Rumblings in bureaucracy as BJP leaders threaten, throw their weight around

When Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s helicopter was not allowed permission to land at Chhindwara’s famous jaggery market, Gudmandi, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister held out an explicit threat to the Collector. “Just wait till BJP comes back to power. What will happen to you then?” blurted out the former CM.

“The decision to refuse permission was taken as per the aviation guidelines. Under the guidelines, helicopters can land only between 10 am and 5 pm. Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s pilot sought permission after the deadline. I had no option but to decline permission,” explained the Collector.

Chouhan, who has been chief minister of Madhya Pradesh for 13 long years, say bureaucrats, cannot be ignorant of aviation rules. But in trying to score a political point, he ended up blaming not just the Congress but also the Collector who was merely doing his job.

“In Bengal Mamata Didi is preventing our helicopters from landing and now in Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath is behaving like a Dada”, Chouhan said at a rally though the Congress denied having anything to do with the Collector’s decision.

Chouhan’s outburst was not an isolated incident. BJP’s Gopal Bhargav, the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, had alsothreatened officials with dire consequences in Shivapuri district where he had gone to witness the filing of nomination papers by the BJP’s candidate for Guna Lok Sabha seat.

Bhargav’s grouse was that his car was stopped outside the gates of the District Collectorate compound.He felt insulted because he had to walk 100 meters on foot like an ordinary citizen instead of being given the privileges of a VIP. Indeed he was so incensed that in an election rally hours later he issued a Pragya-like curse: “After Modiji is re-elected as Prime Minister we will form a BJP government in Madhya Pradesh within one month and then we will show you who we are and what will happen to you”.

It is never a good idea for political heavyweights to treat bureaucrats shabbily. Civil servants are the real unsung heroes in running a country or conducting elections. Governments change after every election - but in the Indian system of permanent civil service, it is the bureaucracy which provides continuity.

Like the Sambalpur episode, where an IAS officer was suspended for clearing a routine inspection of the Prime Minister’s helicopter, the Chhindwara incident has also left a bitter taste in the mouths of thousands of men and women who are working hard to ensure that Election 2019 is conducted as smoothly as possible. Boorish behavior by arrogant party bosses breeds resentment among those whose services are being utilised as election officials. Such rumblings among serving civil servants in the midst of elections do not bode well.

Just a week ago, as many as 70 former bureaucrats at the national level had carried out a signature campaign appealing to the BJP to reconsider the candidature of Pragya Thakur from Bhopal constituency. Among the retired civil servants were many distinguished names who expressed “disbelief and dismay” over the selection of the Malegaon blast accused Sadvi as a candidate for the prestigious Lok Sabha seat and her “enthusiastic endorsement” by none other than the Prime Minister himself.

Appealing to the BJP to withdraw her candidature, the former bureaucrats criticized Thakur’s ‘curse’ remark on the death of Mumbai’s senior police officer Hemant Karkare during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. “Her dishonouring of a former colleague, an officer known for his professionalism, has come as the ultimate shock and saddened us beyond words. The country needs to honour the sacrifice of Shri Karkare and not allow deviant individuals to denigrate him and his memory”.

Needless to say, the appeal by the ex-bureaucrats fell on deaf ears. But it is symptomatic of the deep sense of anguish being felt not just at the senior-most levels but also lower down the civil service ladder.

Broadly, serving bureaucrats are disgruntled on four counts: a) they are not treated with the basic courtesy they deserve; b) they are being burdened with a demanding work schedule without a sense of contributing to policy formulation; c) they are being subjected to a reward-and-punishment mechanism based on unquestioning loyalty to the regime; d) they are being expected to carry out the policy prescriptions laid down by individuals belonging to outside organizations linked to the RSS.

This has been corroborated is the recent report by international news agency Reuters that quite a few serving bureaucrats currently holding elite positions are seriously thinking of taking premature retirement or seeking transfers to their home state cadres if the Modi government is re-elected to power.

According to the report, which has been published in leading newspapers in the country and abroad, at least eight senior bureaucrats in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs will be looking for an exit if the Lok Sabha polls bring the current dispensation back to power. Among the reasons being cited is the fact that “a sense of partnership is missing - the present political leadership does not have an organic relationship with the bureaucrats”.

According to Reuters, “Modi’s top-down approach, and his orders to work on public holidays, to demand they submit details of their assets, and to clean their own workplaces at the start of a five-year cleanliness campaign in 2014, has widened the gap between the civil servants and the nation’s leader”. In particular, there is deep resentment in the top echelons of the Indian civil service over the interference in government by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Observers say the report that a section of bureaucrats — in the Prime Minister’s Office and in other pivotal ministries — may seek premature retirement or a transfer if Prime Minister Narendra Modi is returned to power in the ongoing elections is quite revealing.

The lament that Modi and his ministers do not have an “organic relationship” with what Sardar Patel called the “steel frame” of India’s government machinery, and that a “sense of partnership” was wholly missing, poses an enormous risk for the future of the country. There can be no governance without the full and active cooperation and participation of the great Indian bureaucracy.