V.V.

MOHARIR

Administrative reforms in India

The absence of a theory of administrative reform creates difficulties in

evaluating such efforts. It is surprising and interesting to see how the
same social phenomenon can be interpreted by different observers in
entirely different perspectives. Ralph Braibanti, evaluating administrative
reform attempts in India from Independence (1947) until the appoint-
ment of the Administrative Reforms Commission in 1966, concluded
that
“with respect to the total blueprint for change, developments in Public
Administration in India in terms of coherence, intellectual content,
awareness of realities, balance between tradition and modernization
are probably unequalled in Asia and deserve a high place when com-
pared with similar developments in older nations of the West.”’
On the other hand, Ajit M. Bannerjee (then with the Indian Institute of
h b l i c Administration) reported to the EROPA Seminar on Adminis-
trative Reforms held at Kuala Lumpur in June 1968, that:
“There was too little focus in terms of planned administrative change
for the entire spectrum of administration from a long range, integrated
and balanced perspective. . . Administrative improvements were con-
ceived as a series of ad hoc and piecemeal improvisations in different
parts of administration . . .”*
Braibanti looked at the Indian scene from a comparative frame of refer-

1 Ralph Braibanti, “Reflections on Bureaucratic Reform in India”, in Braibanti

and Spengler (eds.), Administration and Economic Development in India (Duke
University Press, 1963).
* Ajit M. Bannerjee, “Administrative Reforms in India”, mimeographed.
84 V. V. MOHARIR

ence and found the bureaucracy in much better shape than its counter-
parts in some other developing countries; Bannerjee evaluated it against
an ideal and partly used it for advocating reforms through outside agen-
cies rather than by the civil servants themselves.
Neither evaluation does full justice to the various reforms undertaken
partly through bureaucratic initiative and partly through external stim-
ulus. Bureaucracy and innovation are not necessarily incompatible. Al-
though innovation is a non-routine function, it is not impossible in a
bureaucratic organization; when bureaucracy emerges as a well-devel-
oped and well-informed group from the colonial period, it will initiate
administrative reforms. But the inability on the part of other outside
organs to initiate reforms, limits the kind of reforms which the bureau-
cracy will initiate. It is unlikely to introduce reforms that will limit its
power, that will change the position of the generalists and specialists,
that will increase political and popular control over the bureaucracy; or
changes in the sensitive relationships between political executives and
civil servants, or the reforms which may be administrative in nature but
may have farreaching political repercussions. Very often such major
reforms are inescapable and an outside agency such as an independent
Commission is resorted to for their initiation.
This is not the place to elaborate the physical, social, economic and
political aspects of the Indian environment. However, the largeness of
the country and its population, its colonial past and the impact of British
administrative thought and practice, the extreme poverty of the people,
the five-year plans launched after Independence and the consequent
growth of the public sector, the comparative political stability, the adop-
tion of a federal and parliamentary form of government, etc., are major
ecological factors concerning the problem of administrative reform.
The main characteristics of the Indian bureaucracy significant from
the point of view of administrative reform are various. The strong en-
trenchment of the bureaucracy poses problems for drastic reforms which
affect the status of the civil servants; the generalist tradition has resulted
in amateurish handling of public enterprises and complex development
projects and the relegation of the specialist in the government hierarchy;
the precedent-orientation of the bureaucracy has affected the speed with
which development projects are implemented, and political neutrality
stands in the way of commitment.3

