Politics and Administration in South Asia : A Study of Politicization of Bureaucracy 9781536122978, 9781536123135

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ASIAN POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES

POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH ASIA A STUDY OF POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY

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ASIAN POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES

POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH ASIA A STUDY OF POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY

MUHAMMAD SAYADUR RAHMAN

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NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Any parts of this book based on government reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those parts to the extent applicable to compilations of such works. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book version of this book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: H%RRN

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

CONTENTS List of Tables

vii

Preface

ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Chapter 1

Introduction

1

Chapter 2

Politicization of Bureaucracy: The Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

13

Politicization of Bureaucracy in Comparative Perspectives

33

Politics and Administration in South Asia: Evolution, Structure and Process of Interaction

67

Politicization of Bureaucracy in Independent South Asia

91

Chapter3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 References

Politicization of Bureaucracy in Bangladesh: Exploring the Variables

125

Consequences of Politicization: Dismantled or Collapsed of the “Steel Frame”?

163 173

vi

Contents

About the Author

197

Index

199

LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1. Administrative ideas in the American political tradition

38

Table 3.2. Number of special advisers in the Blair government

50

Table 3.3. Distribution of strength of each corps in the Cabinets (percent)

54

Table 3.4. Professional background of Directors in Central Administration (percentage)

55

Table 3.5. Decision-making process in French government system

57

Table 3.6. Party membership of political civil servants and subdivision heads 1970-1987 (%)

60

Table 4.1. Spread of salary reported in Arthasastra

70

Table 4.2. Salaries of mansabdars as reported in the Ain-i-Akbari

72

Table 4.3. Composition of Indian civil service and the representation of Indians (1894-1943)

79

Table 4.3. (Continued).

80

Table 4.4. Educational background of European ICS Officers (number and percent)

81

Table 4.5. The ICS representation in the different levels of location in 1919 and 1938

82

viii

List of Tables

Table 5.1. Political parties and the Lok Sabha elections: 1951-2009

99

Table 5.2. Communal composition and cadre strength of ICS-IPS in Pakistan in 1947

100

Table 5.3. Total strengths of the CSP in Pakistan (including former ICS+CSP 1961-1971)

102

Table 5.4. Roles and functions of civil service in Nepal

120

Table 5.5. Number of civil servants by location

122

Table 6.1. Cadre strength of SSP, 1979

129

Table 6.2. Actual Strength of BCS cadres in top secretariat posts, June, 2013

130

Table 6.3. Trends of recruitment in Bangladesh civil service

136

Table 6.4. Quota reservation for the recruitment of BCS

137

Table 6.5. Classification of rating in ACR

141

Table 6.6. Criteria for promotion of the civil service in Bangladesh

141

Table 6.7. Anomalies caused in the promotion during BNP Regime (1991-1996)

144

Table 6.8. Political promotion and deprivation during BNP Regime (2002-2006)

146

Table 6.9. Number of sanctioned and actual posts of bureaucrats in different senior posts during AL regime (2009-2014)

147

Table 6.10. Number of surplus promotions in different time of AL regime (2009-2017)

148

Table 6.11. The OSD practice in different regimes of Bangladesh (1991- 2016)

152

Table 6.12. Demographic variables of the sample respondents

158

Table 6.13. Perception of the respondents about the civil service of Bangladesh

159

PREFACE South Asia has a longstanding tradition of bureaucratic organization. The traditional bureaucracy was “patrimonial” in nature and it worked under the king, where loyalty was valued more than professionalism. However, the traditional bureaucracy was replaced by the colonial ruler with the introduction of modern Weberian bureaucracy. The intention of the colonial ruler was to establish a “steel frame” of administration in South Asia. However, the bureaucratic performance and the political scenario of South Asia reveal that the “steel frame” has been collapsed for partisan involvement in course of time. In the last three/four decades, South Asian bureaucracy appears in the discussion because of its excessive politicization and breaking with its bureaucratic tradition. Moreover, a recent survey of World Bank has been ranked Indian bureaucracy as “moderately effective” and others South Asian bureaucracy (Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal) as “ineffective bureaucracy” among their three categories. On the other hand, politicians are also losing their political capacity of policy making and letting the political contract using the bureaucracy over the state and political affairs, and thus politicians are overly dependent on bureaucracy for managing the state affairs. As a result, an allied or collusion nature of relationship has been established in South Asia where politicians are more interested to impose political control over the civil bureaucracy by politicization. Therefore, this book traces the

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cause, nature and the impact of politicization of the bureaucracy in South Asia. This book is not merely a product of one or two years, but rather a collective effort of several years’ research and academic understanding. I was enriched with the idea of this book when I was pursuing my doctoral studies at Heidelberg University. While writing my doctoral dissertation, a huge amount of research was omitted during the editing process, and for that I grew anxious concerning the comprehensiveness of my work. However, my supervisor reminded me that “nothing is unimportant in life. Preserve the unincluded portions and save them for future publications.” I did so, and after returning home from Heidelberg, I committed myself intensively to accumulate new data and write more on politicization of South Asian bureaucracy. Lastly, I developed a book proposal that was accepted by Nova Science Publishers, and my additional research has finally come to fruition. I am deeply grateful to Nova for publishing this book. The project took more time than I anticipated. I had to extend the time of my manuscript submission several times. In this process, Carra Feagaiga helped me a lot and thus, I am grateful to her. I would like to acknowledge my debt by conveying my heartiest thanks and gratitude to the people who encouraged the writing of this book. In this regard, first of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the authors and writers from whom I have sited heavily. In the writing of this book, I took a lot of help from my teacher, colleagues and students. It is with great pleasure that I would like to acknowledge their assistance, especially Professor Shariff Enamul Kabir, Professor Nizam Ahmed and Professor Abdul Mannan, my departmental colleagues, Ahsan Abdullah, Abu Saif, and my MPA student, Panna Akter. I also owe special gratitude to Sonia Robinson for the editing of this book. Thanks are also due to my family. I am deeply grateful to my wife Rupali Akter (Rupa), an Associate Professor of Archaeology, Jahangirnagar University and my only son Rafeed, who had allotted extra time for me to write this book. This book is for them.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACR AL ASRC BCS BNP BPSC CA CAARC CAS CCS CSP DM DO DPA EC ENA HSC IAS ICS IRDP MCQ

Annual Confidential Report Awami League Administrative and Services Reorganization Committee Bangladesh Civil Service Bangladesh Nationalist Party Bangladesh Public Service Commission Chief Advisor Civil Administration and Restoration Committee Ceylon Administrative Service Ceylon Civil Service Civil Service of Pakistan District Magistrate District Officer District Political Authority Election Commission Ecole National d’Administration Higher Secondary Certificate Indian Administrative Service Indian Civil Service Integrated Rural Development Programme Multiple Choice Question

xii

Muhammad Sayadur Rahman MOF MOPA MP NPA NPC NPM OSD PC PMO PO PSC PSP SDO SES SLAS SP SSB SSC SSP TIB

Ministry of Finance Ministry of Public Administration Member of Parliament New Public Administration National Pay Commission New Public Management Officer on Special Duty Provincial Council Prime Minister’s Office President’s Order Public Service Commission Police Service of Pakistan Sub-Divisional Officer Senior Executive Service Sri Lanka Administrative Service Sanctioned Post Superior Selection Board Secondary School Certificate Senior Service Pool Transparency International Bangladesh

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION 1.1. LOCATING THE PUZZLES All over the world, bureaucracy has become a pre-requisite for modernization of every society, and it is an integral part of modern states. Contemporary regimes, regardless of their philosophy and character, practiced bureaucratic systems for the establishment of vibrant facilities and for the implementation of various programs of socioeconomic progress (Siddiqui, 2006). Thus, no government can disregard the significance of sustaining a proficient bureaucracy. It has emerged as a dominant feature of the contemporary world. Virtually everywhere in public or private organizations developed or developing nations bureaucratic structure are in a universal phenomenon (Ahmed, 2002). As most of the governments are engaged in nation building and bringing about socio-economic development, thus, bureaucracy can immensely contribute to development by serving as adviser, inventor, and decision-maker along with the elected politicians (Panday, 2012). So, politics and administration are inseparable entities in governance. However, the relationship between politics and administration is always paradoxical and debatable. According to the conventional wisdom (Wilson, 1887; Weber, 1947), the control of bureaucracy or administration by the established political order provides

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the framework of accountable governance, but the bureaucracy should be kept politically neutral and professionally competent, because bureaucratic involvement in partisan politics or politicization of bureaucracy leads to inefficiency in administration. As politicians and administrators both are driven by a politics of interests which has a serious impact on political institutions, particularly on the capacity of government (Suleiman, 2005). Thus, the discussions on political neutrality of bureaucracy, politicization of bureaucracy or political control over the bureaucracy, all are very important phenomena in the discourse of political science and public administration. Politically neutral and competent bureaucracy is indispensable to run the modern democratic state as “the modern democratic state was built upon the bureaucratic structure that undergirds this state” (Suleiman, 2005:7). However, in every societies, the bureaucracy is never unaffected by politics while there is a vast difference in bureaucratic politics, culture and traditions in between developed and developing societies, democratic and democratizing societies. Irrespective of the systems of government, politics has certainly encroached into the bureaucracy either openly or surreptitiously. Thus, the bureaucracy does not always stay out of politics. They involve in politics either by pressure or willingly to get more incentives. As a result, bureaucracy, politics of bureaucracy or politicization of bureaucracy are not new concepts to western and non-western societies. However, it is unavoidable fact that the bureaucracy is an instrument of governing but how this instrument should be used? How they should function – neutrally or politically? To whom they should be loyal and responsive? Why do the politicians look for partisan loyalties? And what are the consequences of partisan loyalty or politicization? These are the central questions that remain open to debate and thus this monograph seeks to address these questions in the context of South Asia in general and Bangladesh in particular reference.

Introduction

3

1.2. POLITICS AND PARTISAN ADMINISTRATION: SOUTH ASIAN PARADOX South Asia has a long standing tradition of bureaucratic organization. Historically, South Asia has been experienced with both the patrimonial and Weberian forms of bureaucracies. During the ancient and medieval periods, it experienced with patrimonial bureaucracy where king or Raja were the focal point of administration. On the other hand, during the colonial period, a Weberian model of bureaucracy was established by the imperial rulers, together with some other properties like elitism in orientation, training, closed complexion, policy parochialism, power, prestige, and political adventurism which was treated as “steel frame” in nature. Even in the first decade of independence, post-colonial South Asia experienced with that steel frame nature of bureaucracy. However, in the last three/four decades it appears in the discussion because of its excessive politicization of bureaucracy and breaking with its bureaucratic tradition. According to a recent survey of World Bank on Governance Matter on 209 states and political entities, Indian bureaucracy has been ranked as “moderately effective” and other South Asian bureaucracy (particularly, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal) has been ranked as “ineffective bureaucracy” among their three categories (World Bank, 2012). World Bank measured the Governance effectiveness by the bureaucratic performance. Bureaucratic performance is measured by the indicators of the quality of civil service and their policy formulation and implementation and the degree of its independence from political pressures. This World Bank Report exhibits overall a dismal performance of South Asian bureaucracy. Moreover, in the past several decades, the major claim made by the public perceptions that the bureaucracy in South Asia generally, and Bangladesh in particular has become overly politicized and inefficient. At the same time, complained against the South Asian bureaucracy that it has lost its glorious past of “steel frame” characteristic for attaining to the partisan politics. On the other hand, politicians are also losing their political capacity of policy making and letting the political

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contract using the bureaucracy over the state and political affairs, and thus politicians are overly dependent on bureaucracy for managing the state affairs. Therefore, an allied or collusion nature of relationship has been established in the realm of politics-bureaucracy relations in South Asia where politicians are more interested to impose political control over the civil bureaucracy by politicization. In this contextual background, two things are happening in the process of governance: politicians are looking for partisan loyalties in the bureaucracy to serve their particular political interest and it is noticeable in the every successive regime. And bureaucrats are also aligning with the politicians by distorting their political neutrality and competence. Consequently, a general argument is that South Asian bureaucracy or administration has been suffering seriously from this deep-rooted politicization, and therefore, this monograph exclusively deals with the relationship of politicians and bureaucrats in South Asia, particularly emphasizing the politicization of bureaucracy. South Asia comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, and Bhutan. These nations shared a common past up to the end of the British colonial rule (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). Among these South Asian states, at least four have experienced to share a common colonial legacy, which has profoundly influenced in the formation of political institutions of the South Asian countries. Thus, overall brief history about the nature of politics and the organizational development of the bureaucracy in South Asia during pre-colonial era to British India provides that during the pre-British period bureaucracy was under political control. But during the colonial period bureaucracy was like an agent – agent of British colonial ruler. They played to some extent political role as the Indian indigenous politicians were not still then fully grownup. Thus, the bureaucracy, not politics, was the institution that was already strong and well developed, and it has often assumed paternalistic attitudes towards indigenous politicians and citizens (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). However, the colonial bureaucracy played political role in favor of the British imperial rulers but they were not fully politicized. Rather they were politically neutral, elitists in their orientations and behavior, rigid in

Introduction

5

appearance, expert in policy formulation and implementation. Consequently, after independence of South Asia particularly, after formation of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and even Bangladesh, all these South Asian states adopted the colonial bureaucracy as a state apparatus to fulfill the political, economical, and developmental needs. In the first decade of independence, the relations between politics and bureaucracy were comparably complementary and mutual in South Asia. Formally, it was supposed to follow the Weberian Model of politics-administration dichotomy, and the principles of neutrality and impartiality, but it failed to do so in reality. In the post-independent era, South Asian bureaucracy has been increasingly becoming politicized over the years. Politicization of the bureaucracy is a very cruel reality in present South Asia. It is not just a single case rather politicization of the bureaucracy is a common problem that runs through all the bureaucracies in the region. The bureaucratic system has been involved in the political process for a long time in Bangladesh although it appears to be an innovation of the colonial rulers (Khan, 2015) because, Bangladesh was part of the British Empire for almost two hundred years until 1947 and then it was under Pakistani rule until 1971. Consequently, colonial and Pakistani imprints still persist in political and administrative arrangements of Bangladesh (Jahan and Shahan, 2008). The colonial tradition helped the bureaucracy to become an essential tool of governance and the Pakistani convention encouraged bureaucrats to get involved in power politics (Huque, 1997). Thus, politicization of bureaucracy started during colonial and Pakistani regimes but the trend acquired greater intensity in post-liberation days and posed a serious problem in the last three or four decades. Under the constitution, which provides for parliamentary system, bureaucracy must be made independent having its own chain of command. Under this system, political leaders will formulate policy and the bureaucracy will implement it. Clear distinction needs to be maintained between the two roles. They observed the country needs a more efficient bureaucracy in the 21st century to face the challenges of globalization. Bangladesh still lags behind in building a modern administration and it is not prepared to participate in global negotiations (The Daily Sun, March 3, 2012). Many

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opine that politicians are the masters, and thus bureaucracy must be subservient to a political government. It may be theoretically true but there must be a limit to the degree of interference by the politicians. They also regretted that in the recent past, bureaucrats were forced to attend political programmers at the behest of successive ruling parties. Sometimes, they even had to take seats on the dais, which is unprecedented even in the countries in South Asia (The Daily Sun, March 3, 2012). In recent years, it is claimed that the promotions and transfer in the civil service have seen more and more of a partisan approach, which are the main mechanisms of politicization in administration. Although according to the pure logic of public administration bureaucracy must be subservient to a political government, but there must be a limit to the degree of interference by the politicians over the bureaucrats. Of course, the political leaders must spell out what they expect from the bureaucracy but must not interfere in areas beyond their jurisdiction and to ensure this participation of efficient and learned individuals in mainstream politics is essential (The Daily Star, February 23, 2010). At the same time, many bureaucrats succumb to political pressure or indulge in partisan politics to hide their inefficiency and corruption. The politician leads them to become partisan to save their job and the bureaucrat makes them corrupt. All the successive regimes recruited civil servants but preferred particular batches recruited and provided partisan promotion during their period in office. As a result, bureaucracy in Bangladesh has been suffering from a moral crisis and they identified either as pro-Awami League or pro-BNP. This has caused tremendous harm to bureaucracy and divided them into separate camps. Eventually, it may cause a decline in the morale of the civil servants and reduce their efficiency and effectiveness. Thus, faulty and politicized recruitment may create a vicious cycle. All these events degrade the performance of the bureaucracy and finally make it dysfunctional (Jahan and Shahan, 2008). Over the few decades, the bureaucracy in Bangladesh is repeatedly affected with the issues of politicization, corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, lack of accountability and transparency and so on (Jahan, 2006). Since 1991, almost all the democratic governments politicized the civil service for serving their narrow political interests

Introduction

7

(Hasan, 2007). As a result, Bangladesh bureaucracy is in a complex network involving reciprocal favors and obligations and patron-client relationships between the politician and bureaucrats. These payoff benefits include promotion, posting and others. Therefore, this book aims to understand and explore the extent and nature of politicization of bureaucracy and its consequences in Bangladesh and overall in South Asia. In doing so, the study will be based on both theoretical and empirical findings.

1.3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS BOOK IN THE LITERATURE OF KNOWLEDGE The subject matter of this book has immense importance in the literature of knowledge because in many instances, South Asia has been and still is admittedly using as a fertile land of research in comparative politics and comparative public administration. As a post-colonial developing region and developmental administration, it has created enormous sense in development of administration research and incarcerates attention to the indigenous as well as overseas western scholars. Subsequently, since 1950s many western scholars have endeavored a theoretical field for analysis and cross-fertilization of their understanding in the case of South Asia. With a very few exceptions of their arguments, almost all researchers and observers of development administration provide a general prescription for the governance in this region. But these development literatures did not identify the modes of governance – how this region has been historically governing, indigenous contexts of governing, and the way and content of relationships between politics and administration – which lead to effective governance and development. Moreover, literature shows that an abundance of works and research findings proliferate revealing politicization of bureaucracy as a major problem in the theoretical perspective, but very few studies have been undertaken in the context of South Asia. Several studies have been

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conducted on bureaucracy in South Asia and Bangladesh focusing on administrative perspectives, service delivery mechanism, civil service system, and management of public service. But there is hardly any academic book which has been written aiming critical analysis about politicization of bureaucracy. Moreover, much of what has been written about Bangladesh and South Asia is superficially discussed towards particular viewpoints and perspectives. Jahan (2006) conducts research on public administration in Bangladesh; in focusing on governance process of administration and finds defective recruitment procedure and the politicization of the civil service which may be largely responsible for the lack of ‘good enough governance’. Jahan and Shahan (2008) study the vicious cycle of administrative politicization in Bangladesh and find that undue and extra-legal politicization in civil service may pollute the recruitment process by selecting non-qualified candidates in public office. But they did not consider other form of politicization like politicization in promotion, payoff benefits etc. Rahman (2002) studies politicization specially focusing on officers on special duty (OSD) as a form of politicization and concludes that many ‘eligible officials’ were dumped as officers on special duty (OSD) for years on political considerations without being assigned any duty, causing polarization in the administration. So it is an incomplete research for excluding other issues. Khan (2004) studies political and administrative corruption where he focused on patron-client relationship and found payoff benefits. But he provides a slanted discussion on politicization of bureaucracy and found that the bureaucracy of Bangladesh is now becoming inefficient and ineffective in the absence of professionalization, fairness and impartiality. He did not give any particular importance on politicization. Rahman (2002) provided an analysis on politico-administrative nexus and concluded after examination that the bureaucracy in Bangladesh is often alleged with inefficiency, corruption, nepotism, lack of accountability. He added that it is sometimes portrayed as a negative rather positive catalyst to development. But the analysis does not provide any clear view about politicization because of its vagueness, ambiguity and incompleteness.

Introduction

9

Therefore, it is noticeable fact that the number of research and academic work on politicization of bureaucracy is still fewer as well as the limitations around knowledge production are acute. Moreover, the findings of most of the works are unclear and fail to fulfill the academic needs. Besides, these works are conducted very much theoretically while ignoring empirical evidence as well as practical knowledge and experience. And they tried to address the question; what is politicization of bureaucracy and what are the forms of it? But they did not address some fundamental questions like what are consequences of politicization of bureaucracy and how it makes our bureaucracy dysfunctional? Therefore, this study explores politicization of bureaucracy in the context of Bangladesh, not only viewing the process and causes but also explaining its effects on administration. Particularly, emphasizing on politicization of bureaucracy during the democratic regimes and its impact on administrative functions. Thus, this study intends to conduct an intensive and in-depth investigation on politicization of bureaucracy in Bangladesh in light of the existing suffering problems of administration. This study will provide a real scenario of politicization of bureaucracy and will explore intensive inquiry about it and eventually will add an extra pace to the policy makers of the third world countries like Bangladesh to enhance the performance of our administration and thus promoting sustainable development. This research will help not only to enrich indigenous knowledge of politicization of bureaucracy in South Asia but also the findings of this study may guide the building or refinement of the theoretical understanding on politicization of bureaucracy. Finally, the research can provide further any better scope for in depth study in the future.

1.4. DATA SOURCE AND ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK This study mainly examines the extent and causes of politicization of bureaucracy in South Asia and its effects on administrative performance. However, collection of documental data on politicization of the bureaucracy from all South Asian country is difficult and time consuming.

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Thus, it explores some research questions with empirical evidence from the secondary data source particularly, in the context of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. However, data and information for the study has been collected from several secondary and primary sources in addressing this research question in the context of Bangladesh. To accomplish the authentic data specially, on the popular images of bureaucracy, survey method has been applied in this study by following a field survey based on semi-structured questionnaire. Using questionnaire for conducting social research is often regarded as an appropriate strategy when it is required to collect standardized data for a considerable amount of targeted respondents from many different locations (Babbie, 1995). Therefore, the study is conducted by the two sources of data; primary and secondary. Primary data was collected from the respondents through direct interview (two phases in 2015 and 2016) by using semi-structured questionnaire (mixture of closeended and open-ended). Total sample size was 700 including 20 expert surveys from the national and sub-national levels. Sample selection process was purposive and the respondents were included in consideration of their link with Local and central administration of Bangladesh. Secondary data and information were collected from the published books, journals, newspapers, reports of different organizations, articles and internet, which are related to the study. Many theoretical literatures have also been reviewed relating to the study. This monograph is organized into seven chapters. Following the introduction, second chapter deals with the theoretical and conceptual framework. The conceptual and theoretical framework in any social research spells out the methodological design of the research which is the guiding principles of the research. Thus, this chapter provides the definitions, descriptions and conceptual illustration on politicization of bureaucracy, theoretically and conceptually. Chapter 3 deals with politicization of bureaucracy in comparative perspective emphasizing the context and culture of politicization of bureaucracy in modern western bureaucracies with special reference to the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Germany and France. Chapter 4 explores the nature of politics and administration, its interface and the process of

Introduction

11

politicization of the bureaucracy in South Asia from historical perspective. It provides a comprehensive discussion on political and bureaucratic development in South Asia focusing the interaction pattern between political and administrative agents. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and the process of politicization of the bureaucracy in the context of independent South Asia. The interesting fact is that all the South Asian countries with colonial experience reintroduced the ICS tradition after its independence. And in the post-independent era, they worked on relatively cordial condition with the politicians to whom the ICS bureaucrats were very suppressive and they used to impose punishment those who support the nationalist movement. Chapter 6 explains the nature of politicization of bureaucracy in Bangladesh since independence to the present regime. Some indicators and variables are used to measure the process of politicization. These are the behavioral and institutional or structural process which includes; recruitment and selection, promotion and posting, distrust, deprivation and dismissal, and bureaucratic involvement in political decision making process. It also attempts to verify the findings from the secondary and contextual data by the practical field data. It explores basically the images of the civil service and the consequences of politicization of bureaucracy in Bangladesh on the basis of popular perceptions. Chapter 7 is the conclusion that summarizes the overall findings of the study. It tries to compile the overall consequences of politicization of bureaucracy in South Asia, and also provides the argument how this extreme politicization paves the way to dismantle or collapse of the steel frame gradually. The findings are grouped under several broad themes. The chapter concludes with a theoretical argument that whether the civil service in South Asia in general and Bangladesh in particular is dismantled or collapsed by this politicization. This theoretical argument can also be addressed by more rigorous research in future.

Chapter 2

POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY: THE THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 2.1. INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this chapter is to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for analyzing politicization of bureaucracy and its consequences. As the major purpose of this book is to examine the nature of politicization and its impacts on administrative functions thus a theoretical underpinning is indispensable for comprehending the roles of politicians and bureaucrats that they have performed in public policy and governance. Therefore, this chapter portrays with the theoretical understanding first of all, and then conceptualizes the term for operationalization. It develops, theoretical and analytical framework in order to explore why and how the bureaucracy is being politicized, what factors work behind politicization and what are the consequences of politicization.

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2.2. POLITICO-BUREAUCRATIC INTERACTIONS: THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK To build up a modern society, politicians and bureaucrats have been operating more or less separately. But simultaneously, it creates inevitable problem when the ruling politicians attempt to change the bureaucratic behavior by any means. Sometimes politicians “risk changing the bureaucratic instrument beyond anything that Weber might recognize as the indispensable complement to the modern state” (Suleiman, 2005:14). One of the risk changing attempts is politicization of the civil service or administration. Thus, the politicization of the civil service or bureaucracy has been the subject of considerable debate in western and nonwestern democracies for centuries. However, “there is no general theory or a major ‘paradigm’ of politicization but instead a series of limited theories that try to handle some of the variables and analyze the case of a few different countries” (Rouban, 2012: 380). Moreover, the academic discussions of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats as well as other related issues are extremely varied and contain competing and contending tendencies or approaches. There are many theoretical and conceptual connotations on politics-bureaucracy relations in public policy and governance, and politicization of the bureaucracy. A useful review of the kinds of relationships that can exist between politicians and bureaucrats is provided by Aberbach et al. (1981). They explore the shifting relationships between these policy actors over time. They identify four images: Image 1 – Policy/Administration, Image 2 – Facts/Interests, Image 3 – Energy/Equilibrium, and Image 4 – The Pure Hybrid Model in their explanation of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and their development of a view of the relationship that has contemporary relevance. This earliest and simplest description of the relationship between the politicians and bureaucrats endorses a clear separation of the two with a formal hierarchy of authority and strict division of labor. Bureaucrats administer and implement policy, while politicians set policy and make decisions. There is virtually no overlap of

Politicization of Bureaucracy

15

function or responsibility in this separation of administration and politics. This is the classical model which, according to Aberbach et al. (1981), is ‘unrealistic today and perhaps always was’. In their view program knowledge is important in the setting of policy directions and to the mediation of interest group relationships – therefore the role of administrators has become more political in the modern context. Highlevel bureaucrats have broader policy responsibilities while civil servants and politicians share responsibility across both dimensions (Aberbach and Rockman, 1993). Thus they explore the second model of relations and in this model, bureaucrats focus on the facts and technical aspects of the policy-making process while politicians focus on preferences and interests. Both participate in, and share responsibility for, policy-making but with distinctive contributions to the process. Politicians debate values and resolve conflicting interests, responsive to constituents. Bureaucrats are technical and efficiency experts, who evaluate the practicality of political decisions and advise on probable consequences (Aberbach et al. 1981; Aberbach and Rockman, 1993). However, the third model or image suggests that both politicians and bureaucrats engage in policy-making and both are concerned with politics. The important difference between the two groups is in the constituencies they serve. Politicians are seen to articulate broad and diffuse interests while bureaucrats mediate the more narrowly focused interests of organized clienteles. Politicians seek publicity, raise innovative issues and energize the policy system while bureaucrats manage incremental adjustments and provide policy equilibrium (Aberbach and Rockman, 1993). Both need distinctive and different political skills: bureaucrats are prudent, practical, moderate and risk-averse. On the other hand, politicians are more passionate, partisan, idealistic and ideological. As a result, politicians provide energy and bureaucrats try to intermesh with equilibrium in the public policy process. However, the previous three images reflect more or less an overlapping nature of the relationships between politicians and bureaucrats in their role and performance. Thus the roles and responsibilities of the two groups are acknowledged as overlapping to a great extent in the final consideration.

