Taming the Predatory State of Today

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Taming the predatory State of today

Author: Rajeev Srinivasan

Publication: Rediff on Net

Date: August 17, 2002

URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/17rajeev.htm

The predatory Christian State lives on India in the bureaucracy: the 'steel frame'of the erstwhile imperial state. Do you notice how the district administrator isstill called a 'Collector'? And what is he collecting? In the old days, he was thetax- collector, the monstrous one whose job was to squeeze water out of astone. It is clear that the steel frame has rusted badly, as the bureaucrats nowseem to outdo the politicians in venality. As an example, take Harsh Mander,and his simultaneously holding on to his IAS seniority while drawing a princelysum from the NGO ActionAid. Not to mention the fact that allegations of conversion activities apparently disappeared as soon as Mander became head of ActionAid. Curious coincidence, isn't it?

As for the Nehruvian-Marxist State, the examples of its viciousness are legion.You just have to walk into any government office. I mentioned in my previouscolumn Two strikes about how Kerala government employees returned to work after losing a month's salary. The trade unions, for once, got their comeuppance. Reader Chandra wrote, perceptively, that they lost even more inuntaxed, unreported bribes that they have become addicted to: classic 'rent-seeking' behaviour.

With the failure of the 2002 Southwest monsoon, attributed by some to yetanother El Nino in the Southern Pacific, we will see hardship and starvation; but there will not be a famine. This would be a good time, however, for India's bureaucrats to thoroughly read the superb Mike Davis book, which comparesthe results of El Nino droughts over several seasons and over severalcontinents. To give credit where it is due, the Nehruvian Stalinist State hasmanaged without a single major famine since Independence (something theChinese Stalinist State did not manage, by the way).

The State and its institutions have nevertheless been hijacked by self-seekingindividuals and philosophies. Look at the State-run educational system: the Nehruvian Stalinists and the Marxists have successfully subverted thecurriculum to alienate Indians from their patrimony and heritage. They havesimultaneously failed to provide universal mass literacy. The only successfulschools are the for- profit private schools: nobody queues up or pulls strings or

gives donations to admit their child to a government school. And theMacaulayite curriculum still teaches children to despise everything Indian: perfect for imperialists, but today? What a contrast with China's curriculum thatteaches raging jingoism and contempt for outsiders! No wonder Indians growup into anti-national 'secular' 'progressives' and Chinese into hyper-nationalists.

I had to laugh when I heard Comrade Sitaram Yechuri declaim at a conferencethat more and more schools need to be brought under the public sector, as if they hadn't screwed up enough already. He is right from his selfish perspectivethough: that is the only way more children can be brainwashed into Marxistdrones. See my previous column on historicide and an item in The Telegraph of August 2: a 1992 examination paper in West Bengal in which students wererequired to write an essay on one the following topics (thanks to reader Ravi):

* National unity and integrity are false political slogans

* In Hindustan, there is no place for Hindu and Hindi

* Five-year plans are a sham

* Statistics on national development are a fraud

* Democracy is a conspiracy

* National revolution is the only way for progress

* National means of broadcasting are useless.

Personally, I would choose 'Five-year plans are a sham.' In 'Statistics onnational development are a fraud,' they must be talking about their fatherland'saccomplishments in this area: see my previous column, India vs China:Startling Economic Facts.

In another question, students could write an essay on: 'Red Flag in Red Fort,that is the demand of Hindustan.' I must be confused -- I thought the Marxistssupported the Islamist desire for the Green Flag over the Red Fort.

Alternatively, the students could write a précis of the following paragraph:

'The guardian of national, politics. Delhi, is a heartless administrative seat, onwhich sit not elected representatives of people, but anti-social poisonous snakescoming out of the caste jungle. Progress has been destroyed by tradition,education by the English medium, religion by political secularism, human beings by greed, idealism by dirty consumerism. Litterateurs have turnedalcoholic, democratic representatives and administrators have become nationalvillains, who only like secret accounts in foreign banks.'

As usual, the Marxists show that their only allegiance is to their own worldwide brotherhood. An illusory brotherhood, it has disappeared; alas, it is only in WestBengal and Kerala, and nowhere else in the world, that such dinosaurs still strutabout taking themselves seriously! But they have managed to do plenty of damage already.

Look at the electricity boards, at the (erstwhile) telecom monopoly, the publicairlines. Not one of them offers you the services that you as John or Jane Doedeserve. They insult you, humiliate you, act as though it were a great favour that they serve you, whereas they are paid to serve you. I find especiallyinstructive the 'volume penalty' imposed by the phone company: that is, if youmake more calls, you must pay more per call. In most systems, there are'volume discounts,' that is, good customers get to pay less per call, but not here!This is another example of an interfering, failing State.

What is the solution? I honestly don't know. I present this analysis so that atleast we are aware of the problem.

For one, I think the Indian Administrative Service needs to be revamped. I saythis even though I know dedicated, intelligent and wonderful human beings of great integrity who are in the service. But the system has been thoroughlycorrupted, because of political interference and the lure of money. I look at theSingaporean model: there the civil service is incorruptible because they are paid extremely well and because they are not under the thumb of the politicalclass. Is this possible is India? Clearly there has to be administrative reform.

Another possibility is performance related appraisals in the vast bureaucracy, inaddition to the proposals of the Fifth Pay Commission. The commission askedthe government to reduce its strength by 30 per cent, if I am not mistaken, andto increase salaries by 20 per cent. The first recommendation has been ignored,and the second implemented, naturally. The fact of the matter is that the bloatedimperial bureaucracy is not needed. When government employees went onstrike in Kerala, life continued as usual, nobody missed them at all. As I keepsuggesting in the case of India's hapless cricketers, let us give the bureaucrats amechanism of 'Management by Objectives:' their goals are well laid out, and if they meet them, they get incentives; else they get fired. It is important that public sector jobs are no longer sinecures for bribe-seeking.

Since much of the problem in the State arises due to politicians, there needs to be thoroughgoing reform there too: for instance, insisting on standards of moral probity and on full disclosure of assets. In other words, no criminals, and onlythose who have some transparency in their financials will be allowed to stand

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