A dangerous precedent

The government’s decisions to deploy senior bureaucrats as “rath prabharis” to publicise the achievements of the past nine years and to leverage the service of soldiers on leave to promote government schemes stretch the principles of governance in unprecedented and troubling ways. A controversial circular dated October 18 has mandated that bureaucrats of the rank of joint secretary, director, and deputy secretary be deployed in the country’s 765 districts to plan, prepare, and showcase “the achievements of the last nine years of government”. Before that, the Indian Army headquarters reportedly issued an order directing soldiers on annual leave to act