CIVIL Service / Public Administration
Syllabus and Past Year Questions:
Foundation values – Aptitude, Integrity, impartiality and non-partisanship, objectivity, dedication to public service, Empathy, tolerance and compassion towards the weaker sections.
Public/Civil service values - Concept of public service, Status and problems
- Why should impartiality and non-partisanship be considered as foundational values in public services, especially in the present day socio-political context? Illustrate your answer with examples.
- Public servants are likely to confront with the issues of ‘Conflict of Interest’. What do you understand by the term ‘Conflict of Interest’ and how does it manifest in the decision making by public servants? If faced with the conflict of interest situation, how would you resolve it? Explain with the help of examples.
- How do the virtues of trustworthiness and fortitude get manifested in public service? Explain with examples.
- A mere compliance with law is not enough, the public servant also has to have a well-developed sensibility to ethical issues for effective discharge of duties.” Do you agree? Explain with the help of two examples, where (i) an act is ethically right, but not legally and (ii) an act is legally right, but not ethically.
- Two different kinds of attitudes exhibited by public servants towards their work have been identified as the bureaucratic attitude and the democratic attitude. A) Distinguish between these two terms and write their merits and demerits. B) Is it possible to balance the two to create a better administration for the faster development of our country?
- What does ‘accountability’ mean in the context of public service? What measures can be adopted to ensure individual and collective accountability of public servants?
- Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, but knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. What do you understand by this statement? Explain your stand with illustrations from the modern context.
- There is a heavy ethical responsibility on the public servants because they occupy positions of power, handle huge amounts of public funds, and their decisions have wide-ranging impact on society and environment. What steps have you taken to improve your ethical competence to handle such responsibility?
- What do you understand by the following terms in the context of public service? (5 terms x 3 marks each: a) Integrity b) Perseverance c) Spirit of service d) Commitment e) Courage of conviction f) Personal opinion
- Indicate two more attributes which you consider important for public service. Justify your answer. (10 marks |100 words)
- Compassion Case Study: Poor woman without documentary proof? (2016)
Emotional intelligence - Concepts and their utilities and application in administration and governance.
- Anger is a harmful negative emotion. It is injurious to both personal life and work life. (a) Discuss how it leads to negative emotions and undesirable behaviors. (b) How can it be managed and controlled?
- All human beings aspire for happiness. Do you agree? What does happiness mean to you? Explain with examples.
- What is ’emotional intelligence’ and how can it be developed in people? How does it help an individual in taking ethical decisions?
- What do you understand by the term ‘voice of conscience’? How do you prepare yourself to heed to the voice of conscience?
- What is meant by ‘crisis of conscience’? Narrate one incident in your life when you were faced with such a crisis and how you resolved the same.
Probity in Governance: Philosophical basis of governance and probity; Accountability and ethical governance; strengthening of ethical and moral values in governance
- What do you understand by the terms ‘governance’, ‘good governance’ and ‘ethical governance’?
- What do you understand by ‘probity’ in public life? What are the difficulties in practicing it in the present times? How can these difficulties be overcome?
- What does ethics seek to promote in human life? Why is it all the more important in public administration?
- The good of an individual is contained in the good of all. What do you understand by this statement? How can this principle be implemented in public life?
Government - Dilemmas, Ethical Concerns - Laws, rules, regulations and conscience as sources of ethical guidance
- Case Study: Draft better Land-acquisition policy (2016)
- Case Study: To Whistle-blow against Polluting industry or not? (2016)
- Case Study: New Project hurting lifestyle of locals? (2016)
Ethical concerns in Private institutions - Corporate governance - relate Paper II - Aspects of Governance
Ethics in private and public relationships.
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- When we remember M Teresa we remember values of Compassion, when we remember MKG we remember Truth.
- Parents who smoke but want their child not to do it can't expect same. Practice what you preach.
