By Dilip Cherian
India’s bureaucracy may be running short of one thing more important than babus: succession.
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The Centre’s decision to extend the tenures of Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan and Home Secretary Govind Mohan by another year may be defensible on grounds of continuity. But when extensions at the top become a recurring feature of governance, a larger institutional question refuses to go away: why does the system so often appear unable to move on?
This is not an argument against either officer. It is an argument against building a system around individuals. Every extension at the apex pushes the succession queue further back. Officers who have spent three decades or more preparing for the top jobs suddenly find that merit, seniority and experience count for little if the chair remains occupied.
The cost is invisible but real. Morale suffers. Career planning becomes guesswork. Younger officers learn an uncomfortable lesson: the bureaucratic ladder may have rungs, but someone can always put a chair on the top one.
The government’s case for continuity is understandable. There are moments when experience matters enormously. But continuity cannot become a permanent justification for disrupting succession.
The Supreme Court itself has said post-retirement extensions should be “rare and exceptional”. The problem begins when the ‘exceptional’ starts looking normal.
There is also a bigger danger. Every government creates precedents that its successors inherit. What looks like a convenient administrative decision today can become tomorrow’s institutional habit.
A strong bureaucracy should not need “irreplaceable” officers. It should produce capable successors as a matter of course. Administrative strength is measured not in how long a government can keep a trusted officer in the chair but whether the chair is ever allowed to belong to someone else.
A U-turn that needs some explaining
Naresh Pal Gangwar’s proposed tenure as Higher Education Secretary lasted barely three weeks, and, remarkably, he never took charge. The Centre has now replaced him with Deepti Gaur Mukerjee, effectively undoing its July 23 appointment.
More than being an awkward footnote, it raises a rather basic question: what exactly does the government’s due-diligence process look like? For a Secretary-level appointment, particularly in a ministry already battling a credibility crisis over competitive examinations, optics are not a trivial consideration.
Nor should the government need a public controversy to discover information that was already in the public domain.
The irony is hard to miss. The Centre removed Vineet Joshi amid intense scrutiny of higher education governance, only to replace him with an officer whose appointment immediately generated another controversy. Then, before he could even assume charge, it quietly pressed the undo button.
This is not how a serious administrative system should function. Transfers can be reversed. Orders can be modified. But every such U-turn carries a cost. And it makes the machinery of government look less deliberate, less sure-footed and, frankly, less competent. The bigger question is not why Gangwar was removed. It is why he was appointed in the first place.
Ram Mandir CEO: more than a post-retirement posting
The race for the first CEO’s post at the Ram Mandir Trust says rather more about India’s retired bureaucracy than about Ayodhya.
Sources informed DKB that within days of the advertisement, more than 1,000 applications had arrived. The number eventually crossed 6,200, with retired IAS and IPS officers, former government officials, military personnel, finance professionals and administrators among those in the fray. Some 20 shortlisted candidates are said to have been interviewed.
There is a reassuringly familiar ring about it. Retirement may end a babu’s government career, but apparently not the appetite for another chair, another office and another official designation.
But this appointment should not be a pensioner’s second innings masquerading as institutional reform.
The CEO will inherit an organisation with immense public trust, huge donations, millions of pilgrims and a growing complex ecosystem around the temple. The post has also emerged amid allegations of donation theft, making transparency and financial controls especially important.
Administrative experience certainly helps. But the Trust needs more than someone who knows how government files flow. You need a professional who understands governance, financial accountability, technology, crowd management and, critically, how to create systems that are not personality dependent.
The irony is not lost on anyone: A temple, built as a symbol of faith, now needs corporate-style governance. Maybe the best candidate will be the one who knows the CEO is not just another post-retirement post. It is a public trust position and one the public will be watching closely.
