Civil servants must be fearless, apolitical: Somanathan invokes Sardar Patel

NEW DELHI: Cabinet secretary TV Somanathan on Tuesday invoked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision of a politically neutral and integrity-driven group of civil servants who are not involved in communal wrangles and are fearless in offering honest advice to the executive.

TOI has learnt that in his address on “ethics and efficiency in civil services”, Somanathan, known for his frank views, also told officials to abide by the rules of conduct while suggesting that if they are asked to do anything that’s not as per rules, they should give “proper reasons” to seniors and political executives.

Earlier in the inaugural session of the Civil Services Day attended by the country’s top bureaucrats, Somanathan said that individual officers may from time to time have fallen short of Patel’s ideals, but the basic ethos of a politically neutral civil service capable of tendering impartial and frank advice has “endured”.

He said that civil services have played a vital role in preserving India's unity, integrity, and democracy.

The cabinet secretary read out Patel’s caution from his address to the first recruits of the Indian Administrative Service in 1947 — “A civil servant cannot afford to and must not take part in politics, nor must he involve himself in communal wrangles. To depart from the path of rectitude in either of these respects is to debase public services and to lower its dignity.”

He also quoted a part of Patel’s speech in the Constituent Assembly in October 1949, highlighting how political executives should allow bureaucrats to express their opinion without “fear or favour”.

Patel had said, “If you do not give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your minister, please then you had better go. I will bring another secretary. I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion,” Somanathan quoted the country’s first home minister.
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