Absolutism - in terms of morality - may refer to the claim that there exists a universally valid moral system, which applies to everyone whether they realize it or not.
- Immanuel Kant, for instance, is an absolutist (in this sense) with respect to lying, because he held that it is never permissible to lie.
Sympathy (सहानुà¤ूति) - feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Eg: You see a child labour and feel sorrow for his position.
Empathy (समानुà¤ूति) - ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Eg: When you see a child labour and feel how it to be like child labour, that means you have empathy.
Compassion (दया à¤ाव) - sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. It is one step ahead of empathy.
- Eg. you see a child labour and not only feel empathetic but also called some to talk to him, find out reason for working and handing him over to some children NGO for his bright future.
- Mother Teresa did a large scale work for the upliftment of children (whether her relative or from shelter home or from anywhere) suffering with infections, diseases.
- Eg: Justice Kurian during his visit to Italy for canonisation of Mother Teresa skipped the dinner with Italian officials. He is in the bench adjudicating dispute of Italian marines and this was a conflict of interest which he avoided to maintain probity of office.
- Eg: Indian High Commissioner to UK, Navtej Sarna walked out of a book launch event attended by Vijaya Mallya to avoid any sense of crony capitalism and show zero tolerance for corrupt people. His stay would not have been illegal or unethical but he chose to leave. This is also risk management.
- Importance of Probity in governance: Ensuring public trust, credibility of institution and building up social capital. Fulfil the expectation of society, bring transparency in action, ideology. Tackle the menace of corruption. Strengthen rule of law.\
- Ensuring Probity - Law: Benami Act, Public Interest Disclosure Act;
- Civil servants are handling public assets they are the custodians of public money. [economy of expenditure]
- Eg: Other brothers of Ravana sided with Ravana even when he was wrong. Vibhishana was also brother of Ravana but he did not side with him.
Duties - conveys a sense of moral commitment or obligation to someone or something. The moral commitment should result in action; it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty entirely precludes a life of leisure; however, its fulfilment generally involves some sacrifice of immediate self-interest.
- Perfect vs imperfect duties. A perfect duty, such as the duty not to lie, always holds true; an imperfect duty, such as the duty to give to charity, can be made flexible and applied in particular time and place. [distinction made by Kant]
- As the actions of public servants are transparent people admire the novelty behind their idea.
- Helps control the abuse/misuse of power since decisions are taken keeping the consequences in mind.
- Glass of transparent liquid – preference to clear water than non-clear water; Grievance redressal will not be over loaded – if people are clear with government intentions.
- Improves efficiency in public delivery system as it encourages reporting on what worked and what could not.
- Use of ICT tools to ensure transparency while holding public servants accountable.
- Charter available on website of every office. Charter should make public aware of their rights (Fix responsibility of individuals).
- A social handle (PRO) for every institution to update their activities. (Make people aware)
- Effective laws, rules, regulations governing the decisions of public servants and to curb corruption in public services.
- Ombudsman must be present in every Public Institution to investigate against deviation from best practices (Good Grievance Redressal System).
- Timely inspection, audit, monitoring and evaluation of decisions of public servants.
- Awards and incentives for public servants who follows the rules honestly and penalty and corrective measures for those violating norms.
- For example, if CBI chief holds an office of profit in a company then he may not be able to carry out investigation with integrity in case where company is culprit. It could be because he stands to gain from the company or he may simply hold an opinion which may be biased.
- However, it simply does not mean that those holding ‘Office of Profit’ will act unethically. It is the strong character in a person that is making him or her to perform his duty with integrity. Men of strong character remain honest anywhere.
- The Minister for Culture willing to perform on TV show may not be illegal. But how ethical is it when people expect him to work for the development of their region than see him judge some show. Especially when they rally on basis to work for people and later excuse themselves on premise of meeting their livelihood. However, there is a sense of ethics here. Compared to other political leaders who take bribes, these people at least earn through honest means.
