Speech on Official Deviance by Bureaucrats

Here is your speech on Official Deviance by Bureaucrats:

Deviance by Bureaucrats is the most common problem in present administration in India. Deviance means illegal, immoral, and unethical activities towards their duties and norms of one’s profession. Bureaucrats mean officials who conduct rationally the work of such administration.

It is a major trend of modern society, nowadays Bureaucrats has to play a tremendous role in political development and social change, with the change of concept from police state to welfare state the traditional functions of Bureaucrats as the instrument of revenue collecting agency or law and order maintaining machinery have further increased resulting in widening its scope.

In modern administration vast discretionary powers are endowed on Bureaucrats and judicial control over Bureaucrats is very feeble. Only the mandatory duties can be enforced through the court of law. Discretionary duties cannot be compelled by the court and because of all these factors in modern administration several problems have arisen which affects the life of individual in various spheres and are also dangerous to national future.

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In modern period Bureaucrats misuse their powers, act against legal code of conduct for discharge of public servant act for their personal benefit and it gives birth to corruption, maladministration, inaction, delay in action, and abuse or misuse of power. In this way Bureaucrats become subject of official deviance. Because they act against the official rule, conduct, code, moral and of course their duties towards public and country.

Such deviant Bureaucrats today are always criticized for their ridicule behaviour, stiff-necked attitude and contempt for the masses. The arrogance has been regarded the hallmark of such officers.

The deviation from moral standard of such Bureaucrats takes various forms; these can be classified under two heads:

(1) Corruption and (2) Patronage or Influence, (nepotism)

Corruption is an act of violation of legal code of conduct in discharge of public servant for personal benefit, some of the common forms of corruption in public service are bribery, improper or selfish exercise of power, secret commission and tips speedy money has acquired wide prevalence. In simple words corruption means use or misuse of a public position for private gains.

In Independent India (with the concept of welfare state) the Government and its numerous agencies disburse vast funds for the welfare activities of state. The citizen’s life depends on the beginning of economic planning. The corruption front has opened up for large-scale escalation and with the sudden expansion of economic activities of Government.

Welfare operations require a large number of regulations, control mechanisms, licences and permits and these involved corresponding, multiplication of administration and this situation is created by a spurt in the economic functions of the Government. In fact, this increased Corruption.

Nowadays procedure and practices in the working of Government offices are cumbersome and dilatory. There is excessive adherence to formalism and it causes, delay in action and it is very difficult for common people to understand the official formal language, method of making note, sending files upwards and downwards.

Each official acts mechanically and is not ready to help the common persons who become trapped in this formal official system for his own necessity and so to speed up the process of movement of files and communication common people give bribe to the staff of office concerned and so it becomes habit of such deviant officials, of not doing anything in the matter till someone suitably persuaded to them.

So habitual acceptance of illegal gratification or habitual acceptance of valuable things are most common forms of corruption today and also dishonest or fraudulent misappropriation of property, abuses of official position to obtain valuable things, and possession of property, disproportionate to known as common source of income today.

Corruption may be seen in almost every sphere of public life yet some of them are more prone to corruption, the ‘scope of corruption’ is great and incentive to corrupt is stronger at those points of the organization where substantive decisions are taken.

Corruption is rampant in matters like assessments and collection of taxes, determination of eligibility for obtaining licences, grant of licences, ensuring fair utilization of licences and goods obtained, giving contracts, approval of works and acceptance of supplies, it is commonly said that the economic functions of state itself increased corruption. It will cause delay if, functions remained centralized.

And in case, these were decentralized, Delay encouraged the growth of ‘speed money’ paid in matters relating to the grant of licence and permits. Decentralization on the other hand meant delegation of authority to subordinate officers with a degree of discretion, which besides being responsible extravagance and speculation was also thought to delay and extort money from needy people.

According to Santhanam Committee Report there are some departments, where corruption is reported to be more severe. These are public works departments, revenue, forest, custom, income and sales-tax, excise, police and railways, etc.

Another important reason for the deviation from right path is Patronage or influence.

The relationship between deviant Bureaucrats and corrupt politicians is very common phenomenon in modern democracy. It is certain that no administration can successfully discharge its duties unless it is left done without any political interference but, deviant officers have no objections against such increased interference of politicians in administrative work because in return politicians fulfil desires of such Bureaucrats. Politicians try to rise and remain, in power by any means, right or wrong and to satisfy their illegal purpose they violate morals and ethical norms and evade law to gain political power.

They need huge money for running their party, and for that Bureaucrats through big businessmen, industrialists collect money for politicians and in return, Politicians by using their influence, help officers in their promotions, transfer, and postings.

By doing any illegal activity if Bureaucrats fall in the hand of prosecution, politicians easily help escape them from the hands of law and punishment by using their influence and powers. In this way they form their own system which depends on each other and without which none of them can live peacefully.

In India such Bureaucratic and Political relationship continue to unfold every now and again. For the personal gain such Bureaucrats behave like domestic dogs for politicians.

Finally, it is clear from the all proceeding discussions that official deviance by Bureaucrats is a complex phenomenon, it is result of various systematic defects, individuals and cultural conditions, and so it is difficult to eliminate such practices from society.

The Government no doubt took a number of steps to deal with all types of official deviances. Implemented various acts, established various commissions but steps taken by Government are in vain and have no positive result. Instead of various efforts of Government, deviance in offices are not eliminated but it is increased day by day.

There are selfish ministers and legislators also who are unwilling to take any effective step to eliminate, Deviance from society, in order to satisfy own interest and instead of taking steps to eliminate deviance they support to increase it.

In the beginning a public servant generally hesitates to adopt deviant means for personal advantage. He fears punishment from God is mainly for this reason that people do not expand any such earning upon their family or children.

At the most they meet their pocket expenses from the money they have earned through unfair means. But with the passage of time and increased contacts with the personnel already corrupt they gain confidence in them. Corruption thus becomes a routine in their public life and the common reasons people offer for resorting to corrupt means are price rise, inflation and costly living. But the wages of employees have not risen in proportion to their desires.

Moreover, with rising levels of industrialization and modernization availability of articles of luxury in market had become easy. Aspirations of people have gone high, thus lust for luxury makes them intemperate. Hence they are easily tempted to deviate for earning money.

Money provides them prestige and security in life. Many people get into public jobs through corrupt means, when people pay money for lucrative jobs and posting, it is but natural that they will make their best efforts to extract maximum advantage out of these jobs.

Corruption, patronage and influence of politicians, whatever the form of deviance, there can be no doubt that it violates policy, weakns public confidence and society also have very dangerous effects of official deviances, because of excessive money grab by illegal activities, such deviant Bureaucrats form their new social class, which consists of such a white collar criminals and they assume an excessive sense of self importance, they hate common masses, they have their own separate clubs and mode of life.

They are living in the notion of false prestige and superiority. They are in wrong presumption that they are so powerful that no one can harm them because they are rich people and under the influence of politicians or some powerful hands work behind them and so deviant Bureaucrats behave in tyrannical ways whenever they are with contact of common public.

The social and ethical norms, values and constraints have lost their control over the people and material happiness and the new view of life dominates over the basic values of life such as austerity, frugality and simplicity and finally it is concluded that more and more people amass money, more and more they become fearless, and corrupt.

Because once they succeed in earning sizable amount of money through unfair means, they become powerful enough to evade law and escape from punishment by bribing the officials who hold investigations or else they may easily go to the court of law or pull on at their own, at the worst they are discharged or dismissed.

So they are becoming the white collar criminals, who under the garb of prestige, social worth commit illegal practices to satisfy their own greed and it is unable to easily trace them like traditional criminals or blue collar criminals.

Such criminals are difficult to be eliminated from society. Though, it is true that, total elimination of criminal from society is not possible but there are some remedial measures that may yield some immediate positive results, firstly there is need to reorganize and strengthen the anti-corruption, organizations and laws, that existing law should be made more effective so that the culprits may not escape from punishments.

Privileges and payments to employees should be made on the basis of contribution. They make to the development of the people and the nation and not for strengthening the hands of the public leaders.

It is in the interest of the nation that the people working in the area of education, judiciary, health departments, etc. he paid and given suitable accommodation and other facilities of life, otherwise, they will not be able to discharge their duties fully and devote themselves completely to their work.

Most important remedy for such growing deviances is that unless society condemns corruption, bribery Red tapeism (delay in action), and graft without any reservation, practiced by bureaucrats, it is impossible to eliminate such deviance from society. So strong and effective public opinion is necessary back up to eliminate such practices from society.

Social boycott of officers engaged in deviant behaviour is a powerful weapon to curb the practice of white collar criminality in society. So initiative has to come from the people to remove such corrupt officers, who are the linchpin in corrupt administrative system.

Otherwise, there is the least likelihood as things stand at present, of anything tangible being done to eliminate illegal, immoral and unethical practices at the highest level. It is finally recommended that Bureaucratic deviance can be curbed, through revolution that is by bringing radical change in present system with the help of common masses.