Archive for the ‘human interest’ Category

1 Aug

Sisyphus and detachment

Posted by vramani in human interest.

The ongoing controversy over the visages of the Sarnath lions, which form the national emblem, brings to mind the emphasis laid by Gautama Buddha on the impermanence of life. What memories of this controversy will survive the ravages of time is a moot point. Many thinkers and poets over the past many centuries have lamented the ceaseless quest of the human for the material aspects of life — wealth, fame, power, glory, lineage, you name it. What unites these thinkers and writers is their recognition of the futility of human efforts directed wholly towards material ends and the need to develop a perspective that recognises the ephemeral character of all human achievements. I am not decrying the efforts of (wo)man as a sentient being trying to achieve self-actualisation through putting efforts into actions that create things: whether objects, ideas or empires. But, in the last analysis, every creation must be accompanied by the realisation that it is doomed to change and, ultimately, destruction.

Thus, Solon had the wisdom (and the courage) to counsel the Greek monarch Croesus about the shifting sands of fortune, which proved true when Croesus was taken prisoner by Cyrus, King of Persia. Ashtavakra, in imparting knowledge to King Janaka, focused on the necessity of detachment (‘vairagya’) in the individual, thus freeing him from bondage to earthly cares and concerns. Bhartrihari, in his Vairagya Shatakam, stresses the fears that accompany the accomplishments in life: enjoyment-disease, honour-humiliation, beauty-old age, body-death.

Shelley’s Ozymandias graphically highlights the futility of seeking permanence in human endeavour in the following words

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains.”

The ruins of so many capital cities over the ages are testimony to the vagaries of fortune. Delhi itself has gone through at least eight metamorphoses over two millennia. The modern equivalent is the destruction of business empires, exemplified by Joseph Schumpeter’s term “creative destruction “, referring to the destruction of existing economic structures and their replacement by new economic structures. Only five of the top 100 US companies of 1917 retain their position today; half of the top 100 US companies in 1970 have been replaced by newer companies today. This is not because of price competition, but reflects a revolutionary discontinuity following the introduction of new technology, new products and new forms of industrial organisation, much of which could not even have been envisaged decades earlier: we are only too aware of this in the age of the Internet and the ubiquitous all-in-one mini computing devices.

In the arena of twentieth century politics, we have the empty boast of a Thousand Year Reich in Germany which lasted barely twelve years, a mighty Soviet Union that crumbled almost overnight after a little over seventy years of existence and the endless parade of monarchs and dictators in countries around the globe. Pax Americana, which was taken as a given after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, is under serious threat today, as a multipolar world order seeks to rise to the surface. Scholars like Francis Fukuyama were sanguine about the rise of liberal democracies after the end of the Cold War; the first two decades of the twenty-first century see even long established democracies struggling to avoid being submerged in the tide of popular authoritarianism.

It is in the realm of the individual that the issue of impermanence assumes its most poignant shape. We are all witness to the movie superstar who fades into oblivion or the sportsperson racked by disease or facing impoverishment. Little wonder then that in the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira gave a reply to the Yaksha that “day after day, countless creatures are going to the abode of Yama, yet those that remain behind believe themselves to be immortal”. Adi Shankaracharya’s admonition to the person who takes pride in his/her youth, wealth and lineage is an apt reminder that all these accoutrements will fade away over time and will be of no avail once the mortal body is shed.

What then is the meaning of this grand opera that we call life? Are we to shun all material comforts and pleasures in the gloomy knowledge that all these will be left behind by us one day? Not really. What needs to be realised is the evanescence of all that we enjoy today and the stoic acceptance of the fact that much of it can be taken away from us even before we leave this earth. We need to adopt the philosophy of the King of Persia, highlighted by a not so well-known American editor, Theodore Tilton “EVEN THIS SHALL PASS AWAY”.

Perhaps the last thought on this subject in the present piece should rest with a person whom I consider one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, Albert Camus. His Myth of Sisyphus illustrates the absurdity of human existence even as it stresses the nobility of apparently meaningless human endeavour. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to “futile and hopeless labour”, involving pushing a rock to the top of a mountain from where it would roll down all the way to the plains below, necessitating a fresh effort from him to push it up to the top of the hill (in some ways, this reminds me of the Vikram and Vetal stories, where the king, Raja Vikramaditya, has to repeatedly bear the burden of a corpse and answer the questions of the spirit inhabiting the corpse , though the latter tale has a definite closure, unlike the former). Sisyphus is the ‘absurd hero’, going through a torment which will never end. And yet, his awareness of the torment and his scorn for the fate that has befallen him makes him a truly wise man “…who lives on what he has without speculating on what he has not…”. Only when we reach awareness of our human condition can we say “…I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”.

 

 

15 Dec

The loaves and fishes of office

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, irony, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , .

The recent brouhaha over the extension of tenures for specific officers of the Government of India even when they are well past the normal age of retirement has brought into focus again the issues of the sanctity of the retirement age and the possible interference by government in the independent functioning of officers handling crucial organisations, especially those endowed with enormous powers to investigate offences, both economic and otherwise. However, this is no recent development: fixed tenures for the Cabinet Secretary, Home, Foreign and Defence Secretaries, and Directors of the Intelligence Bureau and Research & Analysis Wing, extending beyond the normal age of superannuation, have been in vogue for a number of years now.

What has occasioned concern in recent days has been the Government of India’s decision to give five-year tenures to the heads of two Central Government investigative agencies that have often been caught in the crosshairs of political wars. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is no stranger to controversy: no less a body than the Supreme Court termed it a “caged parrot”. To the CBI has been added the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which has come into the public eye only in recent years. These two agencies, along with their country cousins, the Income Tax department, the National Investigation Agency and the Narcotics Control Bureau, have developed into falcons from parrots, with their deployment by the Central Government in a wide range of cases, amidst concerns as to whether these serve merely political ends or the ends of justice (the Sushant Singh Rajput and Aryan Khan cases serve as examples). Of even greater concern are the cases of raids, and selective disclosures, that surface whenever election time surfaces. Karnataka in 2018, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in 2021 are states where politicians of parties opposed to the BJP received special attention from central investigative agencies.

It is significant (and glaringly obvious) that officers were being given tenure posts or extensions in service just days before their date of superannuation (as witnessed in the appointment of the Police Commissioner of Delhi and the last-minute extension of tenure of the Director, ED). The recent amendments in Fundamental Rules and the changes in the Acts governing the CBI and ED aim to legalise extensions and attempt to put them beyond the pale of judicial challenge.

