Life, Lilies and Surf

Chapter 8

Latha made a representation saying that her husband had been transferred to Delhi and therefore she might be accommodated in a post in Delhi.   She was happy when within a couple of months she got her posting orders to Delhi in one of the offices of her department.  With her mother helping her to pack the things, it was easy in some ways to make the shift.  As Bhaskar had gone only with his bags stuffed with his dress and essentials, the whole burden of shifting the furniture, bedding,  vessels and all other household things fell on her shoulders.

For those who are interested only in Latha's story can conveniently skip the following paragraphs as they deal with the transfer, posting, service conditions of Indian bureaucracy.  They can pick up the story from the paragraph where Latha joins her post in Delhi to be with her husband.  But I would request the readers to bear with me and glance through the succeeding paragraphs as they describe how the so called covenanted services work in the independent India and what is the state of affairs in the administration of the country in the complex self seeking political scenario of recent times and how the offices and official machinery in the states function.

  Shifting the household lock stock and barrel was a part of official life and one had to face it now and then as per the fancies of the cadre authorities.  Some lucky officers with Godfathers were always able to continue in the same station of their choice for years together.  For formalities sake and to keep a record that they were also transferred, they would be transferred to a nearby station and within a few months they would be brought back to their old station of choice mostly with rewarding deputation post.  The practice of not keeping the higher officers in the same office was based on the sterling principle that ensures that they do not develop vested interest in the people they deal with and work they have to execute.  If one works in the same office for more than three years, some subordinates, colleagues and clientele  would become favourites and some not so liked.  You become obliged to some and you get closer and informal to some.  The job may also gets undesirable overtones in some respects and that may not be fair or conducive to proper discharge of the duties.  Lower cadres not transferable more often than not exploit the nearness of senior officers and heads of the office if they remain too long at the same post or even place. 

But in many cases this transfer principle was carried to the other extreme in those years and many were not permitted to remain more than one or two years in the same post.  Therefore, the senior officers could neither settle down in the job to make any useful contribution or set their house and  personal life in order.  As some favourite ones were able to remain stay put in  comfortable stations and assignments of their choice and not subjected to even the justified transfers, the brunt of frequent transfers and posting to bad stations and offices was borne by those with no pulls and strings to operate.  

Ability to work dispassionately and objectively without favouritism was greatly ensured by not allowing senior  officers to remain in the same charge more than at best five years.  It was also the practice not to retain an officer on promotion in the same office or station.  Promotion always went with a change of station.  This was a sound administrative practice.  If a person is promoted and posted to a higher post in the same station and much worse in the same office, he would fine it difficult to supervise and get work done by those who were his colleagues till yesterday but now his subordinates.  These principles were not the legacy of British rule.  Even in earlier periods of Mughals and Hindu kings these were very much the practice in administration. 

But all these have been given a go by from the past three decades.  In the so called all  India services of Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service, these principles much in vogue during British Raj never held their sway after Nineteen Sixties and they have almost vanished during the past two decades.  Calling these as all India services is itself a misnomer because their officers do not get posted all over India  in different stations.  They are allotted to a particular state and through out their career they will have to serve in the same state.  At best they can go to Delhi to serve in the Central Government Ministries or organisations.  The usual reason given for this wedding to a state is that knowing a state is necessary for good administrator.  Does it require a lifetime of thirty or thirty five years domicile is a questionable preposition on two grounds.  The continued life time tie up with the state politics and politicians robs the primary strength of the service officer.  He gets influenced by his own ideas, suffers undue and threatening and harmful over lordship of unscrupulous political masters, who know he has to survive as an all India officers sic local officers at the mercy of the political parties.  The flexible logic of knowing the state is  also not sound as all the states have a powerful local administrative cadres and the all India Service officer are lead by the local administrators in service or more often the ever pervading local masters of  political hierarchy..  The departments of the states also have specialised officers on agriculture, revenue, cooperation and all other activities of the state.  Presiding over them have double benefit for the politicians.  They have the local obedient cadre officers of the departments and the IAS boss is a domiciled one looking up to them and who would have to look up to them throughout their service.  

