The architecture of India's governance

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The architecture of India's governance

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• The Alapan Bandhopadhyay case: This case has raised a full governance storm, and brought to the fore many crucial questions. The Chief Secretary, once retired, was immediately appointed adviser to the newly elected CM Ms Banerjee.
• Three flanks of governance: The three flanks are the political, administrative and the judicial. The citizens stand right at the middle of it all. Citizenship of India is defined in terms of those relationships.
• Earlier protocols: The author was selected to the I.A.S. in 1968, and was asked to confirm by telegram that he accepted the selection. His maternal grandfather C. Rajagopalachari (then 90 years old) asked him to change the reply "Offer Accepted" to "Offer gratefully accepted". He said that there's the thing called "Form".
• Rajaji's times: He had occupied high offices, and as the political head of officers, given instructions and orders. He would always press on officers having OLQs - Officer Like Qualities. OLQs had nothing to do with snobbery and arrogance, in the sense of "I am the sarkar", but only the "the purpose of public administration, that is serving the people".
• The training: At the NAC (National Academy of Administration), there were excellent trainers who personified what being in service of government really meant. 

1. It was about respect for the architecture of governance and for the governed
2. It was about humility for India's large size, complexity and grandeur
3. It was about awareness of its many kinds of poverty, that the officers had to try and remove

• Political classes: The bureaucrats had to know that the politicians knew the pulse of the people in ways the officers could not, as they were tested in the fire of elections. Both skills had to work together - the politicians' knowledge of pulse, and the officers' acquired expertise of "pulse taking" and "pulse treating". Mutual respect was the key.
• Sardar Patel knew it: That "mutual" was the key to making the system work, was known to Sardar Patel. He spoke for two articles of the Constitution of India, while it was being drafted, related to the services.

1. Article 311 - it protects officers from arbitrary punishment by political bosses. Patel had been jailed many times during the freedom struggle by officers of the British Raj, but he harboured no ill-will, and no vendetta spirit! He spoke for more trust and respect. He encouraged difference of opinion from civil servants. 
2. Article 314 - Provision for protection of existing officers of certain services. Sardar Patel said to critics that if they refused to allow this, then they may as well scrap the service.

• Summary: The high ideals that formed the civil services of India have been diluted over the decades, by many acts of omission and commission.

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