INSIDE

INDIA
ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT INDIA

UN D E R P R O D UC T I O N W IT H P UB L I S H A M E R I C A , M A R Y L A N D , US A

PRAVEEN KUMAR

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 Praveen Kumar with his more than three decades of government service in senior levels
and as a poet of five published collections and as an author of two volumes on matters of
governance and public interests is a familiar face in Indian intellectual circuits. His
contributions on these topics to prominent national dailies and periodicals of India and
journals like The Indian Journal of Criminology And Criminalistics of MHA, GOI, Delhi
were very popular and often sensational by their innovative unorthodox thoughts.

Born in Mangalore as the eldest son of Shree R.D.Suvarna and B.Sarojini, Praveen Kumar
graduated in Science from St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, going on to obtain a
post-graduate degree in Literature from Mysore University. He also holds post-graduate
diplomas in Business Management and Cooperation. In his student days he was also
a prize-winning orator and writer. He lives in Bangalore with his wife, Smt. Jayashree
and son Pratheek. He is a familiar face in national seminars and TV networks in India
as a Poet and thinker.

Stemming from his varied academic background, are the lively far-ranging interests
that have impelled him to write on subjects as diverse as matters of public interest
and poetry, striking the perfect balance between the pursuance of vocation and avocation.

INSIDE INDIA is his new venture on matters of governance and public interests
of India. This volume is a first hand account of the observations, impressions and experiences of the
author as an insider of India and Indian bureaucracy.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK

The Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) in a 12-page report
on a business survey of 12 economies of Asia released on June 3, 2009 where 1,274
expatriates working in these countries were interviewed showed Indian bureaucracy at the
bottom at the 12 position as the least efficient bureaucracy after Philippines and Indonesia
in 10 and 11 positions respectively. The report says that working with the country’s civil
servants in India is a “slow and painful” process and it continues to report that “They
are a power centre in their own right at both the national and state levels, and are extremely
resistant to reform that affects them or the way they go about their duties”. This content
is also the theme of this volume, “Inside India”.

The cause of the malady is analysed and remedies are suggested in the article, ‘The
Crumbling Steelframe of Inda’ of this volume. The deterioration is a
post-independence phenomenon. The once steelframe of Indian bureaucracy of the
British vintage gradually crumbled to its extant putridity under the sad auspice of its
corrupt and incompetent el patron, the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission)
and the deterioration trickled fast downwards in the last six decades to bring India to this
sad state of affairs. “Inside India” is the story of this fast rottening situation.

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The story in “Inside India” is by an insider, insider in India as wll as in Indian bureaucracy
for more than thirty-one years at a senior position. This volume is a first hand
account of the observations, impressions and experiences of the author as an insider.
Naturally, most illustrations in this volume are from Karnataka police where the author
served as a senior police officer for nearly three decades. However, this makes no
difference to the over all picture of India as situation is not much different elsewhere.

In spite of well-known notorieties of the degenerates like A.R.Nizamuddin, R.S.Chopra

and other scoundrels of the similar ilk in Karnataka police, situation is better there than
some of the more notorious state police organizations of India. Their core weakness
there lies in sweepingly conforming to the rotten system and bad culture against conscience
to cover own tracks. It is mere cowardice of mediocrity and gross selfish interests of
ignobility and nothing more. Yet, no way can Karnataka police be called as an efficient,
healthy and responsible bureaucratic setup yet.

Faithful assessment must precede reconstruction. This volume is an effort in this

direction. Complacency leads to stagnation and is a dangerous indulgence in a rottening
situation like India’s. This volume is intended to breach the vicious indulgence involved
and inspire India to its rich potentialities on the way to much dreamed of world leadership.

India is a civilization of diversities and a culture of contradictions. India’s is an inclusive

way of life. Along its long history, it saw umpteen falls and rises without losing its innate
vitality and always rose from worst quagmires unscathed. This resilience of India
underscores its unique heritage spawned by its thoughts and philosophies that perhaps are
nearest to the true nature of the universe that the scientific world of today is engaged
in to probe, discover and formulate as the Grand Unification Theory (GUT). This is the
secret of the eternal strength of India.

