

THE NEW PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION : AN ILLUSION OF PARAD CHANGE ?

Ironically, the young experts of the New Public Administration who were characterised as pro-active, independent, unalienated and anxious to reform their bureaucracies from inside could not organize themselves so that the New Public Administration remained more of a subtle mood than an actual movement to reform the profession. In course of time it came under heavy attack by a number of scholars.The severest of the criticism has come from Dunn and Fozouni who argued that the New Public Administration has resulted in the propagation of an illusion of paradigm shift, or paradigm revolution within the field.29 In the New Public Administration has suffered discreditation, it is largely because

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of philosophical dilettantism and a conspicuous absence of methodological discipline and self-criticism. The available options for persuading critics, a precondition for authentic paradigm change, have been summarily foreclosed.30

In support of their point of view Dunn and Fozouni point out several philosophical methodological disabilities with which the movement has suffered:

(a) Spokesmen for New Public Administration, in seeking to criticize or discredit logical positions or the scientific enterprise itself, share an anti-theory bias manifested in initiative and unreflecting beliefs that paradigms are mutually exclusive and incommensurable. This has led to philosophically intolerable positions of epistemological relativism, slipism and aesthetic romanticism. Acquiescence in these fallacious positions reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the intent and implications of phenomenology, existentialism and other philosophical schools to which the spokesmen of the New Public Administration refer approvingly.

(b) The New Public Administration has been developed as an alternative to two contending traditions or viewpoints in the field—Scientific Public Administration and Conventional Public Administration. The proffered alternative, however, present an incomplete, self-contradictory and often totalised (absolute) world view which may be easily challenged and dismissed by scientific empiricists and conventional pragmatists alike. Empiricists and pragmatists continue successfully to defned separate claims for the validity of idealisations of natural science and North American administrative and political practices respectively.

(c) The New Public Administration avoided as a challenge both to Scientific Public Administration and Conventional Public Administration, both of which also share methodological properties of an anti-theory. Conventional Public Administration, seeking to guide theory and practice according to

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Themes, Theories and Premises31

Issues New Public Administration Scientific Public Administrative Conventional Public Adminisration

Science Anti-Positivism Culture and Language as Ideal of Science Scientific Revolution Instrumental Knowledge Logical Positivism Physics as Ideal of Science Scientific Revolution Instrumental Knowledge Anti-Positivism Technology as Ideal of Science Scientific Evolution Instrumental Knowledge

Man Human Creativity Proactive Personality Anthropology Models Act-Meaning Human Receptivity Reactive Personality Econological Models Action-Meaning Human Receptivity Reactive Personality Econological Models Action-Meaning

Organisation Non-Hierarchy Consociational Model Process Focus Temporariness Hierarchy Bureaucratic Model Structural Focus Regularity Hierarchy Bureaucratic Model Structural Focus Evolution

Time Space Linear Change Synchronic Model Non-Comparative and Universalistic Linear and Non-Linear Change Synchronic Model Comparative and Universalistic Linear Change Diachronic Model Non-Comparative and Ethnocentric

Research Social Relevance Value-Centered and Humanistic Models Explanation and Understanding Scientific Relevance Positivist and Value-Centered Models Explanation and Prediction Technological Relevance Value-Centered and Humanistic Models Explanation and Understanding

Policy Adaptation/Control Participation and Effectiveness Goal and Outcome Orientation Stability/Control Leadership and Effectiveness Goal and Process Orientation Stability/Control Leadership, Effectiveness and Participation Goal and Process Orientation

Source: Dunn and Forzouni, Toward a Critical Administrative Theory, p. 20.

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past practices and traditional values and norms specific to the United States has historically opposed Scientific Public Administration with an ethnocentric and culturally specific form of historicism. The historicism of Conventional Public Administration is relativistic and anti-scientific in its uncritical propagation of indigenous middle class preferences and practices. New Public Administration failed to challenge Conventional Public Administration, both because it shares a commitment to these same preferences and practices, and because it proved largely irrelevant to problems of a pragmatic nature within public organisations managed predominantly by opponents of Conventional Public Administration.

(d) Neither New Public Administration nor Conventional Public Administration has challenged the logical empiricist paradigm of Scientific Public Administration, together with its technical apparatus of policy science, systems analysis and scientific management. Neither viewpoint offers a viable alternative to Scientific Public Administration as an emerging dominant paradigm notwithstanding marked philosophical and epistemological deficiencies and repressive political tendencies associated with the latter. Scientific Public Administration, while fundamentally inadequate as a philosophical rationale for a political theory consistent with egalitarianism and democracy, has gone unchallenged.

(e) The importance and inefficacy of New Public Administration and Conventional Public Administration may be understood in the context of the social determinants of knowledge and values (sociology of

knowledge). Proponents of viewpoints characteristic of Conventional Public Administration are members of an older generation of practising administrators and their advocates in schools of public administration. Both are committed to conventional and political and

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administrative practices and typically insulated from developments in social theory and research. Spokesmen for New Public Administration, while younger, less encumbered by public roles, and marginally more committed to social change, are likewise generally unacquainted with empirical theory and research. Given this disability it is perhaps understandable that New Public Administration has confronted the inadequacies and excesses of logical positivism and conventional administrative practices alike with humanistic principles and normative insights drawn somewhat randomly from philosophy. These same humanistic critics, who assume epistemological and ethical standpoints which they do not fully understand have failed to pose a viable challenge to other viewpoints in the field.

(f) Lastly, contemporary administrative theory is hopelessly ethnocentric and regrettably uninformed about philosophical, epistemological and practical developments in other societies. These same societies have a long and vigorous tradition of self-reflection and critical debate on many issues which today artificially divide contending factions within Public Administration. This profound intellectual insularity is but one of the reasons why paradigm change is illusory, not authentic.32

The New Public Management Paradigm

The Reinventing Government Movement

The advent of the era of globalisation, liberalisation and the forces of market economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s has brought in its trail new conceptual paradigms in public administration. As the 1980s matured into the 1990s, the concept of global economy continued to elaborate itself, and simultaneously every thing seemed to center around the principle of economic efficiency. In the world of government, the fascination with economic efficiency has taken the form of the "reinventing movement" following Osborne and Gaebler's

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famous book Reinventing Government (1992). Since then the tendency to define government as largely irrelevant, if not dangerous, in principle and practice, to economic and social life is continuing and the reinforcement of the libertarian viewpoint that sees no need for government at all. In the new millennium, a fundamental shift seems to be in the offing. The phrase reinventing government has

entered the lexicon of government, and the constellation ideas associated with it appears to have been extensively influential in the practices of government management at all levels

