THE IDEOLOGY OF ALLOWED HONESTY: A LOOK INTO CIVIL SERVICES OF INDIA

 Ideology, as defined by famous Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek, is that "People in ideology very well know what they are doing is wrong and has not right consequences but still they proceed with it because the system in which they stand upon deems it right". The most often said quote, "They know very well what they are doing, still they do it!". 

Allowed honesty is also such an ideology in Indian Bureaucracy. Honesty is an extremely personal ethical and moral virtue, and it should be a personal choice to choose what honesty means to a particular person. But the Bureaucratic system of India suffers from a fixed set of dressing of Civil services values a civil servant should have. It is the property of in general all working systems that wish to change the individual agency of the individual and to make the subject a mute replica of the system itself.  I will substantiate with the help of an example. 

Suppose someone comes to you in dire needs and you are a civil servant but technically you cannot help him. The civil service values dictate that you should find some way of going about the rules in order to help the individual. But the hidden catch here is it does not work. The out of the way or the extra mile work expected here from a Civil servant act as a de-incentive to not do it. To which the current ideology replies but this is a quality expected and not the necessary demand. But we should keep in mind that Ideology is not like rules. These are unwritten rules of society which are always in sublime state. People expect without knowing that they do, and people follow knowing that they do. if you are asked a question in Interview of civil services panel, and You take a stance which is not within the domain of "acceptable domains" of answers in civil services, you might get rejected. The key point here is, here opinions of a civil servant is also curtailed to some extent, manufactured to some extent and made in a perfect Mould of opinion what an "Ideal Civil servant" would say. 

Allowed Honesty can be defined as the honesty or set of values of honesty which the system conceives as honest. Rest kinds of honesties can be deemed as blunt, unsophisticated and politically incorrect. Sometimes they are considered symptomatic of the social conditioning while other times, it is called idealistic and non-practical. The system somewhat has a blueprint of what is possible in a naive common sensical fashion and hence tries to Mould everything according to that. 

Innovation, or unique solutions to problems, are also accepted within the narrow domain of executionary field. No radical or mass change is acceptable. No serious bureaucracy. Just within the present executionary paradigm, do what is the systemic definition of "Innovative". 

The conclusion of the write-up is to not demean Indian institutions. Neither is it to say that the system should change. I believe it is just an observation that systems functions like this. By manufacturing allowed honesty. Just like all political systems and specifically the State. Violence done by state, is justified as justice while private justice is called reactionary and violent. State actually fakes all human values by creating a farce of these values, a cheap copy of these values. The difference between Liberty and freedom is exemplary. The difference between peace as we know, and peace as established in peace treaties is another. State is actually a shadow of God. Whatever God created (If someone did), State tries to Mimic them in a farce duplicate way. and it fails. 

The struggle is to create a system or state which mimics life perfectly. Yes, I know many issues with the statement. But Not life entirely. Not the daily brutality of life to be included of course. Rest, I rest.