This resilience of India gives hope. The present fall is not forever. Time of revival shall
come. India shall see a better system replace the present corrupt and incompetent
UPSC and a healthy administrative system replace the extant inefficient and rogue
bureaucracy. This volume, “Inside India” is a small attempt towards this beginning.

I acknowledge with deep humility that this work would not have been possible
without the inspiration of my late father Shree R.D.Suvarna who instilled in me right
values and a sense of dignity without which I would not have been what I am now.
I would be failing in my duty if I fail to express my gratitude to late Shree
A.R.Sridharan, IPS (rtd.), former Director General of Police and former Hon'ble
member of the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal for his unstinted support and
encouragement to my intellectual exercises. He is a rare oasis of pristine values and
dignified restraint in the desert of Indian bureaucracy.

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 EXCERPTS

Praveen Kumar with his more than three decades of government service in
senior levels and as a poet of five published collections and as an author
of two volumes on matters of governance and public interests is a familiar
face in Indian intellectual circuits.

INSIDE INDIA is his new venture on matters of governance and public

interests of India. This volume is a first hand account of the observations,
impressions and experiences of the author as an insider of India and Indian
bureaucracy.

The deterioration is a post-independence phenomenon. The once steelframe

of Indian bureaucracy of the British vintage gradually crumbled to its
extant putridity under the sad auspice of its corrupt and incompetent el patron,
the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) and the deterioration trickled
fast downwards in the last six decades to bring India to this sad state of
affairs. “Inside India” is the story of this fast rottening situation.

India is a civilization of diversities and a culture of contradictions.

India’s is an inclusive way of life. Along its long history, it saw umpteen
falls and rises without losing its innate vitality and always rose from
worst quagmires unscathed. This resilience of India underscores its
unique heritage spawned by its thoughts and philosophies that perhaps are
nearest to the true nature of the universe that the scientific world of
today is engaged in to probe, discover and formulate as the Grand
Unification Theory (GUT). This is the secret of the eternal strength of India.

If leadership is the soul of democracy, right leadership is the soul of

right democracy. Leadership is adjectives to the language of the democracy.
It decides the nature and the quality of the democracy. There can be right
or wrong democracy depending on the nature and content of the leadership
to carry the democracy forward.

A government may have different gestalts, colours and priorities depending on

the needs and circumstances of the country at the time. Steering the rudder
in proper direction through all weathers constitutes the core of the
governance. Those holding and attending the rudder decide the destiny of
the country. Their character, attitudes and competence determine the tournure
of the future of the country and its people.

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Government service in a democracy is the service of the people by the people
for the people within the reticulation of the rules and procedures in force.
It is the core service of the governance and implements the will of the
people expressed through the collective political leadership. It is the tool
that really manages the country on the tapestry of the adopted policy
by exercising all the wherewithal of a management tool-box like
planning, organizing, execution and control by its ubiquitous presence.

Professional ideals of police are rooted in the terra firma of the rule of
law, justice, order and the security of the country and its citizens.
Police organization is basically responsible to the constitution of the country
and the government constituted and the laws enacted in accordance with
the constitution. Police lose its relevance to the country when its
professional attitude goes against the cardinal ideals of the profession.

It is India”s good fortune that its fabric of law and order has withstood
the effects of growing complexity of the Indian society for so fragile
is its policing. The fact that the police systems in a few neighbouring
countries of Asia and Africa are worse cannot be a solace as the political,
social and economical structures of those countries have different
backgrounds and value systems from ours. India is a crucible wherein
the dynamics and relevance of democracy in the third world are
being experimented with.

Democracy is feudal in reality involving stiff competitions between

diverse sectors and interest groups to gobble the res gestae available from
the State. Power begets power and money begets money. So, it is
powerful sectors that succeed and corner infrastructure development
programmes of the State to their advantage when the State sleeps and forgets
its responsibilities.

Every employee in any efficient organisation is a precious asset. This is

not because labour comes at enormous cost, but because of the presence of
innate potentialities in every person and its mammoth utility were they
are adequately tapped. The problem lies in the need and competence to extract
the potentialities and talents.

