विभाग V – सार्वजनिक सेवा

SECTION V PUBLIC SERVICES

I. Reorganisation of Services

119. Separation of Services. —The present organisation of the public services in India is the outcome of the recommendations of the Aitchison Commission which inquired into the Public Service of India in 1886-87. Prior to the appointment of the Commission the great bulk of the civil posts of higher responsibility and emoluments were filled by recruits from Europe and that Commission was expressly directed to suggest measures which would “do full justice to the claims of natives of India to higher and more extensive employment in the Public Service” of their country. The Commission held the view that the Civil Service should be only “a Corps d’elite” and consequently recommended that the recruitment of officials in England should be substantially reduced and the higher appointments so set free transferred to a service locally recruited in India. As a result of these recommendations officers recruited in England formed Imperial Services and the officers locally recruited formed the Provincial Services. The conditions of appointments in regard to pay, leave and pension of officers belonging to the two services were to be fixed on independent grounds and were not necessarily to have any relation to each other. This division into Imperial and Provincial obtains in most of the Civil Services of the country which it is needless to detail. What is important to bear in mind is that the division was made to distinguish officers recruited in England and officers recruited in India and not as might be understood from the description, in order to distinguish officers placed under the Government of India and liable to serve all over India from officers placed under Local Governments and liable to serve only in specified provinces. For instance the officers belonging to the Provincial services in the Telegraph (Engineering) and the Survey of India are directly under the Government of India and not confined to any particular province while officers in the Imperial Service in the Education and the Police Departments are allotted to different provinces. In my opinion time has arrived when each Province should be free to organise its own civil service. For this the All-India character of the services must cease. There should be Central Civil Service recruited and maintained in response to its own needs by the Central Government to run various departments which are handed over to it by the Government of India without imposing upon its members the liability to serve under any of the Provincial Governments. Similarly there should be a Provincial Civil Service recruited and maintained in response to its own needs by every Provincial Government exclusively for its own employment. This recommendation cannot be said to involve any substantial change in the system. For although members of the Imperial Service and Provincial Service are liable to serve in any part in India, their All-India character is only nominal. For the cases in which a member of the Civil Service whether Imperial or Provincial has been called upon to serve in a Province different from the one in which he was originally posted are few. Almost all of them continued to work to the end in the same Province in which they were placed in the beginning. That being the case the reform which I have suggested will involve no change. It will only recognise facts as they exist.

120. The grounds on which I press for this reform in the organisation of the Civil Service are many. First of all such a separation of the services into those which are Central in the sense that they are in the employment of the Government of India and those which are Provincial in the sense that they are in the employment of the Provincial Government has this immense advantage, namely that it is a reform which is eminently called for by the change in the character of the Provincial Government. If the present system was continued, ministerial responsibility would be difficult of realisation. Public Servants in India according to Section 96(B) of the Government of India Act no doubt hold their position during the pleasure of the Crown. But it must be remembered that the Act does not allow the Ministers the power to decide when His Majesty should be pleased to remove him from office. Although that power is given to the authority who appoints him yet the dismissed officer has been given a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. Not only the Minister has no right of dismissing an officer, but he cannot even punish him with impunity, because it is provided in the Act that if any officer appointed by the Secretary of State in Council thinks himself wronged by an order of an official superior in a Governor’s Province he has a right to complain to the Governor and the Governor by the Act as well as by the instrument of instructions is bound to inquire and pass such an order as may appear to him just and equitable. These provisions must make any Minister, however strong he may be, quite helpless against a recalcitrant member of the Civil Service who refuses to carry out the policy for which the Minister is responsible to the legislature in accordance with its wishes. Ministerial responsibility requires that a Minister shall have power effectively to deal with an erring officer working under him. He must also have the power to decide how many officers he must have and to what particular post any of them might be appointed. The existing provisions do not permit him any of the powers he must stand in sore need of. This anomaly was recognised by the Lee Commission which was appointed soon after the reforms were introduced. That Commission recommended that no further recruitment should take place in the transferred departments on an All-India basis and the personnel required for them should in future be recruited and appointed by Provincial Governments. As a result of this recommendation Provinces have been empowered to frame rule for the recruitment of officers who will take the place of the existing All-India Service Officers in these services operating in the transferred department when the latter vacate. The reform I have suggested is merely an extension of the same principle which the necessities of the case have compelled the authorities to accept. The extension cannot now be delayed for the reason that under a fully responsible system of Government the distinction between Reserved and Transferred will have vanished.

