Is there a place for a counter-bureaucracy, or a separate and competing bureaucracy to counterbalance the force of the executive’s bureaucracy, asked author MH Mody in 1980.
The view that bureaucracies are bloated with far too many employees preying on taxpayers money is a widely held myth. Research shows how significantly understaffed the Indian state is.
We select individuals capable of becoming Formula One drivers. Then we give them rickety Maruti 800s on potholed roads and expect championship lap times.
If we get this right, the citizen of 2047 will experience government as ambient and humane. Benefits arrive when needed without forms; grievances resolve in hours.
Indian politicians expect civil servants to suck up to them. Ireland envoy Akhilesh Mishra's hit-job on Congress and his admiration of PM Modi will undoubtedly be noted by his political masters.
Two solutions come to mind: Govt must fix the tenure and duration for officers and make empanelment for top positions non-discretionary, matrix-based, and transparent.
There’s a reason senior government officials rely more on consultants than their own subordinates. They walk the extra mile that mid or junior-level officials won’t.
Since the bulk of citizens did not regard drinking as a crime, they had no respect for the prohibition laws and did not cooperate with the police, wrote MV Venkata Rao in 1962.
We now live in a world order that will keep shifting. India must use this window. This also means we remain disciplined enough not to be knee-jerked into reacting to what Pakistan sees as its moment in the sun.
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