At Least This At Once

We had a nasty war for a few weeks without any breaking of diplomatic relations. It put us in our place and opened our eyes to many realities. It was an ‘ill-wind’ that blew us some good. The present position is that neither the Government of India nor the Chinese have the mind to go into action. De facto acquiescence on the part of India in the Chinese illegal acquisitions and acceptance of the present state of affairs have suited China very well. There is no big or small war in the offing. The Emergency has definitely settled down as another flexible and very useful political instrument for the party in office in Delhi. It is just a handy preamble for every statutory assault on citizens’ rights. Let us leave those things to rest there on Republic Day and look at other things which, too, are important.

If the administration could once more be put in order and brought to the good and efficient condition in which the Indian Civil Service was before World War II, three-fourths of the grievances of the people would have been solved, the ambitions of politicians and their rivalries notwithstanding. On this Republic Day I suggest two reforms which would, in my opinion, save the country from chronic and growing inefficiency and misrule.

The New Delhi administrative machine has become, according to all accounts, a disintegrated affair. Each secretariat is a zamindari with an eye on the spending budget and unconcerned in the affairs of other secretariats. “No two officers of equal rank are on speaking terms with each other,” said a sad official of un-impeachable integrity to me; confirming what many others had said. The ministries all run in parallel lines—or what is worse, in divergent lines not meeting even at infinity. This is the report not of politicians but of experienced non-politicians and administrators of absolute good faith, who have to go to New Delhi for business sometimes. The remedy for this state of affairs is that a new office should be created—a Chief Secretary for the Government of India, as we have in all the States as a hang-over from the old provincial government set-up. There is now, it is true, a Cabinet Secretary in New Delhi but he does not serve the purpose of severe day-to-day coordination of the work of the various departments. We require a powerful, experienced senior official operating as Chief Secretary who will command respect and authority as a superior officer, with the unquestioned backing of the Prime Minister in all matters. The Chief Secretary should be a spiritual invigorator, enabling the officers in the various departments to stand up for purity and justice in administration, and to resist all political pressure or policies dictated by the uncoordinated ambitions of particular ministers. We should see secretariats built up anew with moral power, so that ministers with wrong ambitions will once again stand in healthy fear of official opinion and resistance. Who is this kind of permanent officer who can be brought into position and inspire all the secretariats with independence without detriment to loyalty? That is a personal question not to be gone into here. There are still half-a-dozen good men from whom one can be salvaged. Then there will be a general movement towards good health.

I make another equally important proposal. A non-political Board should be constituted with as much independence and authority as the Public Services Commission, the Auditor-General or the Supreme Court, according to the terms of the Constitution, whose function will be to administer justly all the controls and licences and discretionary powers exercised in pursuance of laws passed in modification of the freedoms guaranteed in the original Constitution. All the transactions which are now a fertile field for corruption, of one kind or another, would be subject to the supervision; revision and control of this statutory non-political body and if things go well the greater part of the abuses now prevailing would soon disappear, and as a result there would be a feeling of order and good government in the country. Ministers and politicians will learn to find a new and superior satisfaction in seeing general welfare resulting from policies and give up seeking satisfaction through power for themselves or others by interfering in the normal and just administration of those policies.

These two new institutions, if established, would ensure good government—at least to a great extent—whatever changes may take place at the political level. Let there be a vigilance commission to detect and punish corruption, but prevention is better than cure. What I have suggested will, to a large extent, prevent corruption.

And if in addition we have a definite, non-reversible, unambiguous assurance that citizens can use their skill and their ideas and their savings, accounted or unaccounted, to advance themselves, confident that what they earn will not be arbitrarily taken away or taxed in expropriatory measure, the result will be an outburst of energy and eager investment in industry, and as a necessary consequence immense increase of employment and general prosperity down to the level of those now waiting in the city slums for some job which may enable them to repay their families debt in their native village. Small industrial centres will rise all over the country, instead of all factories being concentrated in a few cities. Unaccounted monies will all readily come out and the State will have its due share in the profits of investments. The mood and face of the land will change from frustration to hopeful activity.