41 Eternal vigilance is the price of survival

In the last post, I looked back at my experience of the CAG audit and how enervating it is. Mulling over these memories, I am struck by a single important ingredient in public service (government jobs): the crucial necessity of being eternally vigilant, even paranoid. Let me try and explain with some illustrations.

One of the unexpected facts of public administration is the ambiguity of the legal and procedural framework.  You would think that with over two hundred years of the modern bureaucratic state (well, maybe it is closer to a hundred and fifty years), all the rules and regulations, the laws and policies, would have been sorted out by now, tweaked and harmonized, fine-tuned and spruced up to meet specific objectives. This is the assumption that many of us start with in our careers. As I read the statement of a central minster about decentralized administration some time back, if only the objectives were clear, powers and procedures were unambiguous, and sufficient funds and personnel were provided at the start of every year, the panchayats (decentralized governance bodies) would be able to achieve results. It occurs to me that this is the plaint of every functionary and worker in the system. The reality, alas, is far different.

In the real world, objectives are spelled out in only the vaguest terms, and one has to give body and flesh to them as one goes along. The budgets and working rates are not approved and assigned at the start of each year, and the executive officials in the field have often to arrange interim funding themselves (sometimes they have to get the cash from the local moneylender!), in the hope that the funds will be approved and released finally (sometimes this doesn’t happen, and they are left holding the can, as the saying goes). Staff positions are usually half vacant (and of those in position, the dreaded 20-80 rule comes into play!). Rules are unclear, often contradictory, and court rulings cryptic. Administration, at least in the public sphere, therefore, is like weighing a handful of active frogs in an open pan balance.

For the controlling officers, the situation is one that constantly poses intractable problems and contradictions. Because they have to be constantly taking decisions that are on the edge of legality, they have to be constantly vigilant that they are covering their soft body parts (to put it delicately!) all the time. For those taking financial and discretionary decisions, the occupational hazard is enormous, because anybody can question them anytime (the immunity that used tto be given to public servants for decisions taken in the course of their duties, apparently ceases the day they retire, as they cease to be public servants from that date, according to a court ruling).

But constant vigilance does not mean that one can stop taking decisions. That will go on, but there has to be a constant vigil that somewhere or other, one is not making some serious mistake or overlooking some critical rule or policy decision by the competent authority. This entails a repeated study of the rule books, court judgments, and so on. Since one cannot do this alone, it calls for a certain amount of discussion and even gossip, which is what officials do when they get together and talk ‘shop’.

Here’s another interesting thought. Hundreds of papers or files will be passing through your hands every day. You may get only a few minutes with each of them. You will have to carry out all your due diligence on each and every one of those files during those few minutes that it crosses your path. That is the level of vigilance that is called for. You need to keep your faculties engaged and alert, and not allow yourself to relax even for a second, because something may slip past your guard. If you are not feeling up to examining each file as it comes, you should keep it aside or take a break until you are in the proper frame of mind. Sometimes it takes weeks or months for that to transpire. Behind every officer’s desk, there is usually a shelf where certain intractable files are stowed away until the gods send a message and a solution appears. That is what is meant by eternal vigilance!

Having said all this, let me hasten to add a mitigating thought. Especially if you are at a senior level, be aware that the file before you has probably taken a long and tortuous route to get to your table, and that the fate of many persons may be hanging on your decision. If you are uncertain about how to proceed, there is always the temptation to toss the problem into someone else's basket by referring upward, returning down for further information, or referring laterally. If the decision is something within your jurisdiction, try your best to resolve issues by discussion and consultation before sending the file away, especially if you will be able to do somthing good by taking a decision. Especially if you are irritated by spelling mistakes, get them corrected on the draft, but keep the file on your table! For it may take another few months for the file to move down and up the chain before it comes back to you and provides you an opportunity to make amends.