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Administrative Thinkers Series -
2
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
By Lieutenant Colonel H Sarat Singh
"It would be a bad day if people did not look up to officials holding high positions. Ministers come and ministers go, but the permanent machinery (the Civil service) must be good and firm, and have the respect of the people. The civil service is a source of stability."
In the interim government formed in 1945 Sardar Patel became the Home Minister. In addition, he was the minister for information and broadcasting as well as for princely states. In India, the Home department has always been the most sensitive one, easily towering over the others, more so during those tumultuous days. Sardar Patel was in charge of home and as such bore the direct responsibility of steering the newly born republic through the extremely troubled times of the early period. Girija Shankar Bajpai, a distinguished member of the ICS, writes: "The fate of own new state hung in the balance during those perilous months. That, despite some oscillation, the scales stayed steady was due not only to the faith of the people in its leaders, but to the firm will and strong hand of the new Home Minister." As the portfolio of Civil Service fell within the charge of the Home department, Patel got the welcome opportunity of designing a civil service to answer the call of national unity, democracy and development.
Only a few months before independence, Patel showed his utter unhappiness with the civil services in the Constituent Assembly of India; "I tried to get the District Magistrate of Gurgaon (a district in what was then part of Punjab, now in Haryana); I wrote to the then Governor of the Punjab; I pleaded with the Viceroy, but I found it difficult to remove him." He advised the elected representative to forget the past. "We fought the Britishers for many years. I was their bitterest enemy and they regarded me as such.... (but now they know) that I am very frank and they (civil servants) consider me to be their sincere friend." When independence was achieved, he became staunch advocate of the service. In 1949, he stood up in the constituent Assembly to defend it:
"I wish to assure you that I have worked with them during this difficult period. I am speaking with a sense of heavy responsibility and I must confess that in point of patriotism, in point of loyalty, in point of sincerity and in point of ability, you cannot have a substitute. They are as good as ourselves... I wish to place it on record in this House that if, during the last two or three years, most of the members of the services had not behaved particularly and with loyalty, the union would have collapsed."
And in the resolution of administrative problems, he rallied round career civil servants, even treating them as trusted advisors and administrators. Patel was a severe critic of the ICS before independence but emerged as its champion and advocate once freedom was won. In independent India, he needed the members of the ICS - perhaps as much as they (the members of ICS) needed him.
As said earlier, Patel's ideas on administration cover a wide range and need notice but his most notable contributions are two - integration of over five hundred princely states into the newly created Union of India, and creation of the all-India services.
Modern India is the consequence of Patel's untiring effort. The all-India sources were a thorn in the flesh from the nationalist viewpoint, being plainly incompatible with the emerging federalism. When constitutional charges after the W.W.II were being considered, no one took up the cause of all-India services. In October 1946, the Secretary of State announced the discontinuance of recruitment to the ICS - the first clear signal indicating the termination of British's Connection with the services, much before the constitutional changes came into force. Not unnaturally, the civil service felt unsure of its future, and its morale was low.
Sardar Patel had been a critic of the colonial bureaucracy in India. But with independence in sight, he became a staunch supporter of the same organization, and wanted it to be strengthened in independent India. Patel regarded the 'steel-frame' as the bulwark of independent India's administrative unity and was convinced that administrative unity, which was vital for independent India, could only be secured by the retention of the steel-frame. On hearing about the Secretary of State's discontinuance of recruitment to the ICS, Patel acted swiftly and, within two days, convened what is known as the Provincial Premiers Conference to consider the alternative arrangements necessary. The Times (London) thus commented on the Secretary of State's decision to terminate recruitment. "The sooner the Secretary of State's Control is ended and the present structure wound up, the better."
To recall, the Secretary of State for India had stopped recruitment to the ICS and the IP during wartime, and even when peace returned it could not be resumed on account of the constitutional changes taking place in India. The interim government under the Prime Ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru was installed in 1946, with independence well in sight now. When a New India was in the offing the institution of all-India services, at one time the proverbial thorn in the Indian leadership's flesh, began to be wooed; and in this saga Sardar Patel played a pioneering role.
With the plan of resurrection of "All India Administrative Service" in his mind, Sardar Patel Convened a Conference of Provincial Premiers on 20 and 21 October 1946. These who were invited to the conference were the provincial premiers but the provinces ruled by non-congress parties were represented either by a politician of minister's rank or civil servants. Its revenue minister represented Punjab, where the unionist party was in power. Sind deputed its Chief Secretary whereas Bengal, where the Muslim League was in power, sent a civil servant of the rank of additional secretary.
Dr Khan Sahib, the Premier of NWFP, attended the conference on the afternoon on the second day only. Sardar Patel, the guiding spirit, was present on both the days and was accompanied by the home secretary and three deputy secretaries. The premiers who attended the conference were Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant from UP, T Prakasam from Madras, B G Kher from Bombay, Sri Krishna Sinha from Bihar, Hare Krishna Mahtab from Orissa, Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla from the Central Provinces, Gopinath Bardoloi from Assam and Dr Khan Sahib from the NWFP.
Sardar Patel expressed the central government's support for the setting up of an All India Administrative Service; and the advantages he cited were many and were to both the center and the provinces. Such an All India Service would facilitate liaison between the Center and the provinces, ensure a certain uniformity in standards of administration, and keep the central administration in touch with ground level reality. He went on to emphasize that the provincial administration would on its part acquire a wider outlook and obtain the best material for the higher posts. He emphasized that there was need for ensuring contentment and security in the services and that it was free from communal or party bias.
Of the nine persons who spoke on the first day the Premiers of UP, Bombay, Bihar, Assam, Orissa, Central Provinces, and Madras supported, with varying degrees of reservation, the creation of such a service, and wanted the control of the secretary of state for India to be terminated altogether. Gopinath Bardoloi, the Premier of Assam, lent support to the service but wanted the provincial control over it to be adequate and sons of the soil to be given more opportunities.
Pandit G B Pant, the Premier of UP, however, took a different view, arguing that the central govt. be responsible only for recruitment and training; he was not in favor of the substitution of the central govt. for the secretary of State for India and wanted full control of the provinces over the service. Dr Khan of NWFP, a Congress ruled province, was present only on the afternoon of the concluding day, as mentioned earlier, and the proceedings of the conference do not indicate his participation or intervention in discussion at any state.
(To be continued).
(Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press) |
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