For more details, see Ramaswamy R. Iyer, “Understanding our Bureaucracy”,

EROPA Review, Vol. IX, No. 1 , June 1959, pp. 88-120.
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 85
REFORMS SINCE INDEPENDENCE
The political complexion of the state sets the tenor of its public adminis-
tration. The period immediately preceding Independence in India was
marked by preoccupation with political and constitutional problems;
many administrative changes occurring during the era flowed from po-
litical and constitutional developments. In the post-Independence period
also, many administrative reforms took place as a result of such changes.
After the adoption of a federal, democratic and parliamentary form of
government in 1950, Indian public administration had to adjust to three
major factors: changes arising from the federal nature of the country,
those necessitated by the democratic set-up and organisation, and those
called for by the introduction of the five-year plans.
The major reform in the federal context was the setting-up of the
Indian Administrative Service in 1946 as a successor to the Indian Civil
Service, with complete indigenous intake and training programmes, and
differing from the I.C.S. in its provisions for lateral recruitment and for
female employment.4
A number of innovations were also tried in the field of organisation
and management of public enterprises, including the experiment of the
“Industrial Management Pool” - an attempt to recruit personnel with
managerial and technical experience from the private sector to man
public enterprises.5
A Planning Commission, established in 1950, realised the importance
of administrative input in planning and incorporated it in each of the
five-year plans. In each case, a statement set out those aspects which
seemed to demand special attention. Thus, the chapter on administration
in the First Five-year Plan dwelt upon general democratic suppositions
regarding the role of political executives and public services, and suggest-
ed ways in which district development administration could be strength-
ened. The Second Plan briefly reviewed the more general aspects of ad-
ministration, devoted special attention to the initiation and implemen-
tation of plans at various levels, and emphasised the reconstruction of
field administration along democratic lines. In the Third Plan, emphasis

4 For a detailed analysis of the history of these training programmes and their
contents, see S. P. Jagota, “Training of Public Servants in India”, in Braibanti and
Spender, op. cit., pp. 69-93.
6 See H. K. Paranjape, “Evolving Patterns in the Organization and Administration
of Public Enterprises”, Indian Journal of Public Administration, July-September
1963; also “Industrial Management Pool: an experiment” (Indian Institute of
Public Administration, New Delhi, 1961).
86 V. V. MOHARIR

shifted from administration and administrative machinery to manage-

ment, operational efficiency and the adequacy of planning machinery.
The Fourth Five-year Plan, in the wake of the Administrative Reforms
Commission’s recommendations, echoed the latter’s criticism of generalist
domination and stated that “the specialist, the technician and the expert
have to be enabled to make their contribution in a responsible manner at
all levels of administration.”e However, the implementation of the re-
commendations suffered many shortcomings.

REFORMS FOR DEVELOPMENT

A major reform in the planning context was the decentralisation of de-
cision making relating to development plans to the people’s representa-
tive bodies at the district and sub-district levels. Under this Panchayati
Raj scheme, state government delegated certain responsibilities to locally
elected bodies. The objective was to involve people at the grass roots and
to reorient the role of district civil servants in keeping with the service
concept of the state.
The reforms discussed so far were undertaken mostly on indigenous
initiative. Below, we discuss two of the reforms introduced on foreign
initiative.

ORGANISATION AND METHODS DIVISION

Although an Indian expert, A. D. Gorwala, and various committees on
economy and efficiency had earlier recommended setting up a Director-
ate of Organisation and Training, it was on the recommendation of Paul
H. Appleby, who emphasised the need for the “establishment of a central
office charged with the responsibility for giving both extensive and in-
tensive leadership in respect of structures, management and procedures”,
that the 0 & M Division was established in March 1954.7
The Division was located in the Cabinet Secretariat and senior civil
servants were appointed as its directors; however, its role was rather
restricted. From the beginning, many top civil servants were sceptical
about the scope of 0 & M activities in improving administrativepractice.
The Division was very sparsely manned and the expertise needed for the
scientific study of administrative problems and for high level managerial

6 Government of India, Fourth Five-year Plan, 1969, p. 11 1.

7 For a review of 0 & M activities in India, see R. N. Vasudeva, “Organisation
and Management - the Centre”, Indian Journal of Public Administration, July-
September 1963, pp. 37683.
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 87
techniques was sadly lacking. Each ministry and department was re-
quired to organise its own 0 & M unit to work in collaboration with the
Central 0 & M Division. These units were not manned adequately at
high levels; moreover, management did not extend its whole-hearted
support to 0 & M activities. The Estimates Committee of the Indian
Parliament assessed them as follows:
“Considerable time and money have been spent on futile work, as the
impression goes, the 0 & M units have perhaps considerably added to
the useless procedures and overburdened the already slow system of
Secretariat working.”E

THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Another result of Appleby’s report was the establishment of the Indian
Institute of Public Administration in 1954, with considerable financial
assistance from the Ford Foundation. The Institute was expected to pro-
vide leadership in the teaching and research of Public Administration
and to guide the government in introducing desired changes in the struc-
ture and practice of national public administration.
The Institute was richly endowed with all facilities. S. B. Bapat, a
senior I.C.S. officer and enthusiastic public administrator, was appointed
the first Director. Thus it was ready to play an important role in the
movement to give public administration its rightful place in Indian
administrative life.
Unfortunately, these ideals were not realised. It had been hoped that
the Institute would be instrumental in training fresh recruits for the top
civil service. However, since the notion of studying public administration
in preparation for an administrative career was foreign to most Indian
top administrators and there was no two-way exchange of personnel be-
tween the Institute and the civil service, the latter could not be brought
to regard the Institute with any affection or to take it into the “family”.
Moreover, the civil service had early on taken the initiative to establish
training institutions for recruits to all major cadres so that there was no
major gap for the Institute to fill.9
In compensation, the Institute started a two-year Master’s degree
course in public administration which was open to university graduates
and civil servants of federal and state governments. After a few years

Estimates Committee of the Indian Parliament, quoted in A. Bannerjee, o p . cit.

9 See Braibanti, op. cit., p. 61.
88 V. V. MOHARIR
even this was abandoned because its graduates were not granted priority
for senior civil service appointments. Nowadays, the Institute gives only
short-term courses for middle management personnel in some govern-
ment departments, public enterprises and local authorities.
Similarly, no meaningful dialogue was established until recently be-
tween government agencies and the Institute with regard to research
activities. “Live” administrative problems needing investigation were
not submitted to the Institute, with the result that research activities were
largely geared to the preferences of individual researchers.
This does not mean that the Institute of Public Administration has been
an utter failure. Far from that, but its attempt to popularise and raise the
prestige of public administration, to participate as a senior partner in
the training of top administrators, to provide research results as inputs
for changes in administrative organisation and practice, have been largely
unrealised. Such reforms were undeniably desirable but did not conform
with the existing administrativeculture. Perhaps the Institute would have
been more effective had it been located within the bureaucracy and
staffed by senior civil servants and academics.
Nevertheless, the Institute has contributed considerably to national and
international knowledge. Its directors participate actively in international
and regional conferences on public administration; its Journal of Public
Administration is one of the few good journals in this field published in
developing countries; its case study programme has helped to unravel
the mystery of administrative decision making, and recently it has con-
tributed fundamentally to the studies of the Administrative Reforms
Commission.

THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS

In spite of a decade of 0 & M activity, major problems of administration
remained untouched. In March 1964, in order to overcome these inade-
quacies, a new Department of Administrative Reforms was set up in the
Ministry of Home Affairs. In addition to the functions of the erstwhile
0 & M Division, the new department was charged to locate important
problems and to initiate appropriate studies; to investigate the organisa-
tion and procedures of selected departments in order to eliminate cor-
ruption; to examine the possibility of setting-up suitable machinery for
redressing citizens’ grievances, and to prepare the ground for a compre-
hensive investigation of the entire national administrative system.
The role, scope and functions of the new department contrasted greatly
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 89
with those of the 0 & M Division. Firstly, its location in the Ministry of
Home Affairs was more fitting, the ministry being responsible for civil
service management. Secondly, the department was headed by a senior
I.C.S. officer and had a full complement of trained administrative ana-
lysts. It carried out a number of detailed studies of organisation, proce-
dure and policy, and also initiated training programmes in administrative
techniques for federal and state government officials.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS COMMISSION

Although the activities of the Department of Administrative Reforms
soon began to make impact, pressure for yet more comprehensive reform
efforts mounted, mostly outside the bureaucracy. The Institute of Public
Administration had highlighted this need by devoting a special number
of its journal to administrative reform in September 1963. Now and then
questions were raised in Parliament regarding the setting-up of a com-
prehensive administrative reforms commission, somewhat on the lines
of the Hoover Commission. However, Parliament showed no consistent
interest in the matter. A report by the Department of Administrative Re-
forms states, “by 1966 it was assumed without much debate that the
country needed a comprehensive enquiry into its administration.” 10
Accordingly, the Administrative Reforms Commission was set up in
January 1966, with a leading political personality as chairman and six
other members. The establishment of the commission was thus a political
decision (perhaps with an eye to the impending 1967 general elections).

