International Research Journal of Engineering, IT & Scientific Research Available online at https://sloap.org/journals/index.php/irjeis/ Vol. 2 No. 3, March 2016, pages: 9~15 ISSN: 2454-2261 https://sloap.org/journals/index.php/irjeis/article/view/483 9 Ministers and Civil Servants Relations in India: An Evaluation Rajbir Singh Dalal a Ekta Chahal b Article history: Abstract Received: 27 December 2015 Accepted: 30 January 2016 Published: 31 March 2016 In a parliamentary form of government, like in India, there exist two types of executives i.e. political or elected and permanent executive. Political executive derives its power from people and enjoys the power by virtue of constitutional position, while permanent executive or civil servant is selected on merit basis and accumulate its power due to an administrative position and technical expertise. The system of a democratic government is based on the principle of popular sovereignty wherein the supreme rests in people or their elected representative. Political executive or Minister is assisted by a civil servant. A balanced relationship between them is essential for smooth and efficient functioning of government. Minister and civil servant act as two pillars of the parliamentary form of government and weakness of any one of them will adversely affect the performance of government. Theoretically political and permanent executives perform a different role in government but in practice, their work is often overlapping and difficult to differentiate it. Keywords: administrative position; bureaucrats; civil servant; political executive; popular sovereignty; 2454-2261 © Copyright 2016. The Author. Published by IJCU Publishing. This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-SA license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) All rights reserved. Author correspondence: Rajbir Singh Dalal, Chairperson, Dept. of Public Admn., CDLU, Sirsa Email address: rajbirsinghdalal@gmail.com 1. Introduction The dichotomy of Politics and Administration is a classical theme in political science, started with the writing of Woodrow Wilson, Max Weber, and several other writers. But in today’s scenario, this idea of separation has been totally discarded and there seem overlapping areas. Which results into both conflict as well as cooperation between politicians and administrators. For a developing country like India, it becomes more important that both works in a harmonious relationship, giving full respect to each other to achieve the common goal. No doubt unholy alliance between the two gives rise to new scams. There was a famous television series in the United Kingdom in 1980s named ‘Yes Minister’(1). It was a political satire and criticized the system in a funny manner. In this, every morning the new and ardent minister gives daily orders to his senior civil servants and latter obediently say ‘Yes Minister’ but never follow the instructions. When again called by the minister for complaining they once again dutifully say ‘Yes Minister’. Condition remains same every time and nothing gets done. a Chairperson, Deptt of Public Admn., CDLU, Sirsa b Research Scholar, Deptt of Public Admn., CDLU, Sirsa brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by SLOAP - Scientific & Literature Open Access Publishing