When he assumed office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit the ground running with the clarion “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.” He had primed himself to this during his high-octane election campaign. And within four days he set 10 ‘governance priorities’: (i) remove hurdles in economic growth and containing inflation, (ii) put education, energy and water on fast track, (iii) reform infrastructure sector for attracting investments and make India a global manufacturing hub, (iv) provide a proactive, people-oriented government and governance putting people at the centre of development process, (v) ensure time-bound implementation of policy, (vi) maintain consistency in policy, (vii) promote transparency by adopting e-auctioning in government tenders and works, (viii) improve inter-ministerial co-ordination and clubbing of ministries where needed, (ix) build confidence in the bureaucracy and (x) empower and provide freedom to the bureaucracy and incentive to innovate.

Given India’s administrative system, priorities 'ix' and 'x' would drive the entire exercise and the speed and sincerity with which these priorities were to be implemented depended on IAS bureaucrats occupying key positions in the Centre and the states and the innovative way they conceive and deliver governance. Question was whether the IAS is equipped—mentally and intellectually—to be independent and innovative. Originally it was a command oriented, revenue collecting administrative machinery which hardly called for any innovation.

Due to a process of evolution and democratic/developmental compulsions, it has been under pressure to become an instrument of participatory, flexible, multi-sectored public service, spanning government, corporate and civil society. And this new concept of public service is characterised by change and dynamism more than status quo and constancy. But IAS had not responded to this ‘change and dynamism’ at the cutting-edge of administration where it was most needed. Modi was expected to remedy this and help civil servants to reinvent themselves to become a fearless, independent, honest and efficient entity.

On this Nripendra Misra, principal secretary to the prime minister brought some hope when he stated, “Mr. Modi does three things: he guarantees stability in tenure for as many as four to five years for competent officers, offers tremendous freedom to innovate and deliver, and takes personal ownership of all decisions.”

But in the last three years, decision-making has become individualistic, politics polarised, and governance straitjacketed with civil services reverting back to command-oriented culture. Despite cacophony of slogans and noises, reforms have not touched civil services and basic governance. Only two things seem to have happened—the strange apparition of IAS probationers starting their field training from the top (assistant secretaries to Government of India at Delhi instead of assistant commissioner/collector in a far-off district) and steeply reducing the role of IAS at the decision-making level of joint secretaries in Central government departments and replacing them with personnel from other services.

For the first time, over 30 per cent of joint secretaries in Central government are from services outside IAS. It is getting worse as would be seen from the recent appointment of joint secretaries. Out of 21 officers, only seven (one-third) are from IAS and the rest are from Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and other Central Services. Another disturbing trend is that several IAS joint secretaries have sought and obtained premature repatriation to their respective state cadres and very few empanelled IAS officers are seeking deputation to the Centre.

Equally disturbing is the empanelment of secretaries wherein even the limited practices and conventions evolved over a period of time to reduce arbitrariness was thrown to the wind and there was complete overhaul of the way assessments were made. This led to almost 35 per cent of the officers, who were due to be empanelled, being left out for no rhyme or reason. The new process was supposed to be merit-based with the confidential report (CR) dossier being loaded with diverse inputs drawn from a variety of sources. No one knows what these inputs were. There are no explanations as to why some people have been left out or what criteria have been followed, what kind of inputs were obtained to make the assessment or where they were obtained from. There was also no redress for an officer who felt unfairly treated. Introducing such uncertainty in career advancement at the end of a career is not just inexplicable, it is whimsical and arbitrary in the extreme.

To quote Amitabha Pande, a former civil servant: “For the bureaucracy, a clear statement is being made. The authority of the prime minister and the prime minister's office (PMO) is absolute and no one else matters. The sphere of a minister and a secretary is that which the PMO decides, and while suggestions and initiatives are welcome, such initiatives will be subject to the close watch of Big Brother. Access to the top will be filtered through the chosen few and decisions taken by the chosen few may or may not be based on prior consultation. Officers will have to live with uncertainty regarding their future, which could be bright if they read the signals right but bleak if they get it wrong.”

All these seem to be part of an orchestrated move to ease-out the IAS from the Central government and bring in ‘experts with domain knowledge’. In their support, proponents of this move are quoting the observations of Chairman of the Seventh Pay Commission Justice A.K. Mathur and its Member Rathin Roy: “Senior management and administrative positions in government have evolved considerably and are growing more technical, requiring specific domain knowledge.”

But they need to answer one moot question: In the Indian context what is the needed ‘domain expertise’ for those who run the government? Is it corporate-pandering and pushing predatory ‘development’ models thrust by rich ‘movers and shakers’? Or is it basic grassroots governance delivered through effective and just governments that could uplift the miserable millions. If it is the former, the IAS is certainly dispensable. Not so, if it is the latter.

Due to the herculean efforts put in by Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, IAS was established to "give a fair and just administration to the country and manage it on an even keel". The expectation was that the liberal educational background and sharp intellect of the IAS entrants, valuable village/grassroots experience they gain, their wide contacts with the public and political leadership right from the stage of their first posting, and their variegated exposure in different assignments will be a boon for people-centered policy making, conceiving and designing development-cum-welfare projects/programmes and their effective and expeditious implementation. None of these except the education and intellect can be claimed by the members of the Central Services who begin and end their careers in cities and towns with hardly any contact with the people or their elected representatives. They have no grassroots experience and can be manipulated by carpetbaggers!

By promoting this governance model, Modi is erasing what his icon Sardar Patel built. This has brought in a sense of foreboding in the bureaucracy and civil servants are no longer sure of themselves. In pursuit of personal hegemony and corporate agenda India’s most potent instrument of governance—civil services—is being run to the ground. This does not augur well for the country’s future.

(Writer is former Army & IAS officer)