Oversmart Bureaucrats Are Destined To Fail

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." This quote from George Santayana, a philosopher, shares some relevance in today's evolving bureaucratic landscape. In India's bureaucratic system, two types of bureaucrats generally dominate the landscape- generalist and specialist. However, as the threat of politicization of bureaucracy is increasing and the landscape is getting tricker, a new type is perhaps emerging, which is neither fully generalist or specialist, they are the "grey" bureaucrats who thrive in the grey zone of generalist and specialist. They tend to drive their inspiration from an overdose of  thriller movies and "street smartness." This gives them a hyped-up sense of arrogance and pride, things get worse when these "grey bureaucrats" get patronage. As a result, they never learn and visualize the government's efforts of consolidating "comprehensive national power" as Prime Minister Narendra Modi draws a road map for India 2047. Many bureaucrats selflessly and dedicatedly work to visualize the Government's vision and plans for the coming years. Amitabh Kant and V.K Pandian are some key examples who have smartly and sagaciously worked towards the government's vision and pushed the wheels of governance to reach high pedestals. These bureaucrats employ their strength and sagaciousness, which helps them to strengthen public trust and government across the governance spectrum. Unfortunately, we have some oversmart bureaucrats who have amazingly failed one recent case is of Hemant Kumar, who is now under CBI's scanner.  The tale of Kumar's over-smartness is quite interesting, according to top sources,  on 15th May, Hemant Kumar acting as Arbitrator, passed an illegal award(now stands set aside by Delhi HC)  in the matter of acquisition of land of  NHAI to favour certain private parties post which with an intent to make Divisional Commissioner Revenue Department a party to his wrongdoings put up a note to the Divisional Commissioner explaining his position on passing such award on 19th May. The Divisional Commissioner on 2nd June, realising the intent of Kumar, put up a detailed note to the Chief Secretary, noting that the decision of Kumar is untenable and suspect. On 6th June Chief Secretary directed the Divisional Commissioner to bring the matter to the knowledge of a Competent Authority with proposed action in this matter wherein the Divisional Commissioner proposed that Hemant Kumar be liable for disciplinary action. On 9th June, the Chief Secretary approved the proposal of the Divisional Commissioner. Later, the Divisional Commissioner pursued the matter, leading to vigilance enquiry and then setting up a CBI investigation. This is not one incident these cases are thriving nowadays where some bureaucrats have blatantly played with fire and suffered from false impressions of bravado. The current landscape of bureaucracy demands sagaciousness from bureaucrats, patience and high-order thinking skills. It's not the 1990s and early 2000s where you can easily fool the system. Times have changed, and so bureaucrats have to realise that cunningness driving in thrill power drunk in patronages will put them on the verge of being dusted.