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Peters (1987) identifies five ideal-typical models of interaction on a continuum goes from the traditional Weberian separation and hierarchy to the ‘Administrative state’, in which bureaucrats dominate the policy process thanks to their expertise, making the role of political leaders marginal. In between both ends of the continuum there are the intermediate categories of ‘village life’, ‘functional village life’ and ‘adversarial politics’. In the village life model politicians and bureaucrats have similar values and goals, most important being preserving of government, smooth process of governance; functional model is similar to village life model, but the integration of the parties is developed through functional lines, the actors in a policy area, independent of their status, form a functional group that has little or no connections outside; in the conflict model administrators and politicians fight for domination in policy process (Siddiqui, 2006). We observed basically two approaches among the western scholars in conceptualizing the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. One approach or argument considers absolute control over the bureaucracy by the elected politicians in representative democracy by keeping the bureaucracy away from partisan politics. The advocates of this approach are Max Waber, Woodrow Wilson, Goodnow, Finer, Mosher and many more. According to this approach, the necessity to maintain political control by politicians over the bureaucracy and bureaucrats is indisputable, for the nonelected career bureaucrats, if not controlled, may pose a threat to political authority or democracy (Farazmand, 1997). This approach tends to promote a separation of politics from administration, leading to a dichotomous relationship between politicians and bureaucrats, the first being policy-makers and the second being policy implementers. Most of the proponents of this approach are found in the discipline of political science. This approach is also supported by the classical literature on bureaucracy with attention. Max Weber himself was ambivalent about the role of bureaucracy and expressed concern about the danger of “over towering” bureaucracy in society (Weber, 1958). Weber desired efficient, neutral-competent and developed bureaucracy by controlled political leadership. He advised politicians to “resist any effort on the part of the

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bureaucrats to gain control” and warned that a nation “which believes that the conduct of the state affairs is a matter of ‘administration’ and that ‘politics’ is nothing but the part-time occupation of amateurs or a secondary tusk of bureaucrats might as well forget about playing a role in world affairs’’ (Heady, 2001:426). Woodrow Wilson also proposed that administration should be separated from politics and policy concerns. At the core of the Wilsonian theory lays the argument that politics and administration belong to two different worlds, with one performing functions different from the other. Politicians will be broadly engaged in policymaking and administration will implement that policy (Wilson, 1887). In twentieth century, the Wilsonian ideas were popularized by Goodnow. The Wilson-Goodnow theory of politics-administration dichotomy got special intellectual fervor in the 1920s-1930. Thus, an orthodox model of relationship developed aiming “political ends and administrative means” which is mostly known as conventional wisdom. However, this classical dichotomy approach did not last long. The web was clear in the later part of 1930s that politics and administration could never be separated in any remotely fashion. This idea was initiated by Fritz Morstein Marx in his book Elements of Public administration (Henry, 1975:380). Since the 1940s this approach has been attracted, rejected and seemingly destroyed (Svara, 1985:221). Therefore, after the Second World War and the Era of Administrative Movement, this classical politicsbureaucracy dichotomy approach came under severe challenge and criticized by the many contemporary researchers and practitioners (Waldo, 1948, 1984, 1987; Appleby, 1949; Martin, 1952; Simon, 1957). Consequently, the classical view of politics-administration dichotomy was rejected by the criticizers and they emphasized on bureaucratic involvement in governance and in the policy making role instead of dichotomy and control, especially under the New Public Administration (NPA) doctrine. After the Second World War Paul Appleby, who made the first systematic attack on the stated model and argued that the participation of bureaucracy in policy making is normatively valid. To quote Appleby (1949:14) “in the field of government every kind and conception of value weighs on the political scale and only political processes produce a

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reading. Public Administration must contribute to the weighing, and to do that means to function politically” As a result, the second approach origins and makes the opposite point and reject the politics-bureaucracy dichotomy, arguing instead for a dual political as well as administrative role to the bureaucracy. This approach treats bureaucrats as integral parts of the policy process and governance in general. This approach emphasizes on mutual interaction between politics and administration by arguing that the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians is mixed and interactive, fluid and integrative, not dichotomous or hierarchical. According to this approach, bureaucrats and politicians should and must work together, and their relationship should be cooperative, not adversarial, to promote efficient and effective administration and governance (Farazmand, 1997). Riggs (1963), LaPalombara (1963), Self (1972) are also best known spokesmen of this approach. However, irrespective of the systems of governance in the last four decades, the process of politicization of bureaucracy and bureaucratization of politics in administration has been significantly speeded up. Moreover, the increased fusion of the political and administrative roles of the bureaucracy has complicated the relations between politicians and bureaucrats. Consequently, bureaucracy has become a dominant institution, although the efficiency, policy expertise and organizational supremacy have been degraded. As a result, many NPM and emerging thinkers (Hood, 1991; Osborne and Gaebler, 1992; Carroll, 1995; Montjoy and Watson, 1995; Svara, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2006; Overeem, 2005, 2006; Demir and Nyhan, 2008) have been trying to re-conceptualizing the roles and relations between politicians and bureaucrats emphasizing the concept of neutral competence of bureaucracy. Although the New Public Management (NPM) seeks more efficient management of state affairs following the principle of market oriented nature of relationships between state and citizens but it emphasizes not politicizing the bureaucracy and being politically neutral (Suleiman, 2005). Therefore, the “complementarity model” of relationship has been prevailing in the present context of politics-bureaucracy relations without affecting the political neutrality of bureaucracy. According to Svara (2001:179) “the complementarity model

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of politics and administration is based on the premise that elected officials and administrators join together in the common pursuit of sound governance. Complementarity entails separate parts, but parts that come together in a mutually supportive way.” Therefore, whatever the theoretical argument is in the literature on political-bureaucratic interactions, political neutrality is must for comprehensive governance. However, the above two theoretical perspectives explain the two meanings of bureaucratic neutrality. One is the Weberian “ideal-type” concept of bureaucracy as the most efficient type of organization based on formal, merit, and rational characteristics. The second meaning of bureaucracy refers to any large organization or institution organized with structure, process, and normative values, rules, and regulations as well as a mix of merit and patronage and record systems (Farazmand 2009, 2010). In reality, an ideal-type of bureaucracy rarely exists – approximation or a combination of merit and patronage is what really operates, because most of the governments seek commitment, loyalty, and support for their policies from the bureaucracy. As such, politicization of bureaucracy or political control over the bureaucracy is practiced all over the world. By capitalizing this tendency among the politicians, bureaucracy is also participating in power politics for personal and political purposes. As a result, the concept of politicization of bureaucracy is persisted in the context although the term politicization is not new as a method of political control over the bureaucracy. The US Constitution vests the President with extraordinary powers to appoint political executives, which Moe (1985a) termed presidential politicization of bureaucracy. As a result, more or less every president emphasizes to appoint political appointees as ‘chief executive’ with a clearly defined separation/subordinate relationship between political executives and the career bureaucrats (Ingraham et al. 1995; Moynihan and Roberts, 2010). Many observers and thinkers of bureaucracy in developing countries (LaPalombara, 1963; Riggs, 1963, 1964, 1969; Huntington, 1968) have noticed behavioral aberration reflecting societal culture of the developing countries studied and argued maintaining firm political control over the bureaucracy is essential for

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nation building and achieving national developmental goals for developing nations. Thus a rationalist perspective of politicization of bureaucracy exists in the context of governance. Notwithstanding its increased political role, the western bureaucracy still remains structurally subordinate to politics but the political involvement of the bureaucracy in many third world countries appear to be exceptionally high along with politicization. At the same time, most of the discussion of public administration for the past several decades has been focused on political control over the bureaucracy and administrative reform claiming that public bureaucracies are the major barriers to policy change especially on the ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) that has emphasized the importance of effective management in controlling public programs and services. In this connection, may be an affordable and profitable level of politicization can play a pivotal role in fostering the democratization process (Rouban 2012; Carino, 2001). Therefore, politicization is discernible fact in the discussion on politicsbureaucracy relations and their roles and responsibilities irrespective of developed and developing countries. However, the fact is that if politicization refers to such a situation where appointment, transfer, promotion and other career decisions of bureaucrats are dependent on political biasness and the will of the political masters and bureaucrats are involved in politics for achieving such a particular aims and goals then it creates interaction problem between politicians and bureaucrats. Thus, we need to conceptualize the term politicization more intensively.

2.3. POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The increased politicization of bureaucracy is one of the truisms of contemporary government in the developed and developing democracies. Many scholars, journalists, and politicians are quite certain that politicization exists in the systems of government, but the exact meaning of

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the term politicization is often not specified (Peters and Pierre, 2004). The term politicization is considerably more complicated and more argumentative. Politicization refers to a number of different but interrelated phenomena. Suleiman (2005:213) says, “This (politicization) is a process that is not always easy to define, but when it occurs it is difficult to miss. In some countries, it involves civil servants injecting themselves into the political arena. In others, it involves increasing the number of appointments from outsider the civil service. In still others, it involves massive turnovers in administrative personnel with changes in party government. Bureaucratic politicization has even found a new rationale, which has led to a redefinition of the concept of responsiveness.” On the other hand, Rouban (2012) discusses politicization of bureaucracy using three interconnected variables, such as the participation of the bureaucrats in the political decision making process, partisan control over the bureaucracy, and political involvement or activities by the civil servants. Some others are more interested to see the notion of politicization as structural adjustment or influence by the politicians over the bureaucracy (Dahlstrom, 2012; Whitford, 2012). Clifford and Wright (1997) define politicization in two ways: an increase in political activity is undertaken by the bureaucrats and increased political control by the government over bureaucrats. However, Peters and Pierre (2004:2) define politicization of bureaucracy more clearly, and they mention that “by politicization of the civil service we mean the substitution of political criteria for merit-based criteria in the selection, retention, promotion, rewards, and disciplining of members of the public service.” Consequently, the term politicization can be discussed or conceptualized by using three questions; why politicization happens or the causes of politicization in the administrative systems? What are the processes or mechanisms of politicization? And what are the consequences of politicization?

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2.3.1. Why Politicization? Or the Causes of Politicization We frequently use the term politicization in many cases. So before we begin to try to measure the phenomenon of politicization we should first attempt to define it. Politicization refers to make something or someone political, or more involved in political matters. That means if we politicize someone or something, we make them more interested in politics or more involved with politics. Accusations of “politicization,” generally refer to a dysfunction in which actions or decisions relating to technical or “nonpolitical” matters are influenced by “political” considerations unrelated to the agreed purposes of the organization (Brown, 1992). In other words politicization is a normal commercial activity between enterprises and should not fall victim to political interference. This definition of politicization implies that there is no single reason or way of achieving politicization. There are many reasons for politicization of the bureaucracy. Peters (1995) and (Self, 1972) note that in the contemporary world, one of the pressing problems in governance concerns the politicization of the public bureaucracy and its effect on administrative performance. They added that politicization can occur at different levels of the administrative structure, relates to (1) intergroup or interagency discord and competition for greater power and influence over the administrative system and civil service management (2) the partisan interference of the political executive in administrative procedures and career practices (recruitment, promotion) either to augment political control or to secure the bureaucracy’s compliance and commitment to its policies and programs. Riggs (1969) observation is that a partisan bureaucrat can use legitimate authority and exercise discretion to favor party supporters in obtaining benefits from the administration. Stahlberg (1987) examines that such a strategy may, however, induce conflicts between career civil servants and political appointees and serve as a catalyst for bureaucratic politics. Political interference may also influence the promotion of officials to higher positions; party political considerations then become more important than merit criteria. Bureaucrats are just interested in maximizing their own self-interest rather than the public interest hence; the self-serving

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tendencies of bureaucrats rarely permit them to contest the increasing politicization of state apparatuses. Rogger (2014) found that politicians facing high levels of political competition are more likely to delegate the implementation of public projects in their constituency to more autonomous organizations; and provide informal incentives to bureaucrats in those organizations. Thus, whatever the systems of government, politicization always impose to fulfill the needs of the politicians for the following reasons. First, politicians try to justify their activities on the basis of a particular political philosophy and thus they provide a very strong argument in favor of their conceived political program on the basis of that philosophy. In addition, sometimes a particular theoretical argument or reform agenda improvises politicization. Like the conventional politicsadministration dichotomy and NPM have been sought to a limited or affordable level of politicization for the betterment of public service delivery. Second, there are three interrelated phenomena in the context of politicization, namely, political intervention, political interference and politicization. Politicians including some theorists believe that political intervention or interference is not illogical in the disposal of the day-to-day business of ministers and bureaucrats for the balanced decision (Prasad, 2006). Thus, in all democracies, politicians use this aura of legitimacy as a philosophical ground for politicization. Third, the political parties who are in state power always want to hold control over the policy and political institutions. As public policy, according to Dyeis, whatever a government chooses to do or not to do, thus it is obviously difficult for a government to claim monopoly control over the policy process without controlling bureaucratic agents in the state (Ahmed, 2016). Although according the to the conventional view, in developed democracies, politicians are legitimate actors of policy making and bureaucrats are the implementers, however, the situation in developing countries is somewhat different. The bureaucracy traditionally enjoyed an edge over politicians in the making and implementation of public policies (Ahmed, 2016). Thus, ruling politicians attempt to control over the policy process by politicizing the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats are being

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politicized by political pressure in the same way. Fourth, politicians are elected representatives and they are the agents of democratic criteria. On the other hand, bureaucrats are non-elected and they are the agent of merit based career values. Thus, according to the view of politicians, political criteria may be more important for ensuring democratic values in governing than the conventional merit values (Peters and Pierre, 2004). In addition, the usual complaint against the bureaucracy is that the decisions taken by the politicians are not properly implemented in the execution levels. If the bureaucracy is loyal or partisan then politicians may implement their political priorities easily and thus politicization occurs in the administration. Fifth, there has been interaction between accountability and politicization (Peters and Pierre, 2004). According to the old convention, the ministers are responsible for everything within their ministry. This traditional norms and values of accountability is changing and parliaments are questioning ministers and as well as the civil servants publicly about their decisions. Thus, a concept of joint accountability persists in the context of governing. Because, bureau-political blame game or allocation of blame concerning the accountability can become a major concern for public officials where both the actors attempt to minimize their political risk. “This, in turn, may accentuate the drive on the part of the politicians to add more loyalists to the organizations” (Peters and Pierre, 2004: 8). Sixth, the close connection of various social and economic interest groups with politicians and bureaucrats paves the way to partisan administration. In many developed and developing countries, both the politicians and bureaucrats try to provide extra and to some extent illegal benefit to their individual client by using political stand to maintain their corporatist relationship. This is one of the major cases of politicization of bureaucracy, particularly in South Asia. Seventh, politicization of the civil service occurs to win the parliamentary elections also. In many cases of South Asia and particularly in Bangladesh, Election Commission (EC) is formed by the retired civil and military bureaucracy. This election commission controls the civil administration during the election and they play a very vital role during the parliamentary elections. Thus, every incumbent government tries to control

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over the civil and military bureaucracies to win the election. Finally, bureaucratic politics is largely responsible for the politicization of the civil service. It happens mostly in the context of developing countries like South Asia. When a political regime changes and new regime comes to the political power then the bureaucrats themselves self-motivatedly inspire the politicians to politicize administration by coloring and proving the counterpart bureaucrats as the man of opposite ideology by saying that “they are not our man”. This critical nature of bureaucratic politics in South Asian countries inspires politicians to politicize the civil service for establishing their partisan ideology in the bureaucracy.

2.3.2. The Process or Mechanisms of Politicization Politicization denotes a process as also a product that has far- reaching social and political consequences accordingly (Prasad, 2006). Similarly, Sausman and Locke (2004:101) conceptualize politicization as process of “changing relationships, changing behaviours, changing structures.” Thus, the question always comes that, as a process what mechanisms politicization has? To explore the process or mechanisms for politicization I will consider first the three dimensional definition of Rouban (2012) to identify the tools or mechanisms of politicization of bureaucracy. First of all, politicization can be seen as the process of bureaucratic participation in the public policy and political decision making. The way policies are made and implemented has implications for politics-bureaucracy relations. Usually, many actors are involved in the policy and political decision making process. Among them politicians and bureaucrats are the major two actors of public policy and political decisions irrespective of developed and developing countries, although according to the classical view, the separation principles of political and bureaucratic role in the policy process are considerable. This is in fact based on the well-recognized politics-administration dichotomy, also regarded as the founding theory of public administration. The dichotomy model proposes for a clear distinction between politics and

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administration, where policy decisions are supposed to be made by the elected representatives and bureaucracy would simply implement the policy decisions. From this dimension, politicization occurs when the civil servants are vested with the responsibility to carry out political decision, adopt them and explain them. In this sense, bureaucrats are political and their works are in political nature (Peters and Pierre, 2004; Rouban, 2012). However, although one can notice some kind of congruence of political and bureaucratic influence in the policy process but these two actors do not approach public policy in the similar ways (Ahmed, 2016). “Bureaucrats are the more stable and conservative elite; they tend to maintain equilibrium in the policy environment. Politicians, on the other hand, are more ‘risk taking’; they tend to inject energy and initiative in the policy process” (Aberbach et al. 1981: 203). Thus, the join bencher of public policy is constitutionally considerable in the context of western democracies. However, the situation is different in the context of developing countries where the bureaucracy is the only technically expertise apparatus for the governments. Therefore, the process of politicization of bureaucracy can be viewed depending on the relative policy strength of the politicians and the bureaucrats, and their assumed social role (Rouban, 2012; Carino, 2001). Politicization in the case of South Asia leads to a blending of powers. Politicization may also mean in the context of developing countries that public servants begin to take on tasks that might have been considered to be political by their political master. The contextual variables or evidence reveal that ministers find it increasingly difficult to separate their political roles from their governmental roles, and require civil servants to perform political tasks that might be better performed by political aides, or by political party personnel (Peters and Pierre, 2004). Thus, the second meaning and process of politicization of bureaucracy is persisted in the context; politicization as partisan control over the bureaucracy. The second dimension of politicization refers that by this process bureaucrats are being partisan loyalties to manifest the activities of public servants, and their career is more dependent on political than

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professional norms. Of course, the nature of the political criteria being employed may vary depending on case to case when the public service is being politicized (Peters and Pierre, 2004). In this sense, politicization generally refers to a situation where appointment, transfer, promotion and other career decisions of civil servants are dependent on the will of their political masters. In different countries, the application of this principle has resulted in two extreme situations. At one extent, in many developed democracies, partisan appointment at the key strategic position of the government is considered a normal phenomenon and accepted by the constitutional process. Like the “spoil system” and the partisan appointment in the top positions are constitutionally legal and legitimate in the context of the United States. This practice has often been deemed as beneficial as it would allow the executive branch to practice some means of control over policy decisions (Rouban, 2012). However, the situation in developing countries like South Asia is different. There is no constitutional option for politicization of the civil service by creating political position. Thus, the incumbent government tries to politicize bureaucracy by imposing political ideology of their respective political parties to the bureaucrats when they form the government after winning the election. This process of politicization inspires bureaucracy to be involved in partisan politics. Therefore, the third meaning of politicization – politicization as political involvement is persisted in the context or process of politicization. “In this sense, politicization refers to the degree of civil servant’s political involvement as citizens and voters” (Rouban, 2012: 389). Although there are many examples of the bureaucratic involvement in politics in different countries like, France, Germany and Spain. Nonetheless, almost all civil service systems have some level of political involvement in personnel matters that is considered appropriate. There are a large number of appointed officials in the American bureaucracy that are manifestly political and those appointments have been available to presidents and cabinet secretaries for decades. Likewise the "political civil servants" in Germany have a known party affiliation but the administrative system provides means of permitting that political involvement, while at the same

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time maintaining the merit basis of their initial appointment (Derlien, 1985). In this respect, Peters and Pierre (2004: 2), observation is very interesting and that “the public service is inherently a political creation, and also inherently involved in politics, simply because it is the structure that delivers services ….. to the citizens – it plays a role in determining who gets what from the public sector.” They further said that “however, the pattern of political development has been to shield the civil service from overt political control in order to enhance its efficiency and to ensure its fairness in dealing with citizens.” The final consideration arising from this definition of politicization is that in some ways political criteria may be more important for ensuring democratic values in governing than are conventional merit values. One standard critique (Peters cited in Rose, 1976) of conventional bureaucracies is that the permanent, career public service is not sufficiently responsive to changes in the priorities of their political leadership. They are argued to persist in their own conceptions of appropriate policies, regardless of what their ministers want. Replacing those permanent employees with more responsive, if politicized, public employees may actually improve the correspondence between electoral results and policies (Peters, 2000). Moreover, in some countries of South Asia, i.e., India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, bureaucracies are over developed, and they play political role from the colonial time. They are serving the nation for a long lime than political leaderships. This is why this post-colonial states and even though their colonizer Britain relies to some extends on “responsive competence” rather than the “neutral competence” following the behavioral and structural or institutional process of politicization. Consequently, two processes of politicization can be identified in broader sense and these are behavioral and structural. The process of behavioral politicization refers to the control of politicians over the behavior of the bureaucrats. On the other hand, institutional or structural politicization denotes the control of politicians over the institutions (Khan, 2015). The behavioral strategy that follows by the politicians is less expensive. This strategy is applied to change the behavior and culture of the civil servants by imposing the partisan ideology those are already in the

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strategic positions. This strategy can be seen in Thatcher and Tony Blair’s regimes in Britain, and most of the cases in South Asia. Theoretically a major hallmark of modern bureaucracy is its political neutrality. According to Weberian philosophy, bureaucrats will be neutral competent and they will simply implement the order of the superior political authorities. However, the Weberian doctrine disappears in many western and nonwestern democracies because of the behavioral politicization. On the other hand, Whitford (2012) discusses the relations between politics and administration on the basis of structural aspects and suggests that structure is a bridge between politics and administration. The structure of the administration is merely a product of political struggle, and the creation of public service is a political work. Public administration is political institution. So, as legitimate agent, politicians can change the political structure. In this respect, Dahlstorm (2012: 362) observation is that “All means of political control should, however, be understood against the backdrop of the constitutional legitimacy for the political institutions, such as the parliament and the government, in the relation to the public administration.” For this constitutional legitimacy of political actors, they can influence or control the career means of administration. In additions, structural politicization happens in the process that when the new regime takes over the political power then they think that they might be confronted by a cadre of public servants or by the established structure of the previous regime who are committed to a certain way of doing things (Peters and Pierre, 2004). Then politicization can also be manifested by the structural changes. Recruitment, promotion and posting, de-professionalism, distrust and dismissal are major mechanisms of the structural or institutional politicization.

2.3.3. The Consequences of Politicization Whatever the systems of government, the value of professional and neutral competent bureaucracy is recognized by the founding theorists of the bureaucracy. Simultaneously, the need to exercise political control over

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the bureaucracy has also appeared as political reality in many democracies (Suleiman, 2005). Thus, the process of politicization of the civil service finds no clear justification. On the other hand, the clear and strong arguments in favor of a professional and neutral competent bureaucracy are always existed in the context of politics-administration relations. Nonetheless, politicization of bureaucracy is being held to increase the power of the politicians which is unfortunate for neutral competent bureaucracy. Although politicians want to place a huge logical argument in favor of politicization in the pursuance of their effective role in governance but the consequences of politicization in most of the cases are assumed to be negative. Politicization is a process by which administration is used to consolidate leader centric political authority. Thus, politicization is damaging to administration both as process and as a product (Prasad, 2006). When the neutral competent bureaucracy is replaced by the partisan bureaucracy then it results adverse consequences to the bureaucratic organization. First of all, the prime adverse consequence of politicization of bureaucracy is; it creates lack of neutral competency in bureaucracy. It is assumed that a political criterion is less competent than merit criteria. Moreover, the neutrality of the civil servants, especially at the highest levels of policy making and program formulation, coordination and implementation, is considered an important value of the bureaucracy. Politicization dismantles this value in bureaucracy. In addition, “there is also no evidence that politicization increases impartiality in implementation and regulation by the bureaucracy” (Suleiman, 2005: 218). Second, politicization of the civil service is more or less responsible for declining bureaucratic competence and thus leads to inefficiency in administration. Third, politicization leads grouping and dissatisfaction in the administration as it provides the scope of less competent to the senior posts. Fourth, politicization of the civil service creates the scope of bureaucratic politics that is highly detrimental to bureaucratic hierarchy. Fifth, politicization leads to lack of accountability as the two actors both politicians and bureaucrats try to work with closer allies. Sixth, it offers protection to the lazy and the corrupt in administration and thus leads political and bureaucratic corruption in the pursuance of governance.

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Therefore, in this monograph, we will consider both the behavioral and institutional process of politicization as operational framework along with its negative consequences on the administrative performance to pigeonhole the South Asian case.

CONCLUSION The prior discussion of this chapter provides conceptual foundations of key variables and theoretical framework to analyze politicization of bureaucracy in South Asia and Bangladesh. The discussion shows that scholars have attempted to describe the boundary between politics and administration with different models from different perspectives and thus we find different models of relationships between politicians and bureaucrats. The advocators of dichotomy model proposed a clear distinction between politics and administration where the supporters of mutual interaction model argued that a clear-cut separation is neither possible nor wise. Thus, they proposed a mutually interactive approach. Similarly, the discussion on politicization of the bureaucracy reveals that it has been appearing to increase attention in the discussion and writings of many academics and even practitioners in the last three decades throughout the world. This academic discussion reveals that diverse causes and processes are involved in bureaucratic politicization. Several welldeveloped bodies of literature have directed extensive attention to this theme and indicated some of the subtle ways bureaucracy and its discretionary decision making can influence the results of public programs. But a mutually exclusive explanation is rear in the literature. Therefore, it is very difficult to identify the variables that may influence the politicization of bureaucracy. However, there are some important similarities in their tendencies among the governments to control over the bureaucracy by the process of politicization. In general, politicization of the civil service makes the politicians responsive to the citizens but at the same time too much politicization can reduce bureaucratic as well as government competence. Nonetheless, the causes and contexts of

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politicization may vary depending on regional and individual case. Because, politicization may have a very different meaning from one country to another and it can be measured on a very unequal scale (Rouban, 2012). Moreover, in spite of many negative consequences of politicization of bureaucracy, the sensitivity to politicization can vary across countries and over time depending to a number of important factors. Thus, the analysis of cross-countries experiences of politicization in a comparative context is more important. This initiative has been endeavored in the next chapter.

Chapter3

POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES 3.1. INTRODUCTION In the framing of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in previous chapter, we observe a good deal of variation in the context of administrative system and in the degree of politicization. Thus, this chapter includes the analysis of politics-bureaucracy relations and politicization of the civil service from comparative perspectives with three sub-sections. In the first sub-section, I deal with politics-bureaucracy relations and politicization in ancient societies: it includes the analysis with the administration of great empires and civilizations namely Persian, Egyptian, Chinese, Roman, and Indian civilization. In the second, politicization in western democracies: here attention and case focuses in the context of USA, UK, France and Germany and thirdly, politics-bureaucracy relations and politicization in developing world perspectives. This comparison will provide a comprehensive understanding of politicization in different countries and also will provide the framework to analyze Bangladesh in particular.

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3.2. POLITICS AND BUREAUCRACY IN ANCIENT SOCIETIES The history of bureaucratic role in governance along with political leadership is very old. Although the term ‘bureaucracy’ was not coined and popularized until eighteen century but the concept of bureaucracy based rule and administration is much older. Perhaps, bureaucracy is one of the most enduring institutions of governance and administration that has survived several millennia (Farazmand, 2010). As an ancient institution of government and administration, bureaucracy has its root in the deep past. The existence of ancient bureaucracy can be found in the administration of great Empires and civilizations namely Persian, Egyptian, Chinese, Roman, Prussian and Indian civilization (Beyer, 1959; Farazmand, 2009). The Persian bureaucracy was the pioneering amongst the ancient bureaucracy. The earliest origin of Persian bureaucracy dates back to about 10,000 years beginning in ancient Susa and Sumer (which was ancient civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia and Babylonian) where an emergent class of scribers administered the harvest and allocated its spoils (Farazmand, 2009:2-3). The bureaucracy of the Persian Empire was a formidable institution of administration and governance with high expertise and prestige under the political control of the king or Emperor (Farazmand, 2009a). The bureaucracy in Egypt records go back as far as the fourth millennium B. C. At this time Egypt’s government was best dynamic and bold in action and sophisticated in administration (Beyer, 1959). The Egyptian old Empire was essentially a unitary administrative system with the head of the king or Pharaoh. Theoretically, the king was a god as well as a political ruler, and all powers (legislative, executive and judicial) were vested in him (Beyer, 1959). All members of the bureaucracy were fulltime and paid employees with training and its own promotion ladder. There was a hierarchal system of bureaucracy under the king. That means bureaucracy was then a technical and political apparatus under the political control. Roman imperial bureaucracy was also developed. It was structured with class lines. Roman bureaucracy was divided into three distinct divisions; upper division, intermediate division and lower division (Beyer, 1959).

