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Indore, Second Shift, text: (most of the punctuations were absent though) Let's start with the news from Kerala. The said proposal for an administrative reforms commission has come from a left-wing government. This is significant, as the intellectuals linked to the communists have generally played down the will to power of the bureaucracy. They concentrate their energies on demonising the market. While it is absolutely essential following the triumphalism that has accompanied the collapse of the Former Soviet Union to query the efficacy of the market mechanism, social analysis that ignores the role of the bureaucracy implies credulousness when it is not actually complicit. Perhaps the left intellectuals avoid the critical approach as they fear alienating the bureaucracy on whom their party must rely when it eventually comes to power. From the point of view of social critique, however, this is deficient, as the bureaucracy in India has shown itself to be quite capable of slowing down, when not actually subverting, the programmes of democratically elected governments. This it is able to do with impunity given its near exclusive control of the machinery of government. Attempted oversight has proved to be too distant to be effective. While India’s top bureaucracy is protected by statute its lower echelon achieves independence by closing ranks whenever the action of its members is challenged. The clogged courts are hardly a source of redressal for the citizen having to engage with the latter on a daily basis. The proposal of the Kerala government is to be welcomed on two grounds. First, there is reason to believe that, despite the enthusiasm of academics for the Kerala Model, the public of the state do not feel well served by its machinery of government. We may infer this from the packed attendance at the lok adaalat type meetings that were held by Oommen Chandy while he was the chief minister. Mr. Chandy’s office had tied to spin this to their perceived advantage as the face of a caring government. It could not have escaped its attention though that the durbar may also be read as the public having been failed in the first instance, thus amounting to waste of the chief minister’s time and the public’s money. Actually, it may be interpreted as another instance of the political class’s reluctance to fix the system as that would eliminate its role as a purveyor of patronage to a beleaguered citizenry. This is in line with the disincentive of this class to finally eradicate poverty as then it can no longer appear benevolent by distributing private goods and announcing welfare schemes. So, quite unusually for an Indian political party, Kerala’s Left Democratic Front has signaled the need for administrative reforms. And, going by the news reports, it has chosen the right man to head the proposed commission. Mr. Achuthanandan may not have sparkled as chief minister but it is clear where his heart lies. He had had the nerve to publicly remind the state’s civil service that they were servants of the people. India’s politicians rarely read the riot act to the bureaucracy as they rely on it to further their personal interests. Unlike in the states, some of which have a legacy of administrations instituted by Indian princes, the protocols of the central civil service have been borrowed lock, stock and barrel from the East India Company. The bureaucracy was both the instrument for extracting India’s wealth and repressing the native population so that the former activity could proceed unhindered. It is no coincidence that the Collector had combined tax collection with the maintenance of law and order. Unfortunately, not only did we not pension off the Indian Civil Service in 1947 but we actually continued with its privileges. Only this month has the Madras High Court ruled that the investigation of the conduct of public servants no longer requires a nod from the government. Source: The Hindu (The Stifling Steel Frame, P. Balakrishnan, July 06, 2016)