121. The second advantage of a separate and independent Provincial Civil Service will be the liberty it will give to the Provincial Governments to alter the cadre of the services belonging to the Province. The draw-back of the All-India system is that a Minister who is satisfied that there are several superfluous posts ordinarily held by the members of the All-India Service and a larger number the duties of which can be and in the temporary vacancies have been efficiently discharged by the more moderately paid officers of the Provincial Services, and who might therefore be convinced of abolishing such a post or transferring it to the cadre of a Provincial Service finds himself powerless to do so. For, under the Act he has no such power. All that he can do is to let such post remain in abeyance or to let an officer of the Provincial Service concerned officiate for a lengthened period. But even here his powers are limited. For, under the rules he cannot do this beyond fixed number of months without the sanction of the Secretary of State. This is a very serious limitation arising out of the All-India Organisation of the Services in that it prevents the attainment of the ends of economy for which the Reformed Council has been clamouring from its very inception.

122. These are not the only advantages of an independent system of Provincial Civil Service. The All-India character of the service imposes upon the provinces a uniformity in the conditions of employment in, relation to pay, leave allowances, promotions and pensions. I contend that such uniformity must work great hardships upon the resources of comparatively poor Provinces. They are obliged to pay more for the service than they can reasonably afford. Nor can it be said that uniform scale of salary in all Provinces is necessary to ensure equality in the standard of living. It is notorious that owing to differences in local conditions the same standards of comfort can be had in two different Provinces on quite different salary. If that is the case there is no reason why should uniformity in pay be enforced when such uniformity is either burdensome or unjust.

123. The requirement of uniformity in the conditions of service also arises directly out of the All-India character of the Civil Service and it will not vanish unless the service ceases to have that character. The constitution of an independent Provincial Civil Service is a means for accomplishing

this end and should be welcomed particularly when its accomplishment can reduce the cost of administration and give the Provinces full liberty to manage its own affairs. This of course means that the position of the Secretary of State vis-a-vis the Provincial Governments in the matter of recruitment to the public service must be radically altered. The Secretary of State instead of being the general employer and the Provincial Government indenting upon him for the number of hands necessary for work in their provinces, the Secretary of State in those cases where the recruitment in England is necessary should merely act as the agent of particular provinces concerned, on the terms prescribed by the Provincial Government and not on the terms formulated by himself. The Provinces should henceforth cease as authorities utilising the service of persons lent to them or found for them, so to say, by the Secretary of State. So long such a system continues the Secretary of State is bound to claim the powers which he now enjoys under Section 96B of the Government of India Act. Much is said by the Ministers against the powers retained by the Secretary of State over the Civil Service on the ground that they make responsible government impossible. That criticism is perfectly valid. But those who urged this criticism do not seem to be aware of the fact that these powers can be taken away only when the Secretary of State ceases to be the recruiting officer.

124. If this reform of separation of services is carried into effect, I should like to suggest the following classification of the Provincial Civil Service : — Provincial Civil Service Superior Service Subordinate Service Clerical Service Menial Service Class I equivalent to the present I.C.S.

and the Imperial Services.

Class II equivalent to the present Provincial Services.

125. Recruitment Agency for the Provincial Civil Service. —The next question that arises for consideration relates to the agency that should be in charge of matters pertaining to the recruitment to the Provincial Civil Service when the Secretary of State has ceased to perform that function. I accept that the Civil Service in order that it may be free from the evil effects of political influence and jobbery should be recruited and controlled by an authority independent of the Ministers. I am not, however, prepared to say that a Provincial Civil Service Commission could be instituted to take charge of this kind of work. On financial considerations alone the proposal seems to be too big. However, I agree with the suggestion that in every province there should be a full-time officer specially charged with the consideration of service matters. He should be a liaison officer between the Public Service Commission and the Local Government.

II. Indianisation of the Services

126. (i) Recruitment of Indians. —The case for Indianisation was accepted by the Islington Commission in 1915. Its relation to the success of the Reforms was emphasised by the authors of the Joint Report and the Lee Commission gave effect to it by defining the proportion between the Indians and the Europeans in the different services. There is, therefore, no necessity to argue the case for Indianisation de novo. All that is necessary to say is that during the interval that elapsed between the appointment of the Islington Commission and the appointment of Lee Commission the angle of vision regarding this question had completely altered. In the days of the Islington Commission the question was, “How many Indians should be admitted into the Public Services ?” At the time of the Lee Commission it had become, “what is the minimum number of Englishmen which must still be recruited ?” I am glad to say that the Lee Commission gave full recognition to this altered angle of vision. What is now necessary is to determine the necessary changes in the principles which were taken by the Lee Commission for framing the proportions of Indians and Europeans so as to accelerate the pace of Indianisation. The consideration that should, in my opinion, govern the proportions is the requirement of a Department and the merits of qualified Indians to run them. If this consideration were adopted the proportions settled by the Lee Commission will have to be altered in favour of Indians in all departments except Law and Order, Forest and other Technical Departments.