The Commission’s Terms of Reference were the widest ever. The gov-
ernment resolution asked it to consider “the need for ensuring the highest
standards of efficiency and integrity in the public services and for making
public administration a fit instrument for carrying out social and eco-
nomic policies of the Government, and achieving social and economic
goals of development, as also one which is responsive to the people.”11
The Commission was required not only to look into the reorganisation of
the central government machinery, but also to make recommendations
on the administration at state and district levels, to examine the adminis-
trative-political area of centre-state relationships and the problem of
redress of citizens’ grievances. The Commission interpreted its terms even

10 Prepared for the ECAFE Seminar on Experiences of Major Administrative

Reforms for Development, Bangkok 1969 (PAISem. ARD/9, mimeographed).
11 Ibid.
90 V. V. MOHARIR

more liberally and covered areas not specifically mentioned in the res-
olution. The Hoover Commissions were concerned only with federal
administration, state and municipal administration being excluded from
their competence. More comprehensive terms were considered necessary
in India as exclusion of the state administration would have amounted
to omitting the essence of the country’s administrative problems.

Composition of the Commission. In contrast to the Second Hoover Com-

mission and the Fulton Committee, both of which had 12 members
equally representing government, industry and the academic world, the
Indian Commission had only six members including the chairman. Five
of these were M.Ps. and the sixth, a senior civil servant, was also the
Secretary. This, and the absence of public administrators, industrialists
or educationists on the Commission, confirms that setting up the Com-
mission was a political decision; moreover, the fact that four of its mem-
bers belonged to the majority party kept the ultimate decision making in
the politicians’ hands. As we shall see later, this affected the nature of
the Commission’s final recommendations. The importance of the Com-
mission to the government was evinced by the appointment as chairman
of a former Finance Minister and senior member of the Congress Party,
Morarji Desai. On joining the Cabinet, Mr. Desai was succeeded by
Mr. Hanumanthaiya, former Chief Minister of Mysore State.
Similar to the Hoover Commission, the A.R.C. entrusted the initial
investigation of various areas to study teams and working groups. These
included 20 study teams on various sectors of administration, 13 working
groups for specific subjects, 4 expert groups for technical and scientific
subjects, and one task force, total membership amounting to 230. Each
study team had a chairman (generally a non-official), a senior civil
servant as secretary, and a research staff recruited partly from the civil
service and partly from institutes of public administration etc.
Although the Commission’s members were mostly parliamentarians,
serving or retired civil servants constituted 60 percent of the study teams.
This was useful when the practical implications of some recommendations
had to be considered and their implementation secured. In some cases,
however, creative thought or the consideration of more novel and daring
innovations was impeded; at times, intra-bureaucratic politics arose be-
tween sub-groups of generalists and specialists. The civil servants in the
various study teams tried to influence decisions in favour of their partic-
ular sub-groups: for example, the study team on Promotion Policies,
Conduct Rules and Discipline supported the specialists’ claim to man
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 91
senior positions, while the Personnel Planning, Staffing of Public Sector
Undertakings and Personnel Management team recommended that the
sway of the generalists be continued. Interestingly enough, study teams
serviced by researchers from external bodies such as the Indian Institute
of Public Administration often made more radical recommendations.12
Another notable fact is the paucity of foreign experts associated with
the Commission, only a few being utilised for the study of specific areas.
Dr. Ross Pollock and Dr. H. R.Seymour assisted a working group on
the functions and staffing of the proposed Department of Personnel;
James Gardner, U.N. Inter-regional Advisor on Public Administration,
was invited by the Government of India to advise on the staffing and
functions of the Department of Administrative Reforms. Some Commis-
sion members visited a few foreign countries for first-hand information
about the functioning of administration, but by and large, utilisation of
foreign experience has been very limited.