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Crime, politics and the police are the three sides of the vicious triangle
within which the future of democratic Indian and its free people are
trapped. Although wealthy industrial and commercial houses form
a fourth dimension, their techniques are as yet limited to manipulative
strategies to gain a strangle hold over political power by remote control.
It is their wealth that fills the coffers of the troika and helps reduce the
normal life of free citizens to a welter of uncertainties and endless misery.

The very nature of the functions of the police demands that it be insulated
from the vagaries of the short-time rules of a democratic setup.
Their responsibilities as enforcers of law warrant their allegiance exclusively
to the rules and laws of the country; they are beholden to the judiciary as
the investigating authority while their part as watchdogs of the country’s
internal security raises them above political and leadership bickerings.
Often, these aspects of the police are happily forgotten in India.

Discipline, in the case of the police force, is both an advantage and

a disadvantage. It is an advantage because, if discreetly employed, it can
prevent undue interaction of the police with unwanted elements. It
is disadvantage because the police, with its trained response, may find it
difficult to isolate itself from the behests of its political masters.

Loyalty is of two kinds. One is pure and simple fidelity to the master. The
other owes its allegiance to certain ideals and principles. This
implies allegiance to one's duties, responsibilities, objectives, profession
and the chosen path of life. This commitment raises their loyalty to the status
of a mission. The loyalty needed in a profession like that of the police is
of elevated nature and it bestows the qualities of nobility and dignity on
the organisation. It lifts the police above factional interests and gives them
a cosmopolitan vitality. The strength and the trust born out of this superior
form of loyalty stand the police force in good stead in its hour of risk and crisis.

Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Superior spirits autograph
their works with excellence. It takes a long time to bring excellence to
maturity. Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.
Vera incessu patuit dea. Excellence is the outer dazzle of the inner lumiere.
It needs to be cultivated; it needs to be imbued and perfected by endless
endeavour. It is not for feeble minded and broken spirits. Excellence comes
only out of excellence.

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It is a fact that an organised effort is on in Indian police to force its members
to fall in with its line of profile at the cost of individual brilliance and
creative height. Indian police are continuously starved of freshness and
creative innovations as the result of shutting itself to the creative sparks and
other precious attributes of its human resources. Such a wastage of
available human resources can occur only in a government setup of a
developing country like India. What surprises is the extent to which
the organisation goes to nip in bud excellences to perpetuate the interests of
its old, secure world of unquestioning servilitude down the line.

India, as one of the foremost and largest democracies of the world, have a
great burden on its flabby shoulders to prove to the world that democracy as
a form of government can stand up to any dissipating influence and
hold disparate geographical, racial, ethnical, linguistic, religious, cultural
and economic factors syndetic in its pandemic prise of liberal benevolence
and serve the cause of the unity of the sovereign country at all odds. The
gauntlet India faces in this regard is made kenspeckle by the locus standi of
the country in terms of its position as a ranking leader of the developing countries.

Human nature being as it is, the emerging atmosphere of commercialisation

and material comforts vis a vis accrescent concours for limited resources of
the Earth , makes man increasingly self-centered and more and more
adventurous and violent in his appropinquation to reach his self-appointed
narrow goals.

Independent India needed brilliant people to handle its complex

administrative problems and to implement its developmental schemes. It is
tragic that India after independence not only failed to realise the importance
of maintaining its Steel Frame and improving upon it, but positively
contributed to its collapse in a very short span of time.

The reasons for this deterioration in the Civil Services are many. The first is
the general lack of passion for quality and excellence in the Indian psyche.
The agency in charge of the process of such selections, namely, the Union
Public Service Commission, unlike in the British period, is
unfortunately increasingly being manned by people unequal to the task either
in terms of their professionalism, efficiency and passion for brilliance or in
their basic character itself.

