An unorthodox and maverick administrator, the author worked in top policy positions, but the system rejected the reforms that he advocated. In his career he followed the economic philosophy of ‘socialism for the poor and free market for the rich’. However, the political and administrative system in India seemed to believe in ‘indifference to the poor and control over the rich to facilitate rent seeking’.
The book is full of anecdotes ranging from how the author resisted political corruption that led to the Prime Minister’s annoyance to a situation when the author himself ‘bribed’ the Chief Minister to scrap oppressive laws against tribal women. As Joint Secretary, Minorities Commission, the author exposed the communal bias of the district administration in handling riots in Meerut; he was punished for bringing to light the killing of innocent Muslim women and children by the police. When Bihar became a ‘failed state’ during the Lalu Prasad Yadav era of 1990–2005, the author did not hesitate in rebuking the Chief Secretary who was his senior in service, and accused IAS officials in Bihar of behaving like English-speaking politicians.
Despite their high integrity, hard work and competence, IAS officials do not exercise sufficient control over the field staff who collude with the junior staff in reporting false figures on hunger deaths, malnutrition and usage of toilets, leading to erosion of accountability. Not only do many welfare programmes such as NREGA, ICDS and PDS have design flaws, governance in India at the state and district levels is also quite weak, manifesting itself in poor service delivery, uncaring administration, corruption, and uncoordinated and wasteful public expenditure.
Analysing the present Indian situation, the book suggests policy changes in all cross-cutting systemic issues such as the role of politicians, tenure, size and nature of Indian bureaucracy, accountability, monitoring of programmes and civil service reforms, which will transform individual competencies of IAS officers into better collective outcomes.
Naresh Chandra Saxena is a former IAS officer. Topper of his batch (1964) in the IAS, Dr Saxena retired as Secretary, Planning Commission, in 2002. He also worked as Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development (1997–1999) in the Government of India (GOI). During 1993–1996, he was Director, National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. On behalf of the Supreme Court of India, Dr Saxena monitored hunger-based programmes in India from 2001 to 2017. He has chaired several government committees, such as ‘Women’s Land Rights’, ‘Identification of Poor Families’, ‘Implementation of Forest Rights Act’, ‘Joint Review Mission on Elementary Education’ and ‘Bauxite Mining in Orissa’. Currently, he advises GOI on rural sanitation.
He has been a member of the National Advisory Council set up by the UPA government. He headed a Planning Commission panel on rural poor and recommended a rank-based system including automatic inclusion and exclusion of poor families. On 16 August 2010, a committee headed by him warned that plans by Vedanta Resources to mine on Dongria Kondh land in Eastern India threaten the survival of the tribe. This led to the Indian government refusing clearance to the project.
Dr Saxena did his Doctorate in Forestry from the Oxford University in 1992. He was awarded honorary PhD from the University of East Anglia (UK) in 2006. He was a Visiting Professor to Regional Community Forestry Training Centre, Bangkok, 1993–1998, and Member, Governing Council, ADB Institute, Tokyo, 2002–2004. His articles on bureaucracy and governance are prolifically published in Business Standard, Economic and Political Weekly, The Print, The Quint, The Wire, Scroll.in and so on.