In comparing the reinventing government movement with the earlier new public administration phase, it would appear that each of the movement was informed with the strongly felt need to change bureaucracy, though each would change bureaucracy differently. Both movements seek relevance and responsiveness, but in different ways. Issues of rationality, methodology, and epistemology are more important in the new public administration than in the reinventing government movement. Both movements conceptualize organisation similarly. The reinventing government movement has a stronger commitment to market approaches for the provision of public services and to mechanisms for individual choice. Reinventing government is popular electoral politics for executives and is more radical than new public administration. The new public administration prompted subtle, incremental shifts toward democratic management practices and social equity. The results of reinventing government, so far, are short-run increases in efficiency purchased at a likely long range cost in administrative capacity and social equity.33

The comparison further suggests that there is a good deal of resemblance between the two. Both movements have as their impetus the need for change. Both are committed to responsiveness but in different ways. In new public administration, it is a professional public service dedicated to both efficiency and social equity. In reinventing government, it is the empowerment of individual customers to make their own choices. The two movements differ in that new public administration is more institutional and political, whereas reinvention is less concerned with capable institutions and seeks to sidestep political issues. Issues of rationality,

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epistemology, and methodology are not especially important to reinventing government and are more important to new public administration. Finally, the two diverge sharply over issues of values. Reinventing government elevates the values of individual choice, the provision of incentives, the use of competition, and the market as a model for government. New public administration is concerned more with humanistic and democratic administration, with institution building and professional competence, concerned more directly with issues of politics and with matters of justice and fairness—broadly under the 'label of social equity', while reinventing government movement is connected closely to, and provides a positive rationale for, downsising government.34 As a critical observer has put it, it would be unfortunate indeed if the primary long-term legacy of reinventing government were the diminished capacity of government to implement policy or the creation of so-called "hollow states".35

Reinventing Government, Post-Modernism and Public Administration

Some scholars have viewed reinventing government movement as an example of post-modern symbolic politics. They argue that the work and study of public policy formulation and implementation now occur in a context so fundamentally different from the past as to justify the judgement that we have crossed over from one era (modernity) to another (post-modernity). In its production aspect, the transformation from modernity to post-modernity is associated with the widely noted move from an industrial to a post-industrial society; from an economy based primarily on the production of material goods to one based primarily on information technologies, services, marketing, credit and consumption. The paradigm case of work studio is an office where symbols are analyzed and manipulated. This development has also been held as the advent of the information age. Toffler (1980) and Gingrich make similar points about first, second, and third waves. As an aside, postmodernism (as a theoretical orientation) adds that allied philosophical, epistemological, ethical, political, cultural, and societal developments are of sufficient magnitude to warrant epochal differentiation. The main implication of the production

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metamorphosis for the purpose of this argument is the theory of hyper-reality or what is called self-referential epiphenomenalism. The post-modernist analysis finds that words, symbols, and signs are increasingly divorced from direct real-world experience. Part of this results from the switch from a society based primarily on production to one based primarily on consumption and information. If the post-modern thesis were correct, the result would be the loss of a certain 'concretised' rationality. Rational will formation becomes increasingly difficult when language loses its ability to communicate the discrete work-a-day reality of public policy implementation and organisational life. Worse, symbols interacting in hyperspace without benefit of mooring in work-a-day reality can only come back around to distort any reform of that reality. What has this to do with the reinvention movement? Charles J. Fox takes up three issues: downsising vs. employee morale, performance measurement, and customer service inherent in the reinventing movement and points out the unsynthesised inconsistencies surrounding these main planks of reinvention.36

However, as a result of the reinventing movement, many countries in the recent past have attempted to limit the role of the state, cutting down the size of the bureaucracy, devolution of authority, cost reduction, contracting out some of the operative functions of government to private entrepreneurs, commercialisation of government services as well as market orientation of the government activities, bringing out a new paradigm of public administration christened as New Public Management, which has now become almost a fad in many governmental system, particularly in the developing world. The impact of the New Public Management has been greatly felt on public sector employees, on consumers of government services and on tax-payers. The focus of the paradigm has been on: efficiency and effectiveness, service quality, replacement of highly centralised hierarchical organisational structures with decentralised management, more cost-effective policy outcomes, new personnel management to

provide greater flexibility of deployment of staff, new mechanisms and incentives to improve performance, such as performance contracting, strengthening of strategic capacities at the center to

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steer government, and greater accountability and transparency through transparency to require results.37

Although post-modernism and reconstruction have now been on the scene for more than two decades but still are dominating discourse in a number of arenas. Post-modern organisation theory has become a major school of thought and has inspired an exciting new Journal, Organisations. Chaos theory, systems theory of the second order cybernetics variety, and other non-linear approaches applied to understanding social order have generated broad interest and an active following and have consolidated gains in the acceptance of heterodoxy that has inspired a strong resurgence of interest in the work of the American pragmatists. The intellectual scene is in great ferment offering great potential for breakthroughs to occur. Many scholars have tried to establish linkages between the philosophy of American pragmatism and key aspects of post-modern theories. By using the "pragmatism is postmodern" argument as a foundation they have attempted to settle the legitimacy problem for public administration. Elaborating a pragmatic collaborative model of public administration, work both within the field and ancillary to or supportive of it is mushrooming. The call for active relationships between the citizens and administrators is now being addressed in a broad array of responses. A number of authors in the field have offered analysis that support the move toward redefining public administration so that it can better comprehend and deal with an active citizenry. The two landmark books that have appeared in the last few years Fox and Miller's Post-modern Public Administration (1995) and David Farmer's The Language of Public Administration (1995) are both sympathetic to the post-modern perspective, and both, in different ways, advocate a citizen-oriented public administration. While Fox and Miller call for a public administration grounded in dialogue. Farmer's idea entails an 'anti-administrator' whose primary point of reference is the other, the client or citizen being served.38

Apart from this, the bulk of the work aimed at vitalising the role of citizenship in governance is being done outside the field of public administration in related disciplines such as political science and sociology. The interest that has developed

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with the field in introducing non-linear theories—for example, chaos theory, the new systems theory, and second-order cybernetics bears directly on the question of finding a proper identity for public

administration. This long-established body of theory offers a radically innovative way to conceptualize individuals in organisations as products of networks of social relationships. The idea has powerful implications for enabling an improved quality of engagement between workers and those outside the organisation.