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In an age of sabotage and terrorism, no man, no place and no structure is
really safe; no time of the day or night can be construed as safe. With
the increasing complexity of human society with increasing claims on the
limited resources of the world, the kettle of human life Is spilling over
with organised hatred and violence. Terrorism has become an
international phenomenon. Accrescent unemployment makes terrorism popular
by giving the unemployed youth a raison d’etre for life and an ideology to
pursue. The lopsided material growth of 20th century life at the cost
of contentment and inner peace have endeared to man the thrills and
adventures of the life that fills up his inner void.

In a blinkered system like ours, where power and wealth are the ultimate
virtues, where power and wealth in themselves stimulate mutual growth to
the exclusion of all other dimensions of life, it is no wonder, the people of
this poor country succumb to the trappings of power and wealth at the cost of
all virtues, values, pride, dignity and human decency. In an
increasingly competitive and complex world where every day more mouths
are added to share limited resources, where the principle of the survival of
the fittest operates to its immane logical end and where the basic needs of
survival and decency can be assured only with power and wealth, people
naturally go all out to ramp the ladder of power and wealth by whatever
means and cost. In the process, justice and morality become casualties
and criminality raises its ugly head as an instrument to achieve
otherwise impossible objects. This is how politics and crime knit together in
the fabric of Indian public life.

Justice begotten at a cost is justice lost. The fact is lost sight of by the
present administration of justice. Justice is a natural right. It is the sine qua
non and raison d’etre of social grouping. Justice in a social environment have
to be as natural as sleep or oxygen to a living being. Free and fair justice is
the leges legum of human rights. The proficiency of justice administration has
to be assayed with this litmus test and the role of the police in the system has
to be judged by its contributions to this goal of the justice administration system.

Reasons for this deterioration are many. The first is inherent lack of passion
for quality and excellence. The agency incharge of selections, the Union
Public Service Commission, is manned by people unequal for the task either
in their professionalism, efficiency, passion for brilliance or basic character,
How can the process be reversed?

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Justice in its basic sense necessitates an integral vision. Justice abstracted from
its environment, past, present, future, diverse issues, dramatis personae
and related events cannot be justice in the true sense of the word. Justice in
parts is no justice that lasts. Justice involves delving deep down to the heart of
an issue and delivering justice in reference to all related issues and matters to
the rightful entitlement of all. This presupposes a passion for objectivity
and justness and above all, selflessness in the arbitrators of justice as well as
in those who are in the service of the administration of justice.

Police is not an odd-job boy of the government. It is not the hand-maid

of politicians in or out of power. Police is an organisaion of
professionals committed to the safety, security and well-being of the
country. Justice and rule of law are the litmus tests available to achieve the
ends. Once police miss the bus of justice and the rule of law, their goals of
safety, security and well-being of the public remain a distant dream. They lose
the credibility and respect of the public, so essential for effective and
proficient policing.

Police deal with social ills as physicians and surgeons deal with physical ills.
A surgeon incises parts of the body to set right wrongs and remove dangerous
growths from the system to save a person while a police do the same for the
society. Police job like the works of a surgeon involves administration of bitter
potions, prescription of restrictions and incisions to lay foundation for a sturdy
system. Like medical profession, policing is a highly responsible function and
ergo needs to be bound by moral ethos as lex non scripta to avoid misuse of
special rights involved in discharge of duties. Both professions involve
independent decisions in handling each case and exercise of infrangible
conscience in doing justice to it.

In the wilderness of undefined roads, Indian police grope for

perspicacious directions to reach professional ends. Popular phrases
like maintenance of order, enforcement of law, prevention of crime,
investigation of offences, protection of security interests etc are too generic
terms to carry any meaning and significance during the process of actual
policing. Perficient policing is possible only in the ambience of well-rounded
and clearly defined specific guidelines for action that help moulding
professional attitude in the organisation. Police develop wrong attitudes in
its absence by erroneous interpretation of the situation around. This is
what happens to Indian police now: wrong attitudes and concomitant
confusion about performing legitimate duties.

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Overhauling the present mediocre Union Public Service Commission to create
an efficient and responsible set-up capable of handling the
enormous responsibilities under Article 320 of the Indian Constitution,
is essential in order to arrest the degeneration that has set in, in the set-up.
This has led to blunders in identifying talent and in managing the Civil Services.

