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Administrative
Thinkers Series - 4
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
By Lieutenant Colonel H Sarat Singh
Patel believed in full freedom of the civil service to think and advise independently. It was only then that the political leadership could get the best out of the career bureaucracy. He categorically declared, "My secretary can write a note opposed to my views. I have given that freedom to all my secretaries. I have told them, 'If you do not give your honest opinion for the fear that it will displease your minister, then, please you had better go. I will bring another secretary. I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion!
There is a story of a secretary from whom Patel sought advice and who before giving his opinion wanted to know if he wanted honest advice. He retorted: "Does government pay you Rs 4000 a mouth for your dishonest opinions? It is your duty to give an honest opinion, and it is for me to accept it or not."
Patel accorded to his secretaries a status, which compelled respect. He felt that the position of a secretary to the government of India was a very high one and should be maintained at a high level in public estimation. Even otherwise he was mindful of the bureaucratic discipline and protocol and whenever he found it violated even marginally he came out rather heavily on the deviant, however exalted be his position in public life. He once pulled up BC Roy, chief minister of West Bengal, for showing apparent discourtesy to the Prime Minister. He wrote: "I was distressed to find you writing to the Prime Minister like this. Had it been a personal letter, or had you been talking to him, perhaps as an elder, you could afford all this liberty. But in an official communication to him as Prime Minister I had expected that you would be deferential as is appropriate to the dignity of the high office that he holds, as well as the office which you yourself occupy."
Like all human beings, even Patel could be in error, but always to the advantage of the career bureaucracy! He sometimes gives an impression of having 'out-Maxed' Max Weber! He was most meticulous about procedural niceties. When Nehru deputed a civil servant to the chief commissioner's province of Ajmer to look into the recently held communal riots, Patel criticized the Prime Minister for bypassing the regular governmental machinery with the chief commissioner at the top. He did not hesitate to tell Nehru that if the latter was unable to visit Ajmer he could have deputed Patel or any other minister instead of sending a serving civil servant, which naturally created misgivings in the minds of the chief commissioner who was "one of the ablest officers whose efficiency and honesty and impartibility are beyond reproach." Indeed, Patel could not tolerate non-adherence to administrative discipline and procedure.
Patel had respect for the civil service, differing on this score from Nehru. HVR Iyengar, a distinguished member of the ICS and the principal secretary to Nehru, says that Jawaharlal Nehru did not think of the civil servants as "being particularly distinguished" and "with whom it was appropriate for him to discuss the pros and cons of the kind of problems that was thrown up to the Prime Minister of India." Sardar Patel was a study in contrast. In Iyengar's words, Patel "wanted to make the fullest use of the knowledge and experience which the civil service had acquired." It was Patel's routine habit to discuss a problem with the civil servants before he took a decision. He personally knew many political leaders of all political parties and yet he wanted to know what the civil service thought of individual politicians when questions involving them were discussed.
Patel laid down the overall policy and left its application to civil servants. He selected the civil servants carefully but then trusted them completely. "This", says Iyengar, "put ten civil servants on their honor to work for him to the limit of their capacity and never as far as humanly possible to let him down." Patel inspired confidence in the civil service and made it feel that it was a partner "with him in the task of administration and not mere scribes carrying out instructions."
Patel laid the utmost importance on the civil service in a democracy. He observed: An efficient, disciplined and contented (civil) service assured of its prospect as a result of diligent and honest work is the sine qua non of a sound administration under a democratic regime even more than under authoritarian rule. The civil service must be above party, and we should ensure that political considerations either in its recruitment or in its discipline and control are reduced to the minimum if not eliminated altogether."
Lord Macaulay observed: "The character of the Governor-General (in India) is less important than the character of the Administrator by whom the administration is carried on." On another occasion, he asserted: "People expect from us a clean and efficient administration that should keep us on our guard."
Patel knew very well the weaknesses of Indian society, which is why he sought institutional remedies to counter them and strengthen the unity of an already partitioned country. The effective remedy in his eyes lay in building up the instrument available to the new state, namely the civil service. He was quick to realize that independent India could find no other device more dependable than administration, more effective than civil service. To allay fears of the existing members of the civil service under the new constitutional arrangements, he supported definite constitutional guarantees to protect their terms and conditions of service.
It would be concealing a historical fact if one were not to mention Patel's differences with Nehru on the conception of the office of Prime Minister in a Parliamentary democracy of the Indian type.
Sardar Patel was not an administrative philosopher to be compared with Plato or Aristotle. He was an administrator, a realist solidly rooted in the soil, an actionist at that. He was a consolidator. Patel was empirical to his core. He had a flare for organization right since his early days. He has been described as "a natural administrator who did not seem to need experience." He was a great listener, and listened patiently to all sides of a case before taking a decision. He had the capacity to say 'no' to requests he felt were unacceptable.
(Concluded)
(Courtesy: The Imphal Free Press)
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