127. (ii) Payment of Indians. —I press for Indianisation not only on its own merits but also because of its potential effects on the finances of the Province. For, I hope that Indianisation can be made to yield economy in administration. I have not been personally able to see why equality of pay to Indians and Europeans should be regarded as a necessary consequence of membership of an All-India Service. Looking to the question from the standpoint of merit I have been convinced that there is no logical justification for equal remuneration for both classes of public servants. One class consists of a body of public servants exiled from their own home and posted in a country thousands of miles away in which they do not think that they can properly educate their children or maintain their health. Conditions such as these which compel them to maintain dual establishments at a standard of living admittedly high are considerations which do not apply to those civil servants who have their domicile in India. In contrast to their European colleagues they are working in a country in which they are living free from the difficulties of dual establishments not exposed to ill-health owing to climatic considerations and accustomed to a comparatively low standard of living. The financial burden they are obliged to carry is obviously less pressing than is the case with their European colleagues. If this difference between personal risk and sacrifices involved in the performance of their service is admitted, then in my opinion, there is no logical justification for paying them on the same basis. Indeed, if the total position of the two classes of public servants in India be compared then one thing is certain. That if the present salary of European officers is adequate then it is beyond dispute that the Indian officers are overpaid. If, however, the contention is that the Indian officers are not overpaid then it follows that the European officers are underpaid. Whichever view is taken the present practice of equal pay to Indians and Europeans gives rise to a position which is quite unsatisfactory. I have no hesitation in saying that under the present practice of equal payment whether or not the European is adequately paid his Indian colleagues is certainly overpaid. That being my view I am anxious to see that the scale of salary of public servants with Indian domicile is lower. This argument, I am sure, cannot fail to appeal to every Indian who examines the financial position of the different Provincial Governments and the serious embarrassments in which each is placed by reason of the high proportion of expenditure which is devoted to the payment of emoluments to public servants. There are some Indians I know who object to this principle of inequality in salaries. Be it noted that these objections come from those classes of Indians from which the Civil Service is largely recruited, and who claim to be the leaders of the country. Theirs is a contemptible little argument without any substance in it. It has no substance because inequality in status is not a necessary consequence of inequality in pay. It is contemptible because it is based on self-interest. I for myself am in favour of increasing Indianisation mainly because of the large promise of economy which it holds out.

128. (iii) Indianisation and the claims of the Backward Classes. —It is notorious that the Public Services of the country in so far as they are open to Indians have become by reason of various circumstances a close preserve for the Brahmins and allied castes. The Non-Brahmins, the Depressed Classes and the Mohamedans are virtually excluded from them. They are carrying on an intense agitation for securing to themselves what they regard as a due share of the Public Services. With that purpose in view they prefer the system of appointment by selection to the system of appointment by open competition This is vehemently opposed by the Brahmins and the allied castes on the ground that the interests of the State require that efficiency should be the only consideration in the matters of appointment to public offices and that caste and creed should count for nothing. Relying upon educational merit as the only test which can be taken to guarantee efficiency, they insist that public offices should be filled on the basis of competitive examinations. Such a system it is claimed serves the ends of efficiency without in any way prohibiting the entry of the Backward Classes in the Public Services. For the competitive examination being open to all castes and creeds it leaves the door open to a candidate from these communities if he satisfied the requisite test.

129. The attitude of the Brahmin and allied castes towards this question has no doubt the appearance of fairness. The system of competitive examination relied upon may result in fairness to all castes and creeds under a given set of circumstances. But those circumstances presuppose that the educational system of the State is sufficiently democratic and is such that facilities for education are sufficiently widespread and sufficiently used to permit all classes from which good public servants are likely to be forthcoming to complete. Otherwise even with the system of open competition large classes are sure to be left out in the cold. This basic condition is conspicuous by its absence in India, so that to invite Backward Classes to rely upon the results of competitive examination as a means of entry into the Public Services is to practise a delusion upon them and very rightly the Backward Classes have refused to be deceived by it.