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They were appointed by the Emperor and served during his pleasure. An outstanding example of a traditional bureaucratic system was imperial China (Wittfoget, 1957). Chinese imperial bureaucracy was a great impression of bureaucratic structure with fixed role before thousands years ago. Chinese imperial government used to recruit talented persons as a bureaucrat for life time of service within the bureaucratic ranks (Herson, 1957). In China, the bureaucratic system has been in the place since, at least 200 BC, and has played a crucial role in the preservation of the empire (Das, 2013). Chinese imperial bureaucracy enjoyed the discretion of policy-making along with the provision of loyalty to the administrative system. Their functional spirit was the ideals and ethics, and the responsibilities to the greater society as well, not only to the imperial government. But they used to work in an organized system of centralized direction and control of political leadership. As a result, the Chinese imperial bureaucracy was turned into an aristocracy of educated scholarofficials into supporting a centralized monarchy and the idea of a centralized state by following the Confucian thought (Subramaniam, 2009:59). Herson (1957:45-48) observed that the imperial civil service operated their function in a mixture of governmental absolutism and freedom from restraint. The Emperor acted almost exclusively upon the advice of the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy was merit based, nonbiased, truthful, and competent. Especially during the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) and Han Dynasty (202 BC- 220 AD). They also exercised discretion within the boundary of imperial policy. Policy decision making was in upward approach – decisions made in the provinces to emperor and his councils. Tax collection, protection of empire, law and order and welfare activities were the major functions of imperial Chinese bureaucracy. Like China, the Indian subcontinent had a long and rich bureaucratic administrative experience before being colonized (Caiden, 2013). The Indian legacy of bureaucracy has made a widespread contribution to modern public administration in the third world, mainly through the agency of the British Empire (Subramaniam, 2009). A strong legacy of bureaucracy in the ancient empire of the Indian subcontinent can be recorded during the Mauryan Empire. The structure and process of ancient

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Indian bureaucracy can be traced from the famous contemporary work Kautilya’s Arthastra (Sastry, 1967). This source of Indian imperial bureaucracy exhibits the details of its administration, roles and functions of bureaucracy and the relationships between politics and administration. The administrative structure of the imperial administration was of three tires: Minister (Mantrin or Mahamatra), a council of Minister (Mantri Parishad) and Civil Servant or Bureaucracy (Amatyas or Sachivas) in a clear hierarchy and they were under the great Empire (Subramaniam, 2009). The qualifications necessary in order to be appointed as a civil servant were: loyalty and integrity to the king or emperor. On the whole, During the Mauryan Empire, there was an elaborate system of bureaucracy and an array of offices, stretching from villages to the central departments manned by bureaucrats with specific duties and responsibilities (Das, 2013:5). This system was continued in the Delhi Sultanate and until Mughal Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the Sultanate period, the bureaucrats were also selected on the basis of their loyalty to the ruler and they were given land grants for rendering their services, and they also exercised political, judicial and administrative powers. The Mughal rulers also followed the administrative system of Sultanate. But they controlled the bureaucracy by giving them land on temporary basis and by transferring the civil servants from one place to another very frequently (Das, 2013). The bureaucrats, who were engaged in Mughal administration exploited and oppressed the people to satisfy their master. As a result, it was declined by anarchy when the British East India Company began its business in the Indian Subcontinent. That initiated another history of Indian bureaucracy which will be discussed in the next chapter. To sum up from the above analysis, it reveals that there was a similarity among the bureaucracy of the ancient empires irrespective of the regions, and bureaucracy was an instrument and assisting force to the political leadership as Riggs (2009:86) comments “there are no doubts that originally rulers created bureaucracies to serve them as instruments of administration to implement their policies.” In those early civilizations, bureaucracy was considered “as a state apparatus” and overall they were

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involved in law and order maintenance, policy implementation of developmental and monumental works (Farazmand, 2009).

3.3. POLITICS AND BUREAUCRACY IN MODERN WESTERN DEMOCRACIES This section includes the analysis of politicization of bureaucracy in modern western democracies. Although formulating general principles concerning politics and administration of western democracies may be difficult enough as the scholars and researchers contain different views over the relations between politics and bureaucracy in western democracies. Therefore, the case focus will be drowned in the context of the USA, UK, France and Germany keeping in mind the variables of politico-bureaucratic culture and values, policy domination, professionalism, politicization, and the process of governance.

3.3.1. Politics and Bureaucracy in the United States of America In the context of the USA, the civil service system is generally known as the “spoils system” deriving its name from the saying “to the victory belong the spoils”. U.S Bureaucracy survives with its presidential survival. Observing this character of U.S civil service, Mills (1959) wrote that“The civilian government of the United States never has had and does not now have a genuine bureaucracy.” He also noted that “There is no civil service career that is secure enough, there is no administrative corps that is permanent enough, to survive a change-over of political administration in the United States. Neither professional party politicians nor professional bureaucrats are now at the executive centers of decision. Those centers are occupied by the political directorate of the power elite (1959:237-241).

Table 3.1. Administrative ideas in the American political tradition

Hamiltonian Stringexecutive/ Top-down

Wilsonian Balance of Power Strong executive Top-down accountability Hierarchical authority

Hamiltonian Stringexecutive/ Top-down

Centered on nonJeffersonian bureaucratic Weakinstitutions executive/ Focus on local control Bottom-up Bottom-up responsiveness Source: Adapted from Kettl (2000) with some modifications by the author. Jeffersonian Weakexecutive/ Bottom-up

Weak executive Bottom-up accountability Responsiveness to citizens

Madisonian Hierarchical Centered on nonbureaucratic institutions Focus on political power Top-down accountability

Wilsonian Balance of Power Traditional public administration Principle agent theory New public management NPR Downsizing Performance measurement Procurement reform NPR Employee empowerment Customer service

Madisonian Hierarchical Bureaucratic politics Implementation Game theory Institutional choice Congressional/Presid ential dominance

Network theory

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In 1989, Nation Commission on Public Service which is mostly known as the Volker Commission expressed the same concern that public service in the United States is “neither as attractive as it once was not as effective in perceived needs” (cited in Suleiman, 2005:203). The politicobureaucratic culture of USA reveals that the dominant executive position of the president has contributed tremendously to the ability of the chief executive to control bureaucracy and to use it to its advantages vis-à-vis the legislature (Farazmand, 1997a). This has had serious ramifications for the democratic process, for the legislative representative body has been weakened in favor of the presidency (Rosenbloom, 1993). This is why, over the last few decades, many of the recent studies in the context of United States show that scholars are divided into two sharp divisions. One those who found clear evidence of political or Congressional influence over the bureaucracy and bureaucratic agencies (Moynihan and Roberts, 2010; Weingast and Moran, 1983; Moe, 1985; Scholz, 1991; Wood and Anderson, 1993). On the other hand, others however, found that politicians are inattentive to bureaucracy, and the height of policy making body Congress, is neither wielded any influence on bureaucracy or use limited devises that it has (Dodd and Schoott, 1986; Eisner and Meier, 1990; Meier, 1997; Weaver and Longoria, 2002; Shipan, 2004). They put forward the idea that bureaucracy as a politically neutral state apparatus which merely implement the policies adopted by the elected politicians. However, in the American context, there is a peculiar usage of the term bureaucracy. Only merit-based careerists – those with long term tenure – were seen as bureaucrats and politically neutral, whereas transients – holding public office for a limited period of time – were redefined as political appointees and hence not bureaucrats (Riggs, 2009:99). This pattern has fundamental political and administrative consequences that lead to a highly dispersed pattern of bureaucratic politics. Kettl (2000) studies the philosophical and theoretical history of American public administration and finds that the four influences – Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian, and Madisonian (shown in Table 3.1) – have become the bedrock of American public administration and these four traditions have formed the

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basic choices that face the American system. He also observes that these four recurring political values have shaped American public administration for a century and are likely to continue to do so in the twenty-first century (Kettl, 2000:28). American politico-bureaucratic culture reveals that the US Constitution vests the President with extraordinary powers to appoint political executives, which Moe (1985a) termed “presidential politicization of bureaucracy”, at the same time merit-based competitive selection of bureaucracy based on the Legislative Act 1883, which is mostly known as “Pendleton Act” and it was derived from the British reform experience between 1850 and 1870 (Van Riper, 1997). In the USA, the top of the bureaucratic pyramid is almost exclusively reserved for partisan appointments. It is estimated that the president has approximately three thousands political appointments to reshuffle in his new office. This includes not only secretaries, under-secretaries, and assistant secretaries but numerous other appointments that fall under this category, including judges and ambassadors (Suleiman, 2005:217). Consequently, more or less every president emphasizes to appoint political appointees as “chief executive” with a clearly defined separation/subordinate relationship between political executives and the career bureaucrats (Ingraham et al. 1995; Moynihan and Roberts, 2010). But all presidents did not respond to the same way and to the same degree as Nixon did, albeit not very successfully, or Reagan and Bush who did it very successfully (Suleiman, 2005). In the initial stage, competitive appointment was nearly 10% of all positions, whereas this rose to more than 85% by the early 1980s (Ali, 2004: 38). Moreover, in 1978, the previous Act revised and the new Civil Service Act enhanced the opportunity of the government to appoint political appointees not only in the mid-level of bureaucracy but also in the Senior Executive Service (SES). As a result, “the total number of senior executives and presidential appointees grew from 451 in 1960 to 2393 in 1993, a 430 percent increase” (Light, 1995:7). The purposes of their appointment are to provide new policy directives and innovative approaches to public administration (Ingraham, 1987). But the career

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bureaucrats often see these political appointees as short-term and sometimes misguided members of the organization who do not have the ability to provide the long-term leadership necessary for significant policy change (Ingraham et al., 1995). In this regard, Carroll (1997) has identified three legal war fares on and over American government. The behavior of political and career bureaucrats is one of them. As a result, a complex relationship prevails between the politicians and bureaucrats in the context of America. According to Aberbach and Rockman (1988:607), “In the American case, the constitutional basis of hierarchical command is absent or, more properly, it is plural and thus potentially contradictory.” Constitutionally, American government is usually described as embodying a division of power, but in practice, it is more accurately described as “separated institutions sharing powers in functions” with politics and administration (Aberbach et al., 1981:22). They also claimed that there is a balance and shared responsibility between politics and bureaucracy in American governance. For this reason, American political system does not allow enough power at any particular hand of neither politicians nor administrators. Svara (1999, 2001) has identified this process as an implicit model of complementarity of politics and administration. In Richard Nathan’s words “it is the wonderfully animated, competitive, and open character of the American political system that distinguishes it among the democracies of the Western world” (sited in Aberbach and Rockman, 1988:607). However, in recent study, Moynihan and Roberts (2010); Aberbach and Rockman (2006), find tighter political control over the federal bureaucracy and over politicized presidency during the Nixon administration to the tenure of President George W. Bush and the over influence of NPM. On the other hand, Weaver and Longoria (2002) explained the exercise of administrative discretion by bureaucracy in the policy process of the USA. They assume over power exercise of bureaucracy in USA as “the king can do no wrong to the administration can do no wrong.” Meier (1997:196) notes that “our basic problem of governance is that the long running interplay between bureaucracy and expertise on one hand, and responsiveness and democracy (read electoral

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institutions) on the other hand, has swung too far in the direction of democracy.” In this context of American democracy, he suggests to follow the Wilsonian spirit to find out a proper balance between the two in the case for more bureaucracy and less democracy. Shipan (2004) observes the relationship between the elected politicians and the bureaucrats in the context of Congressional influence and oversight on policy making. He found that political bureaucracies make the overwhelming majority of public policy decisions in the United States and under certain conditions, the bureaucracy is responsive to the preferences of politicians and congressional influence, but under other conditions bureaucracy can act autonomously. He also finds that for a variety of reasons like; competing demands, lack of time, and expertise politicians delegate their powers to bureaucracy. On the other hand, Riggs (2009a); Aberbach and Rockman (2000; 2006), try to intermesh between these two ideas. Riggs (2009a) has noted the US bureaucracy as a semi-powered. He said that we need to understand four factors that affect the power position and the relations between politics and administration in America: (1) the creation of a nonpartisan professionalized career system, (2) continuing reliance on politically appointed transients and nonpartisan consultants, (3) the influence of federalism, and (4) the impact of private enterprise as manifested in the use of nongovernmental organizations to implement many public policies (Riggs, 2009a:157). Aberbach and Rockman (2000; 2006) have identified that both the politicians and bureaucrats participate in the policy making process with the distinctive contributions. Bureaucrats bring neutral expertise, facts and knowledge, whereas politicians bring political sensitivity, interests and values. They also noticed the clear influence of NPM in the present American context. In recent study, Spicer (2010) has also identified the pattern of relationship between politics and administration in America as ‘balance between politics and bureaucracy’. Although Aberbach et al. (1981), has discovered the peculiar effects of American political institutions, which seem to blur the differences between politicians and bureaucrats that are so sharp in Europe. They noted that the mutual respect between politicians and bureaucrats, and a fairly clear sense of the division of labor are

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characteristic of Britain, which is complex in the US system. By contrast, the parliamentary systems of government have greater control over the executive and appear to be more representative and democratic than the dominant presidential systems (Farazmand, 1997a). To sum up, the bureaucracy is more powerful in the United States, but they are not autonomous as is the United Kingdom and other European countries.

3.3.2. Politics and Bureaucracy in the United Kingdom In the context of the UK, the development of bureaucracy and the relations between politicians and bureaucrats went through various institutional adaptations in different phases and it depends on a number of elements. A doctrine of ministerial responsibility and organizational arrangement of bureaucracy play crucial role in determining the relationship between ministers and bureaucracy (Steel, 1979). It is argued that attributes of permanency, merit based competitive selection and political neutrality is essentially a British creation. But before eighteenth century the structure of the British bureaucracy was amorphous and the appointment of bureaucracy depended on the pleasure of those in power (Das, 2013). Parris (1969) in this respect noted that “it was not permanent, it was not civil and it was not a service” (cited in Ali, 2004:32). Following the industrial revolution there was an expansion of government functions and rise of the organized party system as well as after the First World War, more specialist and generalist bureaucratic system were introduced into the governance. Thus, modern British civil service was created in the wake of the Northcote- Trevelyan blueprint in the late nineteenth century and it appeared to exemplify the main features of dichotomy between the politicians and bureaucrats (Bulmer, 1988). Thus, for a developed culture of Whitehall model of relationship, and the Whitehall model was shaped by the history of the British state not by the abstract principles. That is why Drewry and Butcher (1991) have referred to the emergence of British bureaucracy as the constitutional bureaucracy. Therefore, we will discuss politics-bureaucracy relations in UK in the context of Whitehall model, its

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change and continuity. Because, scholars and practitioners have been studying Whitehall model, its’ essential characteristics, and its evolution for decades, and the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Britain, long stable and promoted around the world as the Whitehall model of how to link bureaucrats and politicians (Bulmer, 1988; Campbell & Wilson, 1995; Richards, 2008; Burnham and Pyper, 2008; Greer and Jarman, 2010). Both structurally and geographically, the British political system is highly centralized and executive dominated, where many policy decisions are determined by the interaction between politicians and bureaucrats, although Whitehall departments do not share their powers with a regional or state tier of government (Bulmer, 1988). The British executive branch consists of two very different elements; career politicians and the career bureaucrats who share in the formulation and implementation of public policy. To understand the politics-bureaucracy relation in the Whitehall model one needs to understand the world of the politicians and the world of the bureaucrats and the interaction between the two, which is guided by certain principles and expectations that together constitute the Whitehall model (Campbell & Wilson, 1995:9). In the Whitehall model, elected politicians enjoy constitutional supremacy over the bureaucracy. But the British politicians are dependent to a quite extraordinary degree on permanent bureaucrats not only for policy advice and administrative support but for staff and political assistance. This is why, Greer and Jarman (2010) studies Whitehall model in terms of a few basic characteristics, including lifetime employment, generalism, internal labor markets, political neutrality, and a relatively high degree of professional autonomy. At the same time, there are a number of characteristics of British bureaucracy that contribute to the distinctiveness of the Whitehall model. The Merit based competitive selection, permanency and political neutrality were the essentially major characteristics of British Whitehall model of bureaucracy. Although Richard Rose has noted that the Whitehall model demands not that civil servants be non-political but that they be politically promiscuous (Rose, 1987) and Campbell & Wilson (1995) note that there can be almost

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universal agreement that the British bureaucracy does not match the Weberian vision of a rationally organized hierarchy of expert and it is quite wrong to think that civil servants are separated from politics. However, it was a system in which bureaucracy recruited to give policy advice and political assistance to the politicians according to the British political context. In this model, the politicians were dependent on bureaucrats both for the policy advice and for the implementation of the policies. The Whitehall model has therefore rested on a very close partnership between politicians and bureaucrats. In this model politicians come and go but bureaucrats are unchanged and always been there. The British pattern of relations between politicians and bureaucrats – what we might call the “Whitehall Model”– the distinctive relationship between politicians and bureaucrats has also been of tremendous significance in the comparative perspective of bureaucratic management (Wilson and Barker, 2003). The Whitehall model was distinct and noticeably different from the practices of other countries. In this respect Wilson and Barker (2003:350) observed that – British politicians relied more or less exclusively on higher civil servants for advice on the advantages and disadvantages of potential new policies and on how to implement them. British politicians had no cabinets on the French model, no team of officials openly allied with their party (as in Germany) or large numbers of political appointees occupying all high-level posts (as in the United States). Instead, British politicians forming a government after winning an election accepted that their closest advisers should be the civil servants who had worked for their opponents until Election Day. The system, of course, had its advantages. A newly elected government could set to work on its program immediately, rather than spending months constructing a new administration (as in the United States). Nonetheless, it was remarkable that politicians from ideologically distinctive parties should have accepted for so long relying so heavily on officials who had worked closely with their opponents.

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However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century, this Whitehall model of relations witnessed considerable changes by following the report of the Fulton Committee in 1968, dissatisfactions of both the Conservative and the Labour governments, and the influence of academic criticisms by the writers of NPM school of thought. The prominent complain to the Whitehall model bureaucracy by the politicians was that the civil servants failed to provide necessary political assistance and it was inadequate to serve their political needs (Wilson and Barker, 2003). On the other hand, many academic writings criticized the service delivery mechanisms of bureaucracy. Heclo and Wildavsky (1974) describe both politicians and service bureaucrats alike as “political administrators”. Christoph (1975) observes that officials not only weigh rival interests but identify with some more than others in advising ministers. He has also argued that “higher British civil servants do not take an active role in partisan politics. Their identification with one party over others is sublimated, both by temperament and by requirements and etiquette of their calling. Thus, they seldom bring to their tasks the passions of the true believer (at least in traditional political terms), and they cannot be appealed too easily on the basis of fraternal ties.” Richard Rose (1974) has described bureaucracy in Britain as impartially partisan and he has criticized the conventional distinction between ministers who determine the ends and bureaucrats who find the means. These contemporary observations were congruent with the expectation of political leaderships and therefore, in the last three decades, considerable changes occurred in the British bureaucracy and the patterns of their relationships with political leaderships. Thus, the creation of autonomous agencies or agencification is the direct and dramatic change in the context of UK bureaucracy to carry out the policy decisions as well as the other significant change is the appointment of political executive. In this respect of political appointment Aberbach et al. (1981:17), observed thatIn 1964 Harold Wilson imported into the central administration a small but potentially significant number of partisan appointees who were neither career civil servants nor MPs. The government of Edward Heath

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that followed created the post of ‘political secretary’ to individual ministers and introduced a Central Policy Review Staff, peopled by numbers of what Americans would term “in-and-outers.” None of these experiments were judged wholly successful by their sponsors, but all are symptomatic of a need felt by both parties for a type of official who combines substantive expertise with political commitment.

As a result, the nature of politicization of bureaucracy has been expedited and the number and power of such political appointees have been increased in a considerable manner in the last couple of decades. While all ministers now have advisers who serve at their pleasure, advisers are particularly numerous and important at the center of government in the treasury and the Prime Minister’s Office (Wilson and Barker, 2003). The preceding discussion of changes in the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Britain has necessarily created the tensions between these two actors in their role performance. However, Bulmer (1988) has evaluated (through the light of Aberbach et al., 1981 models) the development of politics-bureaucracy relations in the UK as the modern British civil service was created with the features of Image I: dichotomy between politics and administration, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, the politics-bureaucracy relational model became much closer to Image II: facts/interests model where both politicians and bureaucrats participated in policy making with distinctive contributions. In the later part of twentieth century the validity of Image II came under challenge as a satisfactory model for contemporary criticisms. These contemporary observations are congruent with Image III at least, where both politicians and bureaucrats are engaged in policy making, and concerned with political issue. Image IV is a future development, in which the bureaucratic role is so imbued with politics that the Weberian distinction between politicians and bureaucrats virtually disappears. The recent empirical study of Wilson and Barker (2003), Greer and Jarman (2010) in this respect exhibits the changing pattern of Whitehall model of relationship. But they also found that it had not produced the change that might have been expected. Till now bureaucratic participation in the policy and in the governance process is high and more than 70

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percent of British higher civil servants are engaged with ministers giving advice on policy as a major part of their jobs, although both the Conservative and Labour governments are not fully happy with the bureaucratic performance in the last decade. In this regard, Wilson and Barker (2003) pointed out a view of Sir Richard Mottram, a permanent secretary who came up with a vivid simile to describe the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Britain today: There are some people in government, who do not think we are very good, who think we are an obstacle…. One of the things which I don’t think ministers understand sufficiently clearly is that that [the civil service] is a fantastically loyal institution. I always compare it to a rather stupid dog that wants to do whatever its master wants and, above all, wants to be loved for doing it. I don’t think ministers understand that (cited in Wilson and barker, 2003:370).

However, the civil servants in Great Britain have never been politicized like the American, French, Spanish or Italian modes also not one in which the civil service has been replaced by patronage system (Suleiman, 2005; Sausman and Locke, 2004). Politicization of civil service in Britain is a suitable ‘umbrella term’ for many different aspects. The matter of politicization of bureaucracy, as Clifford and Wright (1997) define by two ways: first, that an increase in political activity is undertaken by civil servants as Peter and Pierre categorized ‘bottom–up’ and second, there is increased control exerted by government over bureaucrats ‘ topdown’ (Cited in Sausman and Locke, 2004:102). The most considerable period of politicization in Britain has taken place since the early 1980s. The bureaucratic machinery was responsive to the conservative party during the time of Thatcher. They were not asked to play political roles even the conservative government never felt the need to introduce this. The bureaucracy had the feelings that they had to be loyal instrument to carry out the mandate of the government. She sought to change the system where there was no question of removal or introduction of any kind of spoils system (Suleiman, 2005). One of the developments Richards (1997) identified is a 'personalization' of the appointment procedures for senior

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civil service posts (Cited in Sausman and Locke, 2004:102). Suleiman (2005) pointed out, Thatcher adopted some measures first was to bring down the number of civil servants from 762,000 in 1976 to 481, 000 in 1998. The second technique though which she wanted to weaken and gain better political control over the higher civil servants was reform of the “Next Steps” program. In this regard she appointed chief executive outside of the civil servants in the agencies. The third feature of politicization entails nominations which reduced the power of the top civil servants of the ministry. In relation to politicization, analysts argued there has so far not been an explicit politicization of appointment to the senior civil service. But whatever she wanted is to absolutely control civil service as well. Various examples are given in the literature of outside appointment made by Mrs. Thatcher to top posts in the civil service for personal and political reason (Sausman and Locke, 2004). As Hennessy observed, “always ready to exempt those who served her closely, Mrs. Thatcher nonetheless detests senior civil servants as a breed” (cited in Suleiman, 2005:254). She successfully stormed a citadel, one she considered to be not so much a partisan institution as a privileged, docile, consensus-loving institution. In doing so, she deprived the higher civil service of its claim on particularly important jobs and its right to monopoly over the top policy making positions (Suleiman, 2005). The trends of politicization did not pass away after the Thatcher and Major’s government rather expanded and reinforced significantly with the Blair’s government which has appointed special advisor to the ministries as well as party sympathiers to the key posts (Suleiman, 2005; Sausman and Locke, 2004). He had centralized decision-making by looking for greater control over Whitehall. The big decisions are hammered out by the prime minister’s office. The aspect of agencification brought to an end, the monopoly that the civil service enjoyed as “political advisor”, British government underwent a significant decrease in political accountability and the morale had been affected due to the political takeover of civil service (Suleiman, 2005).

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Cabinet Office and 10 Downing Street HM Treasury DfEE (Department for Education and Employment) DETR (Department for Environment, Transport, and the Regions ) Department of Health Ministry of Defence MAFF (Ministry of Fisheries and Food) DCMS (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Home Office DSS (Department of Social Security) DTI (Departmentfor Trade and Industry) Scotland Office Leader of the House of Lords Govt. Chief Whip Leader of the House Wales Office DfID (Department of International Development) Lord Chancellor’s Dept Total Source: Adapted fromSausman and Locke, 2004.

30 8 5 5 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 76

The debate about politicization was raised during the 1979 to 1997 where the considerable reform of civil service took place. For some critics, such modifications characterize a constitutional threat. There is an evidence of state responding to increasingly demanding politicians while attempting to adapt to changing social and political environment made up of an electorate with raising expectations of public service along with preserving the features of intelligence, impartiality, probity, selection and promotion on merit and public duty that characterize the British civil service (Sausman and Locke, 2004). A recent series of inquires was conducted by the British House of Lords Constitution Committee (2010) and the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (2007) on the relationships between politicians and bureaucrats. They also have identified a changing pattern of roles and relationship between

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ministers and civil service and suggested a more concrete definition of responsibilities between the two actors for avoiding the unnecessary conflicts. They also emphasized the importance of mutual trust in the changing pattern of roles and relationships between minister and civil service.

