Threatening situations

First Politicisation of Bureaucracy, Then Bureaucratisation of Government Are the public servants expected to be completely loyal to the politician and compromise transaction of official business as per law mandated? Should they be rewarded as ministers for their loyalty to a political leader, party or ideology? Both the situations are threatening to a vast majority of public servants, examined, interviewed and subjected to background check by more than one state agency. The politician public servant manages everything from interview to background check and succeeds in acting too much of an arrogant for long years of a career of a public servant. Once in the political executive, s/he acts like a bureaucrat, forgetting all sense of public service. The issue is: should political interference be continued to be treated with contempt or accepted as the new norm of Indian democracy? One reason why an occasional emergence of a Narendra Modi receives such a warm welcome is the expectation of those public servants who doggedly refuse to compromise their loyalty to the Constitution of India or exchange it for the loyalty of the politician. Can permanence to a changed public service culture be assured by the present Narendra Modi or the future Narendra Modi ? The problem is very serious taking into consideration state governments. Sting operations telecast threats to public servants to fall in line or be ready to suffer consequences (very derogatory to say “boria-bistar baandh lo”). Such political interference with the law emboldens and bonds the politician and the public servants. That is responsible for ruining the image of a great India in just 70 years !

M L Gupta

Prediction went true

On my inputs a few weeks ago, you had predicted that NS Nigam, IAS posted as MD West Bengal Transport Corporation would become next Secretary, Transport Department succeeding the then Principal Secretary, BP Gopalika, IAS. The prediction went true this week. Please post the message in your site for information of all concerned.

Rabindra Nath Sarkar

Anger will not help Mamta Bannerji !

Doctors are on strike in many parts of the country in sympathy with the doctors in Calcutta. Who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs where common people are suffering ? Decidedly the Chief Minister of West Bengal who not only failed to handle the doctors' strike tactfully but added fuel to the fire. What after all the doctors are wanting ? Safety against violence from the patients ' relatives who sometime in their grief on losing a kin lose all sense of proportion. Doctors are not God .They can give care and treatment for cure but then they also cannot save if a patient is dying. What happened in the hospital in Calcutta was truly repugnant. Doctors were beaten up so mercilessly by the relatives of a person who died that one of them landed up in ICU. The anger of the doctor community on this episode is understandable. Instead of condemning and threatening the doctors Mamta Bannerji should have taken some action to ensure their safety so that such attacks do not happen again. It seems the electoral reverses in West Bengal in Lok Sabha elections have rattled her so much that she is not able to think properly or concentrate on governance. Calmness not anger can help her in showing her the way to reclaim her lost ground.

Aarti Khosla