130. Assuming therefore that the entry of the Backward Classes in the Public Services cannot be secured by making it dependent upon open competition, the first question that arises for consideration is, have the Backward Classes a case for a favoured treatment ? Unless they can make good their case they cannot expect any modification of the accepted principles of recruitment by considerations other than those of efficiency pure and simple. In regard to this important question I have no hesitation in stating that the Backward Classes have a case which is overwhelming.

131. First of all those who lay exclusive stress upon efficiency as the basis for recruitment in public services do not seem to have adequate conception of what is covered by administration in modern times. To them administration appears to be nothing more than the process of applying law as enacted by the legislature. Beyond question that is a very incomplete understanding of its scope and significance. Administration in modern times involves far more than the scrutiny of statutes for the sake of knowing the regulations of the State. Often times under the pressure of time or from convenience a government department is now-a-days entrusted with wide powers of rulemaking for the purpose of administering a particular law. In such cases it is obvious that administration cannot merely consist in applying the law. It includes the making up of rules which have the force of law and of working them out. This system of legislation by delegation has become a very common feature of all modern governments and is likely to be on the increase in years to come. It must be accepted as beyond dispute that such wide powers of rule-making affecting the welfare of large classes of people cannot be safely left into the hands of the administrators drawn from one particular class which as a matter of fact is opposed to the rest of the population in its motives and interests, does not sympathise with the living forces operating in them, is not charged with their wants, pains, cravings and desires and is inimical to their aspirations, simply because it comes out best by the test of education.

132. But even assuming that administration involves nothing more than the process of applying the law as enacted by the legislature it does not in

the least weaken the case of the Backward Classes. For, officers who are drawn from a particular caste and in whose mind consciousness of caste sits closer than conscientious regard to public duty, may easily prostitute their offices to the aggrandizement of their community and to the detriment of the general public. Take the ordinary case of a Mamlatdar, administering the law relating to the letting of Government lands for cultivation. He is no doubt merely applying the law. But in applying he may pick and choose the lessees according to his predilection and very possibly may decide against lessees on grounds which may be communal in fact although they may be non-communal in appearance. Take another illustration of an officer placed in charge of the census department in which capacity he is called upon to decide questions of nomenclature of the various communities and of their social status. An officer in charge of this department by reason of his being a member of particular caste in the course of his administration may do injustice to a rival community by refusing to it the nomenclature or the status that belongs to it. Instances of favouritism, particularly on the grounds of caste and creed are of common occurrence though they are always excused on some other plausible ground. But I like to quote one which pertains to the Vishwakarmans of the Madras Presidency. It is related in their letter to the Reforms Enquiry Committee of 1924 in which they complained that “a Brahmin member of the Madras Executive Council Sir (then Mr.) P. Siwaswami Ayyar—when he was in charge of the portfolio of law, issued a Government Order objecting to the suffix ‘Acharya’ usually adopted by the Vishwakarmans in their names and seeking to enforce in its place the word ‘Asry’, which is weighed with common odium. Though there was neither necessity nor authority to justify the action taken by the law member, the Government Order was published by the law department as if on the recommendation of the Spelling Mistakes Committee. It happened to our misfortune that the non-official members of this Committee were drawn largely from the Brahmin community, who never knew how to respect the rights of their sister communities and never informed us of the line of action that they were decided upon. It was dealt more or less as the star in the dark.”

133. This is inevitable. Class rule must mean rule in terms of class interests and class prejudices. If such results are inevitable then it must raise a query in the minds of all honest people whether efficient government has also given us good government ? If not, what is the remedy ? My view is that the disadvantages arising from the class bias of the officers belonging to Brahmin and allied castes has outweighed all the advantages attending upon their efficiency and that on the total they have done more harm than good. As to me remedy, the one I see is a proper admixture of the different communities in the public service. This may perhaps import a small degree of inefficiency. But it will supply a most valuable corrective to the evils of class bias. This has become all the more necessary because of the social struggles that are now going on in the country. The struggles between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins, between Hindus and Mohamedans, between Touchables and Untouchables for the destruction of all inequalities and the establishment of equality, with all their bitterness, cannot leave the judges, magistrates, civil servants and the police without being influenced in their judgment as to the right or wrong of these struggles. Being members of the struggling communities they are bound to be partisans, with the result that there may be a great loss in the confidence reposed by the public in their servants.