3.3.3. Politics and Bureaucracy in France The development of the modern administrative system in France has taken place in the context of a political system marked by profound changes. Since 1789, France has been a constitutional monarchy three times, an empire twice, a semi-dictatorship once, and a republic five times (Heady, 2001:193). The traditional studies of public administration have stressed the unity and coherence of administrative action in France in contrast to the visibly divided administrative systems in Britain or the USA (Machin, 1979:67-73). In the case of France, the relationship between politics and administration since the beginning of the Third Republic can be discussed by different phases and characteristics (Sueleiman, 2005). The first phase, between 1875 and 1940, functioned according to the Weberian principle of separation between politics and bureaucracy. The second phase, from 1945 to 1958, France Republic was characterized by the distinction between political and administrative domains. The third phase, from 1959 to the beginning of the 1990s, axiom the evolution of politics-administration relationship in the double sense of hybridization – the technocratization of politics and of the politicization of top administrative posts. And finally, since the 1990s, discussion of the politicization of the administration has given way to a new rhetoric of the state-in-crisis (Suleiman, 2005:229-230). The French political system has been organized in different ways – from absolute monarchy to liberal democratic republics, passing through empires, constitutional monarchies, autocracies, and absolute republics in more than 200 years after the French Revolution. In the initial stage bureaucracy was ruled by Weberian principles (Elgie, 2004; Heady, 2001;

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Suleiman, 2005). The historical perspective suggests that although the debate on politics-bureaucracy relations figured out during the Third Republic but it has mostly centered on the last four decades. During this time, the administration not only continued to grow in larger size and scope but also became deeply involved in politics. Although the French system continues to create the expectation of strong leadership, but increasingly it contains the coordination of political actors, interaction of institutions, state-centered, presidentialized and highly centralized regime (Elgie, 2004). In comparison with the Britain and the United States – both of which have operated within a single constitutional system over a similar period of time, the contrast between the instability of the French constitutional system and the stability of British and American system is striking (Elgie, 2004). There is a common rhetorical perception that the State in France is very strong as Napoleon established a very strong structure of French society and there is an assumption that the people who occupy the most important positions within the State are powerful political actors. But in practice, the French society would have taken a very different shape during the course of the nineteenth century (Suleiman, 1974) and the functioning of French political institutions is intimately associated with the strength of the state. “The strength of the French State is based on three elements: a normative belief in the appropriateness of State action; a wide range of State-certered organizations; and considerable evidence of State intervention. Thus, State power in France has both an ideational and an institutional foundation” (Elgie, 2004:71). In France, civil servants or bureaucrats are appointed and promoted by highly competitive exam, although there are some political appointments in the higher levels. Since 1945, those wishing to enter into the senior administrative corps must pass through the Ecole National d’Administration (ENA), a notable public administration training school of the country. As a whole, the French civil service has the characteristics of a meritocracy rather than a spoils system and the organization the bureaucracy is characterized by a set of highly entrenched divisions (Rouban, 1995). There are three basic categories (it is known in France as ‘corps’) of bureaucrats: category A, B, C, and within each corps there are

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different grades of civil servants; within each grade there are different classes of civil servants; and within each class there are different echelons of civil servants (Elgie, 2004:132). As a result, the civil service system in France is very fragmented, extremely regimented, and hierarchical. The higher civil servants are known as grands corps. The constitutional spirit and the republican tradition clearly indicate the distinction between politicians and bureaucrats in France. According to the constitutional spirit, as representatives of the people, politicians have the legitimacy to make policy decisions on behalf of the people. On the other hand, bureaucrats will act as the set of functionaries who should play a merely neutral role in the implement of the politician’s decisions. This distinction has been enshrined in the fundamental texts of the French political system for more than 200 years (Elgie, 2004). But in practice, though this distinction is less clear than the constitutional situation would appear to indicate (Suleiman, 1984). Moreover, civil servants are allowed to join into the political parties and participate in their activities. At all levels, many civil servants play active roles in party politics, even though, they obtain leave to contest in the elections and if elected to serve in the parliament. This is why, there is a long standing argument that France is a technocracy and it is ruled by the bureaucracy or the people who have bureaucratic background. However, the fear of technocracy is premised on the blurring of a fundamental theoretical distinction between the role of the politicians and the role of the bureaucrats. The latter must always be subordinate to the former, but each is endowed with special talents which the other does not possess. As Weber noted, “All too often the civil servant as a politician turns a cause that is good in every sense into a ‘weak’ cause, through technically ‘weak’ pleading …. To weigh the effect of the word properly falls within the range of the lawyer’s task, but not at all into that of the civil servant.” (Weber, 1958:95). In this respect, Suleiman (1974:375) notes thatThe civil servant who replaces the politician is a specialist, guided by rational standards and hence oblivious to the political implications – the sense of responsibility of which Weber spoke so passionately – of his

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Muhammad Sayadur Rahman actions. The replacement of the politician by the civil servant gives rise, it is argued, to a technocracy which is seen as the rise to power of those who possess technical knowledge or ability, to the detriment of the traditional type of politician. The ultimate result, still a long way off, would mean government by technocrats.

Dogan (2005), however, argues differently and he notes political mistrust and the civil death of politicians is responsible for this. In any case, the French political system is the most centralized system among the advanced democracies. It is a hyper presidential system without counterpowers, without what is in the United States is called “checks and balances” (Dogan, 2005). In the context of France, there is a plenty of evidence to support the idea that France is a technocracy and that the difference between politicians and bureaucrats is blurred. In the first quarter of the twentieth century Harold Laski observed the administrative syndicalism in France and in the 1950s Herbert Luethy wrote that “France is not ruled, but administered” by a group of civil servants who have seldom been affected by changes in regimes (cited in Suleiman, 1974:519). Elgie (2004:146-147) provides three arguments in this respect. First, there is no doubt that the French system creates an elite set of high trained administrators. Secondly, many of the country’s most senior politicians have a bureaucratic background in the higher civil service, and thirdly, the existence of Ministerial Cabinets which provides the scope to political appointment. Table 3.3. Distribution of strength of each corps in the Cabinets (percent) 1984 Civil Administrator 55.7 Council of State 9.8 Court of Accounts 4.9 Prefectoral Corps 0.8 Finance Inspectorate 7.4 Source: Adapted from Suleiman (2005:236).

1989 54.7 9.1 5.6 5.2 6.9

1996 42.2 8.8 9.8 4.9 8.8

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Table 3.4. Professional background of Directors in Central Administration (percentage) 1984– 85 A service within the same ministry 26.4 Cabinet 31.9 Public enterprise or agency 2.8 Private firm 5.6 Another corps 4.2 General inspection 0 Director in another ministry 8.3 Grand corps member 2.8 Director within the same ministry 5.6 Paris/IDF 0 Foreign service 12.5 Source: Adapted from Rouban (1999:70).

1986– 87 18.6 15.7 12.7 8.8 11.8 1.0 2.9 7.8 2.9 7.8 9.8

1988– 89 21.3 28.0 9.3 5.3 13.3 1.3 5.3 5.3 1.3 0 9.3

1992 1993– 94 12.2 22.1 17.1 11.6 17.1 14.0 0 5.8 4.9 14.0 0 5.8 12.2 4.7 12.2 9.3 9.8 2.3 0 5.8 14.6 4.7

Average population 19.2 22.6 11.1 4.9 10.4 2.1 7.8 6.7 3.7 2.3 9.2

As a result, since 1959, no less than 9 of the French 16 Prime Ministers have been member of the higher civil service grands corps. The same position is applicable to the Ministers. Between 1985 and 1997, 40 percent of central administration directors had an explicit political affiliation and nearly 20 percent among them passed through a ministerial cabinet (Suleiman, 2005). Averages of around 50 per cent of Ministers have had the background of higher civil service in the Fifth Republic. Moreover, 35 deputies and additional 40 deputies were the bureaucrats in the 1997-2002 legislatures (Elgie, 2004). In general, throughout the history of the Fifth Republic around 15 percent of deputies have had a civil service background (Rouban, 1998:66: cited in Elgie, 2004: 147). At the same time, ministerial political appointment has been raised dramatically. There were a total of no less than 861 cabinet members in the government as a whole in the early 1990s, whereas the average figure in the period 1984-96 was around 500 (Elgie, 2004:147). In the 2002 legislative elections, a quarter of the candidate for the National Assembly were bureaucrats, and more than 25 percent were elected (Suleiman, 2005). The fact is that bureaucrats have come to dominate in ministerial cabinets and governments by their political affiliations. Rouban’ (1999) research exhibits the clear pattern of political affiliation. This is why, it is claimed that France is a technocracy.

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Meanwhile, in the last three decades, the governance system has been changed and reformed. In recent times, French state has become less authoritative, less expansive, more responsive, and more multi-level, especially after the establishment of Fifth Republic. Although the political system is presidentialized in the sense that the President will exercise power, but in real sense, it is a semi-presidential system of government where a popularly elected fixed-term President exists along with a Prime Minister and Cabinet who are all responsible to the parliament (Elgie, 1999:13). As a result, the potential for state-centered policy has been reduced and many autonomous agencies and commissions have been created for ensuring public service by the influence of globalization, Europeanization and overall the thinking of NPM to protect the citizen’s interest against the bureaucracy. But “While most other democratic societies have long recognized that both efficiency and democracy necessitated these kinds of measures, France has always been slower to move in this direction. This has often had more to do with politicians’ conservatism, which derived from their unwillingness to cede any authority, as well as with civil servants who naturally distrusted the prying of elected officials”(Suleiman, 2005:172). Even so, there is no doubt that the bureaucracy in France is extremely large and occupies an important position in the governance system as a whole and the whole administration is structured in rational pyramidal hierarchies with almost all formal powers in the hands of those at the top. Rouban (1999:67) comments that “the relationship between senior civil servants and politicians is certainly more ambiguous and closer in the 1990s that it was during the 1960s. The politicization of the senior civil service has been considerable strengthened, but senior civil servants still consider themselves as representing the permanence of the state, and they are still reluctant to talk freely about their political involvement.” In France, the higher level bureaucrats help to shape political events and they are key political actors of the governance system to determine political outcomes which outline the idea that France is a ‘technocracy’ (Elgie, 2004:129).

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Table 3.5. Decision-making process in French government system Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Inter-ministerial

Inter-ministerial

Councils

Council of Ministers

committees/Min. Source:meetings Adapted from Elgie, (2004:105) meetings

Source: Adapted from Elgie (2004:105).

Today the political parties, from the left to right, big business to small business, privileged class to unprivileged class, the intellectual to the students, all the French people have agreed that the bureaucracy plays a very decisive role in French life (Elgie, 2004). Bureaucracy not only controls the massive administrative machine but they also occupy key positions at all levels of decision making in politics and in both public and private sectors of the country. This trend coupled with Napoleonic desire. He intended that, the bureaucracy that he created to be at once at the service of the state and the representative of the state (Suleiman, 1974). Overall, the operation of governance and administration in France and the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is very complex, because it is very difficult to identify the state activities in France which the state does not either totally control or markedly influence.

3.3.4. Politics and Bureaucracy in Germany Among the western counties, politics-bureaucracy relation in Germany is very identical and the German tradition of the administrative state is examplenary like France. In reference to the 300 years’ history of the modern German state, it has been said that this state was a creation of the continuous existence of the administration (Konig, 2000:47). The politicobureaucratic history of the country reveals that Germany attained a form of national unity under Bismarck with the foundation of the German Empire

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in 1871 round Prussia, its historically dominant component (Southern, 1979; Wollmann, 2000). In the development of German bureaucracy, the influence of the Prussian model and the Hegelian, Weberian philosophy was notable (Page and Wright, 1999; Heady, 2001). Although critics of Max Weber sometimes argue that German modern bureaucratic ‘legalrational’ state was not really an idealized construct but reflected rather closely the reality of the contemporary German state (Lehmbruch, 1996:40). This logic is correct in one sense that the bureaucratic domination in the governance and policy process has been a long-standing record in Germany, and Prussia in particular, based on the organizational supremacy of the bureaucracy. That is why many western scholars – Robert Putnam is one of them – did not find the classical image of bureaucracy in Germany, which was propounded by Max Weber. German bureaucracy was practically deviated from Weberian concept of an instrumental bureaucracy, which merely implements loyally the decisions taken by the politicians. But this does not mean that German bureaucrats consider themselves partisan in a political sense (Mayntz and Derlien, 1989). It is became clear while the dominant position of bureaucracy was replaced by the new emerging political and business elites in the later part of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the modern professional bureaucracy was a Prussian creation and constitutes a historical tradition which has endured to the present day. In Germany, the modern state administered by a permanent civil service arose in the enlightened despotism of the eighteen century. In the early nineteenth century, Prussia moved from monarchical tendency to bureaucratic absolutism. From then, strong bureaucracy came into existence with permanency, incremental salary, automatic promotion, payment during illness and a pension. A strong competitive process followed in the process of selection of bureaucracy. As a result, civil servants were regarded not as servants of the Crown but as servants of the state (Konig, 2000). By virtue of their service to the state, bureaucrats came to enjoy a special position and they could not be dismissed except by a highly judicialised disciplinary procedure (Southern, 1979:110). During the German revival after the Second World War,

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Germany came into subsequent reunification in the framework of new style federalism by the Basic Law and the Federal Republic of Germany began life on 21 September 1949. Consequently, in the Soviet Zone, the German Democratic Republic was set up, and in the Western Occupation Zones, the West German state established in 1949 adapting three levels of government: national government at Federal level; state government at Land level; and local government within the Laender and Finally, in 1990, the two German States were united (Southern, 1979:107; Wollmann, 2000:2). Now the legal source of government power is the Basic Law and the Basic Law pledges the state to uphold and maintain the traditional principles of the career civil service. The professional bureaucracy is made part of the new constitution and the specific characteristic of state bureaucracy is the exercise of power as a permanent function through the enforcement of public law (Konig, 2000). It followed that, bureaucrats are the executing part of the authority of the state and they are engaged in a legal exercise. Therefore, in Germany, public administration came to be defined in terms of the state. This is why, in comparison with AngloGerman politico-administrative culture, Ridley (2000:134-135) noted that in Germany civil servants are officials of the state and exercise the state power. This relationship defines their status and authority that distinguishes them from others. On the other hand, British civil servants are servants of the Crown as ‘concept of the state’ does not recognize as a legal entity in England. As servants of the Crown they must serve its constitutional representatives, like ministers and bureaucrats have nothing to do in the determination of the national interest and that can be only done by the parliament and voters. But in Germany, bureaucrats have a personal responsibility for the common interest. In the question of accountability, Germany makes a distinction between political leadership and the administration which is overlap in English. In the sense of politics and policy making, German administrative history reveals that the bureaucrats are not engaged in a purely executive function but the particular form of separation of powers doctrine that assumed in Germany placed an executive power to make law in the hands

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of bureaucracy. Policy formulation in Germany is very often the production of complex process of mutual accommodation of varieties of actors; state, politicians and bureaucrats in a system of ‘interlocking’ (Lehmbruch, 1996) which Goetz (1999:148) termed “parliamentarization, and federalization of the national policy processes”. However, there are some important peculiarities in bargaining of policy process. One of them is “in the system of executive federalism, the implementation of federal legislation has to a large degree remained the domain of the Lander. As a rule, the federal government has no hierarchical administrative authority over the Lander executives. Administrative coordination has to be obtained by negotiating between autonomous bureaucracies. In these relationships, in spite of the leading role of federal ministries in the drafting of rules, the Lander bureaucracies have a strong position because of their experience in field administration due to their role in implementation” (Lehmbruch, 1996:48). As a result, bureaucracy engaged in politics in the sense of policy making. Table 3.6. Party membership of political civil servants and subdivision heads 1970-1987 (%) Party CDU/CSU

Year State Secretary Division Head Subdivision Head 1987 61.5 47.2 17.8 1981 0.0 8.9 10.0 1972 0.0 13.6 13.0 1970 10.3 11.1 1987 0.0 7.5 22.2 SPD 1981 60.0 37.8 24.3 1972 42.9 25.0 14.1 1970 28.2 11.1 1987 7.7 9.4 8.9 FDP 1981 0.0 13.3 11.4 1972 42.9 2.3 3.5 1970 0.0 2.2 1987 30.8 35.8 51.1 Non-member 1981 40.0 40.0 54.3 1972 14.3 59.1 69.4 1970 61.5 75.5 Source: Adapted from Mayntz and Derlien (1989:388) and Suleiman (2005:261).

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Although in Germany bureaucrats are allowed to be members of political parties, negotiate to the politicians of the alike lines to be appointed in the federal ministerial administration and they have always been free to engage in party politics and in principle, all enjoy the right to be elected to Federal, Land or local assemblies (Suleiman, 2005; Southern, 1979). Karl Deutsch and Lewis Edinger (1959) noted that the extent of the administrative elite’s influence over policy making has varied more or less inversely with the power of the political elite. In Germany, the influence of bureaucratic elite in policy making was practically eliminated only under the strong political leadership. However, the culture of bureaucrat bashing or attacks on the bureaucracy by the politicians remained more modest in Germany than Britain and the USA. In this regard, Suleiman (2005:133) observes that “They looked to their administrations to achieve savings, but they did not resort to Thatcher and Reagan-style bureaucrat-bashing.” Schroter and Wollmann note that “the Federal Cabinet… has so far refrained from any type of bureaucrat-bashing that has become an integral part of the political rhetoric of many Anglo-American protagonists of public sector reform” (cited in the Suleiman, 2005:133). Whether the British and American politicians are very keen to change and reinvent their bureaucratic structures whereas German politicians are not seriously subscribing to a comprehensive reinvention, rather they are aiming at a paradigmatic shift with the existing machinery of government (Schroter, 2001). German public administration has also faced numerous challenges in different times with the structural interventions by the occupying powers but did not affect the continuity of the administration. But the traditional image of the German state as powerful Obrigkeitsstaat (state of authority) led by a bureaucratic hierarchy, top down authority relations which were an important feature of this system has been changing gradually. At the same time, during the last three-four decades increasing political appointment of political bureaucrats by the politicians has made the politics-bureaucracy relations complicated. In this regard, Goetz’s and Suleiman’s observations are very comprehensive. “Party politicization, parliamenarization, and federalization have had a profound impact on the

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senior civil service, affecting its relations to political authority, its cohesion, and the career paths, roles, and essential qualifications of higher officials” (Goetz, 1999:149). Suleiman (2005:259) observes that now “The debate concerning the relationship between politician and bureaucrats in Germany has centered mostly around two concepts. First, should the concept of politicization be understood as the growing importance of party affiliation over expertise or seniority for determining appointments to the higher civil service? If so, what effect does this have for the career patterns of civil servants? Second, should it be viewed as the consequence of hybridization, which refers to the blurring of the distinction between politicians and civil servants?” Notable that, in Germany, there are two top positions of the federal bureaucracy – state secretaries and division heads, which is mostly known as political posts and political civil servants (Politische Beamte) are appointed there. Ministers hold the discretionary powers to remove the bureaucrats holding these posts by sending them into temporary retirement, keeping them as it is or new appointments. Utterly it depends on the whim of minister in office. As a result, near about 150 bureaucrats who occupy or wish to occupy for these posts maintain political affiliation, and their appointment depends on political patronage although it is a very old practice in Germany which makes close relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. However, recent data shows that the increasing rates of political appointment by the political leadership especially in 1969 SPDled government, in 1982 CDU-led government and in 1998 SPD and the Greens led governments appointed 33%, 37.5% and 52.2% of political civil servants respectively. At the same time, party memberships of civil servants have been increased noticeably which evidence the hybridization of politico-bureaucratic governance, interchangeability of the two careers, and the convergence in role perceptions of politicians and bureaucrats in Germany (Mayntz and Derlien, 1989; Suleiman, 2005). After 1990s, a changing of guiding ideas has been taking place in Germany. Although German researchers had thought that their bureaucracy was extremely efficient, they have recently been modifying that perception and had been taking increased interest in NPM and the New

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Managerialism (Muramatsu & Naschold, 1996). Although local government is using as a testing ground for the NPM reforms in Germany but the web of this reform is also touching to the federal government offering a lots of reform proposal for the federal administration. Nowadays the bureaucratic structure is being disputed and no longer retains the selflegitimization arising from its alleged superior effectiveness and efficiency. Politicians have taken over and are driving for public sector reforms under the banners of ‘administrative modernization’ and ‘lean state’ (Derlien, 2000:151) From the above comparative analysis in the context of western democracies, one trend is almost patent that all political leaderships irrespective of countries – in countries with strong bureaucracies or controlled bureaucracies are keen to build their support base in the bureaucracy. Political leaders always want to appoint them on whom they can be relied, and want to make the bureaucracy responsive to their government. What is true in the American context is also true in the context of other countries like, Britain, France, and Germany. However, difference is only on mode of interaction and in the approaching of governance. This is why Moe (1985) observed that political leaders always seek responsive competence, not neutral competence.

3.4. POLITICS AND BUREAUCRACY IN DEVELOPING WORLD PERSPECTIVE The discussion on politics-bureaucracy relations, politicization and the roles and responsibilities of politicians and bureaucrats are discernible facts in the context of developing countries along with the developed countries. Most of the third world or developing countries attained their independence after the Second World War. Till then these developing regions were the fecund land for many western academics and researchers. These western scholars have seen the developing countries in the light of institutionalization and found as lack of balance between political

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institutional and bureaucratic apparatus (LaPalombara, 1963; Riggs, 1963; 1964; Huntington, 1968). As a post-colonial society, most developing countries inherited an overdeveloped bureaucracy, while the political and economic realm remains largely underdeveloped. Thus, the bureaucracies of these countries enjoyed a significant institutional autonomy and social dominance due to the absence or underdeveloped political controls. Riggs (1963) holds the idea that the imposition of political control over the bureaucracy is a difficult task. Therefore, he advised or supports the approach of politics-bureaucracy separation in the context of western or differentiated societies like United States but not in the context of traditional societies of developing countries by mentioning and theorizing the balanced and unbalanced polities. On the other hand, some others thinkers (Braibanti, 1969; Esman, 1967; Sigelman, 1972, 1974) of developing world argued for blurred intermeshing between political and bureaucratic role in governance. They suggest that the stopping of the development of bureaucracy will not be wise. Rather, bureaucracy can play an intermediateary role to expedite the process of development, as the bureaucracy is most modernized agent, and as the political institutions take a long time to grow up in the developing world. So it can be said that with a very few exceptions of their arguments, almost all observers of development administration emphasized the need for active, professional and committed bureaucracy for developing countries, and provided a general prescription for balanced or shared role between politicians and bureaucrats as ‘agents of change’. But the bureaucratic history of these developing countries reveals that the inherited conditions led to apolitical vacuum and marginalized politics in the initial stage of their independence. Because the colonial overdeveloped bureaucracy was adopted in these developing countries without realizing the mode of interaction between the bureaucracy and politics. In this respect, Haque (1997: 434-35) observes that “The western model of bureaucracy, adopted in many developing countries, is based on certain politico-administrative presuppositions: the existence of an advanced and stable political system, a considerable degree of political neutrality of bureaucracy, an effective mechanism of bureaucratic accountability based

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on public representation and participation, and an ideological atmosphere of liberal democracy. But the socio-historical realities in most of these countries are such that often these presuppositions have little relevance.” He also finds a serious incongruity between the administrative realm and the political realm in developing countries. Moreover, the principal of political neutrality that emerged in Western nations is relatively blurred the line between politics and administration in the developing countries. Therefore, it is hardly possible to ascertain the political neutrality of state bureaucracy in these developing countries. For this mismatch between politics and administration, in many Latin American, West African, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations, “bureaucratic authoritarianism” replaced popular mobilization and mass politics. Consequently, in the last three or four decades, politicization of the civil services in many societies in the third world has also led to a widespread increase in corruption, ranging on a scale from payments to petty officials for ‘speeding the movement of files’ to huge sums of bribes and kickbacks for facilitating higher financial and political interest. In some societies it has become so cancerous... common practice is to use their official position in the government to the advantage of their private interests (Jain, 1989). The ubiquity of politicization not only encompasses the bureaucratic boundary of developed nations but also has a strong and significant presence in the developing countries. Thus, politicization syndrome has almost been common in different bureaucracies, although the degree and nature may vary and to a certain extent every bureaucracy is politicized (Doullah, 2016: 29). Politicized bureaucracy is now an apparent feature in most of the developing countries.

CONCLUSION The foregoing comparative discussion from the ancient civilization and the perspective of major western democracies identifies the factors responsible for politicization of the civil service. The history of bureaucracy shows that almost every bureaucracy is politicized but the

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intensity may vary. The comparative discussion provides an overview of the present status of politicization of western bureaucracy as well as their strength and weakness. Its main focus was USA, UK, France and Germany and found that the politicians often interfered with bureaucrats in those countries but their pattern is very strong and powerful. The comparative study clearly shows that efficiently functioning bureaucracy is seen in western democracy in comparison to underdeveloped and developing one. On the other hand, the way the state bureaucracy is organized also strengthens poverty reduction in developing countries. Again it has been argued that bureaucratic structures have important effects on political, economic and social outcomes. Scholars in economics and sociology argue that a strong and well-organized state bureaucracy contribute to the economic growth in the Asian miracle economies of the 1990 as well as to the economic growth more generally in semi-industrial countries (Peters and Pierre, 2004). Moreover, it also tried to analyze the nature and degree of politicization in developing countries and found that its bureaucracy is rampantly politicized and corrupted which negatively affects the economic growth of those countries. Comparative analysis form different countries shows that politicians and bureaucrats play distinctive roles in policy making process. Especially, the bureaucracy of developing country is lagging behind and functioning poorly. The above discussion shows that almost all observers of the developing countries found that neutrality and impartiality is absent between politics and administration in most of the developing countries, although still now most of the bureaucracies of the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin American countries are bearing the legacy of their respective colonial traditions. Again many scholars identified the adverse effects of politicization on bureaucracy. However, these development literatures did not address the way out, which led to the effective functioning of the administration.

Chapter 4

POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH ASIA: EVOLUTION, STRUCTURE AND PROCESS OF INTERACTION 4.1. INTRODUCTION The principal aim of this chapter is to explain the historical background of the development of politics and administration in South Asia. Because, “It is impossible to study the politicization of the civil service without taking into account the social evolution, political culture and the history of the various countries reviewed” (Rouban, 2012:380). South Asia comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, and Bhutan. These nations shared a common past up to the end of the British colonial rule (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). Among the South Asian states, at least four have experienced to share a common colonial legacy, which has profoundly influenced in the formation of political institutions of the South Asian countries. Thus, this chapter will provide an overall brief history about the nature of politics and the organizational development of the bureaucracy in South Asia during precolonial era to British India. In doing so, the chapter is divided into two sub-sections: politics and administration in ancient and medieval South

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Asia, and politics and administration in colonial British India. The first sub-section tries to explore the nature, status and extent of political development and the mode of politics-bureaucracy relation in pre-colonial period. And the second sub-section provides an overall picture of political and bureaucratic development in colonial period focusing the light on politico-bureaucratic interactions.

4.2. POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH ASIA: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PERIODS The present South Asia is more or less organized in a systematic manner or approved parliamentary governmental approach. The concept of parliamentary democracy is more or less familiar in the science of South Asian government. But it has not been created in a day. The concept of parliamentary democracy in this region has developed by gradual process during the colonial period. In this process, 1947 was the last resort of the development of parliamentary democracy in this region when the British colonial ruler transfer the governing power to the people of this land, and thus created the separate states and introduced a Westminster type of government. However, the political history of South Asia reveals that this region is ruled by the different empires for thousands of years. Different faiths, different races and different ethnic groups interacted over the span of centuries, starting from time immemorial. Awareness of political, social, cultural, ideological and economic history brings people together; enrich their sense of identity gradually in this region. However, the anecdote of the evolution of political and administrative systems of all these countries reveals that during the ancient and medieval periods these states were under the Buddhist and the Hindu rulers, then the Mughals and other Muslim rulers, and after thet the British colonial ruler named as British India (1747-1947). The present day politics and the political process was absent in the ancient and medieval South Asia. In the ancient and medieval periods,

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political process evolved with the king as the focal point. Then the concept of states was tribal in nature and the king had no permanent employee for limited source of revenue (Khan, 2013). According to the “Rig Veda” ancient Indian Subcontinent was politically divided into numerous sovereign territory headed by local King or Rajas. Local people enjoyed administrative freedom in these kingdoms as the village was self-contained and autonomous in operation (Basham, 1954). The “Headmen” were official agent of administration in the village level, who were communicated and mediated with the central and village levels. In addition, “The legends of the Aryans speak of how administrative arrangements evolved in ancient India. The gods, at war with demons, were on the verge of defeat. In desperation, they got together and elected a king to lead them. The origins of the early Aryan administrative system may perhaps be traced to these legends” (Das, 2013:1). However, all sources of Indian tradition, specially Brahmanical, Buddhist, Jaina literature, the Arthasastra of Kautilya and the Manusamhita show the existence of representative bodies, though the forms of government was absolute monarchical during the ancient time of this region (Husain, 2007). Gana, Sangha, Sreni, Puga, Vrata etc, were the representative political institutions of that time in ancient Indian subcontinent. The numerous members of a sovereign Gana or Sangha interacted with each other as members of an assembly (Hasanuzzman, 2009). The dynastical rule was established in the South Asia and it was continued until sixteenth century. However, these dynastical rulers were concerned to the happiness of their citizens or subjects. They governed the country on the basis of the following philosophy: “Happiness of king depends on the happiness of his subjects and in their welfare his welfare. He shouldn’t take up activities that are good for him alone and that please him but rather should treat as beneficial to him whatever please his subjects” (Mishra, 2013: 30).

