Editorial: Employed, and Playing Politics

Politics is an exciting engagement, one that evokes passionate stands and distracts very easily. Where Sikkim is concerned, its political milieu has traditionally been populated rather extensively by ex teachers and midlevel government servants. The now stale, but until recently notoriously in the news Rolu Picnic Politics, and the continuing whispers which circulate in government offices about political swings, need to be seen against this background. It is admittedly difficult in a State as small as Sikkim for anyone to remain genuinely apolitical; especially so for government servants, given the astoundingly slack concepts of accountability and the blissfully lax workload. The temptation to flirt with politics becomes difficult to ignore. The process begins surreptitiously, facilitated by a system where accountability is slack and job-responsibilities poorly defined and overlapping making it easier to start dispensing favours and bending rules. Before one even notices, official power gets mistaken for political clout and ambitions start taking over. It is invariably with such inflated senses of entitlement that notions [sometimes valid, at others imagined] of ‘victimisation’ [almost always read with transfers] get amplified. What are required-by-rules directives and office orders start getting seen as discrimination. Sikkim is a familiar with such sequences. What blurs the line even more is the confusion with which politics is mixed up with administration and government mistaken for Party. In a political environment thick with parties and slim on ideological commitments, the decision to take the plunge comes easy because options never dry out and crossovers rarely need to be explained with any conviction. What is more, at times a plunge is not even expected and players allowed to keep testing the waters, taking a hesitant dip and then retreating.
Not just government servants, but this situation makes it easy for everyone to ‘try out’ politics, sample all options and if nothing works out, step back into a supposedly apolitical lives. It is the facility with which the last option mentioned above [the one of turning apolitical] can be acquired that makes irresponsible dabbling in party politics so easy for most government servants. Let us agree first that while ideological political commitments are absolutely acceptable, and even welcome, it is the tendency to engage in ‘active’ politics, the one involving planning and negotiating, while still actively employed elsewhere that vitiates work cultures and political engagements. This latter involvement diverts attention [of the concerned government servants] from the tasks they draw salaries for, and should they be aligning with factions opposed to the ruling party, could also lead to wilful compromises of policy implementation. Politicians rarely suffer the fallout of such situations, and the loss, in the long run, is burdened on the people which the politicians and the government employees should be serving first. Politics does not compromise governance or administration, it is the politicking by wannabe-politicians that robs people of delivery. For that reason alone, it is advisable to maintain a healthy interest in politics and also hold opinions, but leave the politicking to politicians.