A cynic might say the best reform an “administrative reforms” department can bring about is its own abolition. But what about its replacement, “governance reforms”? As Sir Humphrey would say, “Yes, minister.”
Mar 22, 2025 07:40 IST First published on: Mar 22, 2025 at 07:40 IST
Schrödinger’s cat, both alive and dead at the same time, depending on your interpretation of quantum mechanics, is known. Now, a Schrödinger’s government department has been discovered in Punjab. It existed for the past few years, headed by a succession of ministers. Except that it only had ministers. No officials, no lunch breaks, not even an office. This state of quantum indeterminacy continued till last month, when somebody decided to bell the (now deceased) cat.
The Department of Administrative Reforms was reformed out of existence in 2012, and replaced by the Department of Governance Reforms. But the former department went on to have a distinguished afterlife, with the then chief minister, Amarinder Singh, choosing to hold the “portfolio” himself when Congress came to power in 2017. Others succeeded him in the Congress and AAP governments, until the latest minister’s dogged pursuit of Administrative Reforms Department files led to the realisation that — as a subsequent notification put it, with admirable blandness — the department was “not in existence as on date”.
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This could have been a fantastic episode of the 1980s British political satire Yes Minister. Imagine an increasingly confused but determined Jim Hacker trying in vain to get hold of any files or meet anybody from the new department he’s been allocated, or even physically find its offices. Sir Humphrey Appleby, the mandarin par excellence, would at first deploy all means to obstruct the minister’s efforts and then eventually wax philosophical, explaining that existence and non-existence are relative. Bernard Woolley would chime in with a few helpful non-sequiturs. In fact, the name of the department in question is almost too on the nose — Hacker’s was “administrative affairs”. A cynic might say the best reform an “administrative reforms” department can bring about is its own abolition. But what about its replacement, “governance reforms”? As Sir Humphrey would say, “Yes, minister.”