Objectivity (निष्पक्षतावाद) - quality of making the rational decisions without subjective biases, prejudices.
- One of the foundational (बुनियाद) values for civil servant as she enjoys much discretionary (विवेकाधिकार) powers, is in charge of public funds and has responsibility of welfare of lakhs of people especially from weaker section of society.
- Planning commission though an important institution had become a white elephant (a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of) hence replacing it with more dynamic institution like NITI Aayog keeping aside the legacy and leaning towards socialism aspect aside was an objective decision.
- Being objective ensures that work of civil servant becomes fair (निष्पक्ष), transparent and visionary (दूरदर्शी) above all narrow considerations of kinship, nepotism, favouritism (पक्षपात). It also plays a big role in reducing menace of corruption from the system.
Aptitude (योग्यता) - potential ability to acquire skills, abilities and knowledge. What works, you continue using. What does not, you strive to change. Aptitude deals with competence.
Attitude (रवैया, मनोदृष्टि) - related to existing abilities and skills with certain perceptions. The positive attitude is known as optimism where as the negative is pessimism. Attitude deals with character.
- Why Attitude more important for civil servant:- Today’s world is all about learning. Fast changes, dynamic scenarios, destabilizing situations, new emerging problems, quick decision making pressure situations - aptitude helps as a strong vale (मजबूत घाटी).
- Role of a civil servant constantly changes especially considering the diverse country like India. Civil servants act as a connecting link between government and citizen and hence need better aptitude to convey government policy, goal and to deliver better results.
- On daily basis and at personal level a civil servant has to face many problems like 24 hours duty alert, emergencies, physical and mental stress and in theses situation they need to handle public at large. Hence values like emotional intelligence, compassion, sympathy, integrity, non-partisanship, innovative mindset plays important role.
- Wisdom cannot be taught by mere TRAINING or reading books, but has to be mastered by experiencing various situations and learning from one's MISTAKES as well as from others.
Information (सूचना, जानकारी)
Intuition - ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired.
- For example, intuition inspires scientists to design experiments and collect data that they think will lead to the discovery of truth;
Conscience - is a person's moral sense of right or wrong, which acts as guide to behaviour.
- How to Strengthen Power of Conscience?
- “External authorities over dictates of Science” Milgram Experiment concluded that when people are ordered to do something by someone they view in authority, most people would do it even if it violates their conscience.
- “Education can strengthen the power of conscience over authority” Sherman Experiment found that if people reflect on a moral issue before they are involved in it they are likely to behave in accordance with their conscience when that issue faces them in real life.
- Moral reflection and discussion of kind found in best types of moral education substantially improves the ethical quality of a man. Plus one’s conviction to learn optimism;
- ‘Self-observation’ Plus Social Conditioning and ‘Courage to negate what is wrong’.
- Say X sees a man lying on the street and crying. X's intuition tells that the man is in trouble.
- As soon as X thinks of walking away, X's conscience tells X that he should help the man.
- When X reaches the man, he sees that the man has torn clothes and is very lean. X reasons that he is probably poor and homeless, and thus needs help.
- X soon realises the truth that there are many such people in the area needing help, and thus he decides to take steps to help such people.
- Out of these, conscience is the most important because it helps us to combine our intuition, reason and knowledge (in form of truth) and tells us what the right decision should be. Nevertheless, all these qualities are very important because they present the situation to an administrator who can then take steps accordingly.
Rules - are a set of guiding laws which involve a penalty for their violation. For example traffic rules, civil services conduct rules etc.
Norms - are unwritten laws or socially prevalent customs which may not have a penalty for violation but may involve social ostracism. For example in India dowry, endogamy in marriage is a norm but it cannot be considered as a rule.
Rules or Norms - It is not right to blindly follow them as: [In the appreciative systems of policy makers, goals are subsidiary to norms and values.]
- Honour killing and Female genital mutilation (FGM) may be a norm in certain societies but have no space in just and progressive world - absurd or backward looking.
