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        When Sardar Vallabhai Patel introduced the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in place of Indian Civil Service (ICS) after independence overruling the infantile objections of Jawaharlal Nehru, perhaps he wanted to Indianise the public administratin and make the Indian Administrative Service as strong a steel frame as was the ICS in British India. As a strong and determined administrator, he was firmly of the view that India required a strong and independent civil service to advise the elected political executive at all levels of governance. No one can dispute the fact that many officers of the Indian Administrative Service have done outstanding work in post-independent India working under very difficult conditions. For the first 20 years after independence, the most outstanding students from all our universities voted only for the civil services as their first choice for a meaningful and creative career. All this changed after 1970.

        Even before 1970, many prominent public men in India and great leaders like Rajaji had come to the conclusion that the Indian Civil Services had got into a cess pool of atrophy, non-accountability, corruption and ineptitude. A very distinguished civil servant S Bhoothalingam, ICS, who became the administrative head of the Ministry of Finance in 1961 wrote with anguish: 'In a matter of days, my worst fears of the ossification of the bureaucratic system were proved right and this system by its own momentum had become so complicated that it became a veritable jungle'. We had reached this disastrous position within 14 years after our independence in 1961 itself.

        Ever since independence, the numbers in the bureaucracy have increased ten times in the Central Government alone (from about 0.4 million to over 4 million) and fiscal costs have increased by more than 100 times.To make matters worse, the civil service is divided into dozens of cadres, each with its own terms and conditions of service, with controlling authorities widely dispersed among various departments. To quote the appropriate words of Bimal Jalan in this context: 'The administrative cobweb, with multiple agencies and no clear-cut demarcation of functions, creates insuperable problems and delays for all those who have to deal with a Government agency for any purpose large or small.'

        According to a survey, at least six or more Central Ministries are involved in controlling or regulating every sector of the economy. For example, matters concerning the food processing industry normally have to go through at least eight Ministries - Agriculture, Food & Consumer Affairs, Health, Commerce, Food Processing, Rural Development, Finance and Law.

        The Parliament in India has become moribund and irrelevant. In most modern democracies, the ground work of political education takes place within political parties and the more open and democratic their inner party structure, the more likely it is that politicians will be better educated on various public issues. More effective forms of accountability and deliberation call for a pluralisation of the sites at which politicians are held accountable and parties are essential to this process. Unfortunately, in India, while there has been a proliferation of political parties in the last 15 years, this has been accompanied by a greater concentration of power in the hands of their leaders. Each political party functions like a private limited company under the complete control of one leader. All parties without exception are characterised by authoritarianism, arbitrariness, haphazardness, lack of deliberative purpose and dogged tolerance of corruption.

        Subramaniam, a former Cabinet Secretary, has pointed this out: 'Politics having become the most lucrative business in the country, with few checks and controls, there is a compulsion for the Minister or political leader to attempt to coerce civil servants to collude with him for mutual benefit. ... The service Rules and Procedures have been progressively adapted to facilitate this process.'

        During the last four decades we have developed a system in which the politician uses the threat of transfer, tempts the bureaucrat with lucrative posting and exploits the desperation of senior officers for post-retirement sinecure posts. Consequently, many senior officers often align themselves informally while in service and formally after retirement with one political party or another.

        Arun Shourie, in his book 'Governance-Things To Do' has correctly stated: 'Ministers are ill-equipped. Secretaries know the intricacies much better - but they are so thoroughly domesticated by the system that they do not have the passion which alone would sustain efforts for long enough to effect real change. ... With, but a tooth-pick of jurisdiction and authority in the hands of each, and that too for fleeting intervals, how can one ensure massive, across the board, simultaneous sustained effort?'

        Nobody can dispute the fact that as citizens we need an efficient Civil Service. It is of the utmost importance that a civil society movement is immediately launched for reform of the civil service without any delay. The most critical issue which needs to be tackled is the 'motivational' or 'morale' issue at the highest levels of civil services. Civil servants like IAS Officers, who join Government service through a competitive process, are generally highly competent and motivated when they enter the service. However, after a few years of service, there is a noticeable decline in morale, commitment and efficiency. The most important reason for this decline is the dictatorial power available to politicians in power to harass a civil servant who does not abide by their wishes. The easiest way of doing so and which is widely used by Ministers, is to frequently transfer civil servants at very short notice. In a period of two years from 1989 to 1991, I saw six postings!

        In this context, I am shocked to note that the Government of India are thinking of outsourcing the training programmes of the IAS Officers at all levels from some American Universities.

        Starting from this year IAS Officers will have to get their stamp of evaluation and approval from some American Universities before they can qualify themselves for senior positions in the Indian Administrative Service. The Government of India have chosen the John F Kennedy School of Government (KSG) at Harvard University, Duke University, and Syracuse University to carry out this training and evaluation programme. This programme has been formulated and formalised by the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. This disastrous and anti-national move has been made taking note of the recommendations of an expert panel headed by Y K Alagh. It is said to be part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ambitious plan to revamp the bureaucracy and to convert India into a banana republic owing due allegiance only to the American Government and no one else!

        The first module of training for 95 IAS officers with 28 years of service concluded last week. The four-week training programme on 'Governance Challenges for India' was held at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) and was designed jointly with KSG of Harvard University. As per the new procedure, the officers who attended this programme will require a certificate from KSG before they can move on to the next rank of additional secretary or secretary. Under this arrangement, apart from the unscrupulous politicians of India, the unscrupulous politicians of USA will also get a parallel opportunity of playing havoc with the system of promotion, postings and transfers of Additional Secretaries and Secretaries to Government of India.

        I understand that similar programmes for IAS Officers who have completed 9 years of service and 18 years of service are being put in place involving the Duke University and Syracuse University from USA. I also understand that many Senior Officers in the IAS with an unbroken record of outstanding service, sturdy independence and integrity are in a state of shock, fury and disgust. Many of them consider this move of the Government of India to involve foreign Universities as a deliberate act of national subversion and administrative sabotage.

        Against this background, the helpless common people of India would like to put the following questions to our 'decided only to be undecided', 'resolved only to be irresolute', 'adamant for drift', 'solid for fluidity', and 'all powerful to be impotent' surrogate Prime Minister:

        a) Have we not developed sufficient expertise to train our Civil Servants through our own experts and national institutions even after 60 years after our independence?

        b) Is it not a matter of national disgrace and loss of national honour and national identity that we have to outsource trainers for our IAS Officers from abroad?

        c) If only Professors from Harvard, Duke and Syracuse Universities are found eligible and suitable as trainers for our IAS Officers, does it not show that the Government of India distrusts all the IAS Officers in India? Does it mean that the present Cabinet Secretary, and all the other Senior Secretaries and Additional Secretaries to the Government of India are totally unreliable and untrustworthy?

        d) If very senior IAS Officers are not worth of trust of Government of India, in what way are the Aya Ram Gaya Ram non-men in the UPA Government -globally famous for their collective impotence, worthy of greater public trust by the myriad millions of India?

        e) Is it the subterranean and sinister aim of the Government of India to achieve the total privatisation of all our Civil Services through the back door just in order to push their own chosen favourites (Congress pageboys and Communist pageboys and the like) into strategic positions in Government of India for promoting the private interests of a few Cabinet Ministers in New Delhi?

        To conclude in the words of Justice M N Venkatachaliah: 'There is a fundamental breach of the Constitutional faith on the part of Governments and their method of governance lies in the neglect of the people who are the ultimate source of all political authority. There is a loss of all public faith in the Governments and governance. Citizens see their Governments besieged by uncontrollable events and are losing faith in all public institutions.'