Essay on the Importance of Public Services for an Welfare State

Viewing the constitutional provisions as a whole, there can be no doubt that they are intended to build up a Public Service that would fit in with the changed character of the State in India.

Of course a civil servant must possess the traditional service virtues of integrity, loyalty and efficiency. His honesty should be above approach, his loyalty unquestioned and his efficiency in conformity with recognised standards.

The British in India had artificially created a kind of self-styled dignity in the higher services which aimed at a deliberate aloofness from the general public. Such a position ceases when the Government of the Union and the States under the Constitution are dedicated to achieve mass welfare at a fast pace.

The Public Services today are expected to have a growing passion for social service and to identify themselves with the people. Efficiency today means something more than an efficient performance of routine duties. It implies the active direction of the economic life of the people with the declared object of ultimately eliminating poverty, disease and ignorance.

In this task, the co-operation of the Public Services – the permanent wing of the Government- with the Ministers – the political wing – is of utmost importance. Control of the administration is no more the responsibility of the Civil Service. It is the responsibility of the representatives of the people.

The Services must devote themselves to the service of the people under the direction of the people’s representatives. It is the Minister’s business to determine the policy. Once a policy is determined, it is the business of the civil servant to carry it out with good will and devotion, whether he personally agrees with it or not.

At the same time, it is traditional duty of the civil servant to make available to his political chief all the information and experience at his disposal in order to help him to arrive at a right decision.

The civil servant will not be able to do this, sometimes at the risk of displeasing his chief, unless he has security of tenure. The civil servant can, under the Constitution, give his advice without fear or favour in the interests of efficient administration.

One of the virtues of a parliamentary democracy is the ample opportunity that it affords for the harmonisation of two different and even conflicting parts in the same machinery. By nature and training the permanent civil servant is conservative, narrow in outlook, and is often apt to exaggerate the importance of technicalities.

He looks at things with the eye of an expert and displays a bureaucratic attitude. A politician on the other hand, by nature and experience, is well versed in human affairs. His vision is broad, his attitude compromising and ideas progressive. He has got the qualities of initiative and judgment.

His broad outlook and strong common sense, born out of a long experience of human affairs, bring about a healthy and constructive outlook on all problems. A combination of these two the administrator and the politician, the civil servant and the Minister should produce wholesome results.

While the permanent services maintain the continuity of the administrative process, the Minister provides the basis of its popular character. The Minister serves as a link between the legislature and the administration and ensures the co-ordination of the two to the best advantage of the country.

It is in the interest of efficient administration that these two wings of the Government should maintain their separate identity. The civil servant should maintain his rigid neutrality in politics and the Minister should scrupulously adhere to this principle and appreciate the attitude of the civil servant.

Then only can the permanent services become a real link between successive ministries and provide stability and continuity of administration.

There are, however, a number of obstacles in India which still hamper the harmonious collaboration of the service and ministerial wings in the Government. These are found more in the States than in the Centre.

The Government at the Centre unlike most of the States has had the unique advantage of political stability. Not only has the same party been in power for three decades but also the top leadership remained largely unchanged.

One must add to this also the high caliber of the ministerial wing in the Central Government. The situation had undergone a change only during the 1989-91 periods during which there were three Governments in quick succession.

In contrast, most of the States have been suffering from many disadvantages. There have been frequent changes in the top leadership of several States, even when the same party has continued to stay in power in most of them. The reorganisation of States brought about many changes, territorial and personnel.

As a result, many new Ministers who lacked administrative experience joined the Government’s top ranks. A high percentage of the older and more experienced officers left the States for positions of greater importance at the Centre.

Those who replaced them had not the same experience as their predecessors. All these have adversely affected the efficiency of public administration in India.

Yet, there are factors obtained in the present context which are capable of creating harmony, amity and unity between the ministerial and the service wings of the administration.

Of these, the most important seems to be the common objective to which both the Ministers and the civil services are committed. The Directive Principles embodied in the Constitution provide that common objective and it has become a common ideology that animates the economic and social foundations of independent India and which permeates the mind of every educated Indian today.

So long as there is unity in this basic objective, those who are charged with the responsibility of translating this objective into reality will have to work together with understanding and such understanding is bound to emerge in the natural course of events.

On the political plane, with the emergence of a more and more democratic society resulting from successive general elections based upon adult suffrage, many of the old prejudices will disappear and greater tolerance and understanding will ensue.

Finally, those who harboured ill- will and even animosity in pre-independence days political as well as civil servants has practically disappeared. A new generation has taken their place and members of this new generation are free from such ill-will or suspicion.

With the building up of healthy traditions and conventions, there should be little difficulty for laying the sound foundations of a system where the members of the ministerial and service wings work hand in hand as inseparable limbs of the same organism.