How Much Public Service Is There In A Career In Indian Public Service?
By Moin Qazi
26 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Does a career in the Indian bureaucracy mean a life of 'public service'? Certainly not. All it means is a lifetime of serving the most despicable lot of politicians ever to be found in the world. It means a career that will rub out your individuality, dull your intellect, and corrupt your morals. You will enter a fine young person; you will retire as someone you yourself will not be able to recognize, barring a few courageous exceptions. Many youngsters begin their careers with loads of ambition and a stock of dreams, waiting to dazzle the corporate world with brilliance, confident that the corner office is theirs for taking. They enter the office on the first day expecting a welcoming committee. Here their dreams end and reality takes over.
I firmly believe that a sensitive official cannot smoothly manage and drive a grassroots revolution of a new development program. Vision is one thing, creativity is another. But what can you do when you are up against a calcified bureaucracy, fickle minded villagers who change their opinions faster than they close their clothes and local drunkard goons who can stab you without provocation. . There were times when I felt a letter from a superior as a prelude to a career obituary. I have tremendous sympathy for several development bankers whom I have seen suffer the taint and stigma of vigilance strictures and sometimes even dismissal from their service for a small slip in a career studded with professional achievements and sacrifices of the entire family
Bosses goad the performers to cross the tramlines making them go berserk and commit professional hara-kiri. The system was paralyzed with precedents, so every year we accreted new ones. The British bequeathed us hierarchical machinery-but, boy, when it comes to hierarchical institutions nobody can teach India anything. Today our bureaucracy is twenty times more bureaucratic, our snobberies more snobbish, our deference to the chain of command more cringing and decorous, our worship of paper more entrenched.
Behind the gleaming images of icons of successful development crusades is the untold saga of the sacrifice of the field staff who hold the fort as brave grassroots warriors. Their careers are consigned in the heat and dust of the nether world whose plot lines are as ghastly as those of the kingdom of dacoits. The grassroots staff remained in constant fear of such elements. I found several senior executives who had astounding cerebral powers that were rarely matched by their social skills and their obsession with lucrative careers and snobbery towards other pursuits rarely allowed them to devote time to developmental work. Development work is dirty, you have to soil your hands,you have to cope with crude elements at the lower dregs of society .it was too much an expectation from a status conscious manager If you care about your mission, and your community, then it hurts when colleagues let you down, your social enterprise stumbles, funding is denied, or other hurdles materialize. Business schools don’t teach you how to fight goons; risk mitigation strategies like sophisticated metrics and business algorithms can’t hold water in the face of the mad frenzy of plundering bandits; technological gadgets can’t speak the language of humanism.
One of the discouraging features of Indian democracy is the politicization of rural society. A decade back, villages had a very remote link with political parties. Those who contested panchayat elections were elected on the strength of their electoral merits, irrespective of their ideological stripes. Cast did remain a strong card, but the candidates’ character played a critical role. The growing tendency of village groups to seek outside political support for solution to local development issues has ruptured the traditional social structure. Each leader in a village has a political master in the nearest town. All these developments have made the village social structure highly complex and confusing. In the coming years rural assignments for officials of government and banks are going to become hazardous on account of the growing criminalization of villages. The new roads and highways that provide a fast passage not just to towns but also to metros have demolished the concept of village republics.
Some may feel that their position is hopeless, that there is nothing they can do. The ‘system’ is too strong for them. Perhaps the best antidote to this despair is to study the examples and lives of those who have fought against the odds and succeeded. In every country there are some courageous people — political and religious leaders, civil servants, workers in voluntary agencies, academics, scientists, and others — who have refused to give in, who have stuck by their principles and whose lives shine as examples to others of what can be done. For those who side with the poor, too, there may be unexpected floods of support. But not all can expect recognition or to become folk-heroes. For most of those who put the last first, the satisfaction and rewards are not fame, but in knowing that they have done what was right, and that things are, however slightly, better than they would have been. Their small deeds may not command attention; but in merit, they may equal or exceed the greater and more conspicuous actions of those with more freedom and power.
For the test is what people do. Social change flows from individual actions. By changing what they do, people move societies in new directions and themselves change. Big simple solutions are tempting but full of risks. For most outsiders, most of the time, the soundest and best way forward is through innumerable small steps could be just nudges and tiny pushes. Slower and smaller steps also help building up people’s adaptability to changes. We should look for small innovations, not just blockbusters. Big hits are rare, but too many executives swing for the fences with each new innovation. This not only marginalizes people who work on smaller projects, but also tends to result in projects modeled on existing market successes—that is, not that innovative. Truly new concepts often spring from smaller beginnings It is easier for native populations to embrace small innovations and cultural shifts. The tough resistance occurs only when the new initiative appears to supplant the existing traditions. Many small reversals then support each other and together build up towards a greater movement. The lives of many people already show a will to make reversals, to put the last fist. Some contribute from a distance. Others work directly with and for those who are rural and poor, helping them to gain more of what they want and need and to demand and control more of the benefits of development.
Small gains well consolidated as part of a sequence can mean more than big gains which are unstable and short-lived. By changing what they do, people move societies in new directions and themselves change. Big simple solutions are tempting but full of risks. Many small reversals then support each other and together build up towards a greater movement. Some contribute from a distance. Others work directly with and for those who are rural and poor, helping them to gain more of what they want and need and to demand and control more of the benefits of development.
Several development successes have occurred in less than optimal settings often under appalling conditions of weak governance ,widespread corruption ,minimal infrastructure ,deep-rooted social divisions and poorly functioning judicial system. In each case ,creative individuals saw possibilities where other saw hopelessness.They imagined a way for ward that took into account local realities’ and built on local strengths they were willing to experiment and ignore the skeptics ,until the skeptics became supporters and often partners working to bring about change on a larger scale
Moin Qazi is a well known banker, author and Islamic researcher .He holds doctorates in Economics and English. He was Visiting Fellow at the University of Manchester. He has authored several books on religion, rural finance, culture and handicrafts. He is author of the bestselling book Village Diary of a Development Banker. He is also a recipient of UNESCO World Politics Essay Gold Medal and Rotary International’s Vocational Excellence Award. He is based in Nagpur and can be reached at [email protected]