However, despite all these developments scholars are skeptical that the most likely outcome is that nothing will really change. First, because of strenuous opposition to all forms of post-modernism, which represents the great center of theoretical opinion in the field. Second, the argument that the legitimacy problem should simply be stopped talking about. Third, the concern with ethics as a main focal point of the field seems untouched by the radically innovative ways of thinking about ethical issues offered by various schools of post-modern theory. The center of opinion seems to be most drawn to a 'new institutionalism' that seeks to incorporate pragmatism into its perspective and to appear as epistemologically open-minded by grounding itself on a foundation of interpretivism.39

Notwithstanding the above skepticism, it is strongly contended by many students of public administration that in times to come even 'marketised' public administration would retain features of democracy, including, for example, legislatures, responsiveness to citizens, constitutional integrity, robust substantive rights, and equal protection. Analysis of experiences with reinvention to develop prescriptions by some scholars include an emphasis on strengthening state-local capacity and engaging and empowering citizens. Others' more integrated, abstract perspective explicitly makes democratic political attributes of places a central focus of the ways in which government and public administration create value for society. As long as democracy is valued, the big questions of public administration must go beyond the big questions of public management. Even the contemporary anti-government rhetoric does not abandon democracy. However, public administration cripples its role in society if understood primarily in terms of managing public agencies.40

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CONCLUSIONS

The foregoing analysis outlines clearly the dilemma inherent in the development of a theory of public administration. As Lynton K. Caldwell points out the first step toward theory is the identification of the phenomenon to which it relates. If the purpose sought through theory is a firmer basis for understanding and for the advancement of practical knowledge, then the validity of theory depends upon its consistency with objective reality. To be adequate, a theory must have taken into account the essential elements of the phenomena that it purports to describe. To pull out from the total functional phenomena some part, which is then treated as if it were the whole will not provide a basis for a theory of the whole. As with conventional definitions of public administration that have been bound by

parochial, cultural or academic perceptions, the convenience of a manageable body of approach can only lead to a dead-end of self-imposed limitation.41 The identification of a clear-cut phenomena associated with the development of public administration has thus been a perennial problem for its theory construction.

Professor Caiden has outlined some other factors which have inhibited the development of a public administration theory. He maintains that:

(a) in over-reacting to behaviouralist attacks, public administration theorists have virtually contracted out of normative theory and value considerations;

(b) that in over-reacting to academic attacks on the classical scientific-principles approach, public administration theory has over-committed itself to a priori thinking and neglected to pursue generalisations based on accumulated practical experience;

(c) that public administration theorists have tended to play down their political and public context;

(d) that public administration theory has concentrated too much on process and too little on objectives and results;

(e) that public administration theory has ignored inter-

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organisational techniques and mores;

(f) that public administration theory relish too heavily on static equilibrium analysis, rather than dynamic change analysis; and

(g) that public administration theorists have not assimilated the new provinces of public administration, such as environmental control, research and development, limited warfare, and civil liberties into public administration.42

From another point of view the development of public administration theory presents a problem of epistemology-in-use. The question of the practical consequences of epistemology—in the context of the challenge posed by the New Public Administration and its demand for a paradigm change—raises anew the problem of the relationships between epistemology, theory and practice. The recent interest in such concepts as "paradigm," "paradigm shifts," and broad themes involving epistemology and human nature can be viewed as an attempt to recover the philosophical foundations of public administration. "The attempt has thus far been largely haphazard, rhetorical and lacking in awareness of contemporary developments in philosophy and social sciences in various parts of the world."43

In one of the essays published in the Minnowbrook conference study, Professor Todd La Porte has attempted to respond to the challenges posed above, by proposing that the normative premise of public administration, "should be that the purpose of public administration is the reduction of economic, social and psychic suffering and the achievement of life opportunities for those within and outside the organisation."44 Such a premise, La Porte believes, would guide efforts to relief and integrate theories applicable to public organisations. He suggests further investigation into factors accounting for variations in:

(a) the power of public organisations in the policy, and

(b) their administrative actions for the culture.

If theorists follow his recommendations, he proposes that they "write theory in such a way that if it is false it can be verified

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to be so," and that they frame problems in ways which enable choice between alternative explanations. To quote him :

Emprical research with theory is barren: theory without narrative awareness is pernicious; normative awareness without conceptual analysis and research is a denial of intellectual responsibility.45

The above discussion has attempted to explain why a theory of public administration has not thus far been possible. One can only hope that notwithstanding the challenges posed above, scholars around the world would continue to make a concerted effort to develop a theory of public administration or at least arrive at a consensus on the particular aspects of public administration that possesses the nucleus for the development of a theory. Such an effort not only needs updating of the existing theories but an increasing awareness of the philosophical issues involved in solving the basic problems which concern public administration today. The concerns of public administration are not to remain confined only to the problems of the technologically advanced countries but have also to be extended to the areas of the developing world, who face much stronger challenges often beyond the competence of their administrative systems. A theory of public administration may not easily emerge but cannot remain a distinct impossibility for all times to come. The ideas generated in the field during the last decade or so possess enough potentiality to make its quest easier.


1. William N. Dunn and Bahman Fozouni, Towards a Critical Administrative Theory (Beverly Hills, 1976), pp. 5-6.

2. Gerald E. Caiden, The Dynamics of Public Administration: Guidelines to General Transformations in Theory and Practice (New York, 1971), p. 226.

3. Stephen K. Bailey, "Objectives of the Theory of Public Administration" in James C. Charlesworth, ed., Theory and Practice of Public Administration: Scope. Objectives and Methods (Philadelphia, American Society for Public Administration, October 1968), p. 129.

4. Lynton K. Caldwell, "Methodology in the Theory of Public Administration" in Charlesworth, n. 3, p. 209.

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5. Bailey, n. 3.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid., p. 134.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Robert H. Simmons and Eugene P. Dvorin, Public Administration: Values, Policy and Change (Port Washington, N.Y., 1977), p. 186

12. Ibid.

13. Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State (New York, 1948), pp. 8-21.

14. Rosamund Thomas, The British Philosophy of Administration: A Comparison of British and American Ideas, 1900-1937 (London, 1978), p. 235.

15. Ibid., p. 242.

16. Simmons and Dvorin. n. 11, p. 243.

17. Caldwell, n. 4, p. 217.

18. See Dwight Waldo, "The Administrative State Revisited", Public Administration Review, Vol. 25 (March 1955), pp. 24-26; and Caldwell, n. 4, pp. 208-10.

19. Caiden, n. 2, p. 283.

20. Nicholas Henry, Public Administration and Public Affairs (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1975), pp. 17-18.

21. Caiden, n. 2, pp. 240-41.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., p. 239.

24. See Vincent Ostroim, The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration (University of Alabama Press 1973); also see Frederick C. Masher, ed., American Public Administration (University of Alabama Press, 1975); also see Howard B. McCurdy, Public Administration: A Synthesis (Menlo Park, California, 1977), pp. 364-65 and 368-70.

25. Quoted by McCurdy, n. 24, p. 350.

26. Dunn and Fozouni, n. 1, p. 11.

27. Ibid., pp. 18-19.

28. Ibid., p. 21.

29. Ibid., p. 7.

30. Ibid.

31. Adapted from Dunn and Fozouni, n. 1, p. 20.

32. Ibid., pp. 7-8.

33. H. George Frederickson, "Comparing the Reinventing Government Movement with the New Public Administration" in Public Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (May-June 1996), pp. 263-70.

34. Ibid.

35. Donald F. Kwettl, Reinventing Government? Appraising the National Performance Review, (Washington, DC, Brookings Institution, 1994).

