If you think that the genial Sardar who comes every day by the Patel Nagar chartered bus to work in the Ministry of Defence in South Block signifies the so-called civilian supremacy in India’s defence architecture, you could be way off the mark. Or did you think it is the dhoti clad Minister who is worried about the next elections, constituency problems, party responsibilities and starred questions in Parliament? You could be even further from the truth.
Typically the Indian government system works like this. We entrust a job to 5 guys. Then we appoint auditors, inspectors and accountants (totalling about 15 guys) to over see the work of the 5 guys. It is important that these 15 overseers have no domain knowledge of the “job at hand.” We believe that all the overseers need to be independent of any trappings of knowledge so that they are “free of prejudices”, can “bring a fresh perspective to the task” and “not be influenced” by the 5 guys. The 5 guys then start getting fidgety since they have a job to finish and there are 15 guys breathing down their necks. They think of several ways to pamper these 15 guys, thus losing sight of the job in hand. The 5 guys are tied down to a higher degree of accountability. The 15 guys constitute what is known as a wonderful scheme called “checks and balances” in government. The 15 guys then go on inspection visits, enjoy creature comforts like vehicles to ply them, guest houses to stay in; they write long reports, seek immediate answers etc etc all on government time and on the budget for the “job at hand”. In the end the job is not done. Long winded excuses are made and vetted by the 5+15 guys. Hence we have un-acquired weapons, overpaid staff, failed targets and unspent budgetary allocations. This may be an exaggeration but true insiders will swear that it is the truth. To top it all we have a hysterical media which has no clue of the actual malaise and media persons who have no time for real research. (Except for a few honourable exceptions)
We also have a general cynicism about indigenous defence production. The uniformed soldiers and the “overseer Babus” carry deep prejudices and general air of condescension towards indigenous capabilities. This is a country which is recognized world over for software skills and engineering capabilities. We never put a plan in place; we never firm up our requirements in time; we keep shifting goal posts for domestic producers (foreign producers are endowed with the ability to shift our goal posts); we never co-ordinate among diverse agencies and we brand our indigenous research and production agencies as white elephants without knowing under what circumstances they are tasked to deliver. While we flex our muscles to take on a global super power’s role, let us stop for a moment and ponder on one small truth. No superpower has got there by importing arms from others. All of them have bet on their indigenous capabilities and slowly built on their strengths. Unfortunately, we prefer to be in “elite” company….of countries like Pakistan, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia who have either aid dollars or oil dollars to spare and to import fancy toys for their defence forces. Fixing indigenous research and production ought to have been our first priority.
We, alas, have a permanent bureaucracy which doesn’t specialize in any field. We are rotated to various jobs; the regular bureaucrats from states acquire minimal domain knowledge in at least about 5 different fields in a career spanning 30 years or so. We add value to our bureaucrats; bureaucrats don’t add value to the system. This ossified system would have served its’ purpose in a gentler time in the 1940s and 50s, when the ICS had to take care of diverse fields. Today’s IT, Telecom, Civil Aviation or Defence need in-depth domain knowledge and cross-functional skills. We ought to think of appointing Professors in Computer Science as Joint Secretaries and Directors in IT Ministry on contract; Or Defence Research Scientists on a 5 year term as Joint Secretaries in Defence Acquisition. If the readers believe that I am ranting against IAS, please hold your horses. Even some of the finest IAS Officers who gathered excellent domain knowledge in Defence are laterally shifted to Textiles, Coal or Official Language implementation Ministry at the end of their careers- Thus leaving neither Defence nor the recipient department richer by their knowledge or experience. Hence we have Government Departments which have very little institutional memory or domain knowledge. The Sardar from Patel Nagar will be shifted to Finance Ministry soon and the IAS Officer who did a good job will go back to District administration. Maybe the time has come to think of infusing specialists with generalist skills; not the other way around. The time has come to think of a lot of lateral induction into bureaucracy; Or to think of setting up a specialist organization consisting of professionals from IT, Defence Research, production, finance, which is exclusively tasked with Defence Acquisition. This organization may then go on to consolidate past experiences and be accountable to the MoD.
On my maiden visit to the US on a Defence delegation, I was truly amazed to see the domain knowledge that their Defence Officials bring to their jobs. US are a country that believes in the spoils system or the “jobs for boys” system. In other words, after each change of administration, the new political leadership appoint their own men and women to crucial, senior positions in the administration including bureaucracy. Hence one would expect politicians to bring in ill-informed professionals to various jobs based on past associations and back slapping familiarity. Yet some of Bush’s important Defence bureaucrats were neither removed by Obama nor replaced by his own people. France has a system where the DGA France is manned by personnel who are experts from various spheres of Defence and have served in various capacities in the field, thus giving them a wide perspective.
The Army chief is giving vent to his frustration with the system. Aren’t we all? After having worked in the South Block, I stand firm in my belief. Between ill informed bureaucrats and short sighted uniformed service men, it is the politicians who come up smelling roses. They stood long hours in the sun and gave fiery speeches to get where they got. They are a microcosm of Indian society, warts and all. Why blame them? While salaried professionals like us who wrote difficult competitive exams are self serving to the point of putting the country’s interests in peril? We carve out roles for ourselves, impose illogical oversight systems, lose sight of results and generally strangle professionalism in Government. (Also read Awards and rewards, dated 22 August 2008 in this blog)
