Government does can only be irresponsible, and not good for the larger national interest. If the government needs to try and take the Opposition on board on major decisions, the Opposition on its part needs to be constructive in its approach, and not protest robotically everything the government decides to do. Having said that, the cancellation of the UPSC advertisement for the lateral entry of 45 specialists at the mid-level of bureaucracy is most unfortunate. The decision signals that henceforth the Modi Government cannot undertake any reform in any field for fear of opposition from the Opposition. This literal reading of the role of the Opposition by it cannot serve any public purpose. As for the Government deciding to forgo under duress the opportunity to avail of the services of 45 domain experts, ordinarily it would seem like a retreat, a climb-down, even a defeat at the hands of a determined Opposition. But for all we know it may well turn out to be a case of the government stooping only to conquer. Not cancelling the UPSC advertisement ahead of the crucial Assembly elections in Haryana in September-October and, a few weeks later, in Maharashtra would have allowed Rahul Gandhi and others of his ilk to merrily play the caste card, and mislead the voters yet again that the government was out to end reservations for the SCs/STs and OBCs. Why play into the hands of a highly irresponsible Leader of the Opposition? Having tasted some success in the Lok Sabha election in UP in particular by completely falsely propagating that the BJP’s 400-seat target was meant to abrogate the Constitution, and with it the SC/ST reservations, the Modi Government did well not to provide another chance for Rahul to go about claiming , albeit completely untruthfully, that the reservations were being undermined. Of course, nothing of the sort even remotely was envisaged. The objective of lateral entry of domain experts for a limited period of three years was considered so that the permanent bureaucracy could benefit from their expertise. It needs to be said that even outside- specialists in government employ often find themselves frustrated by the ossified bureaucratic system, unable to impart a positive change.
Mind you, this was not the first time the Modi Government was planning to hire private talent. In Modi- I and II as well services of a handful of domain experts were hired. No fuss was made at the time. Maybe Rahul’s advisers at the time had not thought of questioning the lateral entry of experts into government. Now, having tasted blood by flaunting a red, notebook-type copy purportedly of the Constitution during the parliamentary campaign, he is ever-eager to shout `reservations are under threat’ whenever half-a-chance presents itself. He is quite oblivious to the recommendations of the Second Administrative Commission, 2005 ( the Congress-led UPA was in power), the Sixth Pay Commission, 2013 (again the UPA in the saddle in New Delhi), and the Niti Aayog in 2017 (the Modi- 1.00 period). And he is most opportunistically joined by the Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav who is set to engage soon in a bitter contest with the ruling BJP in ten Assembly bye-elections in UP. Despite the eminently sensible decision to induct private sector specialists in government for a limited three-year period for imparting required expertise to generalist bureaucrats, as per the recommendation of various commissions, the cancellation of the proposed hiring maybe fully justifiable. It is so due to the absence of reservations in the hiring of private experts. Next time the UPSC considers such hiring, a reservation quota ought to be provided regardless of the availability of SCs/STs and OBCs in the required domain knowledge, if for nothing else than to prevent Rahul and others of his ilk from sabotaging the sensible proposal. By all means, if the private sector specialists are available among the reserved castes, their talents ought to be used for improvement of the permanent executive. The fact that the BJP allies LJP and JD(U) too objected, albeit ever so mildly, to the UPSC advertisement which had no provision for a reservation quota for the 45-strong group of experts sought to be hired, could either mean a genuine grievance or a ploy to prevent the Opposition alone from stealing the credit for championing caste reservations. Both sides put a low opinion on the common wisdom of the voters. The bugbear of reservations-are-under-threat will have adverse consequences for the polity. As it is, the entire political class, including the ruling coalition, has rejected out of hand the directive of the apex court to survey the SCs/STs for providing a preferential treatment in such reservations to the left- behind castes. The childish leader of the Opposition goes about flashing the ritual halwa-ceremony photo at the time of budget-making. One shudders to think if he were to flash the photo of ISRO scientists at the time of rocket-launching, questioning about the number of SCs/STs. Is the nation condemned to pay the price for the childishness of its LoP? His behavior seems to confirm our worst fears, no doubt.
Meanwhile, we would like Rahul to go and find out how Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister of the Congress-led UPA, had first entered government service. It was a lateral entry for the then associate professor at the Delhi University’s School of Economics. There were many equally qualified professors at the prestigious Delhi School of Economics, among them Kaushik Basu, Amrtya Sen and a few others. Singh answered the advertisement for an adviser in the Commerce Ministry because he liked the security of government employment. He joined the Commerce Ministry, and later moved to the Finance Ministry. The rest, as they say, is history. Incidentally, a number of others including V. Krishnamurthy, Mantosh Sondhi, Lavesh Kumar, Y. C. Deveshwar, etc, under various Congress regimes were prominent lateral entrants who had made lasting contributions to the public service. No matter, Rahul seems determined to play the caste card to hoodwink the people. In this race to the bottom, the only loser will be the nation at large. Not Modi, who by giving in to the wrong-headedness of Rahul signals an unwillingness to stand firm if it were to cost him an electoral setback. Wages of a competitive politics gone wayward.
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