What is equally notable is the plethora of appointments to post-retirement posts, from the ranks of both the higher judiciary and the top echelons of the civil services. That this practice has the sanction of precedent is no cause for comfort. There have been far too many cases in the past three decades where the appointments to crucial posts of retired judges and bureaucrats have raised uncomfortable questions about possible quid pro quos for decisions favourable to the government of the day taken by the beneficiaries while in positions of power. While some of the pre- and post-retirement appointments go through a committee which has, apart from the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as its members, other crucial appointments, as for example, the Election Commissioners, are made purely at the discretion of the executive.

At a juncture in our democratic existence when many executive decisions are viewed with some measure of suspicion, there is need to evolve norms for appointments to the highest positions in the civil services that ease such suspicions as also mitigate the rising apprehension that serving civil servants are being induced through the carrot of continued service to shed their independence and impartiality in decision making. I venture to make some suggestions below to address this vexing issue.

Superannuation from public service should be mandatory on attaining the age of 60 for all members of the civil services. On attaining the specified age, civil servants should follow the shining example of RCVP Noronha, former Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, who refused any extension and rode away happily from the Secretariat on his Luna moped on the day he superannuated.

For all senior positions in constitutional/statutory bodies, like Members/Chairpersons of Commissions and Tribunals, where judicial/administrative experience is required, selection should be through a process of application. This should also apply to the heads of major investigation agencies, which enjoy powers of. search, seizure and confiscation. The final selection should be done by a Committee which comprises representatives of the concerned government, the judiciary or the Union Public Service Commission and representatives of opposition parties (for specific constitutional/executive posts, as is the case at present).

Most importantly, the selection of civil servants for all higher posts (administrative and quasi-judicial) should be structured such that the person superannuates from the post at the age of 60 years. This would imply that a person would be selected for such a post around the age of 55 years (for those in government), so that (s)he would cease to hold office, after a tenure of five years, at or just before her/his normal superannuation date. This has certain implications, both for these functionaries and for those in the organisations they have left in order to hold these select posts. For one, those who move to posts outside the government structure will create openings for their juniors to move into senior positions in their departments/organisations. There may also be cases where, in full knowledge of the fact that (s)he is not likely to be in the running for the top job in the executive, a person may choose to move laterally to these posts. It would certainly enable governments, both at the centre and in the states, to dispense with many posts at apex levels, which (especially in state governments) seem to be virtually dished out with the rations.

As for the contention that officers’ talents will not be used beyond their age of superannuation, these talents and competencies can well be displayed in a variety of other fields — media, business, academics, social service and politics being obvious avenues. Rephrasing the recent utterance of a noted senior advocate, “the heavens will not fall if a worthy replacement takes on the responsibility of the retiring incumbent.” Nor does it preclude the truly ambitious from aspiring to governorships/ambassadorships/Rajya Sabha memberships, depending on their equations with the central government of the day.

In the final analysis, such a change would spare us the unseemly spectacle of persons jockeying in their final days of service with the powers that be to ensure their continued access to naukar-chakar-bangla-gaadi, apart from the heady access to power and prestige that continued occupation of prestigious posts brings. Civil servants, indeed all humans, would do well to heed the words of Adi Sankaracharya in the Bhaja Govindam:

दिनयामिन्यौ सायं प्रातः, शिशिरवसन्तौ पुनरायातः।

कालः क्रीडति गच्छत्यायुस्तदपि न मुन्च्त्याशावायुः ॥१२॥

Day and night, dusk and dawn, winter and spring come and go again.

Time sports and life ebbs away, and yet the gust of desire never leaves us.

1 Dec

The Road to Authoritarianism

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, political economy, public affairs. Tagged: , .

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” (Charles Dickens: The Tale of Two Cities)

The opening words of Dickens’ novel capture the situation today rather forcefully. Liberal democracy, which has seen many ups and downs since 1688, through 1776, 1789, the 1940s-50s and 1989, is facing an existential crisis circa 2021. Human society is no stranger to authoritarian domination but its creeping engulfment of liberal democracies one after another in the absence of major wars or other crises (barring possibly the COVID pandemic) threatens the values that inspired the numerous movements for self-determination over the last few centuries. An analysis of authoritarian trends, whether in religion, society or the polity, shows that four A’s (Abnegation, Ambition, Apprehension, Apathy) nourish the growth of the fifth A (Authoritarianism).

Abnegation

Whether in social groups, religious denominations, ‘godmen’ cults or nation states, surrender of the members is the first step towards the development of an authoritarian environment. Tribal and caste loyalties and the divinity ascribed to an omniscient being, ruler or ecclesiastical organisations were prominent in pre-industrial societies. Norms and rules ostensibly handed down by prophets served to keep the masses in thrall to those in authority, with no challenge to the established order. The ferment engendered in societies worldwide over the past two and a half centuries for the establishment of the values of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity seemed to have ensconced the idea of liberal democracy as the guiding principle for nation states since the 1990s. The 2008 economic crisis and the failure of most liberal democracies to tackle growing economic inequalities in their societies, coupled with a growing disillusionment with the governing elites in most countries, have deepened insecurities and led to a desperate desire for a strong man (no woman currently in sight) in countries across different continents, ranging from Trump and Bolsonaro in the Americas to Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India and Duterte in the Philippines. “The leader can do no wrong” is the mantra chanted by the glitterati and the chatterati, with enough support from sections of the electorate to see the leader and his party safely home.

This phenomenon of surrender of one’s critical faculties is rooted to some extent in the authoritarian environment that obtains to a significant extent in families, the education system, religions and the workplace. But it is equally, if not more, a reflection of the deep insecurities that confront humans as they struggle to come to terms with their lives and the desperate need to entrust their ‘souls’ to a comforting, omniscient being or organisation. The terrifying prospect of a lonely contemplation of one’s existential dilemmas is mitigated, and even removed altogether, by participation in a group with a larger purpose. A messiah with whom one can lodge all one’s worries and anxieties is the path that most such souls crave for.

However, this Faustian bargain of complete surrender of one’s soul comes with the tag of unquestioned obedience and willingness to act according to the commands of the messiah and his organisation. We have been witness over the past century to millions of humans blindly obeying the diktats of autocrats, even if it meant the extermination of countless of their fellow humans. That this was seen in supposedly “rational” societies was bizarre; that we observe its continuance today in countries with a long history of liberal democratic practices indicates that basic human traits have undergone little change despite education and exposure to liberal, humanistic values.

