Anticipating and Pandering of the Bureaucracy to the New Government's Intent & Ideology

After the election of the new government with a ‘clear’ mandate it is now necessary to focus on the actions of the bureaucracy which forms the ‘permanent government’ in India.  While a lot of news stories have been looking at how the PM and the Ministers are starting to hold the senior bureaucrats – from having to report quickly and directly to the PMO; cleaning the offices and being on time between 9AM – 6PM; accountable, another feature of the bureaucracy that needs to be looked at closely if the pandering response of the bureaucrats. This behaviour can be described as ‘saying and doing’ what the new government ‘likes’ rather than just executing the policy decisions taken by the government.

Two closely related incidents that seem to stand out is the Intelligence Bureau’s report on the funding of NGOs (more here focusing on Greenpeace India) that are “negatively impacting economic development” and the denial of Visa to a British Academic Dr. Vera-Sanso who has been conducting research in India since 1990. The proof of the pandering is the fact that the IB’s NGO-scare report plagiarises from an old Modi speech from September 9, 2006, when he lambasted the NGOs. (A copy of the complete text of the ‘secret’ IB report can be read here - http://www.scribd.com/doc/229511459/IB-Report-NGOs-June-2014 ) The role of the IB should be brought under greater scrutiny as it has not covered itself in much glory, when it has been unable to prevent the Mumbai attacks in 2008, but is found to be quite effective in pinning the criminals, many a time falsely.

The denial of entry to a British academic Dr. Vera-Sanso, who has apparently been given to understand that it had something to do with her Gujarat visit in March 2014, seems like a knee-jerk reaction of the bureaucrats, rather than an explicit directive from the new government.

This calls for greater accountability of bureaucrats who should record the reasons for taking a decision, as in rejecting the entry of the British academic, or, even providing intelligence. Such material should then be made available, if allegations of human rights violations or corruption, are raised by anyone seeking such information. This will only be consistent with the existing Right to Information law, RTI Act 2005, which under Section, 24(1), reads as,

“Nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the intelligence and security organisations specified in the Second Schedule, being organisations established by the Central Government or any information furnished by such organisations to that Government:

Provided that the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations shall not be excluded under this sub-section:

Provided further that in the case of information sought for is in respect of allegations of violation of human rights, the information shall only be provided after the approval of the Central Information Commission, and notwithstanding anything contained in section 7, such information shall be provided within forty-five days from the date of the receipt of request.”

It is this ‘permanent government’ which should be put under greater scrutiny, apart from focusing on the functioning of the Indian Parliament.

(A good update on the issue can be read here and by Ramachandra Guha here.)