Coming immediately after the Chief Minister was wrongly and inadequately briefed by some of his top officials about the Shopian incident make it emerge as a serious handicap in governance of the state. The real issue here is not about one or two bureaucrats. But about the entire administrative set up.
What is it that ails our bureaucracy? Quite a few things. First, is that a large part of the top bureaucracy has no stakes in J&K. This can easily degenerate into an “outsider” v/s “insider” issue. Even after 36 years of service, if a person cannot even buy or build a house in the state, he or she is unlikely to treat it as his or her home. But the state cannot help on this count.
Second, bureaucrats along with the politicians are two powerful elites in our society. But with long spells in the last 20 years when there has been no powerful political elite, akin to the civilian-military nexus, it has led to bureaucracy gaining control over the politics. This is aided in present times by two things; one is the fact of a coalition government, which gives the babus a greater leeway to manipulate, and second by the not so competent political bosses who are increasingly becoming subservient to the bureaucracy.
Third, is that the bureaucracy has overtime been heavily politicized. And with more and more of their kind, getting into politics, they are even in their active service not civil servants but political bureaucrats. So the administrative elite is now seeing itself as a governance elite. This along with the fact that they don’t come from the state and owe their allegiance not to the state but the Centre, makes them function like colonial masters. They thus become the instruments of internal imperialism.
This brings us to the crucial issue of loyalty. Are our bureaucrats loyal to the state or to the Centre? This kind of a question never arises in a normal state government. It arises in J&K because every now and then the interests of the Centre and that of the state are not aligned. Not that we expect the civil servants to support secession. It is that our legitimate demands, call it tensions in a federal set up, whose side are they on? Invariably, but not surprisingly, the Union. And therein hangs the tale.
What is it that ails our bureaucracy? Quite a few things. First, is that a large part of the top bureaucracy has no stakes in J&K. This can easily degenerate into an “outsider” v/s “insider” issue. Even after 36 years of service, if a person cannot even buy or build a house in the state, he or she is unlikely to treat it as his or her home. But the state cannot help on this count.
Second, bureaucrats along with the politicians are two powerful elites in our society. But with long spells in the last 20 years when there has been no powerful political elite, akin to the civilian-military nexus, it has led to bureaucracy gaining control over the politics. This is aided in present times by two things; one is the fact of a coalition government, which gives the babus a greater leeway to manipulate, and second by the not so competent political bosses who are increasingly becoming subservient to the bureaucracy.
Third, is that the bureaucracy has overtime been heavily politicized. And with more and more of their kind, getting into politics, they are even in their active service not civil servants but political bureaucrats. So the administrative elite is now seeing itself as a governance elite. This along with the fact that they don’t come from the state and owe their allegiance not to the state but the Centre, makes them function like colonial masters. They thus become the instruments of internal imperialism.
This brings us to the crucial issue of loyalty. Are our bureaucrats loyal to the state or to the Centre? This kind of a question never arises in a normal state government. It arises in J&K because every now and then the interests of the Centre and that of the state are not aligned. Not that we expect the civil servants to support secession. It is that our legitimate demands, call it tensions in a federal set up, whose side are they on? Invariably, but not surprisingly, the Union. And therein hangs the tale.