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Grade Highest Grade 2nd Grade 3rd Grade

Annual salary (in panas) 48,000 24,000 12,000

4th Grade

8,000

5th Grade

4,000

6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade

3,000 2,000 1,000

9th Grade

500

250 10th Grade th 120 11 Grade 60 Lowest Source: Khan, 2015: 34.

Positions Councillors, Chief of Defence The Chancellor, Treasurer Ministers, Governor General of City, Head of Manufacturing Establishment, Provincial Governors, Governors of frontier regions, City Commandant Magistrates, Chief Commanders of Infantry, Horses, Elephants and Chariots Chief Elephant Forester, Chief Superintendent of Productive Forests, Commanders of Infantry, Horses, Elephants and Chariots Palace Courtesan Camp Superintendent of Armed Forces Heads of Department (secret service, intelligence, merchants and ascetics) Accountants, clerks, village level, secret service agents Occasional secret agent Artisans, sculptors Labor, foreman, valet, Miners

However, the Mauryan Empire was the first welfare state in Indian subcontinent that had developed an efficient administrative system resembling many principles of modern bureaucracy. This dynasty provided many welfare facilities to its citizens including roads, irrigation, price of commodities, and public hygiene by the state intervention. The king was the head of the legislative, treasury, judicial, and military functions. However, the king also recruited some minister or amatya to assist his functions (Khan, 2013). Kautilya was one of the ministerial advisers of Chandragupta Maurya. Kautilya’s Arthashastra was the first classical ancient Indian treatise on public administration, economics, ethics and defense studies (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013) where Kautilya advised to

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his King Chandragupta Maurya as an adviser (namely Chanakya). Accordingly, Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of Mauryan Dynasty in ancient India had built up his kingdom on the basis of division of labor, administrative hierarchies, paid salaries and expertise. Table 4.1 presents the salary for various officers as reported in Arthasastra. Mauryan administration was the first bureaucratic administration in its true sense based on actual bureaucratic norms. But it was mostly “patrimonial” according to Weber, as loyalty to the King, and trustworthiness was also important consideration to be appointed in the bureaucracy at that time. According to this source Mauryan administration was the first bureaucratic administration in India. Provincial administration was also developed in that time to maintain military activities and revenue collection. During the rule of King Ashoka, Indian governance was territorial based, and was divided into province or district and further more into villages (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). In the earliest times, there may have been between sixth and nine centuries A.D. when the Panchayat system Self-governing village communities characterized by agrarian economies had existed in India and it was a live institution with a definite function in the village levels (Tinker, 1968). These village bodies, which were called “the little republics” by Sir Charles Metcalfe (British Governor General 1835-36), were the lines of contact with higher authorities on matter affecting the villages. These were caste-ridden feudal structures. According to Khanna (1977), every village had a self-government body of its own. Control of the central government was marginal and they had adequate financial resources for the performance of their duties. Two varieties of self-government institutions, i.e., the headman and Panchayats appear to be operational in rural areas since early times. The headman was not an elected official but came from the most dominant family in the village. His importance was due to two factors: all contacts, be it political or administrative, between the villagers and higher authorities had to be routed through him and he was involved in collection of taxes from the village. The Panchayat was an elected body with executive and judicial functions. But often the headman controlled the Panchayat (Khan, 2009; Siddiqui 2005).

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Muhammad Sayadur Rahman Table 4.2. Salaries of Mansabdars as reported in the Ain-i-Akbari

Grade No

Commander of salaries 10,000 1 5,000 4 1000 44 100 59 10 66 Source: Khan, 2015: 36.

Gross monthly salaries 60,000 30,000 8,200 700 100

Net monthly 21274 10637 3015.5 313 44.7

In the medieval period and especially during the Sultanate and the Mughal periods, the governance system was royally, based on Emperor or Sultan who was the focal point of governance and he had many assisting force to implement the imperial decisions. In this time, an organized and efficient system of administration and bureaucracy developed where the bureaucrats were appointed on the basis of their loyalty to the ruler and were given them land grants for rendering their services, and they also exercised political, judicial and administrative powers. They were directly under control of Sultan or Emperor. They were controlled by transferring from one place to another very frequently (Das, 2013). The land bureaucrats who engaged in Mughal period often exploited and oppressed the people to satisfy their master. Like the ancient period, the sultanate administration had field administration in provinces, divisions, and districts (Khan, 2013). In the case of local government, during the Sultanate and the Mughal rule of Indian subcontinent, the Panchayat system disappeared altogether. Especially the Mughal rulers gave considerable importance to towns or urban governance and they contributed to the development of urban local government, as “the Mughals were essentially an urban people in India” in the words of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, and their most distinctive achievements in the sphere of local government were in urban administration (cited in Tinker, 1968:17). Each town included a number of wards or Mohallas. A Mir Mahalla was appointed to act as a spokesman for each Mahalla. The Kotwal, or Chief Executive Officer of the town, wielded wide-ranging

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powers including magisterial, police, fiscal and municipal power who united in his office the duties of a municipal chairman (Misra, 1970). He was assisted in performing his duties by two officials: a Kazis who were responsible for administration of justice and a Mahatasibs/Mansabdars who were assigned to prevent illegal practices (Tinker, 1968; Siddiqui, 2005). The Mughals did not interfere to the ancient customs of village government. Rather “they incorporated the village into the administration as a unit for revenue and police purposes only” (Tinker, 1968:19). They maintained law and order in the village level by the “headman or muqaddam” as village officers and servants, who were accountable or answerable primarily to the panchayat. On the whole, the total administrative system was dependent on the will of emperor. The appointment, promotion, tenure, and transfer of the administration were controlled by the monarch. Extreme authority of the monarch made politicization of the administration inevitable in the key posts of the administration, especially in allocating mansab (service grading) and chieftainships, and in higher appointments in the judiciary (Khan, 2013). The distinctive contribution of the Mughal administration was the introduction of an integrated grading structure where the appointed administrators were paid high salaries under mansabdari system. However, the Mughal system with all its novelties lacked mechanisms for participation by the citizens. It was nothing more than a top-down hierarchical administrative system that was intended to be an extension of the central authority into the local areas and the relationship between Emperor and bureaucracy was patron-client relation. Because, the Mughal rulers controlled their civil servants in many ways, i.e., keeping them temporary in the positions, frequent transfer, and by surprised visit. There is a saying that of their 200 years of rule, the Mughal rulers spent almost 40 per cent of their time on tour to keep a watch over their civil servants (Das, 2013:10). At the eleventh of the Mughal rule this system disappeared very rapidly (Abedin, 1973) and meanwhile colonial power entered into Indian Subcontinent and frequent clash with the intrusive power had weaken this administrative system and even though it had completely broken down in some places of Indian subcontinent. Nonetheless, it was a

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great source of British colonial rulers to build a modern administrative system in Indian Subcontinent (Cohn, 1961). Spear (1961:238) commended that “The British found the wreck of this system and admired it even in decay.” It served as the foundation upon which the British colonial rulers later built a modern administrative state in British India (Abedin, 1973).

4.3. POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION IN SOUTH ASIA: COLONIAL PERIOD The foundation of the British colonial rule in Indian Subcontinent was a matter of great significance with resultant impact on political system and governmental process. During the Mughal Empire, many business groups like Dutch, Maratha, Olondaga, Portuguese and English penetrated in South Asia for business purpose. But after winning the Battle of Swally in 1612 against the Portuguese, the British East India Company established their trading or business in the port towns of Surat, Madras, and Bombay in 1613 with the permission of Mughal Emperor Jahangir (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). It is clear that the British arrived in South Asia for doing business. But the interesting fact is that, how this business standard did eventually turned into a ruling class in course of time and thus Indian subcontinent witnessed the presence of British colonial rule for near about 200 years? The answer of this question is still mysterious. However, what started off as a trade agreement eventually resulted in British rule after the East India Company won major military battles at Plassey in 1757 and Buxar in1764, defeating the Mughal emperor, as a result of which they obtained revenue collection rights in Bengal and Bihar (formerly Bengal Presidency) in 1765 (Mishra, 2013; Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). Finally, The Regulating Act of 1773 was the first landmark in the transformation of the East India Company’s commercial administration into apolitical government in the Indian subcontinent. It laid the foundation of central administration (Misra, 1959).

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Nevertheless, the event of 1857 (mutiny of sepoys) promoted the British Government to directly take over the Indian administration in its own hand ending hundred years of East-India Company rule (1757-1857). As a result, in 1858, the rule of the East India Company came to an end and India came to be governed by the British parliament through a hierarchically organized bureaucratic channel, which is mostly known as the Viceregal System (Rashid, 2007). At the same time, multifaceted modernizing activities, spread of western education of colonial rule, promoted a new middle class background enlightened people in the Indian society who were seriously influenced by the Westminster type of representative government. Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885, and there was a growing resentment and dissatisfaction with the colonial rule that led to the emergence of indigenous politicians who inspired the masses to stand up and fight against the leadership of the British government. In this milieu, colonial rulers introduced parliamentary system of government in India in a gradual process. The process went on an incremental beginning with the Government of India Act, 1861 through 1892, 1909, 1919 to 1935 (Rashid, 2007). Under the government of India Act 1861, for the first time a legislature in embryo was created at the allIndia center and provinces such as Bengal, Punjab and the North-West frontier. By this Act, an attempt had been made to create a representative legislative council by the extension of the executive council of the Governor-General with the provision of 6 to 12 additional members (half of them non-officials, including both Europeans and Indians) would be nominated by the Governor-General. Thus in relation to his council the position of the Governor-General became considerably strengthened (Misra, 1970). In real sense, it was not a representative council or legislature. It was the safeguard of imperial interest. Because, members had no right to raise any question. The real powers were vested in the hands of Governor-General and the Governor. Despite its many limitations, the Act is considered as the genesis of the legislative bodies in the Indian Subcontinent (Choudhury, 1963), and it increased little bit more legislative power than executive. Later the Act of

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1892 increased the number of non-official Indian members (both central and provincial assemblies) who were nominated by the Governor-General upon the recommendations of corporations, municipalities, universities, and so on (Mannan, 2005). Under the Act though the members of the legislatures were allowed discussions on the budget and different administrative matters, their right to criticism or voting was not granted. “There still remained an official majority on the councils and there was still no approach to a parliamentary system” (cited from Hasanuzzman, 2009:17). In the subsequent parts of the effort, the British government attempted to introduce British Parliamentary model in India by expanding the legislative body and its functions. We observed this effort in the Act of 1909 and 1919 which was mostly known as ‘Morley-Minto’ and ‘Montague-Chelmsford’ Reforms. Expansion of power and functions of the legislature and members, ‘separate electorates’ for the Muslims, budget analysis, criticize the budget and move proposals on any subject related to public interest were the distinguishing features of this Act. But it did not fulfill the rising demand of Indians. Several attempts were made by the British government with the gradual development of the legislative council under the Act, 1919. “The introduction of the system of direct election, some kind of responsible government at the provincial level in the ‘transfer subject’ under what was called diarchy, and majority position of nongovernment members in both central and provincial legislatures were the most distinguishing features of the Act” (Rashid, 2007:72). Under the new Act, in Bengal elections were held four times: 1920-21, 1923, 1926 and 1929. However, the Government of India Act, 1935, replaced the diarchy in Indian provinces by providing a federal form of responsible parliamentary government enjoying autonomous sphere of functions. Mishra noted “that the secretariat, ministries, departments, tenure system, etc., are all established and nurtured by during the British regime, which is being continued even today.” It could be said that more or less this Act encouraged and provided some parliamentary devices for executive accountability to the legislature in a very restricted sense and created an urge for a sovereign parliament (Hakim, 1993). However, this had far

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reaching consequence because in the meantime in 1947, India was divided into two parts. On the other hand, the present politico-administrative or civil service system as well as local government of South Asia had its origin in the arrangement developed by the British colonial rulers. Yet the administrative system that was developed during the British period in India was borrowed from the Mughals (Cohn, 1961). India was divided into provinces (subas), the provinces into districts (sarkars), and the districts into subdivisions (parganas) under the Mughal regimes. “The British not only borrowed heavily from this Mughal structure of the system but to some extent took over the feeling tone of the Mughal administration – a mixture of great pomp and show, and combined benevolent and despotic intervention” (Cohn, 1961:8). Sir Jadunath Sarkar noted Indian scholar also observed the same thing before Cohn, and he identified similarities between the British administration and Mughal administrative setting in the territorial arrangement in India. During the colonial regime Indian subcontinent had been administratively divided into three presidencies: Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Bengal presidency was under the Governor-General of India, and it was divided into twenty four administrative districts. The GovernorGeneral gained the assistance of a Lieutenant-General for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and District Collectors. Similarly, the District Collectors got administrative assistance from Deputy Collectors and Deputy Magistrates (Tepper, 1970:21). Overall, District Collectors were responsible to Lieutenant-General, Lieutenant-General was responsible to the GovernorGeneral and the Governor-General was responsible to the Secretary of State for India in Whitehall and finally to the British Parliament. Thus a hierarchical administrative system was developed in British India as a system of governance. In 1765, after the formal settlement of East India Company in Indian subcontinent, they recruited covenanted servants for their business purpose namely ‘writers’ as official bureaucrats whose job was mercantile in nature and the writers would move to other levels, i.e., factor, merchant, and president in course of time by promotion (Maheshwari, 2005; Das, 2013). The Company’s appointed bureaucracy

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was labeled the “Covenanted Civil Service”. The post was known as “covenant” and the employees who held such post came to be known as “covenanted servants” (Kennedy, 1987:19; Chaudry, 2011:5). To be appointed as a bureaucrat, it was necessary to get a nomination from a director of the East India Company, because nomination was the only basis of appointment in the covenanted civil service. In many respects, nominations were made on patronage and financial considerations. “A newspaper article in 1772 reported that posts of writers had been sold for 2,000 to 3,000 pounds each, and in 1783 there was an advertisement in a newspaper offering 1,000 guineas for a writer’s place in Bengal” (Das, 2013:13). It became such a big economic scandal in England that lastly the British Parliament had to step in and passed different Acts such as the Regulating Act of 1773, the Pitts India Act of 1784, the Charter Act of 1833, and so on which required the directors of the company to take an oath that they will not make any nomination by gifts or money (Das, 2013). However, The Regulating Act of 1773 provided more centralized administration and facilitated to set up a strong bureaucratic system by the leadership of Governor-General. Lastly, in 1853, the British government decided to bring to an end of patronage system (was started in 1954) and open a competitive examination by a written entrance examination (Cohn, 1961). When the Act of 1853 was passed, a committee was appointed with the chair of Lord Macaulay to advice on the subjects for the examination and other related issues. The committee submitted its report in 1854 preferring Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) education for recruiting candidates for the civil service. The Macaulay Committee Report provided the philosophical base for the Indian Civil Service (ICS). Lord Cornwallis (1786-93), the Governor-General of India, reorganized the civil service by the principles of professionalism, attractive salaries, merit based appointment, training, and promotion. Consequently, a Civil Service Commission was established in England and the first competitive examination was held in London in 1855. The selected ICS bureaucrats were trained in a tradition which was presumed to impart the virtues of Platonic guardianship according to Philip Mason (pseud. Philip Woodruff) that he has mentioned in his book The

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Men Who Ruled India: The Guardians. Lastly they were deployed in the districts and in the secretariats both at the provincial and central levels to maintain the imperial interest of the British in India and it was the inception of the administrative state in British India. Bureaucracy was the chief apparatus of rule, control and domination of India. Then bureaucracy was ruler not servant. Thus Philip Mason (Philip Woodruff) wrote the “The Men Who Ruled India” rather not writing “the men who served India”. Meanwhile, modern political party like Congress established in 1885 and demanding ICS examination should be held simultaneously in England and in India. There was a growing demand from the society also for Indianization in the administration. Finally, following the recommendations of the Aitchison Commission (1886) and the Islington Commission (1916) for the first time in 1922 the ICS examination was held in India. Till then the number of ICS officer from India has been increased, and between 1924 to1935 in this last decade of British rule total 564 candidates were selected for ICS out of which 311 were Indians. However, after 1935, the number of Indians increased remarkable (for details see Table 4.3). Table 4.3. Composition of Indian civil service and the representation of Indians (1894-1943) Year 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904

Total No. of selected candidates 60 66 58 62 64 53 52 43 55 51 52

No. of Indians 6 1 3 3 7 3 2 2 3 3 3

Percentage of Indians 10 1.51 5.17 4.83 10.93 5.66 3.85 4.65 5.45 5.86 5.77

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Muhammad Sayadur Rahman Table 4.3. (Continued).

Year

Total No. of selected candidates 1905 48 1906 60 1907 57 1908 50 1909 52 1910 60 1911 53 1912 47 1913 44 1914 53 1915 14 1916 9 1917 6 1918 9 1919 101 1920 50 1921 55 1922 33 1923 36 1924 18 1925 & 26 50 1926 56 1927 & 28 73 1928 & 29 72 1920 & 30 66 1930 & 31 68 1931 & 32 45 1932 & 33 37 1933 & 34 44 1934 & 35 35 1936 70 1937 58 1938 48 1939 40 1940 39 1941 23 1942 8 1943 9 Source: Khan, 2015:50-51.

No. of Indians 4 3 4 3 1 1 3 7 2 7 3 5 4 9 39 6 25 24 25 15 29 27 36 36 31 43 22 23 27 22 31 25 21 17 17 19 8 9

Percentage of Indians 8.33 5 7.02 6 1.92 1.66 5.66 14.89 4.32 13.2 21.45 55.55 66.66 100 38.6 12 45.45 70.27 46.5 83.33 58 48.2 49.3 50 40.97 63.28 47.82 62.16 61.11 62.85 44.2 43.1 43.7 42.5 43.5 82.6 100 100

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Table 4.4. Educational background of European ICS officers (number and percent) University

Those who entered ICS in Those who entered ICS 1914 and before after 1914 Number Percent Number Percent Oxford 244 47 214 41 Cambridge 150 29 180 35 Scots University 68 13 40 8 Irish University 35 7 19 4 Others 20 4 46 9 None mentioned 4 1 17 3 Total 521 100 516 100 Source: Adapted from Potter (1986:71) with some modifications by the researcher.

On the other hand, the history of public administration in India reveals that colonial rulers had broken the traditional ruling systems and introduced a new system of local governance in British India to serve their imperial interest. During almost two hundred years of British rule over the Indian subcontinent, a number of experiments were made with the local government system. All the experiments were intended to devise a system that would serve their imperial interest. One of the earliest attempts was the systematic extension of bureaucratic centralized administration to the local levels. The British colonial administration that was imposed from the top in the Indian subcontinent concentrated on establishing a centralized and strong executive administration based on the paternalistic traditions of Indian society (Jamil, 2007). The major objective of the British in India was twofold: maximization of land revenue collection and maintenance of law and order. Naturally, the British as an imperial power had little understanding of, and interest in indigenous local self-governing institutions. As such, the favorable conditions to be effective local government were lacking, although the system of local government in India was supposedly adapted from the English model (Tinker, 1968).

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Table 4.5. The ICS representation in the different levels of location in 1919 and 1938 Provinces District Level Judicial Provincial level Govt. of India 1919 1938 1919 1938 1919 1938 1919 1938 Assam 34 19 2 1 12 13 1 4 Bengal 70 81 29 34 45 42 16 20 Bihar and 50 59 13 15 28 27 14 10 Orissa Bombay 59 70 23 21 59 27 13 12 and Sind Central 36 36 7 10 19 17 18 12 Provinces & Berar Madras 80 78 23 19 37 45 10 17 Punjab 51 85 16 20 37 24 20 16 United 117 117 28 20 37 33 28 25 Provinces Totals 497 545 141 140 274 228 120 116 (48%) (53%) (15%) (14%) (27%) (22%) (11%) (11%) Source: Adapted from Potter (1986:22) with some modifications by the author.

1919 49 160 105

Totals 1938 37 177 111

154

130

80

75

150 124 210

159 145 195

1032 1029 (100%) (100%)

Nonetheless, the history of modern day local government in South Asia started during the British colonial period. Like many other British colonies, the administrative system of Bengal and other parts of British India was centered on district level administrative system where district was the core administrative unit. Under the district, there were several subdivisions (sub-districts) consisting of a number of police stations locally known as Thanas. Below the Thana, there were the villages. District administration and sub-district administration were the heart of colonial administration which was ruled by the ICS bureaucrats namely District Officer1 (DO) and Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) respectively. What a great deal of executive power they held can be measured by the

1

Before 1960s this designation varied from region to region. DO was called either Deputy Commissioner or Collectorate or District Magistrate and Collector or Political Agent. After independence of Bangladesh the head of district administration is known as Deputy Commissioner. See also Abedin (1973).

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observation of Philip Woodruff. He said “the district officer really was the father and mother of his people” (Woodruff, 1963:11). Morris-Jones also observed the same thing. He observed that the “concentration of powers in the hands of the district officer was so great and his sharing of these powers so rare and minimal that it was scarcely surprising that he should have been called the ‘man-bap’ (mother and father) of his area” MorrisJones (1957:36). In the districts, even while overseeing the routine work of revenue collection and maintenance of law and order, they were inevitably engaged also in political work with local collaborators (Potter, 1986), especially with local Zamindars to whom DOs were heavily depended for revenue collection. Table 4.5 provides the overall position for ICS in all levels of administrations in British India during 1919 and 1938. It reveals that from central to rural level of administrations were controlled by the ICS men. The reorganization of local government in Indian subcontinent was initiated by Macaulay who had foreseen the new possibility of selfgovernment in 1833, and it was reaffirmed by the Samuel Laing, the finance member of the government of India (Misra, 1970). Especially after the Orissa Famine of 1866, it was necessary to introduce the local organization for fund creates and to meet the developmental and relief activities by the created funds. Therefore, the first attempt by the colonial administration to reorganize the local government system was The Bengal Municipal Act, 1884 for urban local government of Bengal, Orissa and Assam, and The Bengal Village Chowkidai Act of 1870. The Act tried to revive and established Panchayat system with individuals (five members body) nominated by district collector with the sole purpose of levying and collecting Chowkidari tax for the maintenance of village watchmen and maintenance of law and order for four year terms, as the 1860’s were a period of agrarian unrest (Tepper, 1970). If any member who were nominated for Panchayats refused to serve could be fined fifty rupees. As a result of the Act, the first local Government bodies appeared in rural Bengal. Though in 1870, the Village Chowkidari Act in Bengal established union Panchayats to collect tax to maintain Chowkidars (village police), but it was not popular with villagers as it lacked popular participation and

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representation. Thus, about two decades later, Lord Ripon noted the change in the development of Indian society and in a letter addressed to Gladstone pleaded for the introduction of local self-government based on the philosophy of people’s representation. He wrote – we are going to open a new beginning and a new means of our administration “such measures will not only have an immediate effect in promoting gradually and safely the political education of the people, which I hold to be a great object of public policy, but will also pave the way for further advances in the same direction... You will observe then that the question involved in the policy which I have been pursuing upon this subject of local self-government is a broad question of political principle” (cited in shortly from Misra, 1970:40-41). Lord Ripon’s resolution of May 18, 1882 was important for two reasons: it set out general principles for development of local institutions in the future and provided the rationale behind functions of local bodies for popular political education. As Lord Ripon saw the local government “as an instrument of political and popular education”. At the same time, he also held that extreme bureaucratic control over the local government is the major impediment to achieve the goal (Tinker, 1968; Tepper, 1966). Thus, the resolution emphasized to having a two-thirds majority of non-officials (elected) members in all local bodies. Lastly, Lord Ripon's Resolution on local self-government laid the foundation of local self-government in rural India (Khan, 2009), even if the supporter of a “paternal administration” especially the provincial governments and district officers (ICS bureaucrats) were against and ignored this attempt who were responsible for putting them into practice (Tinker, 1968). The Ripon’s resolution was passed in 1885 as The Bengal Local Self-Government Act III of 1885. The Bengal Local Self Government Act, 1885 provided a three-tier rural local government system at three different levels, district, sub-division and union, namely the district board, the local board (for sub-division) and the union committee (Blair, 1985; Westergaard& Alam 1995; Siddiqui, 2005). The district board was made the principal unit of local self-government and the collector was the chair, who was exercising the real authority. District councils were called District Boards (later known as Zila Parishads

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in Bangladesh). Sub-divisional Boards were also constituted which was rather short-lived. District and sub-divisional boards were under official tutelage, whereas the Union Parishads were headed by elected representatives. Under the Act, the villages were grouped into unions for the first time (each consisting of around 15 villages). Members of the union committee and local board were elected by a restricted electorate and the district board members were indirectly elected. A local government council was established at the union level known as the ‘Union Board’ (later known as ‘Union Parishad’). However majority of members of these councils were nominated and that was dependent upon the district magistrate and therefore, the change was more formal than real (Tinker, 1968). This is why, “For more than three decades following the implementation of the Local Self-government Act of 1885, there was no serious move to redefine relations between the bureaucracy and local government” (Ahmed, 2009:34). As a result, a Royal Commission on decentralization of power was appointed in 1907 and the commission submitted its report in 1909, with recommendations of decentralization and to associate Indians in the process of governance and administration (Siddiqui, 2005). In 1909, the Mortely-Minto Reforms were enacted but that was not accepted by all Indians. Lastly, The Bengal Village Self-Government Act of 1919 was passed by following the Montague-Chelmsford Report in 1918. This Act provided three tiers of local government; District Board, local Board and Union Board. It also laid the foundation of local democracy and differentiation of political and bureaucratic roles (Ahmed, 2009). The Act abolished Chowkidari Panchayat and replaced the DO as the chairman of the District Board by an elected representative with the ‘mandatory’ provision of having two-thirds of non-officials (elected) in the above three levels of local government. As a “transferred” subject, local selfgovernment was entirely the department of elected ministers, responsible to provincial legislatures, and Sir Surendra Nath Banerjea, the veteran Congress leader became the first Bengal Minister for local self-government (Tinker, 1968:129-130).

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Whatsoever, notwithstanding many “limitations and other constraints, the 1919 Act provided the Indians with the first opportunity to practice Westminster type of parliamentary democracy in miniature” (Rashid, 2007:73) putting under popular control and the politicians made the advent in administration at the national and local levels of government after the introduction of the Montford Reforms in 1919, although the Act of 1919 provided specific safeguards to protect the civil servants from possible political harassment. For instance, no officer could be dismissed from service or their pay and allowances could not be stopped and eventually a system of governmental protection was given to the bureaucrats even when working in the sphere of transferred subjects and thus under the political master (Maheshwari, 2005:23). Nonetheless, this act provided power to formulate policy and to determine the general direction of the administration. Therefore, since 1919, the governing relations between politicians and bureaucrats became resembling an uneasy partnership, when the Indian politicians were appointed as the Ministers at the provincial level under the Act of 1919. It was like “from paradise lost” to the ICS bureaucrats. The notion of serving under political leaderships was completely new to the ICS bureaucrats, because before then they were the agent of power monopoly. Although in the case of dispute between the minister and the secretary, the secretary could bypass the minister and act according to the orders from the governor of the province (Rahman, 2002). Even when the minister did want to make a decision in opposition to the ICS bureaucrat in the department, he was not always successful. Consequently, in the following few years, some of the ministers and even 345 ICS bureaucrats reigned from their posts in protest (Ahmad, 1964). As a result, bureaucrats were horizontally involved in the governance and developmental works with elected representatives in central and provincial administration. This is why the ICS is termed as ‘the steel frame’ by the British Prime Minister Lloyd George, though the social contacts of the bureaucracy to the mass people were weak and not to the expected level, because of their elitist behavior. The argument against such administrators essentially was that their background was not conductive to an attitude and temperament necessary for any level of development

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activities (Dwivedi and Jain, 1985). Because, during the colonial period, bureaucracy was the only institution that was already strong and well developed, not politics, and it has often adopted paternalistic attitudes toward citizen as well (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). Moreover, the characteristic behavior patterns of ICS bureaucrats were clearly political, even though they rarely labeled them as such (Potter, 1986). Although they were involved in overseeing and organizing the implementation of decisions made by political leaders but they also made authoritative decisions by themselves as leaders within the state structure (Potter, 1986). Most importantly, the ICS bureaucrats were centrally involved in pursuing partisan objectives of colonial interest by mobilizing groups in society either support or restraint them who had different political orientations. In this regard, Potter (1986:36) has noted a very clear view of an ICS bureaucrat “our main responsibility was the maintenance of ‘Pax Britannica’…we were against Congress who were trying to chuck the British out of India and we tended to regard with favour those Indians whom we considered ‘loyal’, and with disfavour those whom we consider ‘disloyal’.” On the other hand, the Indian born bureaucrat was Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect (Ahmad, 1964). This is why Woodruff (1963:11) had commented that “it is hard to believe that the impress of English ways of thinking will vanish altogether”. As such the ultimate effect was that a relationship of mutual trust, cooperation and mutual understanding between the politicians and the bureaucrats failed to develop. Nonetheless, since 1919 up to 1947, and until settling the partition of India, British administration and particularly the ICS bureaucrats were under political pressure to a greater or lesser, depending on time and place throughout the India. As a result, once upon a time, “the ICS men became political instruments of political leaderships, whether they liked it or not” which Potter (1986:43) termed “this was not political interference; it was rather a new political context within which” political leaderships and the ICS bureaucrats had to operate the governance in India up to independence and even after independence of Indian subcontinent.