Decision making by the Commission. Reports and data supplied by the

study teams were used by the Commission as background material for its
deliberations. It also visited various states and interviewed central and
state ministers, eminent people in public life and senior civil servants.
Decisions were on a majority basis; reports were usually unanimous, al-
though some of the most important such as that on Personnel Manage-
ment carried notes of dissent. The Commission was not obliged to accept
all recommendations made by the study teams and very often did not do
so. Similarly, it did not entrust the study teams with some very important
subjects such as the redress of citizens’ grievances, but handled them
itself.
The smallness of the Commission meant a considerable workload for
individual members and this, coupled with the variety of subjects to be
examined, has considerably delayed its deliberations. In fact, more than
four years have been necessary for completion of its work, while progress
regarding acceptance and implementation of its recommendations is now
in various stages. The Government has taken decisions on most recom-
mendations related to redress of citizens’ grievances, the planning ma-
chinery, public sector undertakings, financial administration, economic

l* For example, the Study Team on Planning Machinery boldly advised that the
Commission become a body of experts and that ex officiorepresentation of Cabinet
Ministers be discarded. See A. K. Sharrna, “The Planning Commission in India:
a case for reorganisation”, lournal of Administration Overseas, Vol. I X , No. 1,
January 1970.
92 V. V. MOHARIR

administration, and on some regarding the machinery of government.

Decisions on crucial areas of centre-state relations, district adminis-
tration, the roles of generalists and specialists etc., are still pending.
Decisions on many can be taken only with the concurrence of the state
governments within whose purview they fall; this poses many practical
difficulties in view of the changes in political complexion at the state
level.

Procedures for Implementing the Commission’s Recommendations. The

A.R.C. doubted the willingness of the bureaucracy to process its recom-
mendations objectively, saying that
“There seems to be some apprehension in the public mind that senior
executives of the government are, by and large, averse to change and
disposed to maintain the status quo. It is not, therefore, desirable to
refer, as a matter of course, the recommendations of the Commission
to Committees of Secretaries.” 13
In fact, the Commission was so apprehensive of the negativism of top
civil servants towards its recommendations that it advocated measures
to ensure that they would not be killed in bureaucratic processing. Firstly,
it stipulated that responsibility for implementingrecommendations should
belong to the Deputy Prime Minister 14 and that a special cell be created
in the Cabinet Secretariat for their processing. Secondly, that a sub-com-
mittee of the Cabinet be set up to take final decisions. Thirdly, that the
government submit a White Paper to Parliament within three months of
receipt of a report from the Commission, indicating its decisions on
various recommendations. Lastly, the Commission recommended legis-
lative control of implementation through the constitution of an all-party
parliamentary committee.15
In reality, the influence of top bureaucrats regarding such recommen-
dations is almost unassailable, ultimate implementation being in their
hands. The government did not create a special cell in the Cabinet Secre-
tariat but entrusted the processing of recommendations to the Depart-
ment of Administrative Reforms. Final responsibility was vested in the
Prime Minister, while the all-party parliamentary committee did not
materialise. However, the Department of Administrative Reforms has

18 Administrative Reforms Commission, The Machinery of the Government of

Zndia and its Procedures of Work (New Delhi, 1968) para. 162.
14 Mr.Desai, first chairman of the A.R.C., later became Deputy Prime Minister.
16 The Machinery of the Government, p. 67.
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 93
worked out a drill to ensure speedy implementation, the progress of
which is mentioned in its annual report to Parliament.