Ambition

Sections of society feel that they never got their just due in a liberal environment. These could range from academics with a pronounced right-wing orientation (as in India) to disgruntled politicians in opposition parties to those in the permanent employment of government who are of the view that their talents were not recognised. However, there are also many other individuals, from sectors ranging from the media, entertainment, academics and the bureaucracy, who smell the coffee in hitching their stars to an ideology that loathes liberal democratic ideals and places emphasis on adherence to nationalism, in its narrowest, exclusivist sense. Expediency rules the day: echoing the mantras of the ruling dispensation and providing unquestioning (and unthinking) “intellectual” and administrative support to the ideas propounded by the ruling dispensation enable these individuals to rise to and continue in positions of power and influence in the ruling order of the day. But ambition, to be really successful, must be accompanied by a willingness, indeed a fanatical urge, to outdo other potential competitors in anticipating the wishes of the leader (what, in Nazi parlance, was termed working towards the Fuhrer). This includes blindly implementing hairbrained schemes of the leader, unquestioningly harassing dissenters and opponents of the regime and indulging, repeatedly, in nauseous and fulsome praise of the thoughts and actions of the leader.

Apprehension

In this third category fall those who, though not really sold on the vision of the leader and his party or not ambitious by nature, fear the adverse consequences of not being seen as loyal to the ruling regime. These could include bureaucrats who fear being sidelined or media tycoons who fear that action may be taken against their empires. This group includes many political leaders who, apprehending executive action against them, find it more convenient to join hands with the ruling party. It may also cover those who participate in activities approved by the regime to avoid being perceived as not sympathetic to the ruling ideology.

Apathy

By far the largest segment of societies moving towards authoritarianism comprises those who choose to distance themselves from taking any ideological position. Their horizon comprises themselves and their immediate families and they are unwilling to, in any way, be seen as supporting or approving actions that may be perceived as inimical to the interests of the ruling group. Their attitude manifests itself most starkly at election time, when they vote for the leader’s party without any real conviction or understanding as regards its programmes and ideas. They will parrot the WhatsApp views of their neighbours, family members and friends, who are enthusiastic votaries of the ruling ideology, though they themselves would be hard pressed to explain what it is about the ruling dogmas that attracts them. The Eichmanns of the world arise from this category: even when sending Jews to the gas chambers, he was not moved by any emotion but merely saw himself as efficiently executing his job.

When the above four categories of individuals predominate in a society (generally with a combination of more than one of the four traits), the descent down the abyss of authoritarianism can be fairly rapid, even though the warning signs were probably there for decades prior to the actual denouement. The consequences for liberal democracy can be disastrous. Institutions charged with maintaining checks and balances on unbridled executive power are the first victims, as the regime sets about stripping them of their powers and packs them with its apparatchiks. Civil society is the next target: a combination of saam-daam-dand-bheda is employed to persuade / purchase / dissuade / divide people in this sphere to ensure that no effective dissent remains to question the actions of the government of the day. The stage is then set for the executive to fashion laws and rules to meet its ends: the rule of law, as understood in a liberal democracy, ceases to operate.

The real tragedy lies in the ratchet effect of the change brought about in society. Societies that go through these traumatic transitions to authoritarianism find it much harder to reestablish a liberal democracy years later. Institutions, once destroyed, are not so easily established again. The psyche of a people that has undergone a metamorphosis from a liberal underpinning to an authoritarian grip will take years, if not generations, to change. After all, it has taken not even seventy years after the trauma of the Second World War (and thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall) for serious crises to develop in liberal democracies. How people endowed with wisdom and foresight handle this existential threat to liberal democracy will determine its trajectory for the rest of this century and probably future centuries.

1 Mar

The Castor-Chomu dynamics in Indian society

Posted by vramani in human interest, humour, political economy. Tagged: , , , .

I was introduced to the Castor-Chomu classification of individuals when I visited BITS-Pilani in 1975 to participate in its cultural festival, OASIS ’75. Apparently, the city-bred, convent educated students, whose lingua franca was English and who favoured Western pop and rock music constituted the Castors. In contradistinction were the Chomus, the students drawn from mofussil towns, who were patrons of Vividh Bharati and Hindi film music and communicated with each other to a large extent in the vernacular tongue, especially Hindi. This distinction struck a chord in me, a person who fitted into neither mould. To avoid being accused of a class bias, Castor, for the purposes of this blog, refers to the largely metro-based individual who received education in ‘elite’ institutions in India and abroad, coming from families that qualify as upper/upper middle class, securely employed or possessed of inherited wealth. Chomu covers those from medium to low income families, educated mostly in vernacular medium schools, whose parents sweat and toil to give them access to quality education that will open up remunerative job avenues for their wards. The distinction I employ here resonates with my classification of two elites in an earlier blog, the Lutyens ‘47 gang and the Lutyens ‘92 group (see The Lutyens’ Class Wars).

Although educated in a ‘mission’ school, I was nowhere near constituting part of the Castor elite. I still remember my first appearance for my school team in the Bournvita Quiz Contest when, in reply to a question on my hobbies from that doyen of quizmasters, Hamid Sayani, I mentioned Hindi film music, only to see the opposing girls’ school team dissolve in a fit of giggles at my plebeian choice. This dichotomy continued when I joined St. Stephen’s College (or Mission College) to pursue my undergraduate studies. A significant number of Stephanians were from public schools (a more correct term would be ‘private’ schools) like Doon School and Mayo College. Aping our colonial forebears, those of us in hostels were deemed to be “in residence”. The English-vernacular dichotomy was again quite pronounced: it was more fashionable to attend English debates and Western music shows rather than listen to Hindi film music and Hindi debates. The election for the President of the College Union Society (Stephanian isolation from the rest of the University did not allow for sullying one’s hands in sordid University politics) saw a metro-based candidate pitted against a rival from what we would today call a Tier-2 town. The former could be said to have to have broadly had the support of the Castors and the latter of the Chomus, though in the best of democratic traditions, there was a fair amount of floor crossing and cross voting. As it transpired, the metro man won.

History reversed itself in 1980, which I consider a watershed year in the Castor-Chomu epic struggle. I qualified for the civil services in the first year when a new system of examinations were introduced, which gave candidates from hinterland areas a far better chance of being successful. The Castor-Chomu conflict manifested itself in the Mussoorie training academy during the election to the Presidentship of the Mess Committee. The Castor nominee, supported largely by Delhi-bred and educated probationers lost to his Chomu rival from a second tier town, supported by the officers from small town and rural backgrounds. More significantly, the civil services, in the years to follow, saw the entrance of officers from smaller towns from all over India and a large influx of professionals from the engineering, management and medical fields. The hegemony of the Delhi University history postgraduate in the civil services literally became history.