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CONCLUSION The preceding historical analysis has shown a chronological growth, structure and process of interaction between politics and administration. The political dominance over administration or bureaucracy was present in all phases and regimes from ancient and medieval and also British periods. During the ancient and medieval periods, bureaucracy was such an apparatus that was fully controlled by the emperor. This trend was also continued during the British rule; they established an administrative structure by following Mughol patriarchal bureaucracy for handling British rule properly, who could materialize their well-being in Indian subcontinent. Before the industrialization in Europe, British were driven by patrimonial bureaucracy as mentioned by Max Weber. They introduced the same bureaucratic structure (as apparatus of Plato’s ideal state) in Indiansubcontinent after the establishment of their colony in Indian subcontinent. Thus, during the initial period of ICS the Indian got little scope to enter into civil service. The competitive examination for entry to the civil service was combined for the Diplomatic, the Home, the Indian, and the Colonial Services (Arora, 2012). Until the 1930s the Indians in the service were very few and were not given high posts by the British. However, during the British period a carefully designed selection process was applied to recruit the most competent candidates. Although the civil service was established for performing the political role and the British rulers, until 1924, were reluctant to welcome the Indians into the ICS. However, through implementing the recommendation of the Lee Commission, 1924, the process of ‘Indianization’ achieved a momentum and at the same time, the examination procedure conducted by the then PSC (known as Federal Public Service Commission), had remained beyond any controversy (Jahan and Shahan, 2008). The officials selected through the process, irrespective of their class, caste or race, reflected a high degree of objectivity, especially in intellect. Their efficiency in managing the complex management issues was quite outstanding and the reliance of the British Empire on the bureaucratic machinery can be cited as a proof of that. Nonetheless, from the very beginning of cadre based civil service,

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political influence started and since then it continues. The ICS often fell victim to the control of political actors, be it government in whatever form. In fact, control on the PSC’s (named ICS during this time) activities dated back to the British era. When the Simon Commission for administrative reform was appointed in 1927, then Chair of the ICS, Sir Ross Barker submitted a memorandum to the commission pointing out the problems he faced due to the government’s control over the recruitment process (Jahan and Shahan, 2008). On the whole, the ultimate aim of the bureaucracy was to serve imperial interests of the empire and that is why, “…it was designed to be administered by a handful of administrators at its apex who would rule or govern” (Khan and Zafarullah, 1991: 581). Even, when the Government of India Act, 1935was framed in the expectation that the ministers would be Indians, it enabled the civil servants to bypass the ministers. In fact, the bureaucratic system was framed in such a manner that it would curb the development of indigenous political institutions. Thus, during the liberation movement and even after partition of India ICS bureaucrats faced a very difficult situation to cope with the indigenous politicians. However, to what extent such administrative behavior had changed after adapting new code and regulatory framework of Independent South Asia that is the subject of the following chapter.

Chapter 5

POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN INDEPENDENT SOUTH ASIA 5.1. INTRODUCTION South Asia is a unique region with considerable cross-national diversities, similarities, and contradictions. All of the countries of South Asia such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka share a common history of colonial dominance (even though some, such as Nepal and Bhutan, have not been proper colonies) under the British Raj. Still they also present major variations in terms of geography, territorial and population size, religion, culture, and language. Even with regard to political governance, these countries show significant differences (Haque, 2001). However, in spite of many changes from time to time South Asian politics and bureaucracy has shaped its structures on the basis of colonial experience. In the last part of the British rule and during the nationalist movement, a critical question arose to the survival of the ICS bureaucrats after the independence of Indian subcontinent. Because, as the ICS bureaucrats were used in favor of the British rule and particularly against the Indian nationalist leaders, the notion of serving under political leaderships was completely new to the ICS bureaucrats and the

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relationships between home grown politicians and ICS bureaucrats were complicated, confusing, unstable and overall conflicting. But the interesting thing was that all the South Asian countries with colonial experience reintroduced the ICS tradition after its independence. And in the post-independent era, they worked on relatively cordial condition with the politicians to whom the ICS bureaucrats were very suppressive and they used to impose punishment to those who supported the nationalist movement. How this was possible, and still it is possible? Thus, this chapter explores the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in the context of independent South Asia. The analysis of this chapter will be heavily focused on India and Pakistan with infrequent discussion on Nepal and Sri Lanka.

5.2. POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN INDIA In all the cases of South Asian countries, the inherited administrative pattern has been retained relatively intact after independence also. After independence, India adopted parliamentary government with democratic set up. The elected government exercises its broad administrative power in the name of president, and the council of minister is responsible for day to day business of the country according to the constitution. The Directive Principles of the constitution of India provided the framework for the functions of political and administrative actors. However, the colonial legacy had a long standing effect on social, political and administrative conditions in India (Mishra, 2013). When India became independent, many things changed, but the basic framework of the administration continued. After sixty years of independence, Misra (2009) did not find any significant changes between ICS and IAS except the change of pay scales. He also comments that “relations between the political executive and the civil servant today leave a lot to be desired” (Misra, 2009: viii). The administrative system that was set up after independence of India was the product of British traditions and on the philosophy of the democratic welfare system (Dwivedi and Jain, 1985). Although India adapted a new

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form of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) after its independence but it was successor of the ICS, without breaking the British administrative traditions. Although during first decade of Indian independence, India adopted Community Development Approach, and in this period bureaucrats were largely involved in developmental activities rather than regulatory activities. During this period there was a leap in the numbers of the civil servants: from 4.1 million in 1953, it went up to almost 8 million in 1963 (Das, 2013). Nonetheless, the orientation and the nature of the activities of the bureaucrats broadly followed the same pattern as was in the colonial government. May be it was the foresight of colonial ruler that the system which was installed by them would be continued in the future of India. This is why, Kochanek (1975:45) has commended that during the British colonial period “a model of government evolved which was ultimately to be accepted as the structure of government for independent India” because the model of administration was established by the principle of merit bureaucracy, elitism and loyalty to its masters. He also has recommended that the bureaucracy “must be made more innovative, less subject to rapid expansion as a way of creating employment and must exercise self-restraint in its demands for higher incomes” (Kochanek, 1975:137). But the Indian bureaucracy remains in the same position. It is notable that during the independent movement, the ICS was considered as the instrument of colonial power and the Congress (first political party in Indian sub-continent) had all along declared that they would abolish the ICS and all that it stood for (Potter, 1986). But practically it did not happen. Moreover, it is evident that India adopted British administrative tradition constitutionally by the effort of Sardar Patel, one of the leading Congress leaders. “India was quick to place the successor Indian Administrative Service (IAS) on a secure legal footing thanks to the efforts of Sardar Patel. In a cabinet meeting in April 1948, he secured approval for constitutional protection for the ICS from a still reluctant Nehru. Sardar Patel launched a vigorous defence for the ICS in the legislature as well. He argued that it was impossible to run the country without a civil service and that Congress workers could not be an alternative for them” (Chaudhary, 2011:24). According to Potter (1986), that was a “political support” to the

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ICS species which would have been possible to survive them in the governance process in independent India. Of course, the political support that provided the scope for adaptation and reinstatement of the colonial bureaucracy that was questionable to the nationalist leaders themselves after near about two decades of independence. In this regard, “in 1964, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was asked what he considered to be his greatest failure as India’s Prime Minister. He said, ‘I could not change the administration, it is still a colonial administration” (Das, 2013:22; Potter, 1986:2). As a result, attempts from the political leadership to shake things up have been taken in different regimes but the result was not fruitful. The net result according to Tummala, “is that the civil servant not only remains greater entrenched but also threatened; hence very cautious” (cited in Heady, 2001, 392). However, one notable tendency between Indian and western scholars to the discussion on bureaucracy and its roles and relations to its counterpart is that western scholars identified the Indian bureaucracy as an agent of modernization positively as to politics-bureaucracy relationship. On the other hand, most of the Indian scholars identified the role of bureaucracy from both the negative and positive side. Like, Heady (2001:389-393) identified “comparable working relationships between political leaders and professional bureaucrats, and established effective external controls over the bureaucracy.” in the Indian case. He also observed that both India and Malaysia have benefited from unusually advanced higher public bureaucracies. According to Heady “A cherished part of the political tradition in both India and Malaysia is that there should be a separation between the politicians who make policy and the administrators who carry them out. In practice, working relationships between the political leaders and the professional bureaucrats have generally conformed to the tradition, and have proceeded smoothly, but with Malaysian bureaucrats playing a more active policy role than their Indian counterparts.” Of course not all western scholars, i.e., Paul H. Appleby, an American observer, who was invited to India for research on bureaucracy after independence, pointed out that undoubtedly Indian bureaucracy is advanced but it was “designed to serve the relatively simple

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interests of an occupying power” and was not adequate for an independent India, and required systematic improvement (cited in Palmer, 1961:132). In this regard, Prof. Mitra (2010) has considered the IAS as the replication of the ICS, which still occupies the upper echelons of Indian administration. Although he mentioned some examples of ‘the collapse of the steel frame’ but still now without the help of bureaucracy the minister can do nothing, and without cooperation between politicians and bureaucrats the governance is being paralyzed. Caiden (2013:544) has commented that “Public bureaucracy has always been powerful, its performance surprisingly good under the circumstances, much decentralized, corrupt, somewhat mediocre at lower levels, defiant against reform, and with an impressive aristocratic dignified bearing.” These characteristics of Indian bureaucracy have opened up the gap between and among politicians, bureaucrats and public. Moreover, the civil servants in India including all India services enjoy protection under article 311 of the Indian constitution. This constitutional protection of IAS has made a sharp division between politicians and bureaucrats. This sharp division brought about an unresponsive and apathetic bureaucracy that has become more rigid and indifferent, riddled with castetism, and strictly adherent to the politics and administration (Caiden, 2013:544). Bhattacharya (1979:11) has recognized Indian bureaucracy as having the hang-over of the colonial era and as authoritarian in outlook and power monopoly. In modern administrative system of India, the bureaucracy or the Civil Service plays a crucial role. The executive decisions are implemented by the Indian civil servants. However, the primary function of bureaucracy is the execution and enforcement of the laws made by the legislature and policies decided by the political executive. Although, formally it is supposed to follow the Weberian Model of politics and administration dichotomy and the principles of neutrality and impartiality, but it fails to do so in reality. In the post-independence era, India is increasingly becoming politicized over the years (Sen, 2013). Potter (1986) also endeavors a tremendous attempt to explore the nature of Indian political administrators in his research. He pursued his study in the field of Indian local and central bureaucracy from the time

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frame of 1919-1983 in Indian four states namely; Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu and indeed on Indian Administrative Services (IAS) throughout India. He identified the colonial ICS tradition is prevailing and it is essentially persisted in the IAS, and it is remained important in the independent India. Professor Mitra (2006) has also expressed the same view. In his empirical study The Puzzle of India’s Governance he explains “India as an exemplar of a post-colonial, rich-poor state-nation, where modern institutions are wrapped around a society of which many important segments remains traditional… . Her political institutions and process, bearing the complex legacies of English utilitarianism, colonial rule… a general continuity in public policy” (Mitra, 2006:3-5). Indian bureaucrats often find themselves as blameless for everything that goes wrong and everything goes to the politicians and to the institutions or vis-à-vis which resulting the governance as scapegoat. Although the bureaucrats are under the system of control by the All India Services Rules, 1969, which provides the punitive powers, i.e., suspension, censure, withholding of promotions, recovery from pay of any pecuniary loss caused to government or government controlled organization, withholding of increments of pay, reduction in rank, and compulsory retirement. Thus, the duel control (state and central government) of bureaucracy causes victimization for both the politicians and the bureaucrats by the blame game and mistrust. In this regard, Noronha (1976:74), a retired chief secretary commented that “Today the politician distrusts the IAS man… . He distrusts him because he belongs to an All India Services, whose loyalty must be more to the centre than to the state.” Sethuraman and Moorthy (1992:75), observed a very outrageous nature of the relationships that “There has also been pressure from the political level for a committed bureaucracy which has been understood as commitment to the Constitution by the civil servants or commitment to the person in power or the party in power or the politicians in power…. Civil service functioned according to the desire of the political power…. The trend is also perceptible of civil servants aligning with politicians resulting in vindictive action against those associated with the politicians who are no longer in power.”

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In present India, the collusion between politicians and bureaucrats are notable. And this is not the case of central government but the same thing goes to the case of local governance in India as well. After being studied the district administration in India, Palanithurai et al. (2006:3), observed that “the whole process of governance and appropriately colluded with the bureaucracy and ensured a system of governance for their own advantage…Though India got independence from the British the people could not get independence from the British administration as free India continued the British type of administration.” They also comment that the political elites could not intent to change this trend. May be this kind of administration is convenient to the political elites and it helped the politicians and bureaucrats to gain perfect understanding about the whole process of governance and development and to keep the people away from the process of governance and development. Sarkar (2010) studied the relations between the administrative personnel and the political (elected) members of the Zilla Parishad in West Bengal and found that the relations between the two actors could not be properly organized. As a result, governing the panchayat bodies are being seriously affected. In the initial years after independence, the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats was one of mutual respect and understanding. But the trend of this relationship has been changing gradually. Now the politicization of the civil service is a common phenomenon. However, in subsequent decades, bureaucrats are promoted and given favorable positions based on their perceived support for incumbent politicians and parties. On the other hand, the supporters of opposition political ideologies are punished through by being denied promotions, forced into retirement or being posted to unimportant offices (Sabharwal and Berman, 2013). Consequently, at present India, there are two types of bureaucrats; one is indirectly politically involved (as the civil service conduct rules prohibit civil servants from active participation in political activities) who cultivate and seek political patronage from politicians, and the other one is comparably neutral and marginalized. The former dominates the latter in the process of governance along with politicians. Because providing policy advice to the politicians is the most important

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function of the civil service in India. By this chance, former group of bureaucrats do not render policy suggestions professionally and impartially. Moreover, while the policy advice is rendered by some civil servants to the politicians is neither objective nor impartial, and more interestingly, political ministers also like these types of policy suggestion that fit into their short term political interests and avoids neutral competence. As a result, the policy bureaucrats provide and recommend policies that the ministers of the day want and a nexus has thus developed (emerging culture of collusion between politicians and bureaucrats) in between the politicians and the bureaucrats (Das, 2013; Maheshwari, 2005; Prasad, 2006). On the other hand, the bureaucrats who want to fulfill his/her duty according to the principle of law, they are to face conflict inevitably with their ministers, resulting punishment through transfers to unimportant posts and political bureaucrats those belong to the first category approach to the minister or ruling politicians and expedite this process of transfer. As a result, Subramanian (2004) first thesis – balance between politics and bureaucracy – is rare in present India. Of course, Subramanian (2009), himself has also agreed with this in his later book GovernMint in India: An Inside View. The Civil servants are now sold to the personal whims and choices of the political party in power and become indifferent to political parties not currently in power. Many believe that corruption in India has gone ballistic over the last decade. While there are no statistics specific to corruption in the IAS, it is believed that “…over half of the officers have joined the politicians in corrupt practices” (Kulkarni, 2014:1). Therefore, the first instance reveals Subramanian (2004) the second thesis ‘the collapse of the steel frame’ and the later provides the puzzle of Indian governance where no conclusive or easy answer can be given or accepted either easily. Nevertheless after sixty years of independence, if we want to evaluate the roles and relations between politics and bureaucracy in India then we can see that nonetheless gradual decay of its elitism, the IAS has emerged as leviathan in India, preserving its all apatite and cardinal values as it was, without loyalty to his masters as a whole due to the inability of political leaderships.

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Table 5.1. Political parties and the Lok Sabha elections: 1951-2009 Lok Sabha

Year of Election

Total Seats

Number of Number of Seats Won Parties Parties by Largest Contesting Represented in Party Election Parliament 1st 1951 489 55 22 364 (INC) 2nd 1957 494 16 12 371 (INC) 3rd 1962 494 29 20 361 (INC) 4th 1967 520 25 19 383 (INC) th 5 1971 518 52 24 352 (INC) 6th 1977 542 34 18 295 (BLD) 7th 1980 529 36 17 353 (INC) 8th 1984* 541 38 21 414 (INC) 9th 1989 529 117 24 197 (INC) th 10 1991** 534 145 24 244 (INC) 11th 1996 543 208 28 161 (BJP) 12th 1998 543 176 39 182 (BJP) 13th 1999 543 169 39 182 (BJP) th 14 2004 543 230 40 145 (INC) 15th 2009 543 370 37 206 (INC) Source: Compiled by the author from Arora, 2013:56-57. * Elections for Punjab and Assam were held in 1985; **Elections for Punjab were held in 1992.

5.3. POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN PAKISTAN After the partition of British India, the two separate independent states have been created namely, India and Pakistan. Pakistan retained the existing government model of British India as outlined by the Government of India Act 1935, with slight modifications (Bashir, 2013). The major challenge of post-colonial Pakistan was to establish a modern polity with democratic values for what its nationalist leaders fought for. However, at the first stage of its birth, Pakistan faced a serious challenge whether its administrative apparatus would be entirely changed, restructured or free from colonial hegemony of the ICS that British India witnessed. As the history reveals that in the late 1946 to 1947 and up to settling the partition,

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there was a political turmoil and polarization in Indian politics and administration while Muslim League joined to the “Constituent Assemblycum-interim government” (Potter, 1986). Muslim League joined to the interim government not to cooperate with Congress but to prevent Congress from tightening its hold on the administration and whole government machinery, and that was rather a silent signal to Muslim ICS bureaucrats to align them with the Muslim League and to discard the notions of a neutral civil service (Potter, 1986; Chaudry, 2011). In real sense, that was a very critical time and a ‘state of confusion’ for the ICS bureaucrats, because they were very worried about their future, as the political leaders both the Congress and Muslim League was very skeptical about the colonial bureaucracy. Finally, subsequent to the partitioning of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, three options were presented before the ICS bureaucrats to choose one of the three alternatives for their future. Table 5.2. Communal composition and cadre strength of ICS-IPS in Pakistan in 1947 Cadre and Communities Number Percentage Muslim ICS 83 53.0 Indian Christian ICS 1 0.6 British ICS 36 23.0 Muslim IPS 12 7.6 British IPS 14 8.8 War Service Candidates 11 7.0 Total 157 100.00 Source: Adapted from Braibanti (1963:367) with partial modifications by the author.

First, he might opt for service either in India or Pakistan without reduction in salary or rank and without loss of retirement privileges, which included pension benefits payable in sterling. The second alternative was to leave service with a severance allowance equal to the officer’s salary from 1947 to the normal retirement date (usually at age 60). The third possibility was to leave service and then re-enter by personal contract usually for a one- or two- year term, each contract

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negotiated separately between the officer and the government (Braibanti, 1963:366).

As a result, the ICS bureaucrats were disseminated between two independent states, India and Pakistan according to their choice (for British officers) and religion (for Indians origin of bureaucrats). And thus, 95 of the 101 Muslim ICS-IPS bureaucrats in 1947 (shown in Table 5.2) opted for service in Pakistan, Hindu officers remained in India, of course one Christian officer opted for Pakistan who was appointed the Chief Justice of Pakistan later (Braibanti, 1963), and a number of British bureaucrats chose to stay on in Pakistan and India, some resigned from service and reentered on contractual basis, and some returned to Britain getting retirement. Thus, Pakistan had not only inherited the powers of the British India but also its administrative machinery (Sayeed, 1968). The government of the newly created Pakistan maintained the system of ICS tradition administration inherited from British. New government of Pakistan installed old cadre system with only some modifications in the civil service of British India. Although there had been significant sentiment to utterly modify the colonial bureaucratic system, and the government of postindependent Pakistan appointed two American scholars for review the administrative system nevertheless the government of Pakistan was hardly in a position to do anything about it. Because, as Muslim had traditionally low representations in the ICS, and as Pakistan did not inherit enough trained bureaucrats to fill required post for the new state. Accordingly, partition left the institutions of the newly created state in a shambles (Kennedy, 1987). This is why; the newly established Pakistan government had pressing concern to run the government rather than administrative reform. After independence, administration reorganized in the name of All Pakistan Services – combining Civil Service and the Police Service of Pakistan (CSP & PSP) and including other cadres as was in British India. The Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) was at the apex of the administrative structure in Pakistan. It was the predecessor of the ICS which was called “the lineal descendent of the ICS” (Kennedy, 1987:31). After independence of Pakistan, the CSP was formally encadred in 1950, and a

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number of officers had been admitted to the CSP from extra ICS ranks. Indeed of the total CSP cadre strength of 175 in 1950 including the new appointed officers that was started from 1948, while 94 were former ICS officers (Kennedy, 1987:32). The recruitment of CSP was highly competitive, as it was in the ICS. There was an intensive training for fresh recruited cadres at the civil service academy. After training they were assigned to the fields of district administration, provincial secretariat, the judiciary, and the central secretariat. Promotion and transfer was based on merit, seniority and performance. Table 5.3 presents the total cadre strengths of the CSP (both ICS + CSP) in both West and East Pakistan from 1961 to 1971. Table 5.3. Total strengths of the CSP in Pakistan (including former ICS+CSP 1961-1971) Year Number 1961 366 1962 385 1963 410 1964 434 1965 461 1966 482 1967 501 1968 514 1969 522 1970 473 1971 483 Source: Compiled by the author from Kennedy (1987: 34).

In the above administrative arrangement, the political system that was instituted in Pakistan was very similar to that which functioned in British India. Since its inception, Pakistan developed a “Viceregal System”(Sayeed, 1968) instead of a parliamentary one, and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the main architect of Pakistan state chose to be the first Governor-General of Pakistan keeping all executive power in his hand after independence. During the British period, Governor-General was

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answerable to the Secretary of State for India in Whitehall and finally to British Parliament, but Jinnah was answerable to none – neither Constituent Assembly nor Legislature (Ahmed, 1980:28). Moreover, at the same time, Jinnah held 3 top posts – the Governor-General, the President of the Pakistan Muslim League, and the President of the Constituent Assembly. As a result, “Jinnah was poised at a critical juncture of the state machinery, from where he could legislate for almost everything within national boundaries” (Waseem, 2007:91). Of course, Alavi’s argument in this respect was to some extent different. According to Alavi, Jinnah was an old and ailing man who was more a prisoner of high posts than their incumbent and the real power centralized in the hands of higher bureaucracy (cited in Waseem, 2007:91). He also had a very subterranean dependency on bureaucracy which could be observe form his address that has given towards bureaucracy at Government House in Peshawar, April 14, 1948, where he advised to the bureaucrats not to be influenced by the politicians and partisan politics. Nevertheless very interestingly, Jinnah himself was rather relied and dependent to the bureaucracy (Ali, 1983). Even though, he created a new post of ‘Secretary General’ in the government by the advice of a bureaucrat, Chaudhri Mohammad Ali, who was also appointed for this post to look after the whole administration of Pakistan, what ought to be done by the political leadership. Even though Chaudhri Mohammad Ali could supersede ministers in policy decisions insofar as he enjoyed the confidence of both Jinnah and Liaqat. That is why, Professor Sayeed has claimed that Jinnah maintained secret bureaucratic channel thus the “weight of Jinnah’s charisma was manipulated in favour of the administrative wing of the new state and against the non-bureaucratic institutions and individuals” (cited from Waseem, 2007:91). As a nationalist leader and founding father of Pakistan, why Jinnah was overly dependent to the bureaucracy? Interestingly, in that case, there is a clear difference among the Pakistani scholars in their explanations. Alavi (1972) has seen it as the consequences of colonial rule. Jalal (1986) has seen as a post-independent phenomenon, and Waseem (2007) has seen

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it as the effect of administrative inexperience of political leadership and bureaucratic paternalism. Waseem (2007:59) observed that “in the case of the Muslim League, the political leadership had no experience of administration; it was, therefore, bound to seek bureaucratic protection for both their previously existing social status and the newly-acquired political role.” On the other hand, Professor Sayeed (1968), Ahmad (1964), Braibanti (1966), Kennedy (1987), and Chaudhary (2011) have observed the bureaucratic role in Pakistan in the light of weak political structure, where bureaucracy was used as an instrument of control by the new political leadership, and it was difficult to dismantle the bureaucratic power by the political leaderships in Pakistani state. In addition, the bureaucracy in Pakistan was indeed more experienced in the art of governance than most of the politicians that resulted to rely on bureaucracy to run the administration (Ahmed, 1986). Unfortunately, after the death of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, bureaucracy had also continued its dominant role with more stronger in the political process and governance by occupying all commanding posts in the political scene (Hasanuzzman, 1988). During 1953 -1969, Pakistan was governed by CSP officers align with military (Niaz, 2010). Even though, they had given legal or constitutional protection by the Constituent Assembly in 1954, and 1956, and 1962 constitutions (Ahmed, 1968). In this respect Sayeed (1968:259) observed that “Once administrators taste power, the appetite for it grows by what it is fed on. The machinery that was carried over from the British days largely rested on the Governor and the Central civil servants placed in the Provinces.” Ahmad (1964:239) had evaluated the bureaucratic power in the Pakistan state by saying thatThe ascendency of the civil servants was also due to the poverty of leadership among politicians. Two civil servants were able to reach the position of the head of State. Two of them held the office of Prime Minister. Many others held the positions of ministers in the central and in the provincial governments, and a few became the chief ministers of certain provinces. The posts of provincial governors were ordinarily filled by civil servants.