36. Charles J. Fox, "Reinventing Government as Post-modern Symbolic

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Politics" in Public Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 3 (May-June 1996), pp. 256-62.

37. David Shand, "New Public Management; Challenges and Issues in an International Perspective" in Indian journal of Public Administration, Vol. 44, No. 3 July-September 1998), pp. 714-21.

38. O.C. McSwite, Legitimacy in Public Administration: A Discourse Analysis (Thousands Oaks, Sage Publications, 1997), pp. 268-72.

39. Ibid.

40. John J. Krilin, "The Big Questions of Public Administration in a Democracy" in Public Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 5 (September/ October 1996), pp. 416-23.

41. Caldwell, n. 4, p. 209.

42. Caiden, n. 2, pp. 241-42.

43. Dunn and Fozouni, n. 1, p. 65.

44. T. La Porte, "The Recovery of Relevance in the Study of Public Organisations", in F. Marini, ed.. Toward a New Public Administration (San Francisco, 1971), p. 32. Emphasis in the original.

45. Ibid., p. 47; also see Caiden, n. 2, p. 243.

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17 In Conclusion: The Challenges Ahead

The threshold of the new millennium has furnished us with a good occasion to reflect upon and evaluate India's experiences in administrative development towards its pursuit of good governance and ponder over the likely emerging trends and the lessons learnt for the future. Reflecting upon the realities of public administration system in India over the last half a century is not a simple exercise, for India is a complex society composed of diversity of languages, social systems, ethnic, tribal and caste groups, various religions, regional disparities, different cultural patterns, and unlimited environmental factors that shape the behavioural pattern of masses and public functionaries at all levels, which affect the idea of rationalism in administrative behaviour. It is indeed very difficult to objectively evaluate the impact of all these factors on governance. Nevertheless the preceding essays in the volume have attempted to review and examine the major steps taken by the successive governments in India to revamp the system of administration at different stages of its evolution with a view to secure objectivity, transparency, efficiency and responsiveness in the administrative process—the basic ingredients of good governance in a democratic government based on the concepts of rule of law and public welfare.

As it appears, the search for the elusive goal of good governance in India has been simultaneous with the evolution of a constitutional democratic government—a government

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which is limited; stable and truly representative of the majority of the people, maintains its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, accelerates economic growth and development, upholds the rule of law and renders justice without fear or favour and without delay, and ensures welfare of all sections of the people. These objectives were sought to be achieved through the adoption of the Republican Constitution in 1950. However, despite the lofty ideals and the values of good governance enshrined in the Constitution, we find ourselves today in a state where the system has not been able to provide either a stable government or stable policies. What has gone wrong in our constitutional and administrative system during the last fifty years has been a subject of endless debates and discussions, and a number of prognosis' have been made by constitutional and administrative experts, political leaders and policy-makers, various commissions and committees to reform and restructure the system to be able to achieve the objectives of good governance. "Has the system of government failed in India or we have failed the system" is an oft repeated question being raised again and again without any satisfactory answer.

The Distortions

The essays in this volume make it amply clear that it is wrong to always blame the structural aspects of governmental system for our failures. Given the normal wear and tear in the edifice of the governmental and administrative system over a period of more than fifty years, the system as a whole has not only survived, but also admirably borne the burnt of times, in comparison to the scores of examples of other countries in the developing world where such structures have crumbled altogether.

However, at the same time a number of serious distortions have crept in the system during all these years, giving validity to the dictum of Woodrow Wilson that "it is easier to make a constitution than to run it." The foremost and fundamental reason for all these aberrations has been the existence of a dual system of values on the part of political and administrative elites in India, who have the basic responsibility of implementing the system. In their public pronouncements and external behaviour, they are highly idealistic and show deep concern for integrity, equity and justice—the prime values

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of good governance, but in practice, when it comes to actual decision-making and its implementation, the same political and administrative elites are vulnerable to all kinds of narrow prejudices, biases and pressures of caste, community or religion, or political compromises in order to continue to remain in power by all possible means—fair or dubious. This has been a marked trend in India's political and administrative development especially since 1960s. The public postures of political and administrative leaders hardly match their actual behaviour on the positions they hold and the values they espouse.

Secondly, there has been a growing sense of zealousness amongst the people from all walks of life in India about their constitutional rights and administrative privileges without paying due attention to the corresponding duties that go with them. The level of tolerance among the people in India, which was the hallmark of their social, cultural and political behaviour in the first two decades of the Republic seems to have lost somewhere in the labyrinthine of the struggle for power. People will go to any length of aggressive, unfair, immoral and unjudicial conduct to achieve their selfish goals. This general decline in standards of behaviour and conduct of mutual relations have been more prominent on the floors of our legislatures— once considered the temples of democracy. The honourable members of these august bodies increasingly seek to settle their individual and political scores by blocking their proceedings, creating pandemonium, showing fists, hurling shoes, chairs and microphones, and breaking the heads and teeth of political opponents. All these happenings have had some disastrous consequences for the social and political system as a whole. People in all fields of professions and occupations will go to any extent and resort to any form of agitations in demanding their rights, but would not care for the obligations that such rights carry. Whether it is the student bodies, the academics, the labour organisations, the business or industrial groups, there are agitations galore for all kinds of demands on the state and against any move of the government to bring about any reform or semblance of discipline in the system, holding the citizens at large to ransom and throwing the daily lives of the people out of gear and at the same time putting strains and pressures on the performance of the system.

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Thirdly, at the same time the total lack of a notion of accountability and responsiveness on the part of both our legislators and administrators has eroded the very essence of a responsible government. There are political rhetoric and polemics, but no substantial accomplishment in respect of the citizens' needs and aspirations. There are innumerable grandiose policies, plans, programmes and projects, which we are very apt at formulating, but no plans or will to implement these 4 ps. The result is either stagnation or a very slow growth in the realm of progress and development. On top of it, the bureaucracy in India is cold, slow and somewhat inhuman in dealing with the complaints of the citizens. Worst, it carries an image of being the most corrupt amongst the world bureaucracies. Instances of administrative excesses, police brutality, nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and the criminals for securing political and personal ends appear endlessly in the media practically everyday. Billions of rupees are being spent everyday on the security, privileges and 'welfare' of the politicians, legislators, ministers and other

political and administrative functionaries, but without any proportionate returns on the welfare of the masses. There is an open exploitation and the use of money power, muscle power and mafia power all around for securing personal and material gains without the slightest qualms on one's conscience or on one's moral sense of responsibility for efficient and effective governance.

