The controversy over the transfer of an IAS couple, who shooed away athletes from a sports stadium to walk their dog, has acquired a politician vs. bureaucrat flavour. The political class, at all levels, Home Minister, Lieutenant Governor, Chief Minister, and sundry leading lights of opposition parties, all barged in to claim credit for meting out instant justice to the errant bureaucrats ~ somewhat in the league of bulldozing houses of suspected law evaders. 

Many facets of the controversy have emerged. Mutedly, the Civil Service lobby has insinuated that the IAS couple was being transferred in violation of rules, and no chance was given to them to present their side of the story. Funny memes appeared on social media, looking at the entire episode from the dog’s point of view. Politicians from Arunachal and Ladakh lamented that Delhi rejects were being sent to their States. 

Some more sober people pointed out that the couple had been in Delhi for the last fifteen years, exceeding their prescribed tenure by many years. Moreover, a transfer to Ladakh and Arunachal was not without its brighter side, because under Service Rules, the couple would retain their Delhi flat, get hardship allowance and hostel subsidy for their children, and be reasonably senior in service, both would get important assignments in the small States they were transferred to. 

Despite the optics of the instant case, sportspersons are routinely short-changed by sports associations that are mostly run by politicians and bureaucrats, in unholy partnerships. Humongous amounts sanctioned in sports budgets are routinely siphoned off by sports bodies and organisers of sports events. Commenting on the Commonwealth Games 2010 scam, the CAG pointed out that the estimated cost of the Games had ballooned from Rs 297 crores mentioned in the Cabinet note of May 2003 to Rs 18,532 crores and to an actual expenditure of around Rs 70,000 crores ~ only half of which were spent on athletes. 

At the relevant time, Suresh Kalmadi, a former minister and MP, was the chief of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), as also as the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. Kalmadi, along with sundry officials has been charged with conspiracy, forgery and misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act, for his role in the CWG scam. Interestingly, Kalmadi, despite all controversies, was anointed as lifetime Honorary Lifetime President of IOA in 2016. On the other hand, as of today, more than 50 cases related to the CWG scam drag on, with none being held guilty and not a penny of the defalcated amounts being recovered. 

The recent CBI searches, at the residences of a former Jharkhand minister, the Chairman of the National Games Organising Committee, and the former Director, Sports, in connection with irregularities in the organisation of the 34th National Games, show that the spirit of the Commonwealth Games 2010 is still alive and kicking. 

In other spheres too, the politician-bureaucrat tussle, with each trying to show that he is working for the common man while the other is trying to milch the poor, is entirely for public consumption. Repeated enforcement actions against opposition politicians raise doubts about the connivance of officials with the party in power. The Sushant Singh Rajput case saw police forces and enforcement machinery of the Centre, Maharashtra and Bihar parroting the views of their respective political masters which could have been possible only if these agencies were taking guidance even in operational matters from their political masters. 

The Aryan Khan drug bust case has ended with a whimper. To recall: everyone, mostly politicians and 24-hour TV channels, had made zillions of defamatory and irresponsible comments against Aryan and his father Shahrukh Khan. 

The SIT organised to look into the case has observed: “It appeared that the investigating officer was somehow motivated to implicate Aryan Khan in the drug case.” It went on to mention a number of lapses, e.g., cooked-up witnesses, poor documentation, not conducting medical tests on the accused, not video- recording the raid and projecting a larger conspiracy when there was none. Needless to say, such findings raise serious doubts about the fairness of investigations undertaken by our enforcement agencies. 

The bureaucrat-politician nexus in administration is well-known. More worryingly, the line between the political executive and the permanent bureaucracy is getting increasingly blurred. Mimicking the political executive, an increasing number of officers do not want to remain anonymous and willingly assume a public role. At the time of the Covid pandemic, a Joint Secretary and not the Health Minister gave daily bytes to the press. Initially, farmers protesting against the Farm Laws were directed to meet the departmental secretary, enraging the protesters to no end. This trend is exacerbated by the creation of a cadre of quasi- bureaucrats like members of the Niti Aayog, who don political robes without any compunction. Probably, we would be better off with the American system, where top bureaucrats hold office co-terminus with the President or Governor who appointed them, and everyone’s interest is well known. On the other hand, ministers are not satisfied with laying down policy but want to participate in day-to-day administration; many ministers like to decide on annual transfers of peons or accord approval for a contract to whitewash the office building. This malaise has travelled down even to the local self-government institutions, making elections to the posts of corporators, pradhans etc. highly combative ~ all at the cost of the poor taxpayer, because such tinkering with established norms facilitates corruption. 

An alarming development is the emergence of rogue officers in all branches of Government. Rogue officers damage the Government from within and dent its credibility irretrievably. Such officers, totally fearless because of their political connections, are ready to do anything at the com- mand of the highest bidder. 

With their capacity of doing the impossible, in connivance with their political masters, such rogue officers are always in demand by criminals and shady businessmen, while colleagues and superiors stay away from them. On the other hand, if politicians and bureaucrats do not connive, then the misdeeds of either come out in the open, as seen in the recent arrest of the Punjab Health Minister for demanding a cut in Government contracts. 

The drama playing out in Mumbai, where a former cabinet minister of Maharashtra is behind bars for exhorting policemen to collect a monthly hafta of Rs.100 crores, is symptomatic of the havoc wrought by the politician-bureaucrat nexus. Additionally, some former policemen are accused of planting explosives near the house of a top businessman with the aim of extortion and a former police commissioner went incommunicado for a long time after various extortion cases were registered against him; this signifies the worst that can happen to the bureaucracy. It is, therefore, not surprising that a common man approaches Government agencies only as a last resort. 

Recently, the Government empowered itself to grant extensions to top bureaucrats, including a yet unheard of five years extension to those manning top enforcement posts. 

Such extensions go against the grain of Government functioning where even low-ranking bureaucrats are transferred every two or three years, lest they develop a vested interest in their post. Whatever be the Government’s motives, this move has laid the Government open to the charge of perpetuating the nexus between politicians and selected officers. 

Various commissions like the Administrative Reforms Commission and judgments of the Supreme Court in the Prak- ash Singh case have stressed the need for police and civil services reforms and have suggested ways and means to break the politician-bureaucrat nexus. Regrettably, since the current situation favours both the political executive and dishonest bureaucrats, no significant recommendations have been implemented. 

A simpler, common-sense remedy could be to enforce accountability, simplify the process of punishment of erring bureaucrats and impart- ing transparency in transfers and postings. 

That said, the bureaucratic leadership needs to exercise control by guiding and pulling up errant officers so that they do not transgress the limits of publicly acceptable behaviour and attract opprobrium, like in the dog walking case. 

William Seward Burroughs II, the famous post-modern American author said: “Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. 

A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised” (The Naked Lunch). 

Heeding this warning, let us ensure that our bureaucracy does not degenerate into cancer for our society.