A functioning state should not be seen

only at election time

An
election is an instance when we see our State apparatus at its best

Wednesday, 19 August 2015

The distinction between the state and the government is
not always clear. Strictly speaking, the government is
made up of elected politicians, and the state apparatus is
made up of bureaucrats with more or less tenured
appointments. Politicians make laws and policy and
bureaucrats implement. A healthy relationship between
the two is required for good governance.
The British TV series Yes, Prime Minister presents a
caricature of a clueless Prime Minister in the clutches of an
equally clueless but cunning bureaucracy. Obviously,
reality is more complex. What we have seen in Sri Lanka is
a slippage of the image of the bureaucrats from largerthan-life figures in the colonial days to kowtowing fools or
shameless rogues in recent times.
An election is an instance when we see our State

apparatus at its best. The interregnum between the dissolution of

Parliament and the returning of new members of Parliament gives the
Department of Elections a chance to shine. We were beginning to lose faith
even in that process when the previous Election Commissioner famously
admitted to immense stress that he underwent during the 2010 presidential
election.
The 2015 presidential election was a turning point in that regard, when the
new Election Commissioner not only handled the pressures well, but
declared that those who break the law deserve not just the stipulated
minimum force, but, a gun shot in the head, if needed. Between 27 June
and 17 August, with additional powers in his hands, the Election
Commissioner and his staff have rallied the police and other personnel to
deliver what has been the most peaceful election in our history.
Now that we have seen what our State can do, we need to ask why this
performance is not the norm. For that we need to understand how we got to
a place where a well-functioning state is seen as a novelty.
Glory days
During colonial times, the revenue agent
was the uncrowned King of his
jurisdiction. These officials were often
young men on their first posting after
their education at Oxford or Cambridge.
John DOyly, a Cambridge graduate, set
sail for Sri Lanka in 1801 at the age of
27. Holding the position of revenue agent
in Colombo, Matara and Kandy,
respectively, during his tenure, he quickly
learned the local language and customs,
befriended the Chiefs and engineered the
downfall of the King of Kandy in 1815.
A century later, Leonard Woolf received
his BA from the University of Oxford and
arrived in Sri Lanka in 1904 at age 24 to
serve as revenue agent in Jaffna. Woolf is
better known for his sympathetic
portrayal of the Sinhala peasantry in his
1913 book entitled Village in the Jungle.
HCP Bell was a contemporary of Woolf.
He carried out many significant
archaeological excavations from 1890 to
1912. The locals who succeeded the
expatriates too made their mark. For

example, Senarath Paranavithana, Bells successor, is still remembered with

respect and fondness.
A new generation of bureaucrats rose to prominence after Independence.
Many were products of the central school system. Leel Gunasekera who
entered civil service in 1957 wrote an acclaimed novel about villagers in
Anuradhapura, nearly 50 years after Woolf wrote about Hambantota.
Gunasekera was a part of a cadre of educated civil servants who were
sensitive to the constituencies they served. The civil servants or the chiefs
of local police stations were often the honoured guests at community
events such as the new-year festivals, school sports meets and prizegivings. These officials were treated as the equals or betters of
Parliamentarians or local councillors.
But, all was not well. Politicians felt development was impeded by overly
powerful and a slow moving bureaucracy.
Overcorrection
When J.R. Jayawardena, then Minister of State, appointed Ananda Tissa de
Alwis, an outsider, as the secretary to his ministry. De Alwis helped launch
the tourism industry, but this appointment opened the gates of the civil
service to political appointments.
The coalition-government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike came into power in
1970 promising, among other things, the establishment of Peoples
Committees as oversight bodies for State agencies. These committees were
discredited, but the idea that politicians can and should interfere with the
functioning of the State became entrenched.
The UNP Government of J.R. Jayewardene which assumed power in 1977
introduced the chit system, where a letter from an MP was required for a
government job. This made the State apparatus a patronage tool and
buried any remaining semblance of independence.
Rise of the rogue bureaucrat
The bureaucracy probably reached its nadir in the last five years. After
decades of brow-beating, our bureaucracy adapted to the environment and
did only what they were told, legal or not. Some filled their own pockets in
the process.
The chief accounting officer of a ministry or an agency is its chief
bureaucrat, not the minister in charge. Therefore, for every politician
accused of stealing there will a bureaucrat who would have complied. We
have seen only the tip of iceberg in financial improprieties by politicobureaucrat duos in the last administration.
Crimes of neglect too are emerging. As the Director General of the
Mahaweli Development Authority recently revealed, of the 4,685 farmers

settled in Mahaweli schemes in 1976, only 83 have received their deeds to

date! It was a simply a matter of typing up the information in a form and
placing the required signatures. But, they did not carry out this simple duty
causing the farmers hardship and grief. It is noteworthy that Maithripala
Sirisena was the Minster in charge of Mahaweli until 2010. Even he could
not get the bureaucrats to do their duty.
8 January as a turning point
The postal vote result is like the crack of whips before a procession. The
postal-voter base is largely made up of state employees who are on duty on
Election Day. On 8 January President Rajapaksa must have realised his fate
when he heard the postal vote from Jaffna, largely made up of Army
personnel, was 70% in Sirisenas favour.
In the final result, Sirisena received 51% of the postal votes. This is
significant because from 1988 onwards the UNP never received more than
40% of the postal vote, gaining only 20% in the 2010 general election. In
the 2015 general election just concluded this week, the UNP received 45%
of the postal vote while the UPFA received only 40%.
Future of the public service
Why did public servants decide to cast their votes against a friendly
incumbent in the presidential election of January 2015 and then again at
the general election of August 2015? Rajapaksa as President doubled the
size of public sector to 1.4 million and swore to protect those jobs at any
cost, yet the votes of the public sector swung against him in January and
stayed that way in August.
Are we seeing a sign of awakening in our State apparatus? Have our public
servants finally begun to learn from our Department of Elections about duty
and the dignity that comes from a duty well executed?
Posted by Thavam