Even though the social composition of the younger echelons of the civil services underwent a radical change, the veterans were still the old urban-based class, most comfortable with English and tied to each other by the common bonds of an elite university education and membership of a closed Delhi group which had access to the rarefied portals of the Delhi Gymkhana, the India International Centre and the Delhi Golf Club. Coveted positions in the bureaucracy, especially choice foreign assignments, still went to those younger officers who were the protégés of these venerable worthies. Journalism and academia were two other areas where the Castor influence was still evident, with those educated in Delhi’s premier universities dominating the landscape. The bureaucrat, journalist, academic and the increasingly ubiquitous representative of international organisations formed a cosy set which frequented the same watering holes, attended the same seminars and went on junkets abroad, financed by the aforesaid international organisations.

1992 marked the second watershed in the upward ascent of the Chomu. The demolition of the Babri Masjid gave cheer to a large number of Indians who had never been accepted in the rarefied environments of Lutyens Delhi or South Bombay (as it was then). The eclipse of the Congress in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections paved the way for governments that comprised persons removed to at least some extent from the Castor influence. Gradually, those who would, in the normal course of events, have comfortably continued in the Castor group shifted their allegiance to the Chomus. The years 1998 to 2004 saw this internal churn in the Castor group, with a goodly number of educated intellectuals, especially those who felt they had been bypassed in the issue of just rewards in terms of high office and posts in government, moving firmly to the ranks of the party that was seen as espousing and supporting Chomu aspirations to a more exalted position in society and in the political framework.

But it was undoubtedly 2014 that ushered in the decisive shift in the balance of power to the Chomus. The previous decade of UPA rule had witnessed a gradual disillusionment about the Congress party in influential sections of the Castors, who pined for a decisive leader and a party that was not tainted by widespread allegations of corruption. (That they forgot to imbibe the lessons of George Orwell’s Animal Farm is another matter altogether). The last seven years have seen many who would earlier have been visualised only as Castors casting their lot with a party that relies to a considerable extent on Chomu support and makes no bones about its dislike for the descendants of the Castor class, pejoratively referring to them as the Khan Market gang (for those not familiar with Delhi, Khan Market is supposed to be the watering hole of the swish, westernised set of Delhi).

Little wonder then that there have been systematic efforts in recent years to create a new weltanschauung in the Indian psyche. Universities, under enthusiastic Vice-Chancellors, have sought to reframe the academic curriculum, long seen by right-wing academics as overly influenced by liberal and Marxist thought. The Indian middle class from the majority community has been inundated with a surfeit of rhetoric and propaganda designed to stir its nationalist instincts and invoke pride in its cultural heritage spread over millennia. The Central Vista project to redesign and rebuild the entire architecture of Lutyens-designed New Delhi represents the apogee of the aspirations of those who seek to give a specific shape to the Chomu identity. India’s masses will no longer have to genuflect to the symbols created by an imperial power and by those who, though Indian in name, represented the same world view.

As the Castor-Chomu dynamics of politics and social power play out on the Indian landscape, there is only one crucial issue that remains to be kept in mind, namely the Holy Grail that represents the Constitution of India. If Abrahamic religions can be said to rely on a holy book, the Indian nation has come into being on the foundations of this document. Having drawn on the best principles of different Constitutions from around the world and on healthy democratic practices, the Constitution of India came into existence as the result of the informed deliberations of an august body of individuals in the years immediately preceding and following India’s independence. This is a Constitution that is meant to be followed not just in letter, but in spirit. As Dr. Ambedkar stressed in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on 25 November 1949 “The first thing…we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives.” He also emphasised the close interrelation of the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity enunciated in the Preamble to the Constitution of India. It is the manner in which citizens of India abide by these cardinal precepts of democratic behaviour, in thought, word and deed, which will determine the future of India as a haven for democracy, in a world buffeted by the storms of autocratic practices.

 

1 Feb

Opposition In Residence

Posted by vramani in human interest, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , .

(James Hacker, Minister in Her Majesty’s Government: “The Opposition aren’t the opposition…They’re only the opposition in exile. The Civil Service is the opposition in residence.” – Yes Minister, Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn)

Politicians in India, at least from Indira Gandhi onwards, have, notwithstanding their pious public utterances, always veered in favour of a “committed bureaucracy”, faithfully executing the dictates of the party in power. The general public, therefore, has this mistaken impression that civil servants mindlessly toe the line of their political masters (I don’t dare use the feminine equivalent). This is not quite the whole truth, at least in the three decades when I was in service from 1980 onwards. Not that we did not have our share of those who were ready to oblige the political executive for a mess of pottage. But there were sections of the civil service that did their utmost to ensure that their political bosses did not get their way in issues that reeked of impropriety or financial wrongdoing.

I have written earlier on the tactics that can be employed to forestall patently illegal requests from the political class (see here). These include (a) let us see, “Parkalam” in Tamil and “Baghoon sangto” in Marathi; (b) making oneself scarce; (c) sending the file into orbit; (d) setting up a committee; (e) recording one’s views on file; (f) asking for written orders; and (g) asking/getting  ready for a transfer. These distracting tactics are not necessarily a reflection of bureaucratic ego or of an innate desire to take no decisions. Mostly, they are intended to give time for reflection on the proposed course of action or to make the vexed issue irrelevant with the passage of time.

Apart from the bureaucratic bulwark against impetuous, risky decision making, there are even more crucial checks and balances in a functioning democracy which are intended to check autocratic tendencies in the political executive. Brute majorities in the Lok Sabha (think India 1971/1984/2019) tend to invest a sense of infallibility in the minds of the majority party leaders. It is easily forgotten that democracy is not just the exercise of their electoral rights by citizens at five year intervals but also the giving of voice to their hopes and aspirations in the interregnum between elections. Four institutions play major roles in this theatre of democracy: legislatures, the judiciary, media and civil society.

Central and state legislatures are the first check on arbitrary executive actions. Even where the opposition is in truncated numbers, its voice can be powerful when its representatives speak fearlessly on issues of public importance. In the Nehru-Indira heyday, politicians like Minoo Masani, Piloo Mody, Nath Pai, Madhu Dandavate, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Jyotirmoy Basu commanded respect with their scathing denunciations of ruling party actions, couched always in parliamentary language. House committees were dreaded by bureaucrats for their interrogation of executive actions. Parliamentary debates, reported fully by the print media, gave citizens an idea of what their leaders were up to. Bills went through discussions in select committees before they were put to vote. Ordinances were resorted to as a last, emergency option only when the House was unlikely to convene in a reasonable time period. That these vital functions of the legislature have been given the go-by in recent months and years is a cause for concern. Important bills are either subject to inadequate legislative scrutiny or are rushed through as money bills, obviating the need for passage by the Upper House – abrogation of Article 370, passage of the CCA and farm bills are prime examples of legislative bulldozing. Ordinances are now the new flavour, with the COVID pandemic providing a ready excuse to bypass legislatures.

