It’s in the attitude, my dear

May 22, 2005 on 4:34 pm | In Newspapers, Times of India | 1 Comment


 Good news comes quietly, and it did two weeks ago on a typical May evening as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a new system to evaluate the IAS officer. Our real failures, I have always believed, are managerial and not political. Laloo may grab the headlines but good governance lies in the ubiquitous daily interface between the lowest babu and the public. It is not a good thing for a whole generation to grow up despising public servants, and this new performance based report card is the first in a series of administrative reforms that could begin to cure our sick bureaucracy. It replaces the subjective Annual Confidential Report and if implemented well, it could make our officers accountable, motivating the honest and punishing the lazy and corrupt. A similar system has helped improve performance of private and public sector bureaucracies around the world. Our bureaucrat too is basically careerist and he ought to respond to the right incentives.More...

There are two kinds of individuals in government. One is helpful; the other entangles you in red tape. My neighbour’s aunt goes to collect her pension every month in person, and if the first type is at the window, she quickly gets her money and returns home happy. If it is the second, she gets the run around, and her whole week is often ruined. So, it comes down to a matter of attitude, which percolates down from the top to the lowest official. I am pleased that the new system will also assess attitude (at least once every five years.)
In the private sector the competitive spirit helps create an attitude of service. A saree shopkeeper will show you 50 sarees even if you don’t buy one because he fears his competitor. Studies confirm that high performing companies create an environment that rewards employees with a helpful attitude. Such employees, they know, win customers and raise the organisation’s morale. Hence, they often hire people for their attitudes and train them in skills. It is difficult to uncover attitudes in a single interview, however, which is why an investment bank like Goldman Sachs interviews a candidate 17 times on the average, even when she is A+ from Harvard. It is looking for character, which is revealed not in how a person treats his superior but his subordinate or a stranger. I am delighted that peers, subordinates, and clients will also now help assess an officer. There are many proven ways to uncover attitudes and the UPSC would also do well to adopt them when recruiting new officers.

At the end of his book, Governance: and the sclerosis that has set in, Arun Shourie explains how the nature of the Indian state has changed. In the 1950s Jawaharlal Nehru made an effort to fashion the state into an engine of growth. In the following three decades the Indian state became the “Great Monitor”, which authorized, banned, channelled every step that we citizens took. Today it is being refashioned by economic reforms to into an enabling state–a state that enables its citizens to do what they can do best.

Motivated senior officials with the right attitude are crucial to creating an enabling state. This new appraisal system is thus a good beginning. The next step is to link good performance with faster promotions and slow or stop the promotions of bad officers. Many more such reforms are urgently needed. Meanwhile, coming as this does on the heels of the new Right to Information Bill, gives us reason to cheer that the much abused Indian public may finally get a chance at good governance.

Pursuit of happiness

May 8, 2005 on 4:37 pm | In Newspapers, Times of India | No Comments

We would be pretty sceptical if Laloo Prasad happened to promise us happiness. Most of us sensibly believe that human unhappiness is a private matter, and is the result of things like unhappy marriages, ungrateful children, losing a promotion, or even the lack of faith. We know too well what would happen if our government got into the act: Chidambaram would tax ungrateful children, Sonia Gandhi would ban divorces, Manmohan Singh would create a promotions commission, Arjun Singh would detoxify faith, making atheism illegal. So frankly, I am glad that our wonderful Constitution is silent, unlike America’s, which enjoins the state to the ‘pursuit of happiness’. More...

Yet governments can help promote happiness. Knowing I will not be attacked when I step out of the house is central to my well being. I am a relaxed entrepreneur if I don’t have to see the excise inspector. I am a contented phoolwalli if I don’t have to pay hafta. I am a happier farmer if I don’t have to bribe the patwari. Seven out of ten Indians live in a village. Even if tiny, most have a parcel of land, and once in their lifetime they must transfer its title when their father dies. Surveys show that it takes 100 days of running around to affect this transfer. It is also a 100 days of humiliation, and by the end one has lost all dignity and self esteem. The insolent revenue official has not changed his attitude since the British Raj and continues to lord it over the helpless peasant.

A 123rd rank on corruption implies, in a sense, that we are behind 122 countries in our chances for happiness. If you are rich money may not bring happiness but it can make a huge difference if you are poor. An effective poverty program can bring many smiles. Good primary schools and health care centres will do the same. Although the state doesn’t have to run them, it needs to be an enabler. Good governance is thus central to my happiness, and the makers of the American Constitution may have had a point.

I had taken Manmohan Singh at his word and had hoped that happiness would have begun spreading across our land by now. On taking office he had promised that governance was his top priority. Well, we have been waiting. Instead, he has gone and broken our hearts and announced the umpteenth administrative reforms commission. Now our only hope for good governance is that our economic reforms continue, the Indian state keeps shedding its illegitimate functions, and government slowly gets out of the way. As this continues, I also hope we will get around to deleting the word “socialism” from our Constitution, one of Indira Gandhi’s pernicious legacies from the Emergency. The word “socialism” has a precise meaning: it is state ownership of all means of production. No one believes in this any longer, not even Karat, the new head of the CPM.

As to personal happiness, I go along with Freud. I believe that if you can get absorbed in your work and love the person you live with, you will be happy. To this recipe I would add Panchatantra’s advice: have a few good friends. It says, “mitra is a two-syllable gem, a shelter against sorrow, grief and fear, and a vessel of love and trust.” Aristotle too had the same idea, although he did not express it as poetically. So, it as simple as that–love your work, love the person you live with, and have a few good friends. Like all things, however, it’s easier thought than achieved.

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