- Abortion is illegal in Ireland but may cause loss of life in certain cases involving medical complications, like in Savita Hallapan case.
- Religious persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar or rules restricting land ownership to Tamils in Sri Lanka or mandatory wearing of head scarf and veil in Iran and Saudi Arabia - such rules treat women, minorities and marginalised as second grade citizens.
- Rules and norms to pass through test of reason and rationality in order to be followed.
- Use constitutional and peaceful means to arrive at rules and norms that are just, progressive inclusive and agreeable to maximum people. Example: The peaceful protest by India against Corruption in fight against opaque and obsolete rules on corruption can serve as a guide in this respect.
Apology - sincere acknowledgement of the mistake. Apology may not change the past but it can definitely change the future. Admission of mistake/rendering apology should be followed by corrective action and attempts to consciously not repeating it.
- Example: The Canadian PM sought apology of the Indians for the 100 years old incident of the Komagata Maru. He sought apology for the event he is not responsible directly. Though this step may not reverse the loss of lives but it will surely develop new trust in relationship between India and Canada.
- They need following from PS: Values of sympathy (सहानुà¤ूति), compassion (दया), tolerance, reverence (सम्मान), service orientation, neutrality (तटस्थता) and non-partisanship. Weaker sections are the most downtrodden section of society with a meagre bargaining power and shallow voice hence for their welfare a person with these values is required.
- Eg. E Shreedharan worked tirelessly for easing life of millions of common man with public transportation as means.
- Eg. S R Sankaran a civil servant who remained unmarried so that he can devote his whole life entirely for abolition of bonded labour and SC ST atrocities prevention, upliftment. He is the class example of what weaker section of society need the most from a civil servant.
- In order to be a good king (leadership), one must listen with ears, eyes, and heart, giving undivided attention to the people – Tones, gestures, expressions, silences – is able to respect and recall.
- Many emotions are products of evolutionary wisdom, which probably has more intelligence than all human minds together.
- We’re always talking about efficiency, productivity, restructuring and accountability. And to the ordinary citizen this means little. What the citizens want to hear is honesty, service … You have to communicate with people at an emotion level -- the issues that are confronting them as ordinary citizens (Delegate to OECD Symposium, cited in Lau, 2000, p.59).
- Social capital allows for reducing the transaction costs of economic exchange. Currency of Social Capital = Trust. It is a precious commodity.
Managing - in budgets means “controlling public monies to prevent financial waste.” Managing information technology means “controlling what kinds of information computers release.” Managing nuclear power plants means “controlling accidents.” People, however, cannot be managed. They can only be led.
- Is Excellent Management same as Leadership? No. Like administration, management is essentially about control.
- It is virtually impossible for any human being to build trusting relationships with so many people at once.
- Stakeholders = “leaders,” “followers,” “elected officials,” “public administrators,” “government employees,” “constituents,” “citizens,” “customers,” “interest groups,” “NGOs,” “academicians,” “media”.
- If public administrators do not see a need to cooperate with each other in the same ministry, if they do not see a need to build relationships of trust with the people they work with on a daily basis, why on earth would they see any need to cooperate with people in other ministries? Or with political superiors? Or with EU officials? Or with media? Or with citizens? Or with anyone?
- How can a powerful person avoid falling into this pit? Try recalling days when they were not powerful. Or pay heed when well-wishers alert them to their abhorrent conduct.
- People are more resilient when they have strong support networks of friends and family to help them cope with a crisis. But you can get an even bigger resilience boost by giving support. You have to invite stress in your life. A human being needs stress; the body and mind want stress. Stress is the stimulus for growth, and recovery is when the growth occurs. This is how we build resilience muscle. #Tackling Emotional Crisis.
- Observe what you are saying and doing and question yourself. Write down your story. Boost by reminding yourself of the challenges you personally have overcome.