A police organisation, open to public pressures can do no policing worth

the name. The very idea of being receptive to pressures and interference
indicates a lack of will for objectivity and justice. It is criminal elements
which cultivate sources that have put the policing on the wrong rails.
Pressure often forces of the police to commit crimes under the veil of
authority, either by protecting criminals or more dangerously, by replacing
them with innocent people as criminals. The possibility of the police being
open to the influence of the rich and powerful, deprives it of its credibility.
A police force that works at the behest of the rich and powerful can guard
their interests only. Does democratic India need such a police force that
allows tyranny of the poor and the helpless by the rich and powerful?

The British were the forefathers of the unified Indian Police. It was a force
that met the needs of the time. In an age of rapid changes, the opening up of
new vistas and dimensions to life through inventions and discoveries in
science and technology, nothing remains constant. The scope, design and
objects of the Indian police underwent a metamorphosis with the transfer
of government to native hands. The process spawned a phenomenon in
which undemanding aspects of both the worlds survived to create a new
police culture. The distinguishing traits of the Indian police of the British
period such as objectivity, apoliticism, commitment, discipline, quality and
high standards were discarded. Traditional Indian values such as a
simplicity, charity, wisdom, mutual, respect, and human qualities were given
up too. The convenient factors of the old and new worlds were chosen to create
a new police culture while demands on policing were at the crucial stage in
the recent years of independence.

What India needs are a holistic approach to its infrastructure developments

rather than lopsided favours to the powerful and their cronies who cry wolf
under misleading claims and slogans. A nation belongs to all and must serve
the interests of all sections of the people including the rich and the poor, and
the industrialists and the farmers and protect who are weak and powerless. In
the circumstances of exiguous resources crunch, a fair policy of
eurhythmic division of what is available is called for.

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A process of ossification has set-in in Indian bureaucracy in absence of
real growth and evolution after independence. The political leadership find
the development to its advantage. The bureaucracy found itself as fish out
of water when its leading guides returned to Britain after independence.
Those who handled the higher bureaucracy sinsyne followed from where
the British left with their own mediocre interpretations of an ideal
bureaucratic setup. The result is the extant bureaucracy of India devoid
of creativity, initiative, understanding and a sense of public service. This
reduced the definition of the public administration to mean use of rules
and procedures to delay or obstruct decisions or actions just for the purpose
of proving existence. The new setup developed a queer xenophobia
towards deviations from the set patterns as a threat to the very existence of
the bureaucracy. The mindset evolved to a pernoctation against any fresh
breeze ab extra and a tendency to deracinate any move to that end in the
bud itself. Nothing fresh can leak-in to such a bureaucracy a huis clos.

Independence made Indian leadership taste money, power and the luxuries
of serving the people and the endless possibilities its diverse permutations
and combinations provide. Nothing is like a mammoth lure and nothing is like
a gargantuan greed. Leadership in India appeared like an endless foison
of opportunities to rob and grab. Those who had the sinew and mental
sturdiness to exploit jumped to the wagon in streams and created a new set
of leadership for India at the cost of the ancien regime inspired by lofty ideals
and guided by the motto of service. Corrupt and ruthless to the core, the
new leadership easily cornered the scrupulous old order in opportunistic
political games of money, power and muscle gained in the process. Leadership
in the milieu became nothing more than a daring massive investment
for multifold returns, a pure commercial venture. Crime paid. Deception
and flamboyancy became sine qua non for leadership. That is why
leadership became a dirty word in India. And Indians as they are, accepted
the reality to the extent that they now think twice before accepting
anybody without the merit of a criminal past as their leader.

Nature created women different from men with a definite purpose. Balance
is stillness and stagnation; imbalance is motion and progress. Nature
designed life and motion by means of the imbalance brought about in the
traits of men and women. In the process,women find themselves at the
receiving end. They ended up as the weaker half of society by their very
nature and are naturally handicapped in a world of men, by men, for men.
In a world where strength commands charity and weakness receives cruelty
and humiliations, women suffered all along the centuries with patience
and in silence.

