Aheli Moitra
After three years and eight months into his tenure, the Chief Secretary of Nagaland still has his sense of humour intact. Addressing his team of senior bureaucrats earlier this week, Lalthara said, “It is illegal to keep government money in the personal bank account of officers”.
What a laugh! In a state where bureaucrats graduate through the systematic accumulation of wealth through their ‘good offices’ to become politicians, there is no measure to distinguish legal from illegal. From the numerous accounts of junior bureaucrats, it is not difficult to deduce the quantum senior bureaucrats make if their percentage ‘cut’ from each project under them is made known. Perhaps why, without stressing on the legal consequences of such “practices”, Lalthara simply said they “should be done away with”.
In a Morung Express Poll conducted on whether bureaucrats are more powerful than politicians, 56% of the respondents nodded in affirmation. For these respondents, and almost all participants in the poll, the system itself is to blame that lets a nexus between politicians and bureaucrats flourish. ‘Lack of accountability’ and ‘complete impunity’, phrases commonly used for the armed forces once upon a time, were applied by some respondents to bureaucrats of the state.
Another respondent said bureaucrats are more ‘educated and knowledgeable’ which makes them more powerful. Going by an event last week, there are reasons to disagree.
A senior bureaucrat, lending his presence to an event on the ‘Fortnight Observation on Elimination of Violence Against Women’ in Nagaland, made a scratchy Freudian slip. “Elimination of women is not relevant in the Naga context,” he said to the gathering. Then the slip turned slippery as he continued with his insensitive tirade. “You can give your bodies but not your 20% of VDB share; that’s what I tell women VDB members.”
Elimination of women, sir, is not relevant in any context. Each Village Development Board (VDB) in Nagaland reserves 25% of funds and positions for the development of women, not 20%. And for whatever reason women are not able to access this 25%, there is no reason why she had rather give her body up. Prostitution is not the alternative to representation. Please stop telling anyone that.
The problems of Indian bureaucracy clearly go beyond illegal financial practices. Literacy does not make a bureaucrat more powerful, as it does not a politician. Education and sensitisation are necessary; if missing through school, the government should make sure they are imparted to its bureaucrats during their tenure. The efficacy of the process that brings bureaucrats like these to the table comes under doubt. It cannot, surely, be based on merit, and if it is, then the merit of the examination that brought such a person into governance is questionable.
A matter of greater concern is neither the media nor the organisation that held the above event could bring the matter to public scrutiny. Political masters of state bureaucrats have set a precedent of slapping defamation charges when the bitter truth about them is displayed. It is better here to keep the filth under wraps than to clean it up, whether it concerns financial fraud or inappropriate conduct. It is why they will never be “done away with”. It will continue to remain the source of power, of impunity.
Here, Armstrong Pame comes to mind. Pame took up the Tamenglong-Haflong road construction outside state finance because his education taught him to invest knowledge in people. He had observed the nonchalance of politicians towards people. A new entrant to bureaucracy, Pame would’ve probably taken up the project even without the bureaucratic posture. Not that the vast majority of bureaucrats in Manipur, or India, are like Pame but there are commendable examples. In Nagaland, however, the vast majority of bureaucrat stories lead down the dark alley.
In a parliamentary democracy, good governance is dependent on bureaucrats. Bureaucrats and politicians are to enhance each other’s functions for the people, not nod at each other for the sake of protecting the other’s interest in a grievous network of corruption. And if the system does not work, it is this that must be done away with.
