Ways to improve the system
An experience-sharing workshop on women’s entrepreneurship — as part of a project on promoting eco-friendly entrepreneurship development for women in…
The minister-civil servant relation during the last seventy years of post-independence Bengal has generated interest, comments and debate among politicians, academics, bureaucrats, and members of civil society. Long ago, Harold Laski, in his Grammar of Politics, had branded ministers as ‘amateur and temporary’, but the civil service as ‘permanent and expert’. In an ideal situation, under parliamentary democracy, the relationship between the minister and the civil servant should be usually that of colleagues working together in a team of cooperative partners seeking to advance the public interest. The partnership should be alive and virile, while the relationship should be one of mutual respect and understanding.
The Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary, being head of the cabinet and civil service respectively, articulate the relationship to meet the demands of the situation. Compulsion of electoral politics and ego-clashes, more often than not, vitiate the ambience. If the leaders can rise above petty-fogging and ignore all sorts of illegitimate and partisan requests from political brokers and unscrupulous officers, it can promote the cause of good governance.
It is not without reason that Dr BC Roy is reckoned as the architect of modern Bengal. His chemistry with Congress chief Atulya Ghosh was so unique that neither interfered in the other’s domain. Political interference in administration was then never encouraged. A minister of state from undivided Midnapore who was having difficulty with the district magistrate complained to the chief minister for his transfer. In his inimitable style, the CM brusquely told him: Ora anek pash tash kore eseche,other kaj korte dao tomake mantri korechi tumi tomar kaj koro.
The chief minister was equally respectful and responsive to his senior officers. He had once chided the Member Board of Revenue, a senior ICS officer of repute. The latter started absenting himself from the next day. After having a word with the chief secretary as to the reason of absence, the CM promptly proceeded to the south Calcutta residence of the bureaucrat to say ‘sorry’ to him.
The transfer of a south Indian collector of Bankura possibly marked the solitary instance of an unceremonious exit of a civil servant during Dr Roy’s tenure. Because he, disregarding the government order, invoked the powers of the collector under the Treasury Rules to draw money for distribution of dole in the drought-affected areas of the district.
To start with, Prafulla Chandra Sen’s relation with the bureaucracy and police was not unfriendly. But his food policy involving procurement and de-hoarding cost him dearly, and this was exploited by the leftists to their partisan advantage. Police firing before SDO Basirhat’s office, gherao of SDO Contai at Ramnagar hat, and lynching of ASI police on the premises of sub-divisional hospital, Contai, hogged the headlines of the dailies. Even in such a grim scenario, it must be said to the credit of the Collector of Midnapore, Chief Secretary and, of course, the Chief Minister that the SDO Contai was untouched in the lynching incident though the SDPO was summarily transferred on the recommendation of the SP.
But in the backdrop of the food movement throughout the state, the chief minister committed a faux pass in a public meeting when he thundered: Sarkarer hukum na manle DM ke SDO kare debo, SDO ke BDO ar BDO ke Gramsevak.
Two United Front regimes, commencing from 2 March 1967, witnessed a sharp deterioration in the minister-civil servant relationship. Ministers openly started distrusting the officers. Labour minister Subodh Banerjee’s gherao gained acceptability in administration. Left unions started calling the shots. Disobedience to authority was patronised.
Meanwhile, Naxalite trouble broke out in North Bengal, Debra and Gopiballavpore in Midnapore district. Government officers and police were targeted as class enemies. The situation reached a climax when chief minister Ajoy Mukherjee was assaulted by coordination committee members on the first floor of Writers’ Buildings , while his deputy Jyoti Basu, in charge of the police department, was enjoying a cup of tea with his fellow-travellers.
But in bureaucracy, there are always some fortune-seekers who never think twice before licking the boots of the powers-that-be for upward mobility. When the state was burning with the annihilation of ‘class enemies’ by the Naxalites, an IAS Joint Secretary, Home Department, very close to the-then Deputy Chief minister, noted the developments on the file as ‘people’s democratic movement’ and submitted it directly to his boss bypassing the Home Secretary and Chief Secretary.
The political executive during UF rule miserably failed to inspire the civil service by its own example of integrity, sincerity of purpose, and honesty in public life. Otherwise, the perpetrators of the gruesome Sainbari murders in Burdwan would have been sent to the gallows long ago and the voluble district magistrate given marching orders for dereliction of duty.
The Left Front government, after completion of the panchayat poll in 1978, arrogated to itself the task of transferring power from the rural bureaucracy to the people’s representatives. It was no easy task. A team led by Dr Arun Ghosh, Vice-Chairman, State Planning Board, visited districts, subdivisions and block HQs to impress upon the stakeholders about the change at the grassroots level. Initial inhibition notwithstanding, the climate of goodwill and trust was soon restored and civil servants and elected representatives became partners in rural development.
At Writers’ Buildings, the chief minister decided to hold high-level meetings with departmental ministers and secretaries to review and evaluate various development programmes of the administrative departments. Discussions used to be based on a paper prepared by the nodal department i.e. development and planning. Ministers and secretaries were initially free and frank in identifying the success and failures of their plan programmes.
The chief minister was, as usual, very economical in statements. It was the part-time member of the State Planning Board who did most of the talking and took upon himself the task of conducting the meetings with the tacit support of the chair. Soon, ego-clashes surfaced over the preponderance of the extra-constitutional authority. The fallout was the natural death of the initiative.
(To be concluded)
The writer is a former Joint Secretary to the Government of West Bengal.
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