The courts are the main support of citizens against arbitrary executive actions backed by pliant legislatures. While the seal of approval given by the highest court of the land in the early years of our democracy to preventive detention and sedition laws caused unease in liberal minds, the court did qualify the exercise of such sweeping powers by the state in a number of landmark judgments. The enunciation of the principle of “basic structure of the Constitution” in the 1973 Kesavananda Bharati case had reassured the public that the judiciary would safeguard the Constitution against executive encroachment. That the Supreme Court went against this principle in the 1976 ADM Jabalpur case was a setback to personal freedoms, though the court corrected its position in this case forty years later. With the Supreme Court entertaining public interest litigations (PILs) and taking suo motu cognisance of issues of vital public importance, the next few decades saw a phase of judicial activism that seemed to bode well for a healthy democracy where the judiciary kept the executive in check. This trend has, unfortunately, gone into reverse gear in recent times with a number of executive and legislative actions yet to go on the anvil of judicial scrutiny. Prominent among these are the electoral bonds issue, demonetisation, the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, the CAA law and the three farm laws. More worryingly, the Supreme Court (and many High Courts) are yet to pronounce on executive actions that have impinged on basic freedoms of citizens: the large number of pending habeas corpus petitions, the internet restrictions in Jammu & Kashmir and the incarceration and denial of bail in many cases involving civil society activists, journalists and intellectuals.

The media, both print and electronic, has largely abdicated its role as guardian of the qui vive. During the 1975-77 Emergency, it crawled when merely asked to bend: now it is, with notable exceptions, ready to lend its services for dissemination of inaccurate, sensational news and take partisan positions on issues of public importance. The spread of digital and social media has mitigated this one-sided view somewhat but, with the likely introduction of curbs on such independent media, the prospects for free and frank expression of points of view appear dim.

Finally then, it is left to civil society, especially those in its ranks who cherish the values enshrined in the Constitution, to raise the flag for the fundamental rights listed in Part III of the Constitution. When all other avenues to secure timely justice and redress of grievances seem to be foreclosed, sections of civil society have resorted to the satyagraha route propounded by Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle. This was vividly illustrated in the two mass movements — the anti-CAA and the farmers’ protests — over the past year. As the Mahatma was to emphasise in his experiments with satyagraha, it is based on an inviolable relationship between the means and ends, with its essence in the purity of means, totally non-violent in nature, adopted by a pure person, as also in the constant quest of this person to purify her/himself through self-examination. The satyagraha effort can be undermined and brought to a close because of external “Chauri Chaura” events, such as civil disturbances (riots/violence) or natural occurrences (COVID), as witnessed in recent times.

Mutual tolerance and respect for institutions are the hallmarks of true democrats. A democrat at heart is aware that (s)he holds the position of power for only as long as the people wish and that there has to be space for opposing viewpoints in a functioning democracy. Equally, other political formations have to be given due regard and the space to function freely. But even more important is the recognition of the inviolability of institutions meant to safeguard democracy. It is these institutions that, as the checks and balances in a democratic society, act as the real “opposition” in keeping the executive under control. As in the case of charity, democracy too begins at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 Feb

Jeenaa Yahaan Marnaa Yahaan

Posted by vramani in citizenship, government, human interest, political economy, public affairs, public policy. Tagged: , , , , .

(The full forms of the acronyms used in this blog are given at the end for easy reference)

Like a pesky earworm, the words of songs from Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker keep reverberating in my ears nowadays when I sit down to pen my blogs. If it was Jaane Kahaan Gaye Voh Din that resonated with me when I wrote my last blog, the present blog brought to mind that priceless masterpiece Jeenaa Yahaan Marnaa Yahaan. Lest my reader think that I am engulfed in maudlin sentimentality, let me emphasise that there is a logic to the use of these titles. My last blog reflected my dismay at the state of affairs in India’s district/police administration. The present blog focuses on the issue uppermost in the minds of most, if not all, of India’s 1.3 plus billion inhabitants. Yes, I refer to the CAA-NPR-NRIC triad, which has occasioned intense but non-violent protests on a scale not seen for many years.

Thanks to the wisdom and humanity of the politicians at the helm of India’s governance in the years after her independence, India went in for a liberal interpretation of citizenship, based on the jus soli principle, i.e, birth in India after 26 January 1950 was deemed to qualify one for Indian citizenship. The first blow to this principle came in 1987 in the wake of the Assam Accord. From 1 July 1987, birth in India was not a sufficient condition for citizenship: one parent also had to be a citizen of India by birth. This meant a move towards the concept of jus sanguinis in defining citizenship, with descent, rather than birth alone, being the defining criterion for citizenship. The second, and far more telling, move towards a more constricted definition of citizenship came with the 2003 Act. Not only was one parent required to be a citizen of India, there was the additional stipulation that, at the time of birth, the other parent should not have been an “illegal migrant” (defined as a foreigner who entered India without valid documents or who, with valid documents, overstayed in India beyond the permitted period). It is instructive to note that the 1987 and 2003 changes in the definition of “citizenship by birth” in the 1955 Act, as well as the 2003 Rules seemed to enjoy a broad consensus across the political spectrum. Not only did the previous UPA government go along with all these provisions, it even toyed with the idea of the NPR followed by the NRIC before carrying out the NPR exercise in 2010 and then dropping the idea of the NRIC in favour of the Aadhaar exercise.

It is the third move in 2019 to amend the 1955 Act that has finally set the cat among the pigeons. Efforts since 2016 to amend the 1955 Act to provide fast track access to Indian citizenship to “persecuted” persons belonging to specific countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan) had been stymied by the inability to get the legislation through the Rajya Sabha; support from non-BJP parties, which either did not understand the implications of the legislation or chose to support it out of their own political calculations saw it enacted within the space of three days in December 2019.

A reading of the CAA reveals nothing about granting fast track citizenship to “persecuted” minorities from the three countries in our neighbourhood. While this view may have been put forth in the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the CAB, its absence in the CAA is puzzling. Even if the word “persecuted” finds its way into the Rules to be enacted to give effect to the CAA, determining whether or not a claimant for Indian citizenship has indeed  been persecuted in his/her former country will be very difficult. There is also the issue of the claims of refugees from other countries in the neighbourhood – Shias/Ahmadiyyas from Pakistan, Tamils from Sri Lanka, Rohingyas from Myanmar – which will fall through the sieve. Not only, therefore, are there serious issues relating to the CAA violating the principles of equality and secularism (parts of the inviolable basic structure of the Constitution of India), there is also the moral indefensibility of a statute that seeks to pick and choose who among the residents of India’s neighbouring countries is eligible for Indian citizenship. In any case, the process had already commenced from 2015: in a set of four notifications issued quietly between September 2015 and September 2016 under the 1955 Act, illegal migrants from the religious communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan now covered under the CAA had already been exempted “from the adverse penal consequences of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 and the Foreigners Act, 1946 and rules or notifications made thereunder” (as stated in the same Statement of Objects and Reasons at the time of introduction of the CAB in Parliament). These notifications exempted such classes of “illegal immigrants” from prosecution and also provided for their obtaining long-term visas  to stay in India. A government that wanted to favour specific groups from certain countries could well have exercised its existing powers on a case by case basis without highlighting the exclusion of India’s largest minority religion.

It, therefore, appears that the BJP wanted to ensure that the NRC process in Assam does not affect the large number of Hindus who had been declared “illegal immigrants” under that exercise. In the process, the government and the party ruling at the centre ended up with a double whammy. The indigenous people of Assam have made it clear for over forty years that they are opposed to migration from across the international border, irrespective of the religion of the migrant. Even the exclusion of tribal and Inner Permit line areas in the North East from the ambit of CAA has not assuaged feelings, especially in Upper Assam. At the same time, the exclusion of Muslims from the CAA has occasioned a different sort of apprehension in India’s largest minority. This is linked to the feeling among Indian Muslims that they have been at the receiving end of many events over the past five years – the beef ban and consequent lynching of Muslim dairy farmers, the love jihad crusade of Hindu vigilante groups, the opposition to the performance of namaaz in public places and, in general, a vitiated level of public discourse which questions the loyalty to India of the Muslim community.

Brutus may have seen the tide in the affairs of men, taken at the flood, leading on to fortune. Unfortunately, for the central government, the tide has come in at a rather inopportune time. The CAB was on the anvil from 2016. Had it been passed at that time, when the NPR and NRIC were nowhere on the horizon, the three issues may not have been linked together. There are also various events since the middle of 2019 which have heightened the sense of insecurity in Indian Muslims. The abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India and the virtual shutdown of Kashmir since August 2019 followed by the Supreme Court decision in the Ayodhya matter had already caused deep unease in the community. The reports of human suffering occasioned by the Assam NRC as lakhs of people ran from pillar to post to establish their rights to Indian citizenship were compounded by the belligerent statements from those at the highest levels of the central government that the NRC would be extended to the entire country, coupled with accounts of detention centres coming up in different parts of the country. These developments, linked with the CAA’s specific exclusion of Muslims, raised fears that the CAA-NPR-NRIC combination could see substantial segments of the Muslim community losing their Indian citizenship.

While the central government has been reiterating that the CAA is intended only to enable those from the three neighbouring countries get fast track citizenship, the NPR-NRIC provisions (enunciated in the 2003 Rules), which allow for a government functionary at a fairly junior level to raise doubts about the citizenship status of a person, give cause for apprehensions. As of date, there is still no clarity as to what documents, if any, will be required to establish one’s citizenship. In a country where birth registration systems have been notoriously lax in the past (though improving now), proving the fact of one’s birth in India could prove well-nigh impossible, more so if the standard documents, such as passports and voter identity cards, are not acceptable as proof of citizenship.

This is not the place to raise all the issues relating to the difficulties in proving one’s citizenship. Suffice to say that, post-1991, the Indian populace was getting used to not having to stand in queues for every facility, a feature of the forty years prior to 1991 for getting access to milk, kerosene, landline telephones and LPG connections. This habit was revived in the post-demonetisation phase from November 2016, when every resident of India stood for hours in queues to be able to draw cash from banks. One certainly hopes and prays that the NPR-NRIC exercise, wherever implemented, does not lead to interminable queues in front of tahsil and municipal offices as people seek to prove their Indian citizenship. Political parties and governments have their own reasons for carrying through this onerous exercise. The aam aurat/aadmi just wants to carry on with the business of daily life and securing her/his roti, kapda and makaan. For her/him, what is relevant is this line sung by Mukesh:

 

जीना यहाँ मरना यहाँ इसके सिवा जाना कहाँ

 

1955 Act: Citizenship Act, 1955

2003 Act: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003

2003 Rules: Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003

BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party

CAA: Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

CAB: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019

NRC: National Register of Citizens

NRIC: National Register of Indian Citizens

NPR: National Population Register

UPA: United Progressive Alliance

 

30 Jan

Jaane Kahaan Gaye Voh Din

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, political economy, public affairs. Tagged: , , , .

What particularly disturbed me about the recent events linked to the anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi was the numerous reports of the high-handed behaviour of the police force with students and the public  as well as their studied inaction when armed goons were given a free run of the JNU in the heart of New Delhi. Even if they had indeed been subjected to assault and grave provocation in UP (as they claim), there was no case for the police to vandalise residential dwellings and intimidate family members of those who may have been protesting on the streets. It is a laid down maxim of law and order maintenance that only so much force should be used as is required to bring the situation under control. Nor was there any justification for the use of unchecked violence by the guardians of law and order within the precincts of two reputed institutions of higher learning. But the evidence on record seems to indicate a police force intent on “teaching a lesson” to anti-CAA protesters and instilling fear in students in India’s premier universities.

As someone who has often been on the streets in his district days handling crowds (and mobs), I often wonder how a district officer (executive magistrate or police) can so easily forget his/her relationship with the local people. An officer posted in a district (or city) is in a fiduciary position with respect to the entire population in his/her jurisdiction. That is to say, a relationship of trust must exist between the government functionary and those s(he) serves. Nothing can be more satisfying (and, indeed, gratifying) to go back to an area one has served in two or three decades ago and run into people who remember one affectionately. What this requires, above all, is a deep commitment to the people one serves. Even when some of them are angry and hell bent on destructive activities, the effort should always be to resolve the immediate situation as peacefully as possible (use of force being a last resort) and, thereafter, rebuild the citadel of trust and mutual existence.

Maintaining a peaceful atmosphere in an area requires the officer to abide by the glorious words enunciated in the Preamble to the Constitution of India which highlight the eternal principles of “justice, liberty, equality and fraternity” and the word “secular”, which has been debased in the present day. Contrary to what right-wing moralists think, “secular” means an equal respect for all religions and religious practices with the full right being given to all to follow whatever beliefs they held. The District Magistrate (DM) and the Superintendent of Police (SP) are present at occasions of all religions / sects / communities, not merely to maintain law and order but equally to share in the sentiments of the members of all communities. In my time as a DM, I participated in activities on the occasions of Ambedkar Jayanti, Shivaji Jayanti, Ganapati festival, Ramzan Id and Bakrid, apart from the Urs of local saints.

