Hierarchy of Scorn

I have never been able to comprehend, the history and historicity of the scorn and hate relationship between the bureaucracy and brass.

I think the contempt is mutual and perhaps primordial. But today, the bureaucracy particularly the IAS is pretty much unionized. Operates as a bastion not easy to breach. On the other side, the quality of officers in the army has degenerated to such an extent, that they are unable to reciprocate the contempt in any significant measure. They seem to be destined to play the permanent second fiddle, till a revolution that calls for their leadership, rejuvenates their organization. In the battle in which the bureaucracy is gaining ground inch by inch, the brass seems to always lose.

Even in the vice-regal council, there were continuous conflict between the military member and other civilian members. Clearly, since the British were in India because of the army, the military member would usually prevail.

The mind of a typical army officer approaches a situation by attempting to identify patterns and then applying tactical solutions that maps best with the pattern that they see in the solution, minimizing slack, situational discretion, while continuously focusing on not obfuscating the ultimate goal.

The civilian mind world over, more so India, does not work in patterns, in fact it works to break patterns. When I say more so in India, it is because, there is a peculiar situation here. The brown bureaucrat stepped into the shoes of the white bureaucrat, on the midnight of August 15, about 60 years ago. The white one was exploitationist and the brown one inherited that mentality. But he was cast as a public servant. Eventually he morphed into becoming a political servant from public servant. But the politician was accountable to the public. So the bureaucrats job stayed exploitationist, but he was expected to make all irregularities appear completely regular. This makes the whole situation completely hypocritical.

I remember, my father narrating an anecdote to me. Entry without an ID card was not allowed at the IMA. It was no other than the commandant Gen Pandit, in uniform and official car, who had been stopped by the sentry, as he was not carrying the ID Card. The sentry informed the general, he had orders from the Subedar Major to not allow anyone without an ID card. So he wouldn’t. The sentry was rewarded. But that is how an army mind works and must work. But we all know, the civialian mind will never work. The civilian sentry would have found a clause under which he could have allowed entry. And the civilian superior would found a clause under which to fire the sentry for challenging his VIP status. Both minds would have worked to breach patterns.

Also one more reason could be, even though, as individuals, the military personnel may not qualify to be the best, but the systems that they run as a team, are indeed far superior to the civilian systems. More robust, more resilient, more dependable and with lesser leakages. This makes the situation really dichotomous and clearly one that would breed contempt.