- It undermines and harms many important qualities of a civil servant like impartiality, neutrality, objectiveness, probity and encourages nepotism, favouritism, corruption etc.
- Many a times leaders are often misadvised and misdirected because of sycophants officers present in system.
Bureaucracy
Ethics in public services has been the central concern of Kautilya’s Arthasastra.Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy
- Weberian model of bureaucracy lacks emotional validity when applied to modern democratic administration. Comment.
- The more perfectly the bureaucracy is dehumanized, the more completely it succeed in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and purely personal, irrational and emotional elements which escape calculation. For reason to rule, public administrators are to become souls on ice.
- Reason: wrong attitude of both towards each other which is a result of mutual power tussle, egoist, defensive and blaming inclinations of both in many cases.
- M. Weber: the imperative of politicians is the struggle for power, whereas bureaucrats tend to be obedient and disciplined; politicians – act in the public domain, and bureaucrats function in institutions; the working tool of politicians is their voice, whereas public servants tend to rely on the written word; finally, the career of a politician is uncertain, temporary and flexible, whereas bureaucrats often enjoy stability.
- Traditional attitudes must be changed. Politicians and bureaucrats are two sides of same coins. Goal of public welfare and national progress. Cooperation is the need rather than coercion. Respect is the way rather than suspect. Accountability towards each other is the key rather than irresponsibility, untrustworthy.
Indian administration is said to be characterised by its three features viz. Weberian structures, Kautilyan practices and Gandhian rhetoric.
Karl Marx interpretation of Bureaucracy was rooted in the history of nature of state.
To what extent has political culture influenced the administrative culture of India?
Democracy within bureaucracy is likely to reduce its effectiveness.
In a democratic polity and conception of ethics and integrity in public life must encompass not only politicians and civil servants but also citizens. Discuss.
The conceptual division between administrative law and constitutional Law is quite porous, and that along many dimensions, administrative law can be considered more constitutional in character than the constitutions.
Information disclosure by Civil Servants:
- Central Civil Services rules prohibit the unauthorised communication of information. Bureaucrats are free to render their opinion during the process of decision making. RTI can create hindrance to some extent in this regard and the civil servants may not feel free to air their opinion apprehending that the same may become public later. #Ethics in PA
Assess the role of honest and upright civil servants in regulatory and development administration in India. Give Examples.
Conduct of IAS in Public
- Be the change [Ashok Khemka who has been transferred for nearly double the times of his years of experience continues to serve the people in whichever role he is put];
- Be proactive [Eg: Anita Kaul, the IAS from Karnataka identified the cause of Gender Justice and has been working to uplift those deprived due to caste prejudices];
- Balanced Approach: Neutrality. Must give advice without bias to his superiors and empathise with the lowest of people in society.
- Stay away from Political parties; not rally with any; Officers can’t strike (Employees can) - Officers don’t have unions, only associations; Transparency in Financial dealings – report regularly;
- Not to accept gift from any party; Not be judge of his own case or related case.
Do you agree the 7th Pay Co recommendations do not reflect and correlate the need for CS reforms and accountability with pay increase? Justify.
Discuss the major highlights of reforms introduced from time-to-time in Central Civil Services Conduct Rules.
Shourie Committee on Central Civil Services Conduct Rules
- Formed to investigate into the issues pertaining to the Right to information in relation to Central Civil Services.
- Committee found that these rules deny information to public. It recommended that rules should be amended in a way where dissemination of information becomes rule and holding back information is an exception.
- All government ministries and departments should release information to the public in prescribed format.
- Larger issue of clash between official secrecy and complete transparency was yet to be dealt with.
- If a person is an educated leader the task becomes easy. Nehru could convince people easily due to his knowledge and also people’s acceptance comes easily. + they understand education's importance. + ICT usage in modern times.
- It does not mean the uneducated leader cannot be great leaders. Akbar and Kamaraj are two leaders from different times who were uneducated and yet led the people welfare.
