After reading this essay you will learn:- 1. Introduction to the Bureaucratic System 2. Characteristics of the Bureaucratic System 3. Advantages 4. Disadvantages.
Essay # 1. Introduction to the Bureaucratic System:
Much misapprehension exists in regard to the true character of bureaucratic system. In broader sense, the term is used “to describe any personnel system where the employees are classified in a system of administration composed of a hierarchy of sections, divisions, bureaus, departments and the like.” In this sense there is nothing wrong with the system and the prejudices against it are unfortunate.
In much more restricted sense, the term is used to denote “a body of public servants organised in a hierarchical system which stands outside the sphere of effective public control.” The Prussian Civil Service System is termed as Bureaucratic from this Stand-point. It is from the latter point of view that characteristics of the Bureaucratic system of Prussian type are discussed below.
Bureaucracy as a form of administration is to be treated differently from bureaucratic personnel system. If the former is a necessary concomitant to a large-scale organization, the latter is a pure recruitment pattern adopted by the ‘imperialistic’ governments of the past. As such, it may be used synonymous with autocratic personnel system.
Essay # 2. Characteristics of the Bureaucratic System:
(a) The services owe their appointment to the King and are responsible to him. The King recruits them and prescribes their conditions of service. They enjoy permanence of tenure as they can be dismissed only by the King. The people have no hand in the matter. The King makes his autocratic rule effective through these services.
It constitutes a distinct career as those of military and naval establishments. Special provisions exist for their education, training, and regular gradation of their positions. Prior to India’s independence, the Indian Civil Service and other services were organised on the basis of bureaucratic system because both their recruitment and dismissal were in the hands of King/Queen in Great Britain.
(b) Being responsible to the King alone, the services regard themselves as superior to the people. In such circumstances, the relation between the services and the people is reduced to that of the master and the slave.
(c) According to this system, public services not only perform executive but also legislative and judicial functions. This is borne out by the fact that the public services in India in pre- independence days, who held memberships of the executive council of the Governor-General and Governors, were nominated to the Legislative Assemblies and were also appointed on high judicial posts.
Essay # 3. Advantages of Bureaucratic System:
There are only three advantages of this system. First, this system produces the highest degree of efficiency. It brings skilled mind to the solution of technical problems. Second, it serves well as an instrument of political suppression.
The ruling country makes its will effective on the subject people through this system. The Britishers ruled India because of civil services which were organized on bureaucratic principle. Third, it secures unity and concentration of power so very essential for effective administration. A single will runs through all chords.
Essay # 4. Disadvantages of Bureaucratic System:
The disadvantages of the system overweigh its advantages.
First, this system has practically no place under democratic set-up because it exempts public services from popular control. The present trend is towards active participation of the people in the administration and as such, civil servants must carry the people along with. The public services have to be responsible to the public and responsive to their needs. This system is both irresponsible and unresponsive to public opinion.
Second, it causes a wide gap between the public servants and other classes of the society. The officials become snobbish and develop an overbearing attitude towards the people. The Indian civil Services in pre-independent era used to be given special training in mannerism and etiquettes in English Public Schools.
Hence they always suffered from a sort of superiority complex. This did not prove useful both for the public and the government in the ultimate.
Third, it contains within itself seeds of its own destruction. All the flaws of militarism are present in this system. It makes public officials not only unresponsive but also turns them hostile to the common man. Such a confrontation results in the end of this type of personnel.
Fourth, concentration of too much power with the public officials and the head of the administration turns them into tyrants and induces them to make use of power for their personal ends.
Last, history stands witness to the fact that this system has been used by the ambitious rulers like Roman Emperors or Bourbon Kings or British Imperialists to suppress individual’s liberties. Thus perpetuation of this system in the democratic age is out of date.