Challenges of the 'Corporate Millennium' and 'Developm Management'

Notwithstanding these negative traits that the politico-administrative system in India has acquired in the last fifty years, it has to now face a number of growing challenges of the new corporate millennium at the threshold of the twenty-first century. Given the present scenario, will the system respond to these new challenges? In the coming years, there is likely to be a growing commitment to a free market and global economy, and therefore corporate governance is going to be a crucial factor in efforts to restructure governing institutions. With the end of the Cold War in the 1980s, the victory of capitalism, the emergence of new industrialised countries around the world

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and the new technological revolution, political, economic and social phenomena have in many respects bypassed the border of the state and acquired a global dimension. Under globalisation, citizen demands are more diversified and sophisticated. They want choice, improved responsiveness and quality of services. With the diminished role of the state, a market-oriented economy supported by a democratic government with an efficient and quality-oriented public administration is conceived as the formula for economic development and well being of the people. Privatisation, deregulation, de-bureaucratisation, and decentralisation are the current political issues. Performance-oriented governance and management strategies are advocated to improve responsiveness and accountability. No wonder the concept of development management, which has gradually expanded to encompass bureaucratic reorientation and restructuring, the integration of politics and culture into management improvement, participatory and performance-based service delivery and program management, community and NGO capacity-building, and policy reform and implementation is increasingly gaining grounds especially in the context of developing countries.1 Development management specialists now need to hone in on the critical managerial features of the problems that are preoccupying decision-makers and demonstrate how the discipline is relevant and useful. It is these decision-makers who must be convinced of the fit between development management and current global issues. Development management has made a difference in the lives of the citizens in the developing world, but continuing to contribute means remaining "in good currency". This is as much a challenge to the sub-field as renewing and advancing development management's practical and applied research agendas.2 The policy-makers in India today face a real formidable challenge in striking this balance as a strategy for good governance.

The triumph of corporate millennium and world capitalism has led to a veritable tidal wave of economic and financial reforms in developing and transitional economies in the form of structural adjustment programmes. Coupled with the increased financial power of transnational corporations, the pace of technological innovation has led to an increased search

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for new products, new production methods and new markets. The revolution in information technology has not only made the world smaller but has also led to profound changes in the reorganisation of production and industrial establishments. Both businesses and governments are under an intense pressure and scrutiny because people share instant information through a world-wide telecommunication network. There has been an expansion of world trade on a more competitive basis. The system of American dominated multinational enterprises is being replaced by a system of multinational alliances in airlines, telecommunications, banking, insurance, etc. At the same time the resurgence of massive international migration flows due to the global economic structuring, information and technological revolutions have caused world-wide demographic changes. Along with the global transformation, the role of the state has been changing. The trend is to shift from a system where the state is the center of the world to a system where the territorial principle has to come into balance with the interdependency principle. The political power of the states has been weakened by supra-nations, sub-nations, economic forces, and macro-regions. In many countries, traditional bureaucratic public management is under severe criticism and is being gradually replaced by a new performance, result-oriented management along with efforts towards downsising government bureaucracy, empowering local community, and encouraging private incentives. The tendency both at the national and local level is to evolve a common concept of governance implying a leaner, fairer and representative government, which allows for more individual freedom and active participation of civil society. Citizens are increasingly coming together and organising to represent their interests, express their views, and undertake actions to assist themselves, either independent of or in partnership with government. In the globalising world of the 21st century, the civil society takes on an increasingly powerful role in development and in influencing policies.

This rearrangement of roles, between the market, the state and people gives more space for the civil society to organize itself to effectively voice the interests of the people and of the common good. It also gives more responsibility to the civil society to take up the interests of the people whose voices

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would otherwise be overwhelmed and drowned by the powers of business interests of the politically powerful.3

At the same time in many countries, like India, poor are still poor and have even increased in absolute numbers. Economic gains have been wiped out by population growth. Though India has an economically powerful middle class, a vibrant software industry, and nuclear capability, but a huge number of India's citizens continue to eke out a living under conditions of extreme poverty and deprivation. The government's capacity to perform is still weak, resources available for public investment and development are still scarce, local jurisdictions are particularly starved. The critical basic needs in education, health, welfare, infrastructure and the very basic need of clean drinking water for the masses still go unmet. Many of the poor are in fact worse off now than they were a decade or so ago. No wonder that India ranks very low in the Human Development Report prepared each year by the UNDP. Human development is the strand which holds together concerns on political institutions and governance, social institutions and culture, and science and technology. Ultimately, what really matters is how the interaction between globalisation and these different institutions redounds to higher levels of human development.

As one of the observers of the political scene in India has rightly put it "poverty is the biggest political constituency in India. Not only do our politicians feed off it like vultures but supposedly pro-poor activists and NGOs also rush around condemning needed economic reforms on the grounds that the poor will not benefit... A favourite whipping boy of the "pro-poor" activists is globalisation. This they tell us is definitely anti-poor but again they do not ask if globalisation is an option anymore or a reality we have to face. There are not many countries left in the world so over regulated as we are . . . there is much we can do by learning from other kinds of systems of governance where we went wrong."4 What particular social and economic model can be devised at this juncture of the evolution of the Indian polity, with vociferous disruptive tendencies without any coherent ideological stance remains the biggest challenge for the policy-makers in India at the beginning of the millennium.

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There is a talk of E-governance all over the world. India has also not remained oblivious of these developments. E-governance implies a smoother interface between government and citizen. While it cannot entirely replace manual governance, even its limited applications are good enough to affect day-to-day living. It can fulfil roughly speaking, the four purposes for which citizens generally interact with the government: (i) paying bills, taxes, user fees and so on, (ii) registration formalities, whether of a child's birth or a house purchase or a driving license. (In Tamil Nadu for instance, one can download 72 application forms), (iii) seeking information, and (iv) lodging complaints. E-governance can reduce distances to nothing, linking remote villages to government offices in the cities, can reduce staff, cut costs, check leaks in the governing system, and can make the citizen-government interaction smooth, without queues and the tyranny of clerks. But it must be remembered that E-governance is only a tool for good governance. It can't succeed independent of responsive officers, and it has to be owned by the

political leadership. Otherwise it will only be a bureaucrat's game.5 How to rebuild the system of governance on these new premises without the majority of population even being literate is a real challenge for all concerned with new innovations in the performance of the government.

The corporate millennium has brought into focus a new concept of governance based on the interests of the shareholders, i.e. the citizens, which has signalled the role of transparency, accountability and merit-based management and a sense of morality and ethics that rests on the principle of "concern for others." An ethical organisation, more so a government not only stands for people with a set of values, but a positive attitude which generates a culture within the organisation in which every member feels a sense of loyalty and belonging and the leaders is responsible for initiating dialogues across a wide range of levels and functions so as to operationalise values in practical policies.

