Chaps in a map

• “Geography is about maps, history is about chaps”

An often-heard statement on TV talk shows, part myth, part hopeful, goes: “In India, politicians do not matter; it is the administrators who run the country. Politicians may come and go but the administrators keep it together. They are good and patriotic.” Invariably, it is in order to contrast with the public service here, by implication a far cry from the admirable Indian administrative service, that the sage sounding declaration is made.

That we are certain kind of chaps on a certain kind of map is obvious. To put it broadly, it is to the South Asian category, those who live on the large peninsula below the Himalayan Range that we belong. Whatever the other differences, and there are many, but yet; in appearance, culture, beliefs, standard reflexes there is a discernible homogeneity in the people of the Indian Sub-Continent. Whichever South Asian country we may come from, to the outsider we are ‘Indians’. 

As a political entity India may be a recent development, an independent India being a reality of only about seventy years now. But the geographic India has through the ages predominated in the in the Sub-continent as the leader in ideas, beliefs, technologies, institutions as well as other developments. These concepts and institutions permeate our lives, shaping our character, fashioning our outlook, defining us. There is a world view that has evolved in these parts which is distinct; why things happen, how things happen, how they evolve, what ought to happen; we see and explain these things differently. We are a part of a legacy-we cannot change the map.

It is not only for the real gifts that we credit India. In the fertile imagination of the ancient times, India was viewed in terms of only the superlatives; a boundlessly vast land – where the deepest rivers flow, fiercest animals roam the impenetrable jungles, colossal rocks dominate the landscape, richest merchants command fleets of ships, strong men build vast empires and at the same time an unmatched home for the wisest sages and seers and beautiful and chaste women. 

In our historic lore there is no real awareness of other contemporary civilisations; Greek, Roman, Chinese, Egyptian – or a concept of what they represented. Alexander, in an amazing odyssey brought his armies right up to North West India, but that alarmingly easy intrusion by a far-away people is not a factor for consideration. There are the ideas of Greece and Rome, the republic, democracy, primacy of man-ideas that have impacted human progress fundamentally, but again, too remote for comprehension. It is the magic and the myths of India that holds our imagination instead.

The proponents of the ideal of the perfect Indian public service, at least those I have heard, are hardly experts on the public services of different countries or their relative merits. It is not a finding arrived at after an objective examination of the actual state of the Indian public service, but only a muddy abstraction which finds harmony with a particular way of seeing things, a belief more than an observation. In the ears of the audience, the argument rings true, after all it only confirms their beliefs- the land of the superlatives.

In truth, what is said about the Indian public service could as well be said about our own public service too. For many years our politicians have in different ways undermined the spirit of the service, attempting to subordinate it to suit their political agendas. It is said that we reached the nadir during the previous regime of the Rajapaksas, when every wish of a family member were to be considered an edict. 

At one public gathering, the titular head of the service, the Secretary to the President, bent so low in greeting President Rajapaksa that even politicians present at the occasion were embarrassed by the man’s obsequiousness. Yet, on 8 January 2015when it came to the crunch our public service rallied and oversaw an orderly transfer of power for which the nation owes them, particularly the Election Commission, the Police and the forces, a deep gratitude.

While holding the service together on such situations is vital, that is not the only function of the public service. Efficient delivery of services, impartiality, integrity, honesty and even unfailing courtesy are fundamental to a good public servant. We cannot say that the public services in place in the Sub-Continent countries are overflowing with these attributes. Like the proverbial English cook or the German policeman, the tongue in cheek reference to an Indian bureaucrat attempts to bring out a contradiction, an absurdity, a metaphor for a pedantic paralysis.

In the most recent Ease of Doing Business Index India’s position improved to 130 from the previous 142. This is out of 190 countries ranked. Pakistan is at 144, Sri Lanka is ranked 110while China occupies 78. Beautiful New Zealand – wholesome, sensibly managed and tiny Singapore – dynamic, futuristic, heads the index. One of the factors for the rise of India’s ranking this year is due to the country’s improvement in the access to electricity parameter. But in parameters such as those concerning enforcements of contracts and resolving insolvency issues, India lags far behind comparable countries.

It is also noteworthy that in the Perception of Corruption Index of the Transparency International, India is at 76 out of 168 countries, corruption most times being rampant among the decision makers, primarily the public sector.

There is a timelessness about the problems facing the Sub-Continent; poverty, corruption, plunder, inequality. From the earliest, running parallel with the dilapidation of the land, has always been a public service, the King’s courtiers, a bureaucracy existing only for its own sake; cunning, inclined towards the notional, disdaining of any physical exertion, cynical, inadequate and incapable.

A golfing friend tells me that golf is now the preferred sport of visiting Sub-Continent diplomats and other dignitaries. Evidently, they turn up at the Colombo Golf Club with a large entourage, bodyguards and other minders, who follow their man right through the 18 holes, an exercise which takes a few hours in the sun. Apart from swinging the golf club when required, he makes no other physical effort. Even the ball is picked up for him by the staff. Meanwhile, visitors from more vigorous cultures, a lot more robust and sportsmanlike, drive to the Club themselves, only to enjoy the physicality of the outdoor sport to the hilt.

There is no denying that the public service standards in the Sub-Continent are basic. If proof is needed you have to only write a letter to a government agency, it will be a miracle if there is a reply! In Sri Lanka, the Government writes to a citizen only to warn him, to impose a penalty or worse. Just walk down the streets of Colombo today, do we see evidence of a well-administered capital city? Even where there is an effort, say some workmen turn up to repair an impossibly rutty road, we will more often than not end up having an uneven road, drains left open, exposed electric cables and leaking pipes. There is no pride in their workmanship, nor any management to speak of. Where efficient management or good workmanship is concerned, the Sub-Continent is no shining star.

Herein perhaps we confront an existential problem. In our world view, a success, an achievement, a perfection lies across the Palk Straight. When an imperfection is held out as the opposite, when myth is treated as reality, we are in a distorted universe.

History may be about chaps, but these chaps also live in a certain map.