UPSC Express

Non-partisanship in Civil Service means non-disposition of civil servants towards any political party/entity i.e. to exhibit political neutrality regardless of his/her own political thought. The values of the administrator should flow from the constitution but not from the philosophy of any political party.

In India we have two kinds of executive i.e. political Executives (elected) and permanent executives (appointed based on meritocracy). The political executives generally lack expertise so the permanent executives assist the former in policy formulation and their implementation. This makes it non-partisanship a non-negotiable and foundational value of civil service. For example civil servant viz. T.N. Seshan, Vinod Rai etc have displayed exemplary quality of civil service and brought various changes in election, auditing systems in India respectively.

Importance of Non-partisanship Partisanship in Civil Service:

• Non-partitionship helps to maintain trust of people in Administration.
• It helps to maintain healthy relationship between political executives and civil servants.
• It motivates civil servant to provide recommendations/suggestions to policy makers without ill-will or favour.
• It helps in effective policy formulation and its implementation.
• It also helps in mending self interest based political ideology towards holistic development.
• It keeps the ideology of constitution above any other political, religious or economic ideology.

To maintain compatibility and avoid conflicts between the bureaucracy and political leadership, non-partisanship is indispensable.