The country today faces one of the biggest challenges of having become blase about corruption in high places both political and bureaucratic. Even the corporate and educational sectors cannot claim to be free from this curse. The stench of corruption fills the air from the top down to the bottom, he

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beginning of the year 2001 has again brought into open the stench of corruption all around. First it was the tehelka.com sting operation which exploded the widespread corruption in defense deals involving both politicians and the bureaucrats. Then there was the stock market scandal exposing the helplessness of the regulating agencies like the SEBI and the RBI. The revelations of the affluence of Vincent George, a one time stenographer and presently the Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition and the doings of the Chairman of the Central Board of Customs and Excise, Mr. B.P. Verma, exposing a widespread syndicate network of smugglers and bureaucrats, are all merely a tip of the iceberg of the deep malaise of the cancer of corruption with which our body politic suffers from. The public life can be cleansed of corruption if only the powers that be want it. But it requires firm determination, a bold policy initiative to eliminate corruption and a refusal to be influenced by considerations of political convenience. Can we meet this challenge.

The 21st Century challenges for good governance in India would thus not only mean maintaining of a state enjoying both legitimacy and authority derived from a democratic mandate, and an open, efficient, accountable, and responsive administrative framework, but also a system of behaviour of political leaders and public functionaries based on public ethics and moral values. Will Public Administration in India be able to respond to the 21st century challenge of a corruption-free sustainable development? Athough the present unstable and shaky political scenario does not augur any optimism in that respect, but there is no doubt that India does possess the necessary administrative resilience to overcome these

odds. This should provide a ray of hope for an honest, enlightened and visionary leadership to launch a wholesale crusade to revamp the system of administration towards good governance.


1. See Derick W. Brinkerhoff, and Jennifer M. Coston, "International Development Management in a Globalised World" in Public Administration Review, July/August 1999, Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 346-61.

2. Ibid., p. 357.

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3. Sakiko Fuuda Parr, Sustainable Human Development in a Globalising World (New York, Human Development Report Office, 1997), pp. 1-2.

4. See Tavleen Singh, "Poverty Politics" in India Today, 11 December 2000, p. 26.

5. For a feature on E-Governance see, India Today, 11 December 2000, pp. 70-76.

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Bhargava, B.S. and Samal, Avinash, Protective discrimination and development of scheduled castes: an alternative model for good governance. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sep. 1998: pp. 508-19.

Bhattacharya, Mohit, Conceptualising good governance, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 289-96.

Blunt, Peter, Cultural relativism, 'good' governance and sustainable human development, Public Administration and Development, 15(1), Feb. 1995: pp. 1-9.

Borins, Sandford, The new public management is here to stay, Canadian Public Administration, 38(1), Spring 1995: pp. 122-32.

Braibant, Guy, Public Administration and Development, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 62(2), June 1996: pp. 163-76.

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Caldwell, Dean S. and Dorling, Ernest W., Networking between practioners and academics in law enforcement, Public Administration Review, 5(1), Jan.-Feb. 1995:' pp. 107-10.

Chandran, T.R. Satish, Globalisation: impact on India and the Southern states, Journal of Social and Economic Development, 3(1), Jan.-Jun. 2000: pp. 1-41.

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Cunningham, Rosie, From great expectations to hard times? managing equal opportunities under new public management, Public Administration, 78(3) 2000: pp. 699- 714.

Datta Chaudhuri, Mrinal, Liberalisation without reform, Seminar, Ann (437), Jan. 1996: pp. 32-35.

De Leon, Corazon G., The role of public administration in promoting sociopolitical development, Philippine journal of Public Administration, 42(1-2), Jan.-Apr. 1998: pp. 17-30.

DeSouza, Peter Ronald, Liberalisation, discourse and 'natural' inequality, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 42(3), Jul.-Sept. 1996: pp. 264-69.

Dey, Bata K., Defining Good Governance, Indian journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 412-27.

Dey, Bata K., Liberalisation and Human Management Concerns, Indian journal of Public Administration, 42(3), Jul.-Sept. 1996: pp. 421-33.

Dubhashi, P.R., Ethics in Public Life and Liberalisation, Indian journal of Public Administration, 41(3), Jul.-Sept. 1995: pp. 506-12.

Duggett, Michael, New Development in Public Administration: Country Report: Citizen's Charter: People's Charter in the UK, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 64(2), June 1998: pp. 327-30.

Dwivedi, O.P., Common Good and Good Governance, Indian journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 253-64.

Dwivedi, O.P., Development Administration: An Overview, Indian journal of Public Administration, 43(3), Jul.-Sept. 1997: pp. 305-22.

Dwivedi, O.P. and Henderson, K.M., Development Alternatives: Alternative Administration, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 42(1), Jan.-Mar. 1996: pp. 16-31.

Farazmand, Ali, Comparative and Development Public Administration 2000: Introduction to the Symposium, International journal of Public Administration, 21(12), Dec. 1998: pp. 1647-65.

Felker, Lon S., Catastrophe Theory as a Paradigm for Development Administration, International journal of

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Public Administration, 21(12), Dec. 1998: pp. 1803-20.

Fifty Years of Indian administration—Retrospect and Prospects: A Special Number, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 43(3), Jul-Sept. 1997: pp. 261-866.

Galnoor, Itzhak, Rosenbloom, David H. and Yaroni, Allon, Creating New Public Management Reforms: Lesson from Israel, Administration and Society, 30(4), Sept. 1998: pp. 393-420.

Gaur, M.K., Political Stability and Good Governance, Indian journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 407-11.

Ghuman, B.S., Reflection on Citizen's Charter in India, Management in Government, 32(2), Jul.-Sept. 2000: pp. 85-91.

Gonzalez, Joaquin L., Ill, Development Administration and Computer Database: A Case Analysis, Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 40(1-2), Jan.-Apr. 1996: pp. 50-66.

Guha Roy, Jaytilak and Mishra, Yatish, Criminal Justice Administration in India: Emerging Trends and Futuristic Introspection, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 43(3), Jul.-Sept. 1997: pp. 794-803.

Guha Roy, Jaytilak and Mishra, Yatish, Criminal Justice System and its Administration: Agenda for Reform, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 45(3), Jul.-Sept. 1999: pp. 494-500.

Haragopal, G., Good Governance: Human Rights Perspective, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 297-306.

Haragopal, G. and Sudarshanam, G., Liberalisation Policy. Implications for Higher Education, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 42(3), Jul.-Sept. 1996: pp. 505-12.

Hasan, Mubashr, The agenda for Good Governance in a Globalised World, South Asian Survey, 7(2), Jul.-Dec. 2000: pp. 175-86.

Jain, R.B., Citizen Participation in Development Administration: Experiences of India, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 65(3), Sept. 1999: pp. 381-94.

--------, Citizen's Charter—An Instrument of Public Accountability: Problems and Prospects in India, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 362-73.

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Jain, R.B., The Craft of Political Graft in India: An Analysis of Major Scams, Indian Journal of Political Science, 55(4), Oct.- Dec. 1994: pp. 335-52.

--------, Globalisation, Market Economy and Human Security: The Indian Experience, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 42(3), Jul.-Sept. 1996: pp. 309-20.

--------, Managing Public Policy in India: The Implementation Gap, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 43(3), Jul.-Sept. 1997: pp. 345-61.