The Philosophy of the Commission. It is difficult to understand what in-

fluenced the Commission’s thoughts and counsels without detailed exam-
ination of more than 500 recommendations. Cursory analysis of some of
the more important reports shows that the Commission’s philosophy was
partly to emulate transplanted foreign institutions, partly to encourage
indigenous experimentation and institution building; was partly bold and
realistic, party puritanic and orthodox, and in some cases illusory.
Although the Commission explicitly stated its abhorrence of foreign
models or institutions and refused to associate many foreign experts with
its deliberations, it could not resist referring to them implicitly when
making specificrecommendations. The following excerpt shows its formal
philosophy:
“Administrative changes in India need to be properly related to the
stage of political, social and economic development of the country.
Transplantation of foreign practices is not necessarily the panacea for
its various ills. We have to find our own solutions to our adminis-
trative problems in consonance with our national genius.” 16
Careful consideration shows a Fulton shadow on the Personnel Adminis-
tration report which emphasises professionalisation of the civil service,
reduction of the hegemony of the generalists, the creation of a separate
Central Personnel Agency, the removal of promotion barriers between
executive and clerical classes and the administrative class, etc. The re-
commendation on the appointment of Lok Pals and Lok Ayukts for re-
dressing citizens’ grievances against civil servants and ministers seems
to have been influenced by the Ombudsmen of Scandinavia and New Zea-
land and by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Grievances in the U.K.
The recommendation on Performance Budgeting is drawn from American
experiences of more than 10 years ago; it is surprising that the Commis-
sion’s report on Financial Administration does not refer to recent Amer-
ican developments such as programme budgeting, PPBS and systems
analysis.
The Commission has been fairly original and innovative in its recom-
mendations in areas peculiar to the Indian situation for which parallels
could not be found elsewhere. Its bold advice that the Planning Commis-

[bid., p. 62.
94 V. V. MOHARIR

sion be a body of experts and not of politicians; its recommendations on

district and state administration, especially on Panchayati Raj, to the ef-
fect that to reduce the effect of casteism and factionalism the chairmen
of elected bodies at the block level should be selected by drawing lots;
its elaborate criteria for the selection of officials such as Cabinet Minis-
ters, are all quite interesting and original. Similarly, recommendations
such as that suggesting the setting-up of policy and planning units in all
ministeries for long-term planning and policy studies; that advising train-
ing in techniques of policy making and policy analysis for all senior civil
servants; that suggesting that a minister should devote at least two weeks
each year to reading, reflection and relaxation; another providing for
voluntary retirement of a civil servant after 15 years’ service with a pro-
portionate pension and for the compulsory retirement of inefficient civil
servants, are all novel in the Indian context.
Some recomnlendations are of a normative nature, others smack of
puritanic orthodoxy, and a few are inspired by political considerations.
The Commission’s ideal of a civil servant is that “he should be a model
citizen, ever ready to serve, and serve with civility”, viewing bureaucrats
as malleable instruments. Obsessed by this notion, the Commission rec-
ommends that “government servants should have no right to strike”;
that “alcoholic drinks should be strictly prohibited in training institu-
tions”; that “trainees should live in villages at least for a fortnight for
gaining knowledge of rural life.” 17 Another recommendation which
caused two members of the Commission to append notes of dissent and
seems to have been incorporated more for its gallery appeal than for any
real approach to the problem, concerns the distribution of government
patronage over a wider section of the population, suggesting that hus-
band and wife should not both be government employees.18 In view of
the swelling unemployment which runs into millions, this measure is a
mere drop in the ocean.
Whatever the outcome of the Commission’s work may be, the praise
or blame should be shared by local political and administrative leaders
since the whole effort is essentially indigenous.

The Impact of the Commission.It is as yet too early to evaluate the im-
pact which the Commission’s recommendations will have on the Indian
administrative situation. The present government is faithfully processing

(7 Administrative Reforms Commission, Report 011 Personnel Administration.

18 [bid.
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 95
them for implementation, but general elections are due to be held in
1972 and the situation may then change. Implementation of recommen-
dations relating to personnel administration, especially regarding the
promotion prospects of generalist civil servants, is likely to meet con-
siderable resistance. In fact, it will be interesting to see which proposals
survive the bureaucratic processing and the manner in which they are
finally implemented. Prediction is blasphemy in the social sciences; how-
ever, past experience tells that in a strongly entrenched bureaucracy as
that of India, the prospect of any major reform affecting the power
position of top civil servants is meagre unless political power centres
such as the Cabinet, Parliament, political parties, citizens, the press, take
a keen interest in problems of administration.19

