July 20, 2016
Kalaivaraikalai
Babus will need to be careful what they say, or draw, on social media.
The Centre on Tuesday proposed changes to the rulebook to explicitly treat
criticism of government policies on social media as a violation of conduct
rules. And the threat of disciplinary action is not limited to the written
word. It includes caricatures that are uncharitable to the government too.
The proposal comes weeks after an IAS officer Ajay Gangwar ‘liked’ a
Facebook post critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and praised first Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
“Let me know the mistakes that Nehru should not have committed...Is it his
mistake that he prevented all of us from becoming Hindu Talibani Rashtra in
1947?...” he wrote in the post, an oblique rebuttal to continuing attacks on
Nehru by BJP leaders.
Gangwar, who was Barwani collector, was transferred to the secretariat in
Bhopal by the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh government and told to give an explanation.
Government officials have always been barred from criticising government
policy or making statements that embarrass the Centre’s relations with a state
government or a foreign country.
But the provision only spoke about criticism made in a radio broadcast,
public media (such as television) or documents. Social media was not clearly
covered.
The change now fixes this gap.
“The member of service shall also not make any such statement on television,
social media or any other communication application,” the draft rule, sent by
the Centre’s department of personnel & training to state governments for
their views, said. It will be applicable to anonymous and pseudonymous posts by
officials too.
The restriction, however, is not unique to India.
Back in 2011, a British civil servant, identified at the end of a 7-month
investigation, was dismissed for mocking ministers through an anonymous Twitter
account. Next year, a Sergeant in the US Marines was sacked for a Facebook post
critical of US President Barack Obama. In 2013, an immigration officer lost her
job in Australia for posting tweets critical of the country’s asylum policy.
She too had tweeted from an anonymous account but it didn’t help.
In India, governments and courts have taken a more liberal view of officials
criticising its policy.
A senior IAS officer serving in the central government who criticised the
Election Commission in 2005 was only sent back to his cadre, West Bengal, in
2005. And the Supreme Court shielded another officer – now fertilizer secretary
VS Pandey -- from penalties in 2014 for remarks against corruption in the
government in his petition.
A government source said the existing rules were primarily addressed at
criticism made by officials in traditional television and print media, not the
new media. “The change primarily seeks to clarify the situation and not leave
any scope for misinterpretation,” he said.
For now, the changes are being made to the conduct rules for the three All
India Services – Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and
Indian Forest Service.
Once the government notifies the changes after reviewing suggestions from
the state governments, similar changes will be made to a separate set of the conduct
rules applicable for other employees to
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