--------, Parliament and Policy in India: The Accountability Syndrome, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 29(3), Jul.-Sept. 1983: pp. 559-89.

--------, Political and Bureaucratic Corruption in India: Methodology of Promoting Ethical Behaviour among Administrators, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 41(3), Jul.-Sept. 1995: pp. 402-18.

--------, Political Control of Bureaucracy in India, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(1), Jan.-Mar. 1998: pp. 1-16.

--------, Regulating Political Finance in India, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 41(4), Oct.-Dec. 1995: pp. 702-17.

Jayaramu, P.S., Fifty Years of the Indian Constitution: Does it Need a Review? Mainstream, 38(11), 4 Mar. 2000: pp. 13- 14.

Joglekar, K.G., Indian Democracy: The First Fifty Years, Yojana, 41(1), Jan. 1997: pp. 31-33, 36.

Joshi, Akshay, Globalisation and Technology: Lessons for India, Strategic Analysis, 23(11), Feb. 2000: pp. 1933-55.

Kabra, Kamal Nayan, Globalisation and Governance: Cloning the New Millennium, Mainstream, 38(31), 22 July 2000: pp. 11-16.

Kabra, Kamal Nayan, Paradigm of liberalisation: compatibility with social concerns? Indian Journal of Public Administration, 42(3), Jul.-Sep. 1996: pp. 270-83.

Kapur, Jagdish C, IT and Good Governance, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 46(3), Jul.-Sept. 2000: pp. 386-95.

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Kashyap, Subhash C, Towards Good Governance: Need for Political Reforms, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 44(3), Jul.-Sept. 1998: pp. 318-27.

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Kaul, Mohan, The New Public Administration: Management Innovations in Government, Public Administration and Development, 17(1), Feb. 1997: pp. 13-26.

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Neelamegam, R. and Gopathy, V, Globalisation and corporate governance in India, Management Accountant, 35(7), Jul. 2000: pp. 492-98.

