Sardar Patel : Saviour of Civil Services

On Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary, India’s youngest civil servants pledged their commitment to constitutional values at the Statue of Unity. He’s the civil services’ patron saint

On 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, the eleventh edition of National Unity Day was celebrated at the Statue of Unity in Kevadia, with the youngest entrants to the civil service reaffirming their commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution.

All civil servants — whether recruited through the UPSC or the State Public Service Commissions — have always regarded Patel as the patron saint of the civil services. It was Patel, after all, who ensured that the civil services —the ICS and its successors — were saved from the double jeopardy that threatened the very existence of the ‘steel frame’ on the eve of Independence.

ICS vs Congress

Let’s go back to the post-World War II period. Although the Allies (Great Britain, United States, Soviet Union, and France) emerged victorious, it marked the decline of the British Empire. The war had shattered their economy, and the rise of the Indian National Army (INA) and the naval ratings revolt made it clear the British could no longer take the loyalty of their troops for granted.

This was also a period of intense adversarial relations between the British-run Indian Civil Service (ICS) and the Congress, which was spearheading the freedom movement.

The enactment of the Defence of India Act 1939 saw district magistrates arresting Congress members, binding them under preventive sections of the erstwhile Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), and confiscating their newspapers. After MK Gandhi’s Quit India call in 1942, the Congress was declared illegal, and practically every party functionary at the district and sub-district level was put behind bars.

As a result, many leaders of the national movement, from Jawaharlal Nehru to GB Pant, were not favourably disposed toward the ICS.

Meanwhile, after the Cabinet Mission Plan failed in May 1946, the Secretary of State unilaterally announced a halt to ICS recruitment and the possible termination of the covenant with ICS upon India’s Independence.

Sardar Patel to the rescue

Despite the Congress’ fraught equation with the ICS, Sardar Patel, then Home Minister in the interim government, challenged the authority of the Secretary of State on this matter.

He convened a meeting with the premiers (as Chief Ministers were then called) of the eleven provinces of British India on 21-22 October 1946 in New Delhi to discuss the implications of the Secretary of State’s announcement. In his opening address, Patel made it clear that the interim government — and by implication, the successor state —was in favour of an All India Service, seeing it as beneficial for both the Centre and the provinces.

The background note prepared by the Home Ministry read: “This arrangement (ICS) would facilitate liaison between the Centre and the provinces, ensure a certain uniformity of standards of administration, and keep the central administrative machinery in touch with ground realities.” It further argued that “the provincial administrative service, on its part, will acquire a wider outlook, and obtain the best material for the higher posts.”

Whatever their reservations, the eight Congress-ruled provinces — Madras, Bombay, United Provinces, Central Provinces and Berar, Bihar, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Orissa, and Assam — fell in line. However, Punjab, Bengal, and Sindh opposed the move.

Representing the Government of Punjab, the revenue minister (standing in for the premier) contended: “Provinces must have full control over their services, and to have full control, they must also select their own services. This would ensure proper representation of communities and greater attention to local problems, and on the whole, be conducive to efficient administration. Provinces should place the services of their officers on deputation with the Centre.”

Ironically, the proponents of a strong provincial service changed their position overnight after the creation of Pakistan. The Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) became a near replica of the IAS — even more powerful, in fact, due to the absence of a democratic policy and the abolition of provinces from 1956 to 1971, which gave them greater hold over Pakistan’s administration.

Compromise and Consensus

Be that as it may, Sardar Patel, in his closing remarks, noted that there was a “general feeling in favour of the formation of an All India Service”. He also voiced hope that “after the general scheme was framed, those who were at present not in favour would be convinced that adequate allowances had been made for the provincial susceptibilities regarding control and would agree to join in”.

The meeting also addressed the induction of officers from provincial services into the IAS. It was agreed that “the quota for provincial services men in the proposed service should be 25% of the superior posts.”

The provinces were to be left free to devise their own rules of selection for this quota—but the induction of the selected candidates would be subject to a certificate of fitness from the Federal (now Union) Public Service Commission.

BB Misra, in his book Bureaucracy in India, writes: “He [Patel] recognized the necessity of adequate allowance for provincial susceptibilities, especially in a country inhabited by multicultural communities. But, it was precisely for the protection of these susceptibilities that a centrally controlled All India Service was considered all the more important.”

The new framework included an all India administrative service on the lines of the previous ICS and a provincial service under the provincial government. The idea was that provincial officers would be promoted to central services “on quota and seniority basis”.

Power Struggles and Parliament

There was, however, another contentious issue —retaining the services of British-appointed ICS officers with the same pay, perquisites, and a constitutional guarantee.

“[T]hey were the rulers under the old regime and… they will continue to be so in this regime,” M Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, a bitter critic of the ICS, argued in the Constituent Assembly in 1949. “This guarantee asks us to forget that these persons who are still in the service — 400 of them — committed excesses thinking that this was not their country.”

Other members of the Constituent Assembly also expressed concerns that giving a constitutional guarantee restricted the authority of successive parliaments to negotiate with officers who were to work under them.

However, this received a quick and firm rebuttal from Sardar.

“I wish this to be recorded in this house that during the last two or three years if most of the members of the services had not been serving the country efficiently, practically the Union would have collapsed,” he said.

In The Civil Servant in India, former ICS officer Kewal Panjabi pointed out that Sardar Patel could see what many other politicians couldn’t.

“Sardar’s heart was big enough to appreciate merit and he wanted the services to be steadfast to their traditions of efficiency, impartiality and equality. Of their fidelity, he was fully convinced. He tested them in the turbulent days of 1946-47 and had no doubts about their loyalty,” he wrote. “Sardar was one of the few politicians who realised the important contribution the services had made to the stability of the country.”

This was the backdrop against which Article 314 was incorporated into the Constitution. It ensured that individuals appointed to the civil service by the Secretary of State, who opted to remain in service at the commencement of the Constitution, would continue to enjoy the same terms regarding pay, leave, and pension, as well as the same rights in disciplinary procedures.

However, in a populist measure, Indira Gandhi’s government repealed this provision through the Constitution (Twenty-eighth Amendment) Act 1972, substituting it with the new Article 312A. This gave Parliament the authority to change or revoke the terms of service for these officers.

It may be mentioned that in 1972, there were just a handful of ICS officers still in service. These included Nirmal Kumar Mukarji, who went on to become cabinet secretary; Manzoor Alam Quraishi, who served as Union agriculture secretary and later as ambassador to Saudi Arabia; S Jagannathan, who helmed the Reserve Bank of India; and Govind Narain, who held the position of defence secretary.

Their terms and conditions, though, were not altered until Nirmal Mukarji’s retirement in 1980, thereby making Article 312-A infructuous.

(Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration)