Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
“The first attempt to influence a bureaucrat’s integrity might come even before they take office,” says 31-year-old Bihar Administrative Service (BAS) officer, Satyakam Kumar [name changed]. Things began to change the moment his name appeared on the merit list. “People I never knew existed, acquaintances, and neighbours, came flocking. There were fewer congratulations and more gifts,” says Kumar.
There was no explicit demand, no quid pro quo spelt out. But Kumar knew the gifts weren’t coming without expectations. “Why would someone who barely knows me suddenly gift me a mobile phone or a smartwatch?” asks Satyakam. “This isn’t corruption, but it is perhaps a young bureaucrat’s first encounter with the ecosystem that can eventually enable graft,” Satyakam explains.
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Satyakam’s story makes way for several big questions about India’s bureaucracy.
India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, called bureaucracy the “steel frame” of the country. Despite the chromium shield, is the frame beginning to rust? Looking around, it would seem so. A Mumbai-based IRS officer, who spoke to India Today Digital on condition of anonymity, recalls being offered Rs 80 crore to back off from a raid on a local politician.
It is the bureaucracy, at both the upper and lower levels, that runs district administration, regulates businesses, collects taxes, polices illegalities and determines how government policy translates into people’s lives. Yet, it is also routinely accused of corruption. At the lower rungs, the sums might be Rs 10,000 or Rs 15,000. Higher up, they can run into crores, tens of crores, sometimes even more.
Bureaucrats themselves acknowledge that corruption exists within the system. The headlines scream of it. So much so that a corrupt bureaucrat barely surprises people. And yet, there are bureaucrats who have shown that this “system” can be challenged from within.
Why, then, can’t every bureaucrat be Ashok Khemka? Or Tukaram Mundhe? If bureaucrats win so much love and praise by just doing what they were hired to do and paid for, why don’t they do their job?
WHAT IT COSTS FOR BUREAUCRATS TO TAKE ON THE SYSTEM
Ashok Khemka, a former Haryana-cadre IAS officer who retired in 2025, faced 57 transfers in a career spanning more than 33 years. He was known for repeatedly taking upright positions that put him at odds with governments of different political colours in Haryana.
Meanwhile, Mundhe, the Maharashtra FDA Commissioner, has emerged as the “hero of the moment”, “the man on a mission”, putting restaurants and food establishments under unprecedented scrutiny. He has carried out more than 1,000 inspections in around two months. The FDA raids in Mumbai targeted food adulteration rackets and violations of compliance norms, which triggered a spree of restaurant licence suspensions.
Last week, when Mundhe walked onto the stage at an event in Pune, the audience gave him a standing ovation. Videos of the prolonged applause went viral on social media. A bureaucrat had become a public hero simply doing his job. There were, inevitably, other reactions.
UP-based whistle-blower Khurpench, who has used social media to flag irregularities, is concerned that turning heroes out of a few upright officers “might morph into a personality cult”. The main test of officers’ success, he says, is whether the improvements brought in continue after they have left.
Some others have questioned the celebration too. “Why applaud him? He is just doing his job… Inspecting establishments and enforcing food-safety rules is what the FDA is supposed to do…”
That leads to a more tricky question. If this is their job, why doesn’t every bureaucrat do it? What does it take to exercise the authority available to an officer? Why are honest officers, known for confronting the system, few enough to count on our fingertips? Khemka, Mundhe, Raju Narayana Swamy, U Sagayam, Durga Shakti Nagpal, Armstrong Pame, Smita Sabharwal and a handful of others.
To understand that, India Today Digital spoke to serving and retired bureaucrats across central and state services about how corruption takes root, how officers are pressured to compromise on their integrity, and what happens when they refuse.
A retired Haryana-cadre IAS officer, respected for his integrity, reacts to the Tukaram Mundhe phenomenon with a simple question.
“How many Tukaram Mundes are left, after all? If an officer like Mundhe is doing his job and is willing to go after the big fish, I genuinely think we should applaud him,” the officer tells India Today Digital, requesting he not be named.
WHERE DOES CORRUPTION BEGIN IN BUREAUCRACY?
Not every officer enters government service intending to make money. But, corruption can begin as a series of small accommodations that are triggered by social and peer pressure, lifestyle expectations, aspirations of families, and small compromises that appear to be harmless.
Sunil Kumar Rai, a 2005-batch Indian Postal Service officer, posted as Postmaster General of the Lucknow Region, presents a distinctive perspective on ethical conduct, public service and administrative leadership.
One of Rai’s central observations concerns the gradual nature of corruption. According to him, “ethical compromises often begin with seemingly ordinary personal aspirations”. For example, he explains, an officer might receive a House Rent Allowance of Rs 50,000, but they might aspire to live in a house costing Rs 1 lakh.