This close relationship with people of different communities had its dividends when external events threatened to derail amity between these communities. Apart from formal Peace Committee meetings at district and taluka headquarters, there was also an outreach by the district administration to leaders and opinion makers in various political outfits and religious denominations to gauge the mood in different sections of the public, as also to send across the message that a close watch was being kept on activities likely to be detrimental to the maintenance of law and order.

Which is where I am aghast at the turn of events over the past six weeks, in Delhi and even more so in UP. Independent reports seem to indicate that the police at the thana level were operating on the direct orders of their political overlords, with little control by district officers. Barring one or two instances, there was no interaction of senior district officers like the DM and SP with the media; in fact, there was little evidence of their presence at the scenes of action. Nor were the Police Commissioner (CP) of Delhi or his senior officers to be seen handling the situation at JNU: the absence of arrests after three weeks tells its own tale.

What is increasingly worrisome is the sluggish response of the law and order machinery to open challenges to its authority. In the case of the agitations against the CAA, the intelligence outfits ought to have been aware of the unease in sections of the public. Surely, additional force could have been mustered to deal with the developing situation. Were any efforts made by the district administration to engage with local leaders to work out a method for peaceful expression of the feelings of those aggrieved?

I also find it difficult to believe that the district administration cannot, through impartial but strict policing of a developing situation, control the negative fallout. Lists of history sheeters, rowdies and known troublemakers are available with every DM and SP. The standard practice before festivals and before likely outbreaks of violence is to take preventive action under the Criminal Procedure Code, local Police Acts and, where absolutely necessary, even invoke the National Security Act. Generally, even-handed action is initiated against such elements in different communities to ensure that vested political interests are not able to assemble armies of such elements.

The pernicious influence of tawdry politics on the police and executive magistracy was already visible to me two decades ago, when I returned to district governance after a ten-year hiatus. Transfers of even taluka officials were being managed from state headquarters (in a supposedly progressive state like Maharashtra) and district and sub-district officers had developed close relationships with Ministers and MLAs. But it has been an article of faith for me (and many of my colleagues in the IAS and IPS) that firm, principled leadership of the DM and SP (and, where applicable, the CP and police officers under him) can enable control of volatile situations even in troubled times like those we see today.

It is here that I note with dismay the almost total abdication of their duties by the magistracy and police in the unfortunate occurrences in UP, Delhi and Karnataka since mid-December 2019. Where the police and district administration should have tactfully handled inflamed public opinion and let it release steam, they adopted strong-arm tactics. That a tactful approach worked in all those states where the police were not under pressure from the government of the day only proves the point. Where the police should have stepped in firmly (in JNU) when cognizable offences under the Indian Penal Code were being committed, they chose to look the other way, so much so that not one attacker has been arrested so far. The brazen shooting incident in Jamia in the full presence of the Delhi Police on Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary stands mute testimony to the utter collapse of policing in Delhi.

A healthy democratic system is critically dependent on effective, impartial institutions that are committed to upholding the rule of law. Often, this requires officers to take actions that are not to the liking of those in power, even if the consequences for these officers are not pleasant. But the recent instances where the police have overreacted, in UP and Delhi (Jamia), and have been wilfully inactive (JNU) point to a deeper malaise where the administrative leadership is virtually non-existent. Such a situation is hardly likely to inspire citizen confidence in its police. It is not as though in riots in the past, the district administration and the police were not partisan or sectarian in their approach. But in comparison with the present day, we may well be left feeling nostalgic for even a flawed administration of the past, humming Raj Kapoor’s line “जाने कहाँ गए वह दिन”.

 

 

 

26 Sep

Bhasha on…regardless!

Posted by vramani in human interest, political economy, public affairs. Tagged: , , .

India’s Home Minister recently added tadka to the khichdi that comprises the languages of India when he emphasised the importance of Hindi as a unifying force in India. An issue that has exercised us Bharatiyas since the days of Potti Sriramulu and Lal Bahadur Shastri got a fresh lease of life more than half a century later. How could my Tamil friends take this challenge lying down, not to mention other assorted political formations? So we had our latest edition of the Tower of Babel, with every print columnist, channel news anchor and self-declared expert weighing in on both sides of the language divide. Many joules of heat and lumens of light later, the issue remains unresolved, with all parties adamant on their respective stands till “death do us part”. Let me, therefore, offer my humble two-bit solution to the imbroglio.

I must clarify at the outset that I am a truly hybrid product of India’s first post-independence generation. Having settled in the north for livelihood purposes, my parents favoured the usual English-medium education schools as our passport to a comfortable future. English became the lingua franca of communication with family and friends. The second language, Hindi, was learnt with difficulty. It would be unfair to blame the pedagogy of the teachers, our mindsets were probably more to blame. Of the third language, Sanskrit, the less said the better. What we learnt by rote we vomited on to our answer sheets, till we were delivered from it after the eighth grade.

In such a milieu, one’s mother tongue suffers. Far away from Tamil Nadu, with no access to learning aids, one acquired enough spoken skills to pass muster in then Madras and Madras state (now Chennai and Tamil Nadu). Reading and writing abilities in the language were minimal, with the resultant lack of exposure to the rich heritage of Tamil literature. Determined not to repeat this mistake in Maharashtra, the state where I have spent most of the last four decades, I focused on my language skills, through extensive reading, writing and speaking in Marathi. My ego is boosted from time to time by the astonished looks I get from people with whom I interact in fluent Marathi. A recent extended sojourn in Bengaluru has also seen me acquire a smattering of Kannada.

The point I am trying to drive home is that proficiency in a language has a lot to do with one’s eagerness to immerse oneself in a language and its literature, apart from the need for effective survival in the new environment. Not being posted only in Mumbai, interacting with the public over fifteen years in field postings and making file notings in Marathi enabled me to reach my present comfort levels in Marathi.

Rajaji (C. Rajagopalachari), as Chief Minister of Madras province, stirred up a hornet’s nest when he introduced Hindi in the province in 1937. The Hindi Prachar Sabhas in Madras were quite popular and made their students quite proficient in the language. My mother is a prime example of a person with excellent command over Hindi, although her school education was in the Tamil and English languages (mea culpa: many of my school Hindi essays, which met with the wholehearted approval of my Hindi teachers, were composed by her). What was significant about this in a state which has unequivocally repudiated Hindi since 1966 was the enthusiasm exhibited by Tamil boys and girls to learn a language which those of them who were not going to move northwards were not going to use to any great extent. The unexpected spinoff came when hordes of Tamilians flooded Delhi in the aftermath of independence to man positions in the Central Secretariat of the Government of India: they could put their Hindi to good use while living and working in Delhi.

