The suspension of SSP Tarn Taran Dr Ravjot Kaur Grewal by the Election Commission of India, must serve as a serious example and a strong deterrent against the misuse of the official machinery by the ruling parties across the country during elections, the by-elections in particular.
The ruling parties are known for misusing and even abusing the official machinery during the by-elections. Punjab is no exception. In fact, it is not just the by-elections, the officialdom, whether in the civil or the police administration, actually crawl when they are merely asked to bend in a proverbial manner.
Dr Ravjot was suspended, following the complaints by the Shiromani Akali Dal during the Tarn Taran by-election to the Election Commission of India. The Akali Dal accused the SSP of being biased and intimidating the Akali workers and supporters.
This has been a standard practice during all the by-elections, thus reducing them to just a farce. It has been taken for granted that the ruling party will mandatorily win the by-election, come what may. The civil and police administration facilitates and helps in reinforcing such beliefs.
Then why hold the by-elections and waste huge and precious resources and time when the result is a foregone conclusion? The ruling party should have the discretion of nominating the replacement of a candidate instead of holding the by-election that in most cases is a farcical exercise only.
By and large most of the bureaucrats whether from the IAS/ IPS or the provincial services, blindly follow the line dictated by the government/ the party in power. This abuse of power is at its brutal display during the by-elections.
In Punjab, Tarn Taran is the ninth by-election during the AAP tenure of four years. Every by-election, without any exception has seen similar (mis)use of power. Of the eight by-elections (two parliamentary and six assembly) held so far, the AAP has won six and of course not without the advantage of being in power.
The bureaucracy to India is the legacy of the British government. Not much has changed in terms of its character and the way it works. Bureaucracy during the British regime was meant to serve the British interests only, without bothering or caring about the common people. It remains “civil services” in the name only, while actually it serves the party in power, the same way it served the British government. Instead of the “civil service”, it is in the service of its masters. Barring a few honourable exceptions, the bureaucrats whether from the police or the civil services have completely surrendered to the party in power. This holds universally true across India.
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As long as the governments have discretion in postings of the bureaucrats, they will continue to wield unbridled power and authority and get things done their way. There was a time when things would be done in a subtle and not so obvious manner. But those times are past.
With degradation of standards everywhere, the bureaucracy has not remained untouched anywhere. More unabashedly brutal a bureaucrat behaves the more favourable postings s/he enjoys. No wonder such officials go out of the way to oblige their political masters.
While the Election Commission of India took a serious note of the complaints this time in Tarn Taran, such partisan behaviour of the officers mostly goes unnoticed and unpunished. Rather, such officials get rewarded at the end after getting the desired results delivered.
Suspension of officers by the Election Commission of India for dereliction of duty during the elections is quite rare. Yes, there are a large number of transfers, but in rare cases does commission order suspension of an officer as happened in case of the Tarn Taran SSP. While suspension is the strong punishment and an equally strong message to the officers that they cannot flout the rules, this is not a permanent solution to the chronic disease that has inflicted Indian bureaucracy, both the civil as well as the police services.
The entire model of the administration must be changed with regular checks and balances to the power and authority the bureaucrats enjoy. Although legally they enjoy no immunity for their various acts of omission and commission, but practically they remain completely immune to any action or accountability. Besides, there is no system of punishments for failures or misuse of their position. In the rarest of the rare cases the bureaucrats get prosecuted and still in the rarest cases do they get convicted.
Like the partisan acts during the elections are unforgivable and must be punished sternly and severely, the same principle must be applied to the day-to-day conduct of the bureaucracy. Day by day the bureaucrats tend to get more powerful resorting to abuse of their positions with patronage from their political masters. This must end. Suspension of an officer must not be a rare exception, but a rule to bring order in governance.
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