The Political Influence in Indian Bureaucracy

The Political Influence in Indian Bureaucracy

( By Bhavya Pundir ) 

Image By:- Darshika Singh

Bureaucracy is a body of non-elected government officials and a typical system for managing and controlling a country. The Civil servants are often referred to the name as “Babus” as they work under “the rule of babus”. Indian democracy is also known as Babudom. Political incumbent shrinks the size of Federal bureaucracy, while at the same time enhancing its capabilities. Bureaucracy and the political officials of the executive branch of government have been a very complicated and controversial dilemma of Administrative processes in India. 

On the path of politicians, utterly the Civil servants serve as a tool that can be used, misused, and on occasion, even abused. These malicious politicians Robb the way of a hard-working and honest bureaucrat who seeks to implement their key government roles. 

 

The relationship between the bureaucrats and political incumbents is far more convoluted, as the saying goes like "politicians may come and go but bureaucrat remains”. 

Effective bureaucratic functioning is facing serious obstacles, the politicians regularly abuse their executive authority to arbitrarily transfer bureaucrats. And on the contrary, it is a vindicated truth that the average Occupancy of an IAS is merely 16 months, moreover, the probability of being transferred in a particular year is about 53% enormously. 

 

This unvarying transfer of civil servants under the name of “transfer posting Raj” has an adverse effect on the outcome of policies. 

Furthermore, the district with higher instances of such transfers, poverty rates evince a much slower rate of decline, causing lasting damages to the outcome of policies. 

Political fidelity rather than professional stipulation also represents a pavement towards professional mobility. This might up to an extent can elaborate that why fresh IAS officials frequently and invest in skills possession, loyalty to Powerful politician incumbent, which offers an alternative track of successful careers. 

Bureaucracy is said to be a harder submissive Trouper. 

Some instances of Northern Indian states have highlighted the concept of casteism between the relationship of bureaucrats and politicians. Civil servants with the same caste as of the ruling party poses more opportunities for important and favorable posting. 

 Bureaucrats are deeply influenced by political parties because they are leftover with only two tracks to push their careers. The first is to develop and invest in expertise and second is to leverage their social networks for procuring thoughtful positions. 

 

Unless the forthright and diligent civil servants are rapidly transferred of those who challenge the politicians, thereby demotivating others from taking action, declining public faith in the administration. 

Meanwhile, as everything has pros and cons the impact of the political incumbent is not always negative. The enactment of Democratic political parties can encounter initiative ways to expedite the bureaucratic functioning in certain circumstances. 

It is evicted by Member of Parliament local area development schemes (MPL ADS) that collectors sanctioned the project of political incumbents a bit faster and especially for the politicians who cannot stand for re-election as their constituency redid reservation status. Even civil servants are more incentivized to do their job when the probability of coming in power again is at a higher point. 

Chronic charges of nepotism, favoritism, and corruption against bureaucrats have made the problem more complex and awful. 

Conclusion 

Indian Bureaucracy is facing several challenges from diminishing human capital to political influences and if left unanswered will result in an administrative and social decline. 

Civil services are a delicate part of the Indian state, administrating the country even before it was independent. For maintaining the prosperity of the economy, we should be undue political interference, which results in frequent transfers of honest officials. 

To put a full stop on such unfair activities, a fixed working tenure for bureaucrats should be implemented in anticipation of my thoughts. 

There should be scrupulous keen-eyed operation and proper implementation of anti-corruption laws because the bureaucrats are the pillars of any economy. 

Disclaimer:-

The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.