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501

Index

Administrative Accountability, 206

Changing Notions, 206

Administrative Planning, 171

Need, 171

Administrative Reforms, 39

New Directions, 39

Positive Achievements, 37

Administrative System, 36

Changes, 36

Reforming, 20

Advani, L.K., 236

Aftermath of Independence, 20

Alagh, Y.K., 26

Anti Poverty Programme, 134

Antulay, A.R., 231

Appleby Efforts at Reforms, 21

Ashok Mehta Committee, 269

Ayyangar, N. Gopalswamy, 21

Backward Classes, 115

Reservation, 115

Bahuguna, Sunder Lal, 303

Bailey, Stephen K.,

Bajpai, Girija Shanker, 20

Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, 268- 69

Bhambhri, C.P., 155

Biosphere Reserves, 384

Bofors Scandal, 233

Bribing MPs to Save Government, 234

Bureaucracy in India, 150, 183

Political Control, 183

Bureaucracy, Political Dynamics and

Policy-Making, 160

Bureaucracy, 165

Role, 165

Political Responsiveness, 168

Bureaucratic Corruption, 242

Bureaucratic Dysfunctionalism, 64

Bureaucrat-Politician Interaction, 172

Three Phases, 172

Caste System, 55

Central Government Employment, 53

Growth, 53

Central Vigilance Commission, 33

Chandrashekhar, 175

Changing Administrative Style, 35

Chief Ministers' Conference, 214

Action Plan, 214

Chief Secretaries Conference, 213

Recommendations, 213

Chipko Andolan, 276, 303

Citizen's Charter, 205

Community Development

Programme, 266

Comparative Public Administration, 412

Emergence, 412

Trends and Models, 415

Indian Studies, 426

Conservation of Natural Resources, 383

502

Constitutional Imperatives, 5

Impact of Independence, 5

Cooperatives: Institutional Innovation for Economic Participation, 274

Crimes in India, 316

Changing Pattern, 316

Criminalization of Politics, 239

Criminalization of Politics and Politicisation of Crimes, 321

Criminal Justice Administration, 313

Criminal Politicians Nexus, 323

Criminals becoming Law-makers, 240

Corruption in India, 223, 248

CVC Website, 246

Desai, Morarji, 22

Dave, J.N., 372

Democracy, 182

Bureaucratic Accountability, 182

Democratic Decentralization, 8

Desert Development Programme, 272

Devegowda, H.D., 193

Development Administration, 263

Citizen Participation, 263

Devi, Rabri, 236

Different Plan Periods, 75

Pogress of SSI Sector, 75

Down Sizing Government, 38

Economic Administration, 31

Restructuring, 31

Economic Diplomacy, 350

Economic Reforms in India, 127

Eighth Five Year Plan, 19, 86

Environmental Education, 385

Environmental Managmement, 373

Constitutional Legal Provisions, 373

Environmental Problems, 369

Nature, 369

Environmental Protection, 387

Problems of Implementation, 387

Environmental Policy, 303

Environmental Research, 384

Environmental Management Network, 377

Exercise of Extra-Constitutional

Authority, 230

Ex-Servicemen, 115

Reservation, 115

Federalism: The Administrative

Implications, 7

Fifth Five Year Plan, 104

Fifty Years of India's Administrative Development, 3

Five Year Plans, 16

Administrative Development, 16

Forest Conservation, 383

Fox, Charles, J., 462

Framework Planning, 13

Frauda, Marcus, 284

Friedrich Carl, 161

Gandhi, Indira, 35, 248, 249, 270, 377, 385

Gandhi, Mahatma, 74, 266, 283

Gandhi, Rajiv, 174, 238, 270, 292

Ganga Action Plan, 381

Globalisation, Liberalisation and Human Security, 123

Gorwala, A.D., 21

Gorwala Committee, 21

Goswami Committee, 31

Gowda, H.D. Dave, 175

Gram Swarozgar Yojana, 134

Greater Coordination and

Consistency, 218

Need, 218

Grievance Redressal Machinery, 219

Growth of Development Bureaucracy, 272

Participation Crisis, 272

Gujral, I.K., 175, 246

Gupta, Bhawani Sen, 359

503

Hanumanthaiya, K., 22

Harijan Welfare, 277

Hazardous Substances, 386

Control, 386

Hill Area Development Programme, 272

HRD: Problem Areas, 117

Human Resource Development, 101

Concept, 101

Impact of Religion, 63

Implementing Globalisation and Competitiveness, 127

Increasing Crime Rates, 317

India and the NGOs, 292

Economic Liberalisation, 292

India, 283

Emergence of NGOs, 283

Characterstics of NGOs, 287

Role of NGOs, 289

Government—NGOs Relations, 297

Criminal Justice, 314

Police Administration, 320

Violation of Integrity in Police System, 326

Problems of Comparative

Research, 432

Teaching Comparative Public Administration, 430

Bureaucratic Corruption, 241

Development Philosophy, 264

Citizens' Charter Scheme, 213

Characteristic Features of Political Corruption, 226

Planning for HRD, 85

HRD Through Public Service Training, 94

Policy of Globalisation and Liberalisation, 125

Combating Bureaucratic Corruption, 244

Globalisation, Competitiveness and Human Security, 138

Police Policy Development, 158

Indian Administration, 92

HRD Infrastructure, 92

Indian Bureaucracy, 185

Mechanism of Political Control, 185

Authoritarian Character, 67

Indian Social Structure, 50

India's Strategy for Participative Development, 265

Institutional Development and Colonial Legacy, 4

Instruments of Control, 186

Insulating Police from Politics, 332

Iyer, Chokila, 363

Jain, N.K., 237

Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana, 134

Jawahar Rojgar Yojana, 130

Jaylalitha, 238

Jumboo Council of Ministers, 235

Formation, 235

Kairon, Pratap Singh, 232

Karunanidhi, M., 238

Kaul, Sheila, 237

Kothari, Rajni, 293

Krishnaswamy, P.V., 299

Kshirsagar, S.S., 427

Legislative Control, 185

Liberalisation and Deregulation, 27

Policy, 27

Macaulay, T.B., 152

Mahajan, Pramod, 363

Mahanta, P.K., 238

Making Parliamentary Control

Effective, 188

Management of Environment, 367

Managerial Control, 207

Managing Foreign Affairs, 339

Organizational Structure, 347

Managing Public Policy, 150

Mand, Raddiffe, 166

504

MEA, 346

Role, 346

MEF—Nodal Agency, 377

Mehta, Harshad, 234

Military Diplomacy, 353

Ministry of External Affairs, 341

Functions, 341

Evolution, 340

MPPP, 93

Role and Functions, 93

Narayan, Jayaprakash, 334

National Police Commission, 26

National Policy on Education, 1986, 88

National Security Council, 355

National Social Assistance Programme, 134

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 248

New Public Administration Paradigm, 453

NGOs—An Instrument for Promoting World Capitalism, 294

NGOs Personnel, 300

Socio-economic Background, 300

Ninth Five Year Plan, 19

O'uchi, Minoru, 228

Organised Sector, 106

Women Employment, 106

Other Forms/Cases of Political Corruption, 237

Over-Activism, 199

Need to Check, 194

Ozone Depletion, 386

Panandikar, V.A. Pal, 427

Panchayati Raj Institutions, 268

Panchayati Raj System, 8

Panja, Ajit, 363

Pant, K.C., 356

Parliamentary Committee on Environment, 379

Participative Development, New Areas and Actors, 274

Patnaik, Biju, 232

Performance of NGOs, 291

Problems Affecting, 291

Physically Handicapped Persons, 117

Reservation, 117

PIL as a Control Mechanism, 193

Planned Economy and Administrative Development, 12

Policy, 12

Policy-Formation and Implementation, 170

Changed Role of Bureaucracy, 170

Policy-makers, 177

Development, 177

Policy-making, 302

Impact of NGOs, 302

Political and Bureaucratic Corruption, 222

Political Control and Accountability, 200

Political Control, 184

Environmental Context, 184

Limits, 197

Emerging Issues, 197

Political Control over Bureaucracy, 182

Political Corruption in India, 224, 227

Various Forms, 227

Political Diplomacy, 346

Role of the MEA, 346

Political Executive and Officials, 166

Forms of Interaction, 166

Politicization of Criminals, 239

Pollution Monitoring and Control, 385

Population Growth, Unemployment and HRD, 91

Post-Appleby Period, 22

Post-ARC Reform Efforts, 25

Post-Indira Gandhi Era, 174

Poverty-Alleviation and Social Justice, 71

505

Prime Minister's Integrated Urban

Poverty Alleviation Programme, 136

Profile of Personnel of NGOs, 300

Promoting Efficiency and Accountability, 31

Promoting Human Security, 140

Public Administration, 401

Research Methodology, 401

Philosophy, 445

Search for a Theory, 441

Comparative Study, 412

NGOs as the Non-State Actor, 283

Socio-Politico Structure, 45

Public Interest, 162

Interpretation, 162

Public Policy Management, 149

Public Services, 10

Queen Victoria, 153

Raghunath, K., 363

Raising of Political Funds by Professional Politicians, 231

Raja Chelliah Committee, 31

Ram, Sukh, 237

Rao, P.V. Narsimha, 234, 293

Ray, C.N., 216

Reforms and Poverty, 132

Responsibility for Environment Protection, 393

Role of Consumer Coordination Council, 215

Role of NGOs by the Government, 285

Recognition, 285

Role of the State, 33

Redefining, 33

Rural Work Programme, 272

Scindia, Vijayraje, 363

SC/ST, 115

Special Recruitment Drives, 115

Second Five Year Plan, 17

Second World War, 20

Secularism, Casteism and Religious Value, 66

Sekhar, Chandra, 362

Setting of Characters, 211

Key Elements, 211Sharma, Satish, 237

Shastri, Lai Bahadur, 35, 173, 248, 343

Shourie, H.D., 33

Singh, Buta, 235

Singh, Jaswant, 363

Singh, Manmohan, 293

Singh, V.P., 169, 175, 356

Small Farmers' Development Agency, 272

Small Scale Industries and Social Structure, 74

Social Non-State Actors versus the State, 280

Socio-economic Dimensions of Human Security, 131

State Policy, 9

Fundamental Rights and the

Directive Principles, 9

Statutory Authorities, 11

Stockholm Conference, 368

Striving for Good Governance, 3

Subramaniam, V, 155

Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar

Yojana, 134

Taylor, F.W., 446

Third Five Year Plan, 17

Thungan, P.K., 237

Total Quality Approach, 213

Characters Espouse, 213

Tottenham Committee, 20

Towards Corruption-Free

Governance, 251

Trade and Investment Promotion, 351

Traditonal District Administration, 16

Training and Individual Development, 100

506

Training in India and HRD, 101

Training of Rural Youth for Self- employment, 272

Transfers as an Instrument of Control, 195

Tribal Area Development Plan, 272

Trivedi, R.K., 155

U.K., 209

Strategy of Introducing Citizens

Charter, 209

Uncharted Course of Policy-Making, 175

Urban /Rural Dichotomy, 70

Social Classes, 70

Vajpayee, Atal Behari, 85, 175, 363

Venkataswaran, A.P., 362

Verma, B.P., 249

Violation of Human Rights and the Police, 330

Vittal, N., 243

Vohra Committee Findings, 324

Vohra, N.N., 324

Wasteland Development, 381

Water and Air Pollution, 380

Control, 380

Weaker Section of Societies, 110

Harnessing the Potentialities, 110

Weber, Max, 154, 416

Wildlife Protection, 383

Women as Human Resource, 103

Women Development Programme, 272

Women's Development Corporation, 105

Yadav, Laloo Prasad, 238