By R.M.B
Senanayake - Colombo Telegarph
These days there is much criticism
about the Foreign service – a service which was second only to the former
Ceylon Civil Service and consisting of outstanding persons of intellect
selected through a competitive examination. The Chris Nonis affair has shown how a bunch of
thugs have taken over the once hallowed foreign service. But it is these public
services that held the country together and allowed the country to command
respect from the international community. We never had a competent
administration under our Sinhalese kings who drew no distinction between the
power play and the need for a sound and competent State administration.
It is not an accident that the LTTE emerged
as a force after 1972 when the Leftists had destroyed the merit based senior
administrative service. Up to then, the Civil Service had acted as a
non-political administrative mechanism and the Tamil people who were also
represented in it were reluctant to resort to extra-legal violent agitation.
But after 1972 the public service was fully politicized and the Tamil people
would no longer accept the public administrative mechanism as impartial. It had
become an arm of the ruling political party and since the political party
represented only the Sinhalese, the Tamils treated both the political and
administrative system ad oppressors. They were the same and they represented
only the majority Sinhalese. The way was open to identify the State as an
instrument of harassment by the Sinhalese majority community.
The Administration held the country
held the country together
The central government administrative
service plays a no mean role in holding India together. By doing away with the
administrative service recruited on merit and instead packing its higher levels
with political appointees, the Foreign Service, the Administrative service and
the Police service have become not the services of the nation but the services
of the ruling political party or only of the President. Our so-called democracy
is merely an instrument for the exercise of power for the benefit of the ruling
circle. Scarce public services are being distributed not on the basis of any
rule of fairness but only on political favor and corruption. So the public go
after their elected representatives to get admission for their children to the
better schools, to get a government house, a government job or priority and
special favor in any government department or institution. Similarly employees
in the public service curry favor with the ruling party politicians, to get
transfers, promotions and avoid disciplinary actions for their acts of
dishonesty and corruption in the disbursement of public funds.
The Members of Parliament are elected
not to govern the country but to draw up laws and to act as a check on the
Executive. But how can these MPs check on the Executive when they themselves
are involved in the irregular exercise of Executive power. How can such a
corrupt system be called a democracy merely because these politicians are
elected by the people – an election marred by abuse of power and State resources.
Where is the equity and fairness in the provision of public services to the
people under this system? Social revolutions are caused when the people realize
the unfairness of the political system. There comes a time when the people are
not willing to tolerate such unfairness any more. It begins with a few who
perceive the unfairness and they draw the attention of the masses to the
blatant abuses of power and position. The French and Russian revolutions were
brought on by the exercise of arbitrary power by the king and the ruling class.
It is the central public service which
holds India together. China was the first country to develop a public
administration where appointments were on merit and through a competitive
examination. The Mandal Report in India sought to provide special appointments
to the central public service for the lower castes but it was rejected to
uphold the principle of merit. Merit has disappeared altogether from our public
service appointments.
The Peter Principle operates
The politicians who became Ministers,
except for the few well educated among them, found it uncomfortable to deal
with those appointed on merit for they were intellectually inferior to them.
They could not order them around. So following the Peter Principle they
appointed their favorites from outside the public service. They preferred
friends and relations who were inferior to the serving public servants in
education and accomplishments. For the benefit of those who have not heard of
the Peter Principle (formulated by the famous management theorist Tom Peters in
his work “The Peter Principle: Why Things always go wrong”) it refers to the
principle in a hierarchy where individuals at the top prefer to appoint only
those who are not as clever or intellectually comparable as they are to the
next level of authority. The process goes down the hierarchy and hence the less
capable thereafter get promoted over time to the top where they are unable to
perform and there they would remain “bungling the job and eroding the
competence of society”. This principle now reigns supreme in our politicized
administrative and foreign services. So although we have been importing
petroleum products for the last fifty years without a hitch, now they can
import only inferior petroleum. It is the same in every other service and the
country is well on the way to becoming a failed state.
Democracy and the limitations of
popular judgment
The people are wise if they elect
competent and honest persons as their representatives. Democracy is based on
the principle -not that the people are capable of right judgment but that they
can decide who hurts them. As Pericles said “Although only a few are capable of
devising policy all are certainly capable of judging them.” Democracy in
backward countries is a process of learning by the people – learning to judge
their rulers through trial and error. Election Day can be a day of judgment for
those who govern us. But this is based on the assumption that the process of
election is inviolate and has not been tampered with. But that requires a
system of government where checks and balances operate on the rulers. They are
accountable to the legislature and the judiciary. But if these two bodies are
already subordinated to the Executive then the actions of the Executive are not
based on the law but on arbitrary exercise of the will of the ruler as in the
times of our Sinhalese kings and in the Western democracies before the Magna
Carta and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England, of the Revolution of 1789
in France and the 1776 revolution USA.
This right to throw out a government is
severely vitiated in a dictatorship. It may be so vitiated that a change of
government is impossible. Then only a social revolution can overthrow a
government. Historically Athenian democracy as pointed out by Karl Popper
was an attempt to avoid tyranny at all costs. They had in place the process of
‘ostracisation’ where any citizen if he becomes too popular, could be removed
precisely because of his popularity. Eminent statesman like Aristides and
Themistocles were ostracized or sent into exile. Perhaps MR would have
qualified for ostracisation in the Athenian democracy. The great danger in a
democracy is the emergence of populist politicians. So we have to put up with
populist politicians who will take decisions sacrificing the long term for the
short term as we see in the recent budget. If the people are wise they will
elect leaders who espouse sound economics and not populism. Political
expediency and benefit rather than principles is the governing factor in our
current political decision-making and even constitution making. Despite the
oath to uphold the Constitution our political leaders have violated the
fundamental principles of the Constitution with gay abandon. President J. R
Jayewardene adopted a hybrid Constitution removing the checks and
balances required to preserve freedom in a presidential form of government. A
balance is also required between the need for representation and the need for competent
governance. The advantage of the presidential form of government is that the
Ministers are all drawn from competent personnel who are outside the
Legislature. The USA, France, Japan all appoint technically competent persons
with considerable management experience to be Ministers, instead of country
yokels. What we need direly is a competent set of Ministers and they are not
available through the process of popular election. We need not to abolish theexecutive
Presidency but to make it accountable under the law to the legislature
and the judiciary. The absolute legal immunity of the President should be
abolished as should the 18th
Amendment and elected MPs should be debarred from being Ministers. The
President should be allowed to appoint as Ministers only persons of good
standing with experience in management of not less than ten years in a large
organization in the public or private sector.
The MP is not a delegate
The MP thinks that he represents only
those who voted for him. But as Burke pointed out the MP is not a delegate of
his voters but is expected to act in the best interests of his people and the
people include those who voted against him. He is expected to be a legislator
not an intermediary of his constituents with the administration. State
officials are expected to serve all persons fairly and not favor those of the
ruling party. What we have is not a democracy but what political science calls
a ‘plutocracy” or some would say a “kleptocracy” where a political elite based
on some social criteria such as membership of a family or caste or class, rule
the country in their particular interest
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