134. So far I have considered the case of the Backward Classes on grounds of administrative utility. But there are also moral grounds why entry into the public service should be secured to them. The moral evils arising out of the exclusion of a person from the public service were never so well portrayed as by the late Mr. Gokhale. In the course of a telling speech he observed, “The excessive costliness of the foreign agency is not however its only evil. There is a moral evil, which, if anything, is even greater. A kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race is going on under the present system. We must live all the days of our life in an atmosphere of inferiority and tallest of us must bend in order that the exigencies of the existing system may be satisfied. The upward impulse, if I may use such an expression, which every school-boy at Eton or Harrow may feel that he may one day be a Gladstone, a. Nelson, or a Wellington, and which may draw forth the best efforts of which he is capable, is denied to us. The full height to which our manhood is capable of rising can never be reached by us under the present system. The moral elevation which every self-governing people feel cannot be felt by us. Our administrative and military talents must gradually disappear, owing to sheer disuse, till at last our lot, as hewers of wood and drawers of water in our own country, is stereotyped.” Now what one would like to ask those who deny the justice of the case of the Backward Classes for entry into the Public Service is whether it is not open to the Backward Classes to allege against the Brahmins and allied castes all that was alleged by the late Mr. Gokhale on behalf of Indian people against the foreign agency ? Is it not open to the Depressed Classes, the non-Brahmins and the Mohamedans to say that by their exclusion from the Public Service a kind of dwarfing or stunting of their communities is going on ? Can they not complain that as a result of their exclusion they are obliged to live all the days of their lives in an atmosphere of inferiority, and that the tallest of them has to bend in order that the exigencies of the existing system may be satisfied ? Can they not assert that the upward impulses which every school-boy of the Brahmanical community feels that he may one day be a Sinha, a Sastri, a Ranade or a Paranjpye, and which may draw forth from him the best efforts of which he is capable is denied to them ? Can they not indignantly assert that the full height to which their manhood is capable of rising can never be reached by them under the present system ? Can they not lament that the moral elevation which every self-governing people feel cannot be felt by them and that their administrative talents must gradually disappear owing to sheer disgust till at last their lot as hewers of wood and drawers of water in their own country is stereotyped ? The answers to these queries cannot but be in the affirmative. If to exclude the advanced communities from entering into public service of the country was a moral wrong, the exclusion of the backward communities from the same field must also be a moral wrong, and if it is a moral wrong it must be righted.

135. These are the considerations which lead me to find in favour of the Backward Classes. It will be noticed that these considerations are in no way different from the considerations that were urged in favour of Indianisation. The case for Indianisation, it must be remembered, did not rest upon efficient administration. It rested upon considerations of good administration. It was not challenged that the Indian was inferior to the European in the qualities that go into the make-up of an efficient administrator. It was not denied that the European bureaucracy had improved their roads, constructed canals on more scientific principles, effected transportation by rail, carried their letters by penny post, flashed their messages by lightning, improved their currency, regulated their weights and measures, corrected their notions of geography, astronomy and medicine, and stopped their internal quarrels. Nothing can be a greater testimony to the fact that the European bureaucracy constituted the most efficient government possible. All the same the European bureaucracy, efficient though it was, was condemned as it was found to be wanting in those qualities which make for human administration. It is therefore somewhat strange that those who clamoured for Indianisation should oppose the stream flowing in the direction of the Backward Classes, forgetting that the case for Indianisation also includes the case for the Backward Classes. Be that as it may, I attach far more importance to this than I attach either to Provincial Autonomy or to complete responsibility in the Provincial Executive. I would not be prepared to allow the devolution of such large powers if I felt that those powers are likely to fall in the hands of any one particular community to the exclusion of the rest That being my view I suggest that the following steps should be taken for the materialisation of my recommendations : — (1) A certain number of vacancies in the Superior Services, Class I and Class II, and also in the Subordinate Services, should every year be filled by system of nomination with a pass examination. These nominations should be filled on the recommendation of a select committee composed of persons competent to judge of the fitness of a candidate and working in conjunction with the Civil Service officer referred to above. Such nominations shall be reserved to the Depressed Class, the Mohamedans and the Non-Brahmins in the order of preference herein indicated until their numbers in the service reach a certain proportion.

(2) That steps should be taken to post an increasing number of officers belonging to these communities at the headquarters.

(3) That a Central Recruitment Board should be constituted as a central agency for registering all applications for appointments and vacancies and putting applicants in touch with the offices where vacancies exist or occur from time to time. It is essential to put the man and the job in touch if this desire is to be achieved. The absence of such a Board is the reason why the efforts of the Government of Bombay in this connection have not achieved the success which was expected of them.