Uncivil Services, Social-boycott needed  

Three days ago, news broke of an Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid on the residence of an Additional Excise Commissioner.  

Almost at the same time, a bureaucrat’s wife on her Instagram page posted her pics carrying a designer handbag that probably cost half of her husband’s annual salary. 

For a fleeting moment, I was envious and muttered, “I wish I were a bureaucrat or at least married one.”  

My wife, sitting beside me, didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe, I should have married one.” She said with a sigh. Ouch!  

Just as my pride was dipping, she added, “But then, I would have to be shameless.”  

That, in one sentence, captured the tragedy of modern India. Corruption no longer hides in shame. It flaunts itself with no sense of shame, guilt or regret. 

A decade ago, you wouldn’t catch a Government Officer’s wife or children showing off or flaunting the spoils of their husband’s or father’s corruption. 

Back then, they felt that if people saw them flaunting their ill-gotten wealth, they would be judged and possibly treated as pariahs. Shame acted as a deterrent. 

Today, shame is non-existent in these people’s lives. Today, families of corrupt officials proudly display luxury cars, designer wardrobes, exotic holidays and lavish homes on Instagram and Facebook as though they are lifestyle influencers rather than beneficiaries of public theft. 

Among politicians and bureaucrats, corruption today has become a family enterprise. The officer signs the files. The son becomes the fixer. The son-in-law becomes the consultant.  

The wife, siblings and relatives become the custodians of ‘benami’ assets. Everyone has a role. Everyone gets a share.  

Kautilya observed this human weakness over two thousand years ago in the Arthashastra: 

“Just as one cannot help tasting honey or poison placed on the tongue, so a Government servant dealing with public money cannot help but taste it.” 

But Kautilya imagined officials taking an occasional lick. Today’s corrupt officials don’t merely taste the honey; they empty the entire jar and then invoice the taxpayer for a new one. 

It is often said that politicians teach bureaucrats corruption. I suspect the reverse is true. Politicians come and go every five years. A civil servant enjoys three decades inside the system, mastering every loophole, every procedural delay, every regulatory maze.  

Governments change and Ministers rotate but files remain and Secretaries endure. 

If corruption were a university, politicians would be visiting professors. Bureaucrats are tenured professors. This perhaps explains why prosecuting a corrupt civil servant is such an exhausting exercise and bureaucrats have made sure it’s a convoluted process.  

If a bureaucrat has to go before charges can even be filed, approvals are required from departmental heads, vigilance authorities, personnel departments, vigilance commissions and appointing authorities.  

Files travel through so many desks that by the time they reach the final signature, the accused has often retired comfortably with a pension. 

Small wonder, corruption breeds confidence instead of fear. 

Every year, lakhs of young Indians prepare for the Civil Services examination. Many undoubtedly dream of serving the nation, but for many, many more, the attraction is not public service but public power and the public’s money. 

Jawaharlal Nehru once said, “Few things are more striking today in India than the progressive deterioration, moral and intellectual, of the higher services, especially the Indian Civil Service.”  

Then, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel disagreed. He famously described the Civil Services as the “steel frame of India” and that it was an institution that would hold together a fragile young nation. 

 At that moment in history, Patel was right. India needed a disciplined administrative machinery. But steel, if neglected, rusts and today, that steel frame has rusted and is corroding the nation.  

This is not to suggest every civil servant is corrupt.  But the honest officer has become the exception. That should worry us. 

Until corruption becomes socially embarrassing again, until illicit wealth attracts disgrace from the public instead of admiration and unless we socially boycott corrupt officials and their families, no law, no vigilance commission and no anti-corruption bureau will be enough.  

Because corruption survives not merely on greed. It survives on social acceptance. 

Only when society stops applauding stolen wealth and jail becomes more likely than promotion will our Civil Services become worthy of their name, but…  

Until then, India’s Civil Services will continue to suffer from a simple but devastating problem, which is, they shall remain decidedly… uncivil. 

e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com