The continued inevitable stay as an Indian Administrative and Police Service officer in the same state makes them remain too  close and yielding to the political bosses even in improper actions of administration thereby making them a local subservient cadre.  Verily this is not the basis for retaining the steel frame of Indian Civil Service as Indian Administrative Service.  The situation is much more pronounced in the Police Service.  During the last three decades these two all India services have inevitably got officers polarised on party lines in most of the states.  It has become like the later Holy Roman Empire that was neither holy nor Roman and not an empire at all.  When a party in power changes after elections, a set of officers of these services have to make an exodus to insignificant posts and a new set of officers loyal to the new party holding the reigns of power come back to important posts.  Survival depends upon the adherence to the whims and fancies of political leaders and loyalty to them. No doubt there is always a small number of officers in the each state who remain neutral as bureaucracy was to be, and they pay a price of getting, through out their official life insignificant lackluster posts or transfers to  unimportant posts in the the Central Government ministries, the only place where they can be moved out from the state of allotment. This is the scenario in almost all the states for the past three or four decades.  

The steel frame of Indian Civil Service created by the British Raj  is no more to be seen in independent India.  One chief aspect and attribute of the steel frame of Civil Service till independence and even for two or three decades thereafter was thast the top civil servants cannot be made to bend rules and regulations, procedures and propriety.  They would go by fairness and justice, irrespective of the desires of the rulers.   If one officer of the civil service was asked by the minister or his political henchmen to do an improper and  wrong thing and he refuses another one of the service would also  take the same stand. That is why they were called the steel frame. Now there is a competition among service officers  in administration and police to please the  political masters.  If a straight forward fair minded officer refuses to carry out a patently unfair illegal order or diktat of political bureaucracy  there are umpteen officers who come forward in flocks to do it.  Hence it is not a steel frame but free space where gaseous molecules float not freely but as per the electromagnetic force exerted from political masters above. 

No doubt these things do not affect departments and services where there is no great stake.  And Latha was in one such department.  The transfers in her department were not brought about by political interference.  Her service in fact had real all India transfer liability unlike the so called all India Services.  The top officers of her department and all the  tenure incumbents of the top most constitutional post drawn from all India administrative service wanted to make her service truly of an all India nature with transfers from Kerala to Kashmir and Assam to Ahmedabad.  It was firmly believed by these top officers of her department that no one should  remain at one place even for a couple of years and transfers used to be transfer's sake like art a for art's sake.  But during last two decades the position has changed completely and service officers of her service were being retained years together at the station of their choice and even on promotion they were kept in the same station and even the same office. This is one way the top of the Department could neutralise the independence of working and enhance the dependence on the top presiding deity of the department, who comes from all india service with the experience to do these things with only rubbing knowlege of Audit and accunting or with no knowlege at all in the technical aspect of the department.

Latha landed in Delhi with her bag and baggage along with her mother and father.  Her father also had by then come to Bombay so that he could go along with his wife and be with them in the new station of Delhi. He had wound up his work in Madras and bade farewell to the families for which he was the priest.  Living alone and cooking his food was an ordeal for him.  So better go where his wife was and that would take care of his daily requirement of food and coffee.  

Bhskar had come to the railway station to receive them.  He has arranged for a government guest house for their stay with arrangements for catering.  He had taken two rooms to be with Latha.  That would be the arrangement till she got her government quarters in Delhi.  She could easily and quickly get a government flat as per entitlement from ladies pool.  She went to her office and assumed charge of her branch and applied immediately for allotment of government quarters from ladies pool.  Within a month she got a beautiful apartment in a good locality that had many blocks of central government apartments.  Life again started by settling and arranging things in the new house when her belongings arrived.  Bhaskar had purchased in Delhi a car for himself and so they had one for each, which gave independent mobility.  Every thing appeared nice and life seemed to be good. 

End of Chapter 8