CONCLUSIONS

This review of Indian administrative reform efforts highlights certain

possibilities and difficulties met by similar efforts in all developing coun-
tries. Although the Indian situation differs in many respects, the con-
clusions may be applicable to many of the new nations in which the
bureaucracy emerged as a strong entity after Independence.
The tasks and administrative needs of the Indian government changed
considerably after Independence in 1947, necessitating the reform of
administrative structures, practices and relationships. In the absence of
well-developed centres of research or studies in public administration,
early initiative in this direction was taken by the bureaucracy which in-
troduced a number of much needed structural reforms. The smooth
transition from colony to independent country was largely due to the
new indigenous cadres and home-based training programmes. Some bold
experiments were even made with new organisational structures for public
enterprises and their staffing patterns. Until 1966 reforms were in-
cremental in nature and did not directly affect the bureaucracy’s power
position. Administrative reform leadership was also scattered throughout
the government organisation with the result that an integrated pro-
gramme of objectives, priorities, evaluation and feedback could not be
developed. The situation improved after the Department of Adminis-

19 Compare Pakistan’s similar experiences in introducing major reforms airncd at

undermining the status of generalist top administrators. See Albert Gorvine, “Ad-
ministrative Reform: Function of Political and Economic Change” in G.S . Birk-
head (ed.), Administrative Problems in Pakistan (New York: Syracuse University
Press, 1966).
96 V. V. MOHARIR

trative Reforms was set up in 1964, showing that the institutionalisation

of administrative reform is a necessary condition for its success.
That major administrative reforms are political in nature is demon-
strated by the fact that the decision to appoint a comprehensive commis-
sion was purely political. Similarly, the introduction of major reforms
likely to affect the power position of bureaucrats is facilitated if coupled
with political or constitutional changes, as in the case of Panchayati Raj
institutions. These changes affected the functions, powers and relation-
ships of District Collectors and other administrative personnel in the
district vis-d-vis elected local councils, but could be introduced without
much overt opposition because of the political support behind them.
The Indian experience shows that administrative reform in developing
countries can be a self-sustaining operation; institutions and changes in-
troduced through local initiative have proved more successful than those
resulting from recommendations by foreign consultants and financed
through foreign technical assistance funds. Impressed by the adverse
correlation of the extent of technical assistance and the effectiveness of
administrative reform programmes in India, Braibanti ventured a general
hypothesis: “the greater the range of alternatives for foreign help, the
more complicated the process of ordering change in the receiving nation
and greater the need for intellectualising that process.” 10
Analysis of the working of A.R.C. study teams shows that any major
administrative reform exercise allows intra-bureaucratic politics in which
various sub-groups try to improve the promotion prospects of their mem-
bers. This is a significant factor which should be taken into account when
staffing such groups, and may be overcome by using research staff from
external agencies, such as institutes of public administration.
The lengths to which the Commission went in defining implementation
procedures show that an entrenched bureaucracy can frustrate major
administrative reforms unless the latter are supported by the political
executive. This raises important strategical considerations.11
Our analysis has shown that the introduction of new institutions and
reforms on a basis of indigenous institution-building is a difficult pro-
cess. In actual fact, the transplantation of foreign administrative in-
stitutions, whether direct or indirect, is mostly resorted to in developing

20 Braibanti, op. cit., p. 42.

81 The British situation in implementing the Fulton Committee’s recommendations
was to some extent similar. However, Prime Minister Wilson’s personal involve-
ment in the reform effort was instrumental in ensuring quick compliance even
against the muffled opposition of top bureaucrats.
 ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN INDIA 97
countries, thus highlighting the limitations d development adminis-
tration in providing alternative institutions on the basis of ecological
factors.
Finally, prevailing notions of administrative reform in developing
countries are still oriented toward scientific management and the in-
strumentalism of civil servants. More emphasis should be placed on
human relations and the behavioural elements. The reformers’ hesitation
in this direction is due to the behaviouralists’ failure to emerge from their
shells and to provide the operational knowhow needed for the introduc-
tion of change into a large complex organisation such as a government
bureaucracy.
The belief that administration stands for implementation of policies
still predominates although excellence in implementation is of little avail
if policies are not optimum. A broader view must be taken, not only with
respect to policy implementation but also with respect to the improvement
of policy making. Too much attention to implementation may accentuate
the ills of a wrong policy by ruthless efficiency.
Whether the leaders of developing countries will view priorities in
administrative reform in this broader context, only time can tell.