Administrative backsliding in India

This chapter reviews the major shifts in Indian administration since independence and suggests that the gains made towards greater popular participation and democratization of administration are being reversed through administrative backsliding and policy dismantling aimed at greater centralization under the aegis of the Hindutva ideology. The analysis employs a systems approach that examines the administration at three inter-connected levels of the enabling environment of power, law, and regulations; the organizational administrative functioning of rules, institutions, and procedures; and individual values and socialization of bureaucrats. I argue that unlike the temporary populist changes in administration that a single leader may enforce, the current shift in India towards centralization in the service of Hindutva sectarian and caste agendas marks a move towards permanent illiberalism and electoral autocracy with deleterious consequences for human rights. The chapter outlines some ways in which shifts in the composition, functioning, and autonomy of the bureaucracy compromise the rights of the poor, religious pluralism, and the representation of civil society.