how is bureaucracy supposed to be neutral in India?
Answers
Explanation:
Recently, there has been a debate whether bureaucracy is being neutral or not. Involvement of bureaucracy in politics has become a very controversial issue.
When caught between various political ideologies and in conflicts of opinion, officials are supposed to maintain their neutrality. But there is an opposite view—that the top civil servants are not neutral at all, on the contrary, they are very “hungry for power” and to satisfy their hunger they participate in politics.
What is Bureaucracy?
Bureaucracy refers to a specialized system and processes designed to maintain uniformity and controls within an organization. Bureaucratic processes are most common in large organizations or governments. For example, an oil company may establish a bureaucracy to compel its employees to complete safety checks when operating on a rig.
“Bureaucracy means the civil servants, the administrative functionaries who are professionally trained for the public service and who enjoy permanency of tenure, promotion within service-partly by seniority and partly by merit.” - Robert Garner
Role of Bureaucracy
Implementation of Governmental Policies and Laws: It is the responsibility of the bureaucracy to carry out and implement the policies of the government. Good policies and laws can really serve their objectives only when these are efficiently implemented by the civil servants.
Role in Policy-Formulation: Policy-making is the function of the political executive. However, the bureaucracy plays an active role in this exercise. Civil Servants supply the data needed by the political executive for formulating the policies. In fact, Civil servants formulate several alternative policies and describe the merits and demerits of each. The Political Executive then selects and adopts one such policy alternative as the governmental policy.
Running of Administration: To run the day to day administration in accordance with the policies, laws, rules, regulations, and decisions of the government is also the key responsibility of the bureaucracy. The political executive simply exercises guiding, controlling and supervising functions.
Advisory Function: One of the important functions of the bureaucracy is to advise the political executive. The ministers receive all the information and advice regarding the functioning of their respective departments from the civil servants. As new to a department, the ministers have little knowledge about the functions of their particular departments. They, therefore, depend upon the advice of bureaucracy. Qualified, experienced and expert civil servants working in all government departments provide expert and professional advice and information to the ministers.
Role in Legislative Work: The civil servants play an important but indirect role in law-making. They draft the bills which the ministers submit to the legislature for law-making. The ministers provide all the information asked for by the l formulation of Public policies and plans.
Role in Public Relations: The era of the modern welfare state and democratic politics has made it essential for the government to keep close relations with the people of the state. The need for maintaining active and full public relations is a vital necessity of every state. The civil servants play an active role in this sphere. They are the main agents who establish o