decemBER 29, 2018
Do We Need a Neutral Bureaucracy?
Neutrality helps enlightened public officials escape the honeycomb-like structure of a partisan government.
T
he open letter written by more than 80 retired bureau-
crats to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is signifi-
cant for more than one reason. First, it is written keeping
in view the normative principles of the Indian Constitution as
the reference point. It is committed to receive the command
from the Constitution. It shows that public officials are not
slaves to either the politicians or any other authority other than
the moral authority of the Constitution. Second, it shows that
the principle of neutrality implies a measure of independence
both from the partisan interests of the government of the day and
the exogenous agenda that prompts certain social groups to cow
others down to humiliating vulnerability. The spirit of the letter
shows that there is a need for public officials to play an active role
in at least voicing their concerns through interrogating the erring
government—in the present case, the UP government. Such a
role is crucial not only to bring in relief to its very credibility,
but it also suggests the role particularly for a socially sympathetic
bureaucracy to adopt administrative practices so as to give some
relief to those social groups who continue to reel under the
constant fear of mob lynching.
The growing menace of monocracy makes the constitution-
ally committed bureaucracy as ever relevant. Third, the letter
also suggests that failure of the government, which by implication
promotes the emergence of the hydra-headed mob lynching
mentality, makes the discussion on post-bureaucratic society
irrelevant. In India, we do require constitutionally committed
bureaucracy. Do we not? Bureaucracy is neutral in terms of
ideology and politics. Finally, and most importantly, it also sug-
gests that even in the post-retirement period, public officials
could make significant interventions for more noble purposes
underlying the good society even without joining a particular
brand of formal politics that has scant regard for constitutional
principles such as freedom from fear and human dignity. To put
it differently, this letter shows the mirror to those retired public
officials who have joined political parties which are yet to prove
in practice their normative credentials that stand firmly against
the attitude of hatred and humiliation.
It is needless to mention that, for a genuine public official,
commitment to constitutional principles is not only a lifelong
project, but, more importantly, it can be carried out without any
Economic & Political Weekly EPW decEMBER 29, 2018 vol lIii no 51
political or ideological mediation. It does not have to relate
itself, for example, to the constitutional principle of justice, poli-
tics or ideology. If this is the case, the Constitution serves as the
standard by which one can measure the capacity of a bureau-
cracy to remain committed to peace, harmony and justice.
Bureaucracy serves as the third and neutral term that can be
socially effective without the aid of politics or ideology. The
onus is on those public officials who have either joined or are
planning to join parties with shaky records on gender and social
pluralism, to seek public validity for their entry into such par-
ties. They are supposed to give an account of how much their
in-service performance favoured the constitutional ideal. This
becomes a moral need in a context where political parties with
a shaky social record do not ask for such an account while in-
ducting these officials in formal politics. This account-giving
becomes important in a context where some of our public
officials have not been able to keep their caste/patriarchy and
the acute consciousness of hatred outside the office premises.
Arguably, a bureaucratic structure in India is saddled with the
caste of a bureaucratic mind. In the administrative transition,
the caste of a person reaches faster than their transfer papers.
One regularly comes across the narratives of discrimination
based on caste, gender, region, religion and language.
Public officials have two interrelated moral functions. First, to
protect the very state of which it is a part from being disrupted
or being undermined by the disquieting elements from civil
society. Second, to prevent the disruptive efforts of a society that is
ridden with caste and patriarchal consciousness. Bureaucracy
has to intervene in public life to see that such a society does not
degenerate into aggressive obscurantism. On the one hand, the
formative conditions to perform these twin tasks involve public
officials’ moral capacity to resist anti-constitutional interests
that the government of the day may try to push. And, on the other,
they, through their active intervention, need to translate these
constitutional principles to understand everyday forms of people’s
problematic social practice. It is in this sense that such officials
form part of a universal class because the end of their activities
is to realise the universal interest of contributing to the efforts
in establishing a decent and peaceful society. Members of such a
class are not interested in perpetuating bureaucratic domination
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EDITORIALS

for its own sake, but are committed to playing a wider role in The universality of such a class is contrasted with the pursuit of
altering the grotesque basis of social relations, reorganising them a particular interest. Thus, the neutrality principle as suggested
in a more decent way. It has the capacity to de-antagonise social in their letter has a moral function to prevent public officials
relations through peaceful mediation, persuasion, and deliberation. from becoming slaves to the government of the day.

8 decEMBER 29, 2018 vol lIii no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly