The controversy over the government's arbitrary decision to impose a massive cut in fees for the Indian Institutes of Management has once again brought to light the age-old conflict between bureaucrats and professional experts.
Initially, the IIM controversy over the fee hike appeared to be an offshoot of Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi's campaign to establish the government's suzerainty over the management institutes.
But as the controversy is now poised to enter a decisive phase, Joshi seems to have toned down his own offensive and the battle is being fought by the bureaucrats in the HRD ministry with renewed vigour.
The IIM Controversu: Complete Coverage
Joshi is, of course, providing guidance and leadership to this assault on the autonomy of the IIMs. But the bureaucrats seem to have begun enjoying this battle and are using the opportunity to remind the professional experts that at the end of the day, it is they who will call the shots from New Delhi.
Members of the faculty at the IIMs have little doubt about this. What Joshi did to the IIMs was not unexpected, given his track record in the HRD ministry and the manner in which he disallowed the Indian Institutes of Technology to receive funds directly from their former students.
But what the bureaucrats did at the recently-held meeting of the IIM-Ahmedabad Society has shocked them. They were expecting a more mature and reasoned response from the officials who came to attend the meeting two weeks ago.
The members of the society, however, found the mandarins intolerant of any view other than theirs. More importantly, they seemed to be more keen than even Joshi to implement the minister's agenda.
In the next fortnight, other IIMs will be holding their board meetings to decide on the fee structure they should follow in the wake of the HRD ministry's directive.
All these meetings will also be attended by the ministry officials. The confidence level among the IIM faculty members is very low. Given the manner in which these bureaucrats rode roughshod over other members of the IIM-Ahmedabad Society, nobody now expects any fresh resistance from the IIM boards to the government's fee directive.
Some also wonder why the bureaucrats should not follow a more sensible path by which the crisis can be defused. But why blame them? They are doing what their minister has asked them to do. And in any case, bureaucrats have always treated themselves as a powerful class and have rarely shied away from an opportunity to flex their muscle.
There are many examples of how they try to extend their zone of influence. Only a few weeks ago, those in the power ministry were exploring various options to frame a power tariff policy that gives them more clout than the central electricity regulator.
All that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission needed was a power tariff policy that should set the broad goals the government wanted to achieve through tariff fixation.
But the mandarins wanted to use that policy to decide many other things with regard to the fixation of tariff. The issue went to the prime minister, who was even asked if the tariff policy had to be cleared by the Cabinet.
The hidden agenda was perhaps to get a tariff policy in place without the mandatory scrutiny of the Cabinet. The prime minister made it clear that if a policy had to be announced, it was better that the Cabinet gave its stamp of approval.
Similarly, the bureaucrats' desire to control one more financial institution was evident from the manner in which the Infrastructure Development Finance Company was sought to be merged with the State Bank of India.
The finance minister may have just wanted more funding for the infrastructure sector. But the bureaucrats hit upon this idea of bringing IDFC under SBI so that they could direct its operations a little more closely.
No one knows if bureaucracy will succeed in its efforts either in respect of the power tariff policy or in the proposed IDFC-SBI merger. But the manner in which the North Block mandarins have reacted to the en masse resignation of the IDFC brass reveals the same mindset that was in evidence at the IIM-A Society meeting.
Two important steps must be taken immediately to stop the bureaucracy from needlessly flexing its muscles. The government must make it clear that it should not allow any of its officials to tinker with the day-to-day functioning of an institution under the administrative control of the central ministry.
The government, the ministers and the bureaucrats should be bothered about the overall policy and not the running of an institution. And one way to eliminate interference in the day-to-day functioning of such organisations is to stipulate that only secretary-level officials can be nominated to be members of the governing boards of such institutions.
Till some years ago, the finance ministry used to nominate a joint secretary-level official on the board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. But that practice was stopped once the Sebi chairman raised the issue with the finance minister.
A secretary-level official from the finance ministry is now on the board of Sebi. Why can't the IIMs and other such bodies threatened with bureaucratic interference insist on the same policy?