- Parents although may be uneducated they strive to provide the best of education for their child.
Ethical Issue vs Ethical Dilemma
- Ethical Issue is when a matter has both aspects of right and wrong.
- Ethical Dilemma is when one is faced with a binary or multiple options of choice, or a confusion of understanding, based on ethics or the lack of it.
- Ex. Allowing surrogacy openly in India is an ethical issue while giving one’s womb for surrogacy purpose can be an ethical dilemma for a women.
- Yes - The unmarried women who are either without uteruses or have dysfunctional ones, and their heart breaking stories to tell of the absence of monthly menses, marred marriage prospects and an inferiority complex. Many of these from highly educated families, now have hope of having their own children. Experts say that for science to progress, the first step has to be taken and ethical issues can be debated later.
- No - The basic purpose of a womb transplant is reproduction. This involves a series of serious surgeries and that too for a non-vital organ transplant. In this regard the Montreal Criteria – a set of ethical guidelines formulated internationally – discourages uterine transplants unless absolutely necessary. India is yet to formulate its own norms. The permission for unmarried young women could set off a dangerous trend in a country where health consciousness and literacy is low. Women are already under too much pressure to reproduce and this will add to that.
- Safer options - adoption.
- Lawlessness; Against Constitutional Values [Justice-social, economic and political]; Derailment of state obligation to provide security [trust deficit]; Curtailment of Freedom; Right to life; Loss of Tolerance in the society.
- Example: While a man was lynched to death by a mob near Delhi on a rumour that he had cow meat in his house, the whole state machinery was busy in getting the meat tested, instead of nabbing the culprits.
- Revenue and mining officials did not give proper replies
- Warned the officials that he would record their non-cooperation in his report to the HC
- Did not make use of the senior officers named to the panel by the State govt to assist him in the probe.
- Huge posse of police with Inspector of Police accompanied him
- Acknowledge the request/complaint/greetings immediately
- Provide a time frame for completion
- Start working and resolve and inform post completion
- Knowledge, skill, money, education, all comes later.
- "Six years ago in Singapore I (Shiv Khera) gave a taxi driver a business card to take me to a particular address. At the last point he circled round the building. His meter read 11$, but he took only 10. I said Henry, your meter reads 11$ how come you are taking only 10. He said Sir, I am a taxi driver, I am supposed to be bringing you straight to the destination. Since I did not know the last spot, I had to circle around the building. Had I brought you straight here, the meter would have read 10$. Why should you be paying for my ignorance ? He said Sir, legally, I can claim 11$ but ethically I am entitled to only 10. He further added that Singapore is a tourist destination and many people come here for three or four days. After clearing the immigrations and customs, the first experience is always with the taxi driver and if that is not good, the balance three to four days are not pleasant either.
- Professionalism: It’s NOT the job you DO, It’s HOW you DO the job.” He said Sir I am not a taxi driver, I am the Ambassador of Singapore without a diplomatic passport.
- In my opinion he probably did not go to school beyond the 8th grade, but to me he was a professional. To me his behavior reflected pride in performance and character. That day I learnt that one needs more than professional qualification to be a professional. In one line be a "Professional with a human touch and Values" that makes all the more difference. First comes Integrity.
Some lines collected:
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- We are all servants. On National Duty. We have to take tough calls. (MSD Story)
- We have too much of government and too little administration; too many public servants and too little public service, too many controls and too little welfare ; too many laws and too little justice.
- Decriminalise selling of sex but criminalise buying of it.
- A deficit in physical infra lowers the productivity of capital, while a deficit in social infra lowers the productivity of labour.
- "If someone of his stature cannot express himself freely, what hope does the common citizen have" WB CM on reports that Censor board wants words beeped out of an Amartya Sen Documentary.
- In general, people do not commit suicide because they are in pain, they commit suicide because they don't believe there is a reason to live and the world will be better off without them.
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