The criticality of language has been underscored in the past three decades by the waves of inter-state migration. Sardarjis speaking fluent Tamil, Odiyas conversing comfortably in Kannada and Marwari shopkeepers conducting their business in the language of whichever state they are based in no longer surprise us. Earning one’s livelihood and living peaceably with the local populace require an adaptation to varied languages and cultures.

Of course, Hindi will never lose its soft power, thanks to Bollywood. Salman Khan’s appeal extends to his fans in Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar as much as his Mumbai base. Young boys with barely any acquaintance with Hindi spouting his Hindi dialogues indicate that there is no fundamental mind block to learning any language provided one gets some dividends from it – aesthetic satisfaction, social integration and/or a secure livelihood.

And yet, language (and the presumption that one among the many is being given a favoured status) will continue to rouse passions. To keep tempers in check, I suggest we stick to a two-language formula (English and the local language), with each non-Hindi state having the option to add Hindi (or any other language listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India) as a third language. The Central Government can undertake correspondence with a state in Hindi or English, as per the wish of that state.

In the ultimate analysis, let us be realistic. A person who migrates for employment from her home state to another state will necessarily need to learn the language of the state migrated to so that she can function effectively. What we need is states offering courses, both online and offline, to encourage people from other states to learn their languages. A state offering attractive investment and employment opportunities will automatically see a rise in demand for its language courses. Let states compete to attract the largest number of Indians (and non-Indians) learning their language, reading their literature, viewing their movies and settling on their soil. Spreading one’s soft power is a surefire path to success rather than forcing people to learn languages against their wishes.

 

3 Apr

Lessons from an Indian Humphrey Appleby

Posted by vramani in government, human interest, irony, public affairs. Tagged: , , , , , .

These are increasingly difficult times for the civil services in India. As if sending a former Coal Secretary to jail wasn’t enough, sleuths have now zeroed in on former senior Finance Ministry officials and a former national airline head. With our penchant for digging into every official deal and the tendency for any prosecution to drag on for eternity, civil servants are left wondering whether they will be able to enjoy their pensions in peace. This is a particularly appropriate time to be penning this blog in the interregnum between two political regimes. Mark Antony’s words “The evil that men do lives after them…” will be giving innumerable civil servants sleepless nights as they agonise over whether a change of government may mean facing charges of wrongful decisions made during the tenure of the previous regime. Although one cannot alter the past, here are some thumb rules for civil servants to avoid the treacherous trap of hasty, ill-thought out decision making that can boomerang on them in the months and years to come. I humbly dedicate these rules to that master of bureaucratic aphorisms, Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Rule 1:  Avoid discretionary decisions like the plague

Whenever scarce resources – spectrum, coal/oil blocks, private universities, primary schools – are to be allocated, go in for a transparent bidding process, with clear technical specifications and financial parameters. The same applies to procurement of any product ranging from foodstuffs to aircraft.

Rule 2: Record on file and keep copies

When Rule 1 is departed from, record your views/objections clearly on file for posterity. Point out the risks inherent in a discretionary policy and insist on transparent norms. If these are not forthcoming, ask for a transfer from that department. Where decisions are taken, even on a rational, transparent basis, keep a scanned copy of the relevant notings with you even after you leave that post: nemesis normally takes anywhere from three to ten years to catch up, given the ponderous ways of the three Cs (CAG, CVC and CBI).

Rule 3: Prevaricate, obfuscate and procrastinate

This Rule, and Rules 4 to 6, are meant for those who are not keen to follow in the footsteps of Ashok Khemka, with the number of transfers far outstripping the number of years of service. Start off by recommending the setting up of an inter-departmental committee with extensive terms of reference. This should buy you time either till the end of your tenure in the department or till your Mantri gets moved in a cabinet reshuffle.

Rule 4: Send the file into orbit

This tactic is especially recommended in the last few days of the financial year and just before the model code of conduct for elections kicks in. To get that annoying Mantri off your back, record some innocuous opinion and seek the views of your bureaucratic counterparts in other departments. Select those of your colleagues who have mountains of files pending with them or mark the file to the Finance Department, which is guaranteed to be swamped with files. Once April 1 dawns or elections are announced, you can regretfully plead lack of funds or falling afoul of the model code of conduct for your continued inaction.

Rule 5: Make the file and yourself scarce

Mantris are especially prone to pressure you when the hour for announcement of elections is well-nigh or even in the short interregnum between the change of governments (the latter may seem unusual but has happened to me). Ensconce yourself in some colleague’s room with firm instructions to your PA to stonewall all queries about your whereabouts even under pain of torture. If the bloodhounds are set to sniff you out, abandon ship, shut your mobile and flee homewards. No one can expect you to attend office at 10 PM, especially if you can swear that the keys to the locked steel almirah in your office are with your colleague who lives at the other end of the city.

Rule 6: Parkalam (let us see)

Civil servants must imbibe that seasoned politician, K. Kamaraj’s phrase “Parkalam” from their early days in service. The Marathi variant of this is “Baghoon sangto”, drilled into me by innumerable senior civil servants and (surprise! surprise!) politicians. Its English version would be “let me see and then tell you”. Having committed to no time frame, who can say when the telling will come? After two or three rounds of this ruse, the pestering politician will give up, knowing that this civil servant has no intention of doing his/her work. At the same time, since no offence has been given, the politician finds it difficult to complain to the powers that be.

Rule 7: A politician is…a politician!

Caveat emptor is the best course of action when a politician assures you that s(he) will stand by you on the decision you have taken. At the end of the day, the civil servant stands alone: even his/her civil service colleagues, while offering lip sympathy, can and will do little to rescue him/her when the chips are down. The politician has the resources to withstand a long drawn out legal process, something which will break any honest civil servant. More importantly, the politician can avail of the services of the best lawyers to stay out of prison (at least in 99 percent of the cases). Don’t believe me? Who spent time in the jug in the Mumbai Adarsh housing case, the politician or the civil servant? Who is currently serving time in the coal “scam” cases? Certainly not the former Coal Minister but rather the former Coal Secretary and his bureaucratic deputies. Also, a civil servant should never forget that a politician thrives on legal tangles: a legacy from British times, when most Indian politicians spent considerable time in courts (and jails). A spell in prison acts as a magic potion for a politician and enhances his/her political appeal, a reason why politicians keep referring to the “will of the people” rather than to the “rule of law”. Nor has one yet come across an instance where the family of a politician has actually starved because of the incarceration of that politician. Contrast this with the lot of the honest civil servant: his/her family is reduced to penury if his/her pension is withheld. Unlike politicians, the honest civil servant also stands the risk of being shunned in social circles. So, the golden rule when dealing with politicians is: smile politely and then apