It is nothing new. The politician-bureaucrat nexus has steadily and firmly blunted the professional role of technocrats in governance.
It is an old debate, but the changing geopolitical situations at the time necessitates the revival of debates that long time ago were relegated to the cold stores.
Technocrats do not enjoy the privileges they once enjoyed in free India. A gradual, systematic, firm and well thought of programme has successfully pushed the professionals โ technocrats, academicians, planners, scientists, health care experts and others – to the margins.
As a result, the politician-bureaucrat nexus has become all the powerful. Many hold this nexus responsible for many ails facing liberal democracy like India.
A new entrant to civil services would be preferred as head of the Education Department by overlooking the expertise and professional competence of teachers with decades of field experience. Same way, a bureaucrat would be chosen to head the Health Care Department and a town planner, or an eminent architect would work under a bureaucrat who has little knowledge or acumen of the department he heads.
The system over the years has become so overpowering that politician-bureaucrat nexus has been calling shots everywhere. It is this nexus that decides Vice-Chancellors of Universities, Directors of Health Institutes or Space Research Institutions and even the heads of various financial and business organisations.
Why not doctors should decide who should head the Health Care Department or who should head the premier institutions like All-India Institute of Medical Sciences or Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.
Wittingly or unwittingly, we have supported a system where all other expertise in various specific fields, including health care, engineering, town planning, scientific research, academics, sports and even entertainment gets maimed with powers vested in the politician-bureaucrat nexus.
Does this model need a correction? Or are we, as a nation, happy with the con tenuous marginalisation of the subject experts in formulating new policies and programmes.
What doctors can give back to a system where the controls are with the nexus. Only the nexus decides what benefits or schemes be launched to benefit experts working in a particular area, say public health, finance and banking, education, health care, municipal infrastructure or even bestowing of national awards and honours.
The system needs a relook. Experts from different areas need to be encouraged and be active participants in the overall development of the country as well as in mitigating the suffering of vast majority of people.
(Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience of 14 years with Reuters News and 30 years with The Tribune Group, covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows.)