“When greed begins to exceed legitimate means of earning, the possibility of compromising one’s principles increases. Public servants can gradually lose sight of the purpose for which they entered into government service,” Rai tells India Today Digital.
That is what makes Bihar-based officer Satyakam Kumar’s merit-list story important. The corrupt transaction need not begin with an envelope of cash, but with relationships that create an unspoken expectation.
Bureaucratic corruption goes beyond greed. Officers tell India Today Digital that political pressure and resistance from seniors also make bureaucrats give in.
A Mumbai-based Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, who has been in service for less than a decade, says going after politically connected people can be “incredibly demotivating”.
Sheo Narayan Singh, a retired Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, who served for around 35 years and retired as Principal Chief Commissioner of Customs and GST, recalls receiving a just-below-par Annual Confidential Report after resisting or questioning what he described as his first boss’s “wrong moves”.
HOW DEEP IS INDIAN BUREAUCRACY’S ROT? HOW HIGH DOES IT GO?
Quantifying corruption across India’s enormous bureaucracy is nearly impossible.
Former IRS officer Sheo Narayan Singh rejects an attempt to put a number on good and compromised officers, saying, “You are talking about lakhs of people.” But, Singh adds, “One thing can definitely be said. There are fewer people who follow honesty and moral values. They were fewer earlier and they are fewer today.”
The Mumbai-based IRS officer, who spoke to India Today Digital on condition of anonymity, opens up about what she had witnessed in less than 10 years of her career.
“In my decade-long career, I have seen corruption in every department — excise, education, income tax, everywhere. When you’re a young officer, you enter the service believing you can change the system. But reality hits soon. Young officers want to go after the big-ticket corrupt. You can see that someone is corrupt, but once you realise how well-connected they are, it can be incredibly demotivating,” the IRS officer tells India Today Digital.
HOW DOES A BUREAUCRAT GET CORRUPTED?
There is no single method. Cash is one. Gold and land are others. But corruption does not always come as a direct bribe or an explicit order from a politician or senior. It can travel through subtler channels. Messages and pressure are conveyed through intermediaries. Even family members of the officer are “approached”.
The IRS officer recals her department raiding a politically-connected businessman. Instead of approaching her, the businessman’s people discovered that she came from his district (in another state). The businessman then paid her parents a visit.
“On the face of it, there was nothing intimidating about it. It looked like a courtesy visit. But the message was clear, convince your daughter, and we can work out a deal,” the IRS officer says.
In another case, the IRS officer recalls, she decided to raid a local politician who wasn’t particularly influential even at the state level. The offer to back off, she says, was Rs 80 crore.
“Along with that came a threat to life. I was told that people could be killed by contract killers who charge only Rs 3-4 lakh,” she adds.
At times, an officer does not need to stop an investigation or make a file disappear. “For example, 10 kg of gold has been seized during a raid, and then the report is written to say that the gold was fake. In return for writing a report that effectively acquits the accused. The officer gets a cut,” the IRS officer explains.
“And pressure needn’t always come from the top. PAs, junior officers and even support staff can become intermediaries carrying messages between vested interests and decision-making bureaucrats,” says the IRS officer, adding, “Corruption is internalised in the system.”
WHY DO SO MANY BUREAUCRATS BEND?
Lucknow-based bureaucrat Sunil Kumar Rai emphasises the danger of the “first compromise”. According to him, once an officer compromises an administrative process, subsequent compromises might become increasingly difficult to resist.
The Indian Postal Service officer illustrates this through the example of a recruiting authority that initially manipulates a recruitment process to accommodate two candidates. “If an influential person subsequently demands that five candidates be accommodated, the officer might find it extremely difficult to refuse because the first compromise has already weakened the officer’s ethical position,” Rai tells India Today Digital.
“It demonstrates how small violations can gradually normalise unethical behaviour and create a cycle of institutional vulnerability,” adds Rai.
The trap, as a result, isn’t only financial. Compromise creates leverage and a comfort zone.
Retired IRS officer Sheo Narayan Singh calls it the “cosy comfort of the status quo”. Most officers, he underlines, learn to manage what they have been given rather than challenge the arrangement. The bigger point Singh makes is that not everybody is corrupt. It is the very nature of bureaucracy that rewards the status quo rather than someone who is trying to make the system work better in the public interest.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE OFFICERS WHO DON’T BEND?
Look at Khemka’s 57 transfers in 33 years. Look at Mundhe’s roughly 25 transfers. Some can argue that a transfer isn’t really a punishment, but repeated short postings can ensure that an officer who challenges entrenched interests never stays long enough to become comfortable. Neither can their families. Children have to change schools and families have to pack up and move at short notice.
Adverse consequences can also come in the form of negative career assessments, professional isolation and long-running legal battles.
Retired IRS officer Sheo Narayan Singh, speaking to India Today Digital, recalls what his first boss told him. “You live in the utopian world of Marx and Gandhi. Bureaucracy is a rigid monolithic hierarchical structure where the boss is God! If you fight your bosses, you will fail here,” Singh was told, he recalls. But Singh not only survived, but made the system work in the public interest, thereby exceeding revenue targets and earning outstanding appraisals in his long career.
Singh proved his first boss wrong, whom he had resisted, and received a just-below-par rating in his very first ACR. He says he fought vested interests through multiple legal battles during his career that continued even after he retired. “You would be surprised. Even after my retirement, my name was dragged into a false and fake defamation case filed against one of my juniors. The Honourable Patna High Court recently quashed the case pertaining to me by passing a very strong and emphatic order in my favour,” Singh tells India Today Digital.
“The irony is that all your performance is considered collective. Performance becomes the organisation’s performance. But when you are fighting your battles, then it is lonely,” Singh adds.
Loneliness is perhaps one of the least visible costs of uprightness.
HOW KHEMKA, MUNDHE, SINGH SURVIVED THE SYSTEM
Honesty alone does not help. The officers (serving and retired) India Today Digital spoke to say, surviving the system without bending requires a combination of a strong moral compass, professional competence, a thorough understanding of the law, the ability to anticipate and withstand resistance, and, perhaps most importantly, the willingness to accept that doing the right thing might come at a personal and professional cost.
In his fourth year of service, retired IRS officer Sheo Narayan Singh met the then-Finance Minister, VP Singh, and told him how difficult he was finding to navigate through the bureaucracy. The advice Singh received from VP Singh transformed his approach and career.
“Only honesty is not going to be enough to succeed in the system. You have to develop a strategy,” young IRS officer Shero Narayan Singh was told by VP Singh, who took on the Rajiv Gandhi government over the Bofors deal, ultimately quit the Cabinet, and carried his battle against corruption into the public arena as an “anti-corruption messiah.” The Raja Bahadur-turned-neta served as Prime Minister of India from December 1989 to November 1990.
Sheo Narayan Singh says following the advice of VP Singh, he developed the PATH (Professional Accountable Transparent Honest) strategy/mantra of Gandhian Governance and implemented it throughout his career.
“I expected that if I did something out of the box, I would be harassed by vested interests. But if I am founded on truth, honesty and integrity, I would prevail…,” Singh says.
Lucknow-based bureaucrat Sunil Kumar Rai describes his administrative philosophy through a “SMART” model: Simple, Moral, Accountable, Reliable and Transparent.
Reform does not always require confronting powerful interests. Rai recalls how citizens arriving early at the Lucknow GPO had to wait until 10 am for Aadhaar services. He worked with officials and UIDAI to move the start time to 8 am. The change, he says, illustrates how small reforms can become institutionalised and survive beyond an officer’s tenure.
That is perhaps the less glamorous version of bureaucracy that the “IAS/IPS Viral Entry Reels” on Instagram do not capture.
“An officer might eventually leave a particular position, but if a new practice works effectively for a sustained period, it can become embedded in organisational routines. A successful practice then becomes a ‘best practice’ that subsequent officers are expected to continue,” Rai tells India Today Digital.
“Whatever authority comes with the chair should be used for public welfare and to strengthen the institution, not for personal benefit,” Rai adds.
SHOULD DOING YOUR JOB MAKE YOU A HERO? ASKS WHISTLE-BLOWER
Whistle-blower Khurpench, who has used social media to highlight local and national irregularities in governance, financial expenditure, and in recruitment exams, asks, “Why are bureaucrats doing their duties made heroes?” That’s not him being critical because he is concerned that an “officer’s integrity might morph into a personality cult”.
“There is nothing wrong with celebrating officers such as Mundhe. In a system where inefficiency, corruption or indifference become normalised, recognising an officer who resists it can encourage others… But there is a danger in converting integrity into a personality cult…. The main test of an officer isn’t how things improve while he or she occupies the chair. It is whether those improvements survive after the officer leaves,” Khurpench, who has lakhs of followers on social media and an investigative team now, tells India Today Digital.
“A dissatisfied customer can leave a private company. A citizen cannot choose another police department, municipal corporation or district administration,” he adds.
Indian institutions, as a result, can’t and shouldn’t depend on finding the next Mundhe or Khemka. But the former Haryana-cadre IAS officer we spoke to is emphatic that Mundhe should nevertheless be applauded. “He isn’t acting outside the law or exceeding his office,” the officer says on condition of anonymity.
On being asked why an officer’s ordinary act appears extraordinary, retired IRS officer Sheo Narayan Singh says, “If somebody is doing better than the prevailing ‘sab chalta hai’ attitude, people would notice it.”
That brings us back to the standing ovation Mundhe received in Pune. That’s one bureaucrat. There are lakhs of others who one can ask: Why can’t you be an Ashok Khemka or a Tukaram Mundhe?
– Ends
(With inputs from Anand Singh)
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