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Present India’s democracy is a misnomer. It is a soulless process in the body of a democratic
form, or better, a feudal rule bought over by money, muscle and deceit. India is deluding
itself by calling itself as a great democracy of the world and dreaming to be a world
power. Compages do not make vibrating structures inter se. They require inner strengths
as their spine to stand erect to stand out in the world. Present India lacks that little potion
that in the past was India’s essence passim.

A profession like police naturally has its own goals, objectives and ideals
to pursue. They get clouded in the smog of practical turn-arounds in the field
and ultimately lose their edge in the spin of attitudinal aberrations.
The consequence is clashes of loyalties, adoption of immodest vectors in
policing, the issue of excesses and inactions, tendency to bend rules and laws
to achieve perceived ends in the hour of need of upholding the rule of law,
urge to cash-in on the ignorance and weaknesses of the ignorant people
around and indulgences in unprofessional works in the name of
discharging legitimate police duties. Performance of any profession
depends upon three factors: professional ideals, job culture and actual
practices and procedures.

Corruption is the product of man’s natural greed and contempt for rightful
means and constitutes the bedrock of his natural disposition. Therefore, any
dream to wipe off corruption from the face of the Earth is too idealistic to be
realistic. Corruption perforce dies only with the humankind. What can be
done and attempted to is its suppression and creating an environment wherein
it becomes less lucrative and more dangerous than it is now. The deed warrants
mobilisation of the increasingly depleting forces of integrity and probity in
high places in Government and public life to fight the environment favourable
to corruption. It is easier said than done. The temptation of the easy money is
too pollent to breakthrough its plexure. Indian political system being what it
has grown to be in licentious India of the post-independent vintage does not
easily let the easy provenance of ill-gotten wealth to slip from its proprietorial
grip. So also is the demoralised and easy-laid bureaucracy of the free India.
The evil nexus of the two forces need to be breached to loosen the taut prise
of corruption on the public life of India.

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A major handicap of the extant Indian police is its dependence
syndrome. No more, Indian police realise itself as a master sui juris.
For every piece of work under its sphere of decision, it looks for advice,
guidance and direction from the political leadership, bureaucracy or the
judiciary. It is more a symptom of immanent servilitude and lack of
spine than anything else. Present Indian police lack of
hardihood of professionalism and the self-confidence ensues from it.

The UPSC in its perverted competence has created a new breed of

administrators in the police and other administrative classes. This new breed
is interested in nothing beyond meretricious schemes for promoting its
career interests. They only think of more perks, creating new posts to
improve avenues of promotion and fighting for parity with other
services. Thoughts about how the schemes would affect the police structure
in the long run never bother these people. Newspapers carry report of
how promptly and actively regional and central IPS associations respond to all
the decisions touching their career. We never hear these associations taking
up any cause in matters purely professional- law and order, security or
crime investigation. The matters are left to the care of those down the line.

India is the land of spirituality. Love and pursuit of knowledge and higher
values are the essence of its nature. This foundation gives India a unique
character and inner strength unseen in the community of nations of the world
and makes it a world leader in spiritual life. The depth gained by this
commands other nations of the world to see India with awe and respect even
in the extant commercial ambience of the present world. Its great sons
like Gauthama Buddha, Mahavir, Ashoka and Mohandas Gandhi are unique
gifts of India to the world of sublime thoughts in practice. India could spawn
such gems because the mien of life here supported them and their ideals. This
was true upto the first half of the 20th century. What followed was an
apostasy from the radicate path.

In spite of well-known notorieties of the degenerates like A.R.Nizamuddin,

R.S.Chopra and other scoundrels of the similar ilk in Karnataka police, situation
is better there than some of the more notorious state police organizations of India.
Their core weakness there lies in sweepingly conforming to the rotten system and
bad culture against conscience to cover own tracks. It is mere cowardice of mediocrity
and gross selfish interests of ignobility and nothing more. Yet, no way can Karnataka
police be called as an efficient, healthy and responsible bureaucratic setup yet.

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