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On the other hand, Jahan (1972); Ahmed (1980), in their research has shown that after independence, the political elites who came to power in Pakistan were “oligarchic” in nature and they had a very narrow support base in the society. This is why; they liked to work keeping alliance with bureaucrats. Therefore, from 1947 to 1953 the Muslim League and the align bureaucrats dominated government and politics in both the central and provincial legislature of Pakistan including East Bengal Legislative Assembly. Beyond Jinnah and Liaqat, four persons, Choudhary Mohammad Ali, Ghulam Mohammad, Iskandar Mirza and General Ayub whom Waseem (2007:139) terms ‘gang of four’ “freely operating on the chessboard of Pakistani politics.” About two decades since independence, they carried out their dominating role by keeping group alignment. In 1954, due to some political disputes, governor general of Pakistan dissolved the legislative assemblies and brought the country under federal control. However the landslide electoral victory of Jukto Front in the Provincial Legislature thereby ending the monopoly of the Muslim League at least in the eastern part of the country. Unfortunately, it could not attain foothold and within a short span of time Pakistan had sunk in the lowest depth of degradation by 1958 military coup making room for a martial law government which represented a new alignment of politico-bureaucratic elites in Pakistani politics and administration, as if military intervention in politics thus became almost a structural feature of the bureaucratic polity of Pakistan (Rasiduzzman, 1967; Molla, 2000; Waseem, 2007). The political process thus moved towards the model of local government in the name of Basic Democracy under the overwhelming control of the civilmilitary bureaucracy in the process of governance and development. Though the military rule tried to civilianize by the 1962 constitution and appointing the civilian minister but the real power was always concentrated in the hands of civil-military bureaucracy in united Pakistan until 1971 (Ahmed, 1980). In explaining the local government in newly formative Pakistan, it revealed that during the formative years of Pakistan's existence, it started with the colonial style of local government and no significant change was noticed, thus Cohn (1961) has identified a clearly Mughal pattern of

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administration and territorial divisions in Pakistan. Historically, there were four standards of local government in Pakistan (Braibanti, 1966). The first and oldest form was orthodox district administration which has essentially been autocratic rule with a strong touch of paternalism. The second was rural uplift or for rural development in the sub-district level which was also ruled by the bureaucracy. The third was local self-government in the village level legitimized by the law and formal structure with electoral mode. And these three standards were merged into a system by general Ayub Khan which was known as ‘Basic Democracy’ (Braibanti, 1966). Thus the major change in local government occurred by General Ayub Khan, who seized state power in 1958, introduced a system of local government known as Basic Democracy. The result was a symmetrical and hierarchal local government extending from the elected Union Council with primary local government and operational functions, through the Thana Council with review and coordinating functions and the District Council with both governance and coordinating functions and to the Divisional Council with review and coordination functions (Wheeler, 1967:2-3) It bore a clear resemblance of two layers, the union councils and municipal committees of the British days (Khan 2009). The Basic Democracies Order, 1959 covered both urban and rural local government. It provided for four tiers: Divisional Council, District Council, Thana Council, and Union Council from vertical order from higher to lower hierarchies. In this system 80, 000 (40,000 for East Pakistan and 40,000 for West Pakistan) Basic Democrats were elected on the basis of direct adult franchise and they were only allowed to vote for the Presidential election. Yet Ayub claimed that it was an innovative way of democratic practice but in real sense, the concept of Basic Democracy lacked novelty and innovation. It was rather a politically motivated reform of military rule by which the regime tried to establish an institutional support base for itself at the local grassroots level. Thana administration during the Pakistan period was a new level of local government that was run by the Circle Officer. His primary responsibility was to guide the local bodies at the lower levels and to supervise the development activities.

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Thana council was established under the direct supervision of the bureaucrats namely, Sub-divisional Officers (SDOs). However, the Thana council did not have the power of taxation, unlike district and union boards. Divisional and district council was also highly control and supervised by the bureaucracy, and a vast array of economic, developmental and social activities of the bureaucrats had marginalized the political leaderships in the rural areas. “This seriously undermined the role of the politician for he could neither put forward vigorously the interests of his constituents, nor was much patronage available to him” at the rural level (Sayeed, 1968:281). Moreover, one statement of Iskander Mirza made all things clear that how important was the local administration to the Pakistan government in the formative phase. He said “You cannot have old British system of Administration [and] at the same time allow politicians to meddle with the Civil Service. In the British system, the District Magistrate was the king–pin of administration. His authority was unquestioned. We have to restore that” (cited from the Chaudry, 2011:26). This statement of Iskander Mirza clearly reveals that why Jinnah adopted Governor-General System instead of Westminster style. During the colonial period, bureaucrats felt comfort to work under direct control of Governor rather than political leaders. This experience of bureaucracy influenced Pakistani system of governance after independence, as bureaucracy had overwhelming influence on Jinnah. Thus, many scholars have also characterized Pakistan (1947-71) as an administrative state like British India. The introduction of Basic Democracy by the military regime had institutionalized the central politics into the local levels in the name of ‘Electoral College’ and it changed the nature of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats (Abedin, 1973). For almost fourteen out of the twenty four years of the country’s united existence, its policy administration process was dominated by a coalition of civil and military bureaucrats (Ahmed, 2002). Interestingly, it did not happen in India which was also became independent at the same time. In comparison with India, Chaudry (2011: xix) commends that “After 1947 the roles were reversed. While the successor of the ICS in India went about its role as a relatively apolitical institution, the CSP allied itself with the Pakistan Army, and

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between the two of them they ruled Pakistan to the exclusion of the politicians.” Since its independence, Pakistani political structure and institutions were weak and there was a clear political vacuum. This situation has enabled the civil-military bureaucracy to step in to fill the vacuum (Ahmad, 1964). This is why Professor K. B. Sayeed noted in the 1960s that “today in the government of Pakistan the civil servants often play an even more powerful role than that of their imperial predecessors. This ascent to power has been both steady and dramatic” (Sayeed, 1960:383). Moreover, the bureaucratic perception towards Pakistani politicians was not very positive and almost cent percent senior bureaucrats thought that the political leaders and the people were not yet ready to independence and therefore, the bureaucrats should look after the government and administration (Ahmad, 1964). Therefore, there were three major factors that affected the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Pakistan after independence up to 1970. The first was the strong colonial bureaucracy with no sustained mutual working experience between politicians and bureaucracy. According to Morris-Jones this lack of mutual trust has been carried over the post-independence period. He also held that “it is a relic of the past when the civil service was an arm of that foreign administration which put in prison a large number of those who are now the leading politicians” (cited in Ahmad, 1964:126). Independence of Pakistan would not have changed the political scenario in any significant manner. The second factor which influenced the relationship between the politicians and bureaucrats in united Pakistan was the relative superiority in personal ability and experience of the average bureaucrats over the average politicians (Ahmad, 1964; Chaudry, 2011). As a result, the independence of Pakistan did not make any sense that it was different from bureaucratic control as so was in the colonial period. Waseem’s comment is very applicable here in this respect “In the common parlance, the transfer of power had taken place between the two governments, the outgoing British government and the incoming Muslim League government. However, a closer look at the whole episode reveals that the actual transition took place between the British Bureaucracy and

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the emergent Pakistani bureaucracy” (Waseem, 2007:135-36). The third and final reason was the instability of the political governments and the economic disparity among the different regions in Pakistan which influenced upon the relations between politics and bureaucracy in Pakistan. Braibanti (1966) has explained this reason more comprehensively. Since its inception, west wing of Pakistan dominated east wing for unidentified reasons. Nevertheless, Braibanti (1966:48) has identified two reasons and the first one that was “The consequent closer identity of the Muslim of East Pakistan with the Hindu Bengali has given rise to a misconception in West Pakistan, namely, that East Pakistan is too friendly to India and therefore anti-Pakistan.” He held that “this was not a fair interpretation of the problem, because Muslim similarity with Hindu Bengali was essentially one of culture rather than of politics.” The relationships between central government and the East Pakistan had been degraded gradually for many such reasons. According to Braibanti (1966), another reason was historical. After formation of Pakistan, administration and politics were less stable, highly charged with turbulent emotion, and exceedingly fractious. For various historical reasons, Muslim Bengalis had always been underrepresented in government service, especially in the ICS. This problem continued in the administration of new Pakistani state after partition. Only one Bengali was among the total 133 ICS-IPS officers available to Pakistan at partition (Braibanti, 1966:49). In addition, the appointment of Aziz Ahmed as chief secretary to the East Pakistan had created dissatisfaction among the Bengali bureaucrats which felt deprived at a lack of representation at higher levels of bureaucracy (Chaudry, 2011). The top and middle positions in the East Pakistan Secretariat were filled by the old ICS and Punjab dominated bureaucrats (Zaheer, 1994). Moreover, East Pakistan representation in the bureaucracy and other senior administrative posts were very marginal. In the new recruitment of CSP after independence, East Pakistan representation was only average 30 percent of total recruitment, even while East Pakistan held more than 50 percent of the total population of Pakistan. Same imbalance was in the military and economic sectors also. Bengali had only 5 percent representation in the

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total military bureaucracy in Pakistan. On the other hand, economic policy was centralize and also dominated by the West Wing of Pakistan, as so in the politico-administrative sphere (Jahan, 1972). The economic disparity between the two wings was substantially high. Moreover, allocation of resources, foreign aid and development expenditure were disproportionately allocated between the two wings. In the post-independent period, a peculiar pattern of governing system emerged in Pakistan which was dominated by the bureaucracy under the banner of political leadership. This pattern of governance got an especial character of bureaucratic leviathan in the second decade, when military took over the power and it continued until 1970. Thus Pakistan became such a bureaucratic state where the “political elements who were new to power and who enjoyed political office practically in the pleasure of the higher bureaucracy” (Waseem, 2007:155). Even though, bureaucrats did not get punishment while they involved in the severe misconduct or economic corruptions. Bureaucratic accountability in the process of governance was far cry. In the Pakistani state, the west dominated politicians and bureaucrats had developed such an interlocking relationship that was fulfilled solely the interest of west Pakistani dominant class, which resulted regional conflicts and Bengalis (peoples of the east wing of the then Pakistan) demand for regional autonomy with economic emancipation.2 When it was rejected by the Pakistan state, subsequently they raised the demand of full independence and it was also rejected by the west dominated politico-bureaucratic elites. Then ultimately it led to the breakup of Pakistan (Ahmed, 1980; Jahan, 1972) and by a legacy of blood Bangladesh emerged as new nation state in South Asia.3 However, the Pakistan government took a bold step to abolish the monopoly of top administrative posts by the CSP in 1973 (Ahmad, 2013). It was a major 2

3

Since the formation of Pakistan Bengali were deprived by the West Pakistan in all spheres of governance and state affairs. As a result, they raised their demand for autonomy from the 1960s with 6 points movement and after a long struggle by the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; lastly they crossed the river shading a legacy of blood for achieving their economic emancipation. The discussion on politicization of bureaucracy in Bangladesh has not been included in this chapter. It has incorporated in the subsequent chapter.

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reform initiative of administration in Pakistan. This political step also abolished the classes among government servants and all services and cadres were placed in a unified graded structure of 22 grades. These initiatives were taken for the first time relatively wreaking the bureaucratic position in Pakistan state (Hussain, 2003). The civil service reforms of 1973 increased the relative influence of elected representatives over the bureaucracy and increased politicization but did not necessarily lead to better governance (Wilder, 2009). Although during the 1960s, the process of politicization was started and institutionalized. Yahya Khan also followed the same process and removed 303 CSP officers from the service on various allegations without due process (Kennedy, 1987). However, after a short while of time the military intervention in politics reestablished the domination of the civil-military bureaucracy again which contributed to the erosion of public faith about bureaucracy of Pakistan and the bureaucracy lost their impartiality. This trend is still continued although the general elections to the National Assembly are held in Pakistan but it is very infrequent. Since the independence to date, ten general elections are held in Pakistan. However, political processes are still at an early stage of its evolution as a democracy. So, politico-bureaucratic history and culture reveals that although Pakistan was emerged as an independent state with strong colonial bureaucratic background, but the orientation toward action of Pakistan’s bureaucracy was not undergirded by the deep residual respect for extra-bureaucratic intellectual endeavor, while there was tradition of intellectuality in the bureaucracy as a part of the colonial civil service (Braibanti, 1966). After its inception, this country was depredated by many varieties of problems including integration crisis and with the repeated failure of the political leadership to assume their proper leadership role, the civil-military bureaucracies have held political power. Kennedy (1987:5) observes that “The political leaders are episodically replaced, but the power of the administrative system and the authority of the bulk of its officers is impervious’ to change.” On the other hand, Waseem (2007) observes bureaucratic paternalism in Pakistan and such paternalism has a direct relationship with the relative underdevelopment of political institutions in Pakistan. Since its birth, Pakistan has been governed mainly

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by the civil-military bureaucrats. After a short while of independence to Musharraf regime, Pakistan has gone under military rule about four times and in its early stage “some erstwhile bureaucrats were able to occupy the political positions of Governor General and Prime Minister” (Kennedy, 1987). In fact Pakistan can be described as a bureaucratic state where the ruling elites brought with them the traditions, outlook, and attitudes typical of the bureaucrats and their sympathies were slanted more towards the bureaucracy than the political institutions (Kennedy, 1987). The pure grammar of politics-bureaucracy relationship is absent in Pakistan and thus Pakistan has failed to develop the relations which should exist between politics and bureaucracy in a political process. Caiden (2013:545) comments that “Pakistan has yet to succeed in nation building, as there are several different Pakistans.” Even after six decades of independence, the country had not been able to come out from the colonial bureaucracy and governance, where malfunction is the norm not the exception in the bureaucracy (Mahmood, 2009). Moreover, the major political components of governance are depredated by corruption. Even the political leaders, public bureaucracies are perceived to be highly corrupt by most of the people of Pakistan (Haque, 2001). In addition, poor public sector management, in some cases mismanagement, inefficiency, using excessive discretionary powers by the civil-military bureaucracy, overlapping of jurisdictions and ambiguity about the roles and relationships between politicians and bureaucrats are the basic features of governance that has weakened the government’s performance in Pakistan.

5.4. POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN SRI LANKA In the case of Sri Lanka, it can be said that it represents a variation among South Asian countries. Ceylon (present Sri Lanka) was made a Crown Colony in 1802, and till then to run the administration colonial bureaucracy was set up which was nucleus of administration and exercised autocratic power (Warnapala, 1974). The civil service in Sri Lanka was

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established during the colonial period and a group of officers were appointed from Great Britain in 1802 for the administration due to certain practical issues. It was named as Ceylon Civil Service (CCS) in 1833 based on the British Civil Service. It was renamed as Ceylon Administrative Service (CAS) in 1963. In 1972, Sri Lanka became a republic and CAS was established as Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS) (pubad.gov.lk, 2017). It is the leading administrative service of the Sri Lankan Government, with civil servants working for both in the central government as well as in the provincial councils (PC) (Fernando, 2014). It is the permanent bureaucracy that helps the elected representatives on dayto-day functions of government (Studentlanka, 2017). Sri Lanka is one of the developing countries in the world (Iugg, 2015). Its bureaucracy was established in colonial period and had gone some processes of development before its independence from British colony (pubad.gov.lk, 2017). Its bureaucracy has been transformed by the different governments in the post-independence period deriving inspiration from the colonial tradition (Warnapala, 2012). As a result British elements existed in Sri Lankan bureaucracy. Even some bureaucrats were members of the Executive Council to influence all aspects of executive policy. However, after independence in 1948, the bureaucracy had been facing different changing environment. Warnapala (1974) has identified five different phases of Ceylon bureaucracy; during colonial time – a period of bureaucratic supremacy, transitional phase 1931-1947 – a period of bureaucratic adaptation, after independence – a period of bureaucratic responsiveness, after 1956 – a period of bureaucratic crisis and after 1973 – a period of bureaucratic pressure and response. Although Caiden (2013:545) has recognized Sri Lanka as ‘close to a failed state’ which is split among the ethnic groups, unstable, disrupted by internal crisis, and fearful of disintegration. But it was not always like this (Kumarasingham, 2013). The politico-bureaucratic history of Sri Lanka reveals that as in the case of other South and Southeast Asian countries it became independence with the legacy of an ongoing British administrative system (Heady, 2001:380) which had comparatively favorable conditions for independence

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in comparison with other South Asian countries. Despite the huge percentile differences among the ethnic groups, there was no ethnic conflict or riots in Sri Lanka before and during independence as was in India (Kumarasingham, 2013; Radu, 2012). However, the political elites failed to integrate various actors because of majoritarian control strategy pursued by the political elites (Radu, 2012). Notable, Sri Lanka adopted a Westminster style of parliamentary government after her independence and bureaucracy have had helped to successful power transfer from the colonial ruler to the political leadership of the new nation state (Heady, 2001). Thus, since independence in 1948 to the late sixes the alliance between political leadership and bureaucracy was a remarkrable fact in Sri Lanka. Because both of them, came from urban background with western education. During over six decades since independence, Sri Lanka has succeeded in maintaining a pluralistic character, and a competitive political system, notwithstanding being a country of ethnic conflict which began in the 1980s and a violence conflicts and civil war that paralyzed the island for almost thirty years. Expert says, shift from the orthodox British model to the mixed presidential-parliamentary system was at the root of arising ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka (Heady, 2001). In Sri Lanka, bureaucracy was affected by institutional adjustments over time, backed by constitutional changes. Before 1972, an independent Public Service Commission (PSC) was responsible for the appointment, transfer, dismissal and disciplinary control of CAS officers. But Sri Lankan Constitution of 1972 usurped the power of the PSC and made the Cabinet of Ministers all-powerful to determine all matters relating to SLAS officers. The Constitution further strengthened the Cabinet of Ministers when article 106 of the Constitution of 1972 was repeated in the Constitution of 1978. The strengthening of the Cabinet of Ministers over bureaucrats strengthened politicization. SLAS faced changes with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka in 1987 (Fernando, 2014). The amendment aimed at creating provincial councils in Sri Lanka as a follow up action on Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 to devolve powers to the Tamil majority north and east. By the amendment the then ruling United National Party succeeded in

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building up a powerful second level political power structure through provincial councils (Senadhira, 2013). Governor is the administrative and executive head of the Provincial Council. The Governors are appointed by the president and they are empowered to exercise their discretion in the discharge of any function. Their decision cannot be challenged in a court of law. The provincial level bureaucracy is under control by the Governors. The Governors have influence over all kind of activities like recruitments, transfer, promotion, etc. of the bureaucrats. So, there is great opportunity of bringing a political character or flavor to bureaucracy. This is a stumbling block to the smooth functioning of the provincial bureaucracy (Ibrahim and Irfan, 2016). The Transfer of Powers (Divisional Secretaries) Act also strengthened the politicization which provided for Divisional Secretaries to perform on assignment by a Statute of a Provincial Council or any function delegated by the Governor (Fernando, 2013). Basically the 17th Amendment of the constitution had overall integrated arrangement for good governance and de-politicization. The amendment tried to address what was lost by politicization. But it was repealed by the 18th Amendment in 2010 (Sultana, 2010) that weakened public administration and goodgovernance mechanisms and paved the way for more politicization (Fernando, 2013). This controversial amendment bill was passed with 161 Members of Parliament voted for and 17 against the bill (Sultana, 2010). In Sri Lanka, political interventions were formalized by governments in different times. In the regime of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, two development administration arrangements were initiated. One is District Political Authority (DPA) and another is Decentralized Budget System. Another intervention was seen in the period of President JR Jayewardene that was the appointment of District Ministers (DMs) under the constitution of 1978. District Political Authority (DPA) would formulate, monitor and evaluate district development plans; identify bottlenecks and initiate corrective action; supervise inter-departmental activities. These can be considered as political encroachment of longstanding recognized institutions (Fernando, 2013). District Development Councils were established at the district level and Divisional Development Councils were established at the division level. The councils comprised of

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MPs (as Chairman), divisional level government officials and representatives of Local Authorities, Cooperative Societies, and Cultivation Committees (Fernando, 2014). Integrated Rural Development Programmes (IRDPs) were seen in late seventies. IRDPs were executed through the district administration. This gave a more organized opportunity for politicians to intervene, especially through coordinating/ steering mechanisms. Politicization of bureaucracy is a universal process. It implies to bring a political character or flavor to administration. It may have positive and negative impacts. Bureaucracy and politicization run together but the degree of coexistence differs from country to country (Fernando, 2014). This is high in the developing and poor countries, but not absent in the developed countries (Fernando, 2013). Thus, politicians ardently demand it as a functional necessity (Fernando, 2014). Sri Lankan government, especially ministers and Members of Parliament (MP) have recognized political influence as an essential component of bureaucracy. There is closer linkage between politicians and bureaucrats. Political support is mandatory for appointments, promotions, transfer etc. of the civil servants. Appointments and transfer of civil servants have to receive parliamentarians’ consent. In the early days of independence civil servant appointments were routed by qualification, grades, and knowledge but later they are routed through high level politicians (Ibrahim and Irfan, 2016). After appointment political patronage assists to locate officers in congenial jobs and stations. Once a politician has obliged an officer this way he/she is obliged to reciprocate and cannot refuse the demand of political favors (Fernando, 2013). Worst level of politicization was seen in the North and East. In these regions the public servants had to be under the influence of the state political demands as well as the terrorist, political and economic demands (Fernando, 2013). Former Ceylon Civil Service (CCS) officers may have experienced slight politicization. It was in tolerable position in Ceylon Administrative Service (CAS). It was also tolerable in the early days of Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS). At present it appears as “a matter of fact” issue (Fernando, 2013).A former civil servant of Sri Lanka said that

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“during my 35 years of public service I have heard the complaint “Oh, there is political interference, and we cannot work!” As a junior I made the same complaint. But right now I do not publicly hear such frustrated grousing or moaning, not because there is no politicization; most likely it is accepted as unchallengeable!”(Fernando, 2013). However, high level of politicization diminishes the efficiency of the civil servants. Effective functioning of the following mechanisms is absolutely necessary for the enhancement of efficiency of the officials, a. b. c. d.

An effective scheme of Recruitment; An effective scheme of Performance Evaluation; An effective scheme of Training; An effective scheme of motivation of employees (Silva, 2015).

In Sri Lanka, these mechanisms are not functioning due to politicization. The Sri Lankan bureaucracy is not properly motivated and criticized for being over politicized. Although it is the politician, not the bureaucrat, who decides on the priorities at the provincial, divisional, district and the village level administration. However, there is a noticeable trend towards politicization of all institutions. No institution, governmental or otherwise, has been spared of this virus of politicization, which has contributed to a total breakdown in discipline. In Sri Lanka, the demands for politicization was speeded up in 1978 even the 5/6th majority JR Jayewardene government started the “Job Bank” system where the progovernment parliamentarians were given 100 forms to be distributed among job aspirants, annihilating democratic values (Fernando, 2013). With closer linking between politicians and officers political patronage for appointments, promotions commenced. Thereafter, when appointments to jobs are made the political patronage assists to locate officers in congenial jobs and stations. Once a politician has obliged this way the officer is obliged to reciprocate and couldn’t refuse demanded political favors. The consequences of it are always negative. Many politicians give shelter for unlawful actions of bureaucrats who are motivated by their ideology. Therefore, the bureaucracy in Sri Lanka as a neutral instrument came to be

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refuted and its rational basis of superiority came to be destroyed. As a result the bureaucracy has become inefficient. The concepts of rationalism, professionalism, and political neutrality are blurred in present Sri Lanka rather commitment to political or social goals of a party in power is very much exposed which is favorable to the policy objectives of those in power but on the other hand, should not be an argument to import into the system incompetent politically loyal in the potential effectiveness of the administrative process in the country. The bureaucracy has a major role in public service delivery. Keeping up effectiveness, efficiency and equity in public service delivery is very important. Public service delivery system is very poor in Sri Lanka due to politicization as well as inefficiency of bureaucracy (Ibrahim and Irfan, 2016). Politicization has affected the bureaucracy greatly in Sri Lanka. Historical, constitutional, legal, economic, institutional and attitudinal factors have made it very possible (Fernando, 2014). However, the government of Sri Lanka cannot run without the functions of bureaucracy. It has a great role in the governance process of the country. It plays a significant role in the central, provincial, divisional, district and village level administration of the country (Ibrahim and Irfan, 2016). Bureaucracy of Sri Lanka should be emancipated from politicization. It should be free from political and personal interference (Silva, 2015). Overall, in present Sri Lanka, the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is determined by the classical model. Bureaucracy is fully controlled by the political authority. All the public sector bureaucracies are operating their function under control of political leadership maintaining good political relationships and the autonomy of the bureaucrats are limited. However, S Lalitha (2006:) has conducted a recent study on Sri Lankan bureaucracy and shown that after six decades of independence, it is still following the same procedures, rules and regulations in the public sector, and have undergone little change or in some cases no change, in spite of the fast moving global trends. Moreover, the “political interference has been an epidemic in the field of the public service. The concept of accountability has been severely damaged by some political alignments, according to one official” (S Lalitha, 2006:231). As a result, he has

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suggested an immediate public sector reform in order to enhance effective governance and development in Sri Lanka.

5.5. POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN NEPAL The bureaucracy of Nepal is a mixture of traditional and modern characteristics. Its bureaucracy entered the modern era after the revolution of 1951 but the traditional forces are comparatively stronger than the modern ones (Shrestha, 2017). Civil service of Nepal was formalized by the enactment of Civil Service Act 1956 and this act brought the Nepal’s civil service under the legal framework (Awasthi and Adhikary, 2012). But the legal framework was not able to keep the bureaucracy away from politicization. Before restoring democracy in 1990, civil servants were hired solely on the basis of loyalty towards the king (Pyakuryal, 2007). After the restoration of democracy the political leaders looked to maintain their power by manipulating the civil servants in many ways (Myrepublica, 2014). Therefore, the Nepalese bureaucracy is highly politicized and it is gradually getting derailed in the country (Poudel, 2010). The bureaucracy of Nepal is now more power and position-oriented instead of service or result-oriented (Shrestha, 2017). The size of the Nepal’s bureaucracy is not big considering South Asian standards. Unlike many South Asian countries like India and Pakistan, its bureaucracy is unified and centrally specified organization where the bureaucrats are recruited in and deployed from the center to its regional levels. Although the bureaucracy in Nepal is widely involved in governance and developmental works (shown in Table 5.4) but lengthy decision-making process, sluggish implementation process and inefficient service delivery system have made the Nepal’s bureaucracy as a nonperforming organization. The country’s polity and political leadership can be responsible for that. The political leadership always tends to coerce the bureaucracy into submission through politicization. The bureaucracy has been made to serve as an instrument to impose the will of the ruling party

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Economic sector

Social sector

Macro-economic Management

Education

Agriculture, food security and irrigation

Health, nutrition and sanitation

Land reform and management Industry

Social security and protection Inclusiveness (gender, ethnic, religious, regional) Mobilization of youth force, capacity development, labour and employment, sports Decentralisation, local self-rule and local development

Commerce and supply management

Tourism and culture

Forest and soil conservation Auditing

Infrastructure sector Energy (electricity, alternative energy and others) and drinking water Transportation (road, air, water and railways) construction and management Information and communication Science and technology (Information technology) Environment and climate change

Urban development and rural infrastructure

Governance sector Secretarial services to the Council of Ministers, supervision and coordination Civil administration selection management

Peace and security Defence

Foreign affairs and economic diplomacy

Law, justice and parliamentary affairs Peace, reconstruction and rehabilitation Corruption control Statistics and planning

Source: Government of Nepal (2014: 10).

upon the people (Rijal, 2009). Thus, political intervention in bureaucracy is not a new phenomenon in Nepal. Bureaucracy and politics are coexisting

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in this country from the past (Poudel, 2010). Politics and administration are two sides of a coin (Shrestha, 2017). Politics cannot be separated from bureaucracy. Competence, experience and capability of the civil servants are not considered at the time of promotion. Political affiliation is always considered much in the promotion to higher positions and transfer of civil servants. The secretaries are selected on the whims of the concerned ministers. Efficiency and experience are not important for being selected for promotion (Poudel, 2010). Many experienced and competent senior officials become juniors to their previous subordinates due to the faulty and politicized promotion system (Shrestha, 2017). Nepal Civil Service Regulation Act 1965 was amended 30 times and the only clause amended every time is related to promotion. First two amendments of Nepal Civil Service Act 1993 were related to promotion. After the political change of 2006, the act was amended again and it was also related to promotion. Among various issues in the civil service promotion is the main concern of the political party leaders who are in government (Poudel, 2010). Political leaders always try to manipulate the bureaucracy to maintain their power. At the same time, political parties encourage civil servants to form unions close to them and the unions, in return, seek to advance their affiliation with the political parties. As a result bureaucrats are divided into political party lines (Myrepublica, 2014). Many reforms efforts were seen to make the bureaucracy efficient and competent in Nepal. But all the administrative reforms ended in shaking the bureaucracy. Frequent changes in the government and the political instability have had their consequences on the reform endeavors. A significant number of bureaucrats got retirements after introducing the reforms all the time. The exit of a large number of bureaucrats always created a sense of instability among civil servants. By the administrative reforms the politicians have shaken the bureaucracy all the time (Poudel, 2010). It is one of the ways of keeping the bureaucracy under control by the politicians. To have political backing the bureaucrats make U-turn with the changes of political leadership (Shrestha, 2017). As a result, “the administration could not nurture the democratic administrative culture to overcome the existing governance issues and the task of transforming the

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civil service from a non-responsive one is, therefore, difficult,” writes Dr. Madhunidhi Tiwari, a renowned administration expert and former member of the Public service commission in an article. Instead of competence, experience and capability, what counts in civil service so much is political influence. “This is the tragic part of Nepal’s current bureaucracy, many capable secretaries don’t have work,” a secretary said on condition of anonymity. “At present the country has been passing through a transitional phase and the level of political intervention will be more. In many cases, the bureaucracy needs to guide politics to have a permanent and stable government” (New Spotlight News Magazine, November 27, 2016). As a consequence of politicization the bureaucracy has become inefficient and non-responsive in Nepal. Its bureaucracy is considered as one of the weakest and non-performing system in the world (Shrestha, 2017). Its service delivery is slow and imperfect. It is not functioning as per the expectations of Nepalese people (Poudel, 2010). But the bureaucrats do not feel obliged to be accountable to the citizens, because they have political backing (Myrepublica, 2014). The fragility of the state is an outcome of the weak bureaucracy. The civil bureaucracy is disoriented and divided into political party lines. It is not able to cope up with the new challenges for the state (Rijal, 2009). Table 5.5. Number of civil servants by location Level Number Central 25,781 Regional 2,589 Zonal 770 District 32,825 Area 15,996 Municipalities 60 Sub-total 78,021 Temporary 1,782 Total 79,803 Source: Government of Nepal (2014: 14).

