Aminullah Chaudary. Political Administrators: The Story of Civil Service of Pakistan. Oxford University Press, 2011. 371 pages, Rs 895.00.

A bureaucracy is a group of individuals who are non-electedand serve as government employees to help implement rules and laws of acountry. The term bureaucracy was created by combining the words‘bureau’ which means desk or office and ‘kratos’, meaning rule orpolitical power to govern. Different countries have adopted various waysto induct people to run the government and make new laws. Max Weber, arenowned and notable German administrative scholar is credited to be thepioneer of the use of bureaucracy in public administration. In this bookon the Civil Service of Pakistan, the author has described the waybureaucratic culture gained strength and restricted the grooming ofpolitical culture in the country. He shows how ‘seniority’ overwhelmed‘merit’ in the promotion process of the officers in the Civil Service ofPakistan (CSP), an offspring of the Indian Civil Service (ICS). The CSPofficers always considered themselves as an élite class and looked downupon the politicians. The author narrates the superior attitude ofIskander Mirza (a notable member of the ICS, then CSP) in these words:“Mirza was proud of his IPS and CSP lineage and never missed anopportunity of proclaiming this fact. His admiration for the colonialsystem of administration was matched by a corresponding contempt forpoliticians.” The relationship between the bureaucracy and the militarywas to ensure that politicians did not make a mess of things. Thebureaucracy was able to call on the military in times of crisis andnever worried about its overstaying the visit. The basic theme of theIndian Civil Service was that the local Indians were recruited asofficers by the British to suppress and control an enslaved people.Unfortunately, even after gaining independence the mindset of thebureaucratic staff didn’t change and they conveniently forgot that anindependent nation required a different approach.