Given that civil servants routinely perform tasks involving public interaction, be it maintaining land records, collecting revenue, administering the civil supply system, running a public utility or providing and maintaining urban amenities, the quality of responses any civil servant gets depends almost entirely on this public persona. Overt neutrality and strong commitment to the Constitution and the rules of the land make a bureaucrat function much better — even in the service of the political master. Moreover, the people do appreciate fairness. Witness the massive public response to the efforts made by the Election Commission of India over the last decade to enforce neutrality in the conduct of elections in India. It has made all the difference to the quality of democracy in our country. Some observers even say that the quality of elections conducted in the country today is by far the best in the world.

But if such is the case and if civil servants understand the need to owe allegiance to the Indian Constitution first and foremost, then why should so many IAS officers in recent times be making such public gestures about their personal allegiances — political, religious, cultural or otherwise. The reason is that however well accepted the norm of bureaucratic neutrality might be, it has been under serious attack recently, much to the impotent rage of many senior officers. Impotent, because this is something they are helpless to do anything about as their colleagues and juniors go about enjoying goodies obtained through demonstrable servility. The most well known manifestation of this shift from neutrality and towards a ‘committed’ bureaucracy is the tendency to use political patronage to obtain coveted postings. There have always been officers who had political godfathers and who used these godfathers to get ‘good’ postings for themselves. But at one time they used to be in a minority. This is no longer the case.

... contd.