Percentage 32.31 3.24 0.96 41.13 20.04 0.08 97.77 2.23 100

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CONCLUSION The preceding analysis from the South Asian case reveals that this region has gone through some historical stages with colonial legacy; selfgoverning, colonial domination, post-colonial administrative training and the contemporary devices of administrative reforms (Haque, 1997). However, the most striking fact is that most of the South Asian countries adopted colonial bureaucracy after its independence without any significant changes. Thus, the bureaucracy was always in a strong position in comparison to its political institutions. Likewise, apart from historical legacy, the organizational capacity, social dynamics and political patronization of founding leaders had contributed to grasp the strong position of bureaucracy in South Asian region and its political process and governance even after independent. Although the colonial administration itself created the bureaucratic apparatus for subject to political and administrative control within the dependent territory but the demand for economic development and modernization impinged directly on agriculture, industry, public health and education to segment of the bureaucracy. The same role of the bureaucracy was intact even after independence of South Asia as the political institutions of this region are weak. This is why the politicians of South Asian countries had created a culture of alignment with bureaucracy in the post independent era. Thus, a considerable degree of political neutrality, accountability, and effectiveness of public bureaucracies in South Asia has faded in independent South Asia. Moreover, the process of politicization of the bureaucracy has been speeded up in the last three/four decades. As the political process is still weak in South Asia particularly, in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka thus politicians use the mechanism of politicization to counterbalance the bureaucratic power. But in real sense the process of politicization of bureaucracy in South Asia has been reached in such stage that it is now a common and serious problem for the both politicians as well as the bureaucrats in the region. As a result, the pure dichotomy model of relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is absent here where the politicians will approach the policy and the

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bureaucrats will simply implement this policy in light of the effective functioning of the government. Rather the opposite – bureaucrats are making the policies and they are taking the order to make policies from politicians - what is happening in the case of south Asia. Consequently, the political neutrality that was the main spirit of the South Asian bureaucracy has been gradually tarnished. Bureaucrats are now participating in the partisan politics and they are promoted and given favorable posting on the basis of their political support. On the other hand, moderate, honest and politically neutral bureaucrats are facing difficult situation and they are punished through by being denied promotions, forced retirement, posting to unimportant offices, and making them OSD in some cases, which results a serious negative consequences on their professionalism of the South Asian bureaucracy.

Chapter 6

POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN BANGLADESH: EXPLORING THE VARIABLES 6.1. INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this chapter is to explain the nature of politicization of bureaucracy in Bangladesh since independence to present regime. Thus, the chapter will provide an overall scenario of the nature, extent and severity of politicization of the bureaucracy in different political and military regimes. The regimes are categorized by the ruling time: first parliamentary regime in post-independent era (1971-1975), military regimes (1976-1990), and the democratic regimes (1991-2016). However, this chapter essentially deals with the politicization of the civil bureaucracy as major focus with infrequent discussion of military bureaucracy. The concept of politicization of the bureaucracy is operationalized by explaining the behavioral and structural process of politicization with special focus on: selection and recruitment, promotion and posting, distrust, deprivation and dismissal, and bureaucratic involvement in political decision making process. In order to do that, the chapter is divided into three sections. The first section reviews the structure and constitutional position of bureaucracy in Bangladesh. The second section

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explores the process of politicization and the third section analyzes the image of civil service on the basis of popular perceptions.

6.2. THE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUTIONAL POSITION OF BUREAUCRACY IN BANGLADESH Bangladesh emerged as an independent state in 1971 by liberation war. After emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation state, it adopted colonial bureaucracy with introducing parliamentary forms of government as a system of governance by the leadership of its founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the prime minister, keeping bureaucracy accountable under the political leadership. Notably, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the father of the Bengali nation who organized the Bengalis for independence and sacrificed his life for the nation. He is mostly known as “Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib” to Bengalis. After assuming the office of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujib declared to establish Bangladesh on the basis of aspiration of the people, and as a homogeneous society for all people that will be secular in character and free from all kinds of exploitation. New political leadership adopted a liberal democracy with a socialistic orientation. And finally, Bangladesh got a constitution which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 4, 1972, and came into effect on December 16, 1972. The constitution envisaged a Westminster type of parliamentary system reflecting the aspirations and wishes of the people. Then Sheikh Mujib turned his attention to state and institutions building. One of the major attempts was to build up the administration or structuring the administration. As a nationalist political leader he was skeptical on bureaucratic role in governance and he was confused weather the bureaucracy will provide full support to the new state of Bangladesh or not, as he was experienced with elitist orientation of bureaucracy both in the colonial and Pakistan periods. Nonetheless, he adopted colonial bureaucracy but imposing full political control of them. The bureaucracy in independent Bangladesh was the lineal descendants of the ICS and CSP,

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containing their values and orientations that were developed in colonial structure. As a result, in spite of a new state, Bangladesh inherited a relatively modernized civil service that was elitist in orientation and behavior, training, power, prestige, and pay (Khan, 1980). This inherited civil service was much more advanced than politicians in institutional performance, technical expertise, and administrative experience. Moreover, the bureaucratic hegemony in the policy process was noted during the British and Pakistan periods. Thus, Bangladesh confronted two primary challenges in restructuring its administrative system after emergence of a new nation. The first challenge was transformation of a provincial civil service into a national civil service, restructuring of position, classification and pay scales, and reassessment of the size of the administration. And the second challenge was politico-administrative in nature; it involved transforming a strong administrative state into a democratic state by establishing political leadership in policy making and control over the bureaucracy (Khan and Haque, 2013). Therefore, the political system of the country witnessed the problem to establish a neutral competent and people oriented bureaucracy. However, Bangladesh was successful in thereorganization of the public administration constitutionally within a very short time of her independence.

6.2.1. Legal and Constitutional Framework of Bureaucracy The Constitution of 1972 provided the legal and constitutional protection of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh. Although immediately after the proclamation of independence on April 10, 1971, Laws Continuance Enforcement Order, 1971 was promulgated, and it laid down the provisions or conditions of services to the public bureaucrats those who took oath of allegiance to Bangladesh (Khan, 2015). Nevertheless, on December 27, 1971, the government formed the Civil Administration and Restoration Committee (CAARC) to address the said challenges for the interim period. On the basis of the report of the CAARC, the Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) was established in 1972 to recruit the

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civil servants for Bangladesh, and by this time the new constitution of Bangladesh which came into effective on December 16, 1972, provided the legal provision for the bureaucracy of Bangladesh. It provided the scope for politically neutral bureaucracy as a state apparatus although the constitutional protection of the bureaucracy was discarded which the bureaucracy enjoyed during the Pakistan period and that was protected by the 1962 constitution. Still, the constitution of Bangladesh is the basic structure of legal and constitutional framework for the recruitment and selection, dismissal and removal of the civil service in Bangladesh. Article 29(1) provides the equal opportunity for all citizens in respect of employment or office in the service of the republic. Article 55 (6) of the Constitution provides that the president shall make rules for allocation and transaction of the business of the government. Article 65(1) provides the power to the Parliament enacts laws, power of delegation to set the legal context for the disposal of business. Besides, Article 133 to 141 is related to the recruitment, selection, promotion, and management of the civil service in Bangladesh. Article 135 of the Constitution provides that “No person shall be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank until he has been given a reasonable opportunity of showing causes why that action should not be taken.” Article 136 of the Constitution lays down that, “Provision may be made by law for the reorganization of the service of the Republic by the creation, amalgamation or unification of services and such may vary or revoke any condition of service of a person employed in the service of the republic.” Overall, the Constitution of Bangladesh and the Government Servants (Conduct) Rules, 1979 strictly prohibited from any political activities, political participation and even supporting any political parties. Thus, there is no scope for politicization of the bureaucracy according the legal and constitutional framework of Bangladesh.

6.2.2. The Structure of the Bureaucracy In the post independent Bangladesh, the structure of the civil service was intact as was in before independence. However, the Administrative

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and Services Reorganization Committee (ASRC) was formed in March 1972 for providing the suggestion to restructuring the civil service in Bangladesh. This Committee suggested some fundamental structural changes to the inherited bureaucracy with abolishing the elite cadre. Unfortunately, the recommendations of the committee were not implemented due to the resistance from the bureaucracy (Khan, 1998). The National Pay Commission (NPC) was appointed in 1972 and this commission’s recommendation was partially implemented. According to NPC report, total number of civil and military employees in Bangladesh was 650,615. In the later part, the Pay and Services Commission, formed in 1976 and according to the recommendation of this commission, the present structure of the civil service has been shaped with 28 cadre services (including general and professional) with equal pay and status. Following the Bangladesh Civil Service (reorganization) Order 1980 (which is amended in 1986, 1992, and 2007) and the recommendation of the last Pay Commission, 2015, the civil service now includes four classes (I to IV) of hierarchically organized officers in the 20 grades pay scales along with Senior Service Pool (SSP) and with cadre and non-cadre classification. The Senior Service Pool was established in 1979 to abolish the elitist nature of the bureaucracy. The original cadre strength of SSP is shown in Table 6.1. The civil service is organized into the secretariat and the field administration in Bangladesh. Table 6.1. Cadre strength of SSP, 1979 Name of the post Secretary Addl. Secretary Joint Secretary 20% posts of Ambassadors Deputy Secretary Gross Total Net total (excluding 25 posts for BCS (Secretariat), 30 posts in Foreign Service and 9 posts for Law Ministry) Net total including 25% deputation reserve, 15% training reserve and 10% leave reserve Source: Khan (2015: 88)

Number 36 20 87 7 255 405

524

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Table 6.2. Actual strength of BCS cadres in top secretariat posts, June, 2013 Cadre

BCS (Admin) BCS (Audit and Accounts) BCS (Customs and Excise) BCS (Information) BCS (Fisheries) BCS (Tax) BCS (Economic) BCS (Education General) BCS (Food) BCS (Health) BCS (Livestock) BCS (Works) BCS (Postal) BCS (Raialways) BCS (Raialway Engineering) BCS (Roads and Highways) BCS (Agriculture) BCS (Cooperatives) BCS (Forests) BCS (Telecom) BCS (Trade) BCS (Statistics) BCS (Ansar) Non-cadre Total of all cadres except BCS (Admin) Total of all cadres % of BCS (Admin) in total % of all other BCS except BCS (Admin) Source: MOPA.

No. of Secretary

No. of Joint Secretary 508 12

No.of Deputy Secretary 1412 21

Total

61 3

No. of Additional Secretary 200 9

3

1

1

11

16

1 1 1 -

8 1 3 2 2

10 1 12 4 7

23 9 15 13 29

42 12 31 19 38

-

2 1 1 3 2 2 2

7 3 6 12 5 3 7

17 6 10 12 19 5 11

26 10 17 27 26 10 20

-

1

5

2

8

9

1 41

2 7 2 1 1 4 111

27 14 3 15 5 8 13 6 294

29 21 5 16 6 8 18 6 455

70 87

241 82

619 82

1706 83

2636 82

13

18

18

17

18

2181 45

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The Ministry of Public Administration (MOPA) which was formerly known as Ministry of Establishment, Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC), and Ministry of Finance (MOF) are the controlling and managing authority of the civil service which are mostly known as the central personnel agencies. At present, the actual strength of various BCS cadres in the top secretariat posts in June, 2013 is shown in Table 6.2.

6.3. THE POLITICIZATION OF BUREAUCRACY IN BANGLADESH With the above structural and constitutional positions of bureaucracy in Bangladesh, we shall now explore the nature and extend of politicization of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh. As we have observed in the above discussion that the Constitution of 1972 provided the legal and constitutional protection of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh. Thus, according to the constitutional provisions, laws and regulations, there is no scope for politicization of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh at least theoretically. But in reality, Bangladesh has witnessed in the last four decades rapid escalation in politicization of bureaucracy (Khan, 2015). Now the questions are why it is happening? And what are the processes or mechanisms of this politicization? We will explore the answer of these questions by explaining the behavioral and institutional/structural process of politicization of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh. The nature and extent of politicization of the bureaucracy will be explored in the following section which is ultimately the prime concern of this chapter.

6.3.1. Behavioral Process of Politicization As I said in the theoretical construct that in South Asia, bureaucracies were over developed, and organized by the Weberian principles during colonial rule. They were more experienced, and more enduring as an

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institution than political leadership. Bureaucracy has been playing political role since the colonial time. Thus, they have been serving the nation for a long lime than political leaderships. This is why this post-colonial state could not deny the role of bureaucracy for their rapid economic and political development and adopted colonial bureaucracy even after independence. However, the political leaderships introduced bureaucracy and democratic system by imposing various methods and mechanisms for exercising control on the activities and powers of bureaucracy. Although attempts are made in many developing countries to introduce reforms in the administrative system to make the bureaucracy more efficient, responsive and accountable but governments in developing countries find it difficult to ensure effective control over this powerful institution (Huque and Rahman, 2003). Bangladesh was not exception to this. Therefore, in spite of adaptation of the colonial nature of bureaucracy, the founding leaders of Bangladesh relied to some extent on “responsive competence” rather than the “neutral competence” following the behavioral and structural process of politicization. The process of behavioral politicization refers to the control of politicians over the behavior of the bureaucrats by which ruling party relies on administrative apparatus to fulfill its political interests. The behavioral strategy that follows by the politicians is less expensive, as this strategy is applied to change the behavior and culture of the civil servants by imposing the partisan ideology those are already in the strategic positions. Therefore, when Bangladesh declared its independence then a significant numbers of bureaucrats actively participated in the liberation war and after emergence as an independent state they had to do many things. Consequently, many bureaucrats’ occupied important posts allying with the post-independent regime (1972-1975) as those bureaucrats were ideologically associated with the then ruling party. This ideological assimilation made the bureaucrats politically ambitious and aberration from the Weberian principles. On the other hand, in spite of political ideological preference, the founding leaders were very critical about the behavior of the bureaucracy and thus it was imposed full control over the bureaucracy. However, their social background and education made them contemptuous of indigenous politicians (Zafarullah, 1994). The whispered

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political control over the bureaucracy was introduced through various mechanisms. The behavioral mechanism is one of them. As a result, within a few years, assassination of leaders, coups and counter-coups shook up Bangladesh, and the bureaucracy was quick to reclaim its position again (Huque and Rahman, 2003). The military intervention in politics made the situation even worse. An alliance nature of relationship developed between civil and military bureaucrats. However, after reintroduction of parliamentary democracy in 1991, the position of bureaucracy was threatened but within a very short time bureaucracy changed with the new environment by showing their loyalty to the ruling party ideology and changing their behavior. “The political parties became willing participants to this arrangement since they needed the bureaucracy’s support to continue in power and manage the country. Consequently, massive politicization of the bureaucracy eroded the traditionally held values of public service” (Huque and Rahman, 2003:404). Till then every successive regime tries to impose their political ideology in the bureaucracy and attempts to change the behavior of the bureaucracy in favor of their political rule. It leads to divided loyalty among the bureaucrats linked to either the AL or the BNP is a matter of fact in the Bangladeshi bureaucracy (Zafarullah, 2016). As a result, this behavioral politicization ultimately turns to structural or institutional politicization where recruitment, promotion, and posting are manipulated on the basis of partisan loyalty.

6.3.2. Institutional Process of Politicization March and Olsen (1984) have argued that institutional rules, norms and routines can determine the nature of politics and governance. On the other hand, the structure of the administration is merely a product of political struggle. The creation of public service is a political work and thus, public administration is political institution. So, as a legitimate agent, politicians can change the political structure. For this constitutional legitimacy of political actors, they can influence or control the career means of administration. Therefore, the bureaucracy is politicized through the

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staffing process. In additions, structural politicization happens in the process when the new regime take over the political power, then they think that they might be confronted by a cadre of public servants or by the established structure of the previous regime who are committed to a certain way of doing things (Peters and Pierre, 2004). Then politicization can also be manifested by the structural changes. Recruitment, promotion and posting, de-professionalism, distrust and dismissal are major mechanisms of the structural or institutional processes of politicization.

6.3.2.1. Recruitment and Selection Process Selection and recruitment of new employees are the major function of the modern government. Accordingly, the Public Service Commission, a constitutional body, is responsible for the selection of the civil service. Recruitment and selection of cadre service is governed by the BCS Recruitment Rules, 1981 in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) and the Ministry of Public Administration (MOPA) are jointly responsible for recruitment and selection of the civil service. BPSC in consultation with the Ministry of Public Administration usually deals with the recruitment, promotion and transfers of the civil servants of Bangladesh (Karim, 2007). Article 137 of the constitution of Bangladesh gives mandate to establish one or more Commissions for the public services of the republic. Accordingly, the Government of Bangladesh established two Commissions titled PSC First and PSC Second on 9 May 1972 under President Order No. 34 of 1972. The present PSC called ‘Bangladesh Public Service Commission’ was established on 22 December 1977 by merging the existing two Commissions. Till then the concern ministry compiles the staffing need of various cadres under different ministries/divisions and requests the BPSC to conduct recruitment by following existing rules and procedures of government employment. The BPSC is responsible for conducting competitive test and examinations for the selection of most competent persons for the first class gazette and nongazetted posts/positions of the republic. The BPSC has the legal mandate to select the suitable persons and give recommendation for appointment to the concerned ministry or departments. In the years immediately following

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the birth of Bangladesh, a sizeable number of recruitments were made although no new recruitment rules were framed. It was only in 1976 that recruitment rules for appointment to superior posts were framed (Ali, 2007). In the process of recruitment, BPSC announces the circular for vacant posts and calls application from the eligible citizens of Bangladesh with demanding as follows; i. Must be the citizen of Bangladesh; ii. Age requirement is not less than 21 and not more than 30 years (In case of freedom fighter quota the maximum age will be 32); iii. The minimum educational qualification required is a second class Bachelor’s degree from a recognized university with first division in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) or Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC). Then after primary assessment of the application, BPSC arrange MCQ based preliminary test for 200 marks first. The candidates who pass the preliminary test appear for written examination for 900 marks, with 200 marks for viva voce. Finally, BPSC recommends to the ministry for appointment of the candidates who pass in the written examination, and by following the process of medical fitness and police verification ministry then publish their gazette notification for final appointment. Table 6.3 presents the trends of the civil service recruitment in Bangladesh since 1972 to 2013. Nonetheless, appointment by promotion and appointment by transfer or deputation is also practiced in Bangladesh. However, the civil service recruitment in Bangladesh is not fully merit based, it also follows the most complex quota system in the world (Khan, 2015). Quota system is commonly referred to as a situation wherein something reserved for some backward section of the country to uphold their representation in education, business and service or policy making process. The common logic behind the system is to eliminate discrimination against some sections. Preferential quota system creates discrimination which creates

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Name of Examination Special Superior Service for Freedom Fighters Superior Service for non-Freedom Fighters Munsif Superior Service Munsif Superior Service Munsif Munsif 1st BCS 2nd Special 3rd BCS Special (Health) 4th BCS (Agriculture, Railway Engineering) 5th BCS 6th BCS Special 7th BCS 8th BCS 9th BCS 10th BCS 11th BCS 12th BCS Special 13th BCS 14th BCS Special 15th BCS 16th BCS Special 17th BCS 18th BCS 19th BCS Special 20th BCS 21th BCS 22nd BCS 23rd BCS Special 24th BCS 25th BCS 26th BCS Special (Education) 27th BCS 28th BCS 29th BCS 30th BCS 31th BCS 32nd BCS Special for Freedom Fighters, women and tribal 33rd BCS 34th BCS Source: Khan (2015: 163-164).

Year 1972 1972 1975 1976-77 1978 1979 1979 1980 1982 1983 1983 1984 1984 1985 1985 1986 1988-89 1989-90 1990-91 1990 1991-92 1992 1993-94 1994 1995-96 1996-97 1998 1998 1999 2000 2000-01 2002-04 2004-06 2004-05 2005-07 2008-10 2009-10 2010-11 2011-13 2012-13

No. candidates recommended/ appointed 1313 500 50 135 24 131 25 40 901 650 1001 1008 595 700 2531 2121 1165 1022 695 40 1178 1185 858 1348 1708 1757 555 2242 1370 2335 21 5224 2722 1063 3239 2190 1722 2367 2072 1680

2012-ongoing 2013-ongoing

4206 (announced vacancies) 2050 (announced vacancies)

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division in the society. It cannot allow equal treatment to all. The present system of quota reservation and its allocation are not regarded as merit oriented. In classes I and II, 45% of candidate are selected from merit list, and the remaining 55% are reserved for various quotas. Table 6.4 presents the existing quota practice in BCS recruitment. This policy of quota system prevents selection of the best and the brilliant candidate in the civil service. In the last five BCS exams BPSC recommended 3,179 successful candidates to the posts of class-I general cadres. Of them 1,493 were picked on merit and 1,686 from different quotas (The Daily Star, August 29, 2015). The quota is not strictly followed; rather the rules are capriciously followed in the selection process and thus the quota system has failed to attain its objectives to the introduction of the representative element into the civil service. Table 6.4. Quota reservation for the recruitment of BCS Categories of Quota Merit Freedom Fighters War Affected Women District Quota Women Tribal Other General candidates Total Source: Ali, 2007.

1972 20 30 10 40

For Class I Services (Percentages) 1976 1985 Present 40 45 30 30 30 10 45 20 10 10 10 5 5 10

100

Theoretically, there is no scope for politicization in the selection and recruitment process to the civil service in Bangladesh. However, in reality, politicization is happening in three ways; contractual appointment on the basis of political consideration, politicization of the BPSC and political use of quota system. Among the above three ways contractual appointment is practiced since the independence of Bangladesh and others two ways are adopted gradually by the various regimes. In the post-independent regime, complex procedures have been laid down for recruitment examinations, and it has not been held regularly. In addition, there were no specific rules,

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norms and values of selection and promotion of bureaucracy in the postindependence period (Zafarullah and Khan, 2005). The first political government maintained and regulated its personnel management by the ad hoc arrangements. However, politicization of the recruitment process started by waiving the written examination for the freedom fighters, and 350 administrative posts was occupied by the appointment of political patronage through special viva-voce (Ali, 2004). Besides, a large scale contractual appointment about 195 posts was fulfilled on the basis of political patronage. Moreover, political leadership initiated a new process of politicization in the bureaucracy to establish political control over the bureaucracy in the new state Bangladesh (Zafarullah, 1994). The first Awami League regime (1972-1975) tried to make the bureaucracy as a pure instrument of carrying out the decisions of the political leadership on the basis of classical model of politics-administration relationship. This process of political recruitment was continued during the military and the democratic regimes with the introduction to another two more mechanisms of institutional politicization. The post 1975s military regimes made the situation more worsen. Since the takeover of the state power, every military regime had continued the contractual appointment and they tried to militarization of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh. This trend had continued until 1990, as from August 1975 to 1990, Bangladesh was ruled by the two consecutive military regimes – first, General Zia (1975-1981) and second, General Ershad (1981-1990). Military rulers especially, it was General Zia who followed a policy of balance between civil and military bureaucracy, and initiated the process of militarization of bureaucracy and bureaucratization of politics in Bangladesh by offering important posts and positions to the civil-military bureaucracy, even though involving retired military bureaucrats in politics and administration (Ahmed and Khan, 1990; Ahmed, 2004; Hossain, 1988). In this regime, 30% of the ministerial post, 70% of the police superintendent posts, and almost 50% of the directorships of the public corporations were occupied by the military personnel (Huque and Rahman, 2003). It was like rehabilitation of civil-military bureaucracy those were alleged involvement in coup and counter coup during the august 1975 to

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1976. Moreover, the creation of the SSP was a matter of political creation and by this process there was at least 405 posts reserved for appointment in political consideration. After Zia, General Ershad took over the state power through a coup in 1982. General Ershad tried to follow the same process and mechanisms of his predecessor General Zia in every sphere of the state activities. Like the previous period, the Ershad regime also continued political patronage to the civil and military bureaucracies. Presidential authority for contractual appointment of the SSP was one of them and by this process ten percent appointment was reserved for political appointment. During this regime all key posts of political and economic organization were occupied by the military bureaucracy. As a result, during both the military regimes, there was no political interference in the civil service, rather it was a balance partnership between civil-military bureaucracy. In fact, a coalition or strategic partnership between civil and military bureaucracy has been built in the process of governance. This strategic partnership helped them to rule the country by using the state apparatus from 1975 to 1990. However, in the wake of mass upsurge against military regime at the end of 1990, then Bangladesh entered again to the parliamentary regime. During the democratic regimes (1991-2016), politicization of administration can be detected in many actions taken by the government in the last three decades. Besides, the contractual appointment of party loyalists to crucial positions in the civil service, further two mechanisms have been set out by the democratic regimes: politicization of the Bangladesh Public Service Commission by appointing its chairman and members on the basis of political loyalties, and political use of the existing quota system. This helps in manipulating the recruitment process of the applicants intending to serve in the Bangladesh Civil Service. There are allegations of manipulation and selective promotion of candidates with strong ties to the ruling party throughout the last six elected political regimes. An exhaustive research reports have been published to explore how the BPSC is used to serve the political interests of the every incumbent government and abuse the existing quota system for political interest (TIB, 2007; Jahan and Shahan, 2008).

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6.3.2.2. Performance Appraisal, Promotion and Posting In the management of the civil service system, performance appraisal and promotion is important concern for the government. Though the concept of performance appraisal is simple but its measurement is extremely difficult (Khan, 2015). Formal evaluation of the public employees was introduced in South Asia by the British rulers. However, the Service Rules of Bangladesh 1983 provided for detailed procedure of performance appraisal in the civil service through a method called Annual Confidential Report (ACR). This ACR is not only the method of performance appraisal but also assessment of personality traits, such as, loyalty and trustworthiness. This ACR is a prescribed from having eight part which contains total 100 marks. It contains some indicators, and on the basis of these indicators, the performance appraisal report is made by the report initiating officer and the countersigning officer. Table 6.5 presents the rating scale of ACR. Promotions are supposedly attained by three criteria in Bangladesh: seniority, merit and adherence to rules of conduct or good conduct on the basis of ACR (Ali, 2007). These are the theoretical elements in the process of promotion. In reality, promotions are motivated by the political principles in most of the cases, although according to the latest MOPA Regulation for promotion, 2002, the following criteria are set for promotion to the level of deputy secretaries and above (shown in Table 6.6). Nonetheless, nobody can say that a civil servant who has a good cumulative score in ACR and fulfills seniority requirement in the service will get a promotion in due time. This is happening in the bureaucratic performance appraisal and promotions because of increase in politicization of the bureaucracy in Bangladesh, where recruitment and selection, promotion and posting, and even though ACR writing is also made on the basis of partisan loyalties. However, political consideration on performance appraisal, promotion, and posting is not a new invention of the present political structure. It has been practiced heavily in Bangladesh since its independence.

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Table 6.5. Classification of rating in ACR Outstanding Excellent 95-100 85-94 Source: Khan and Haque (2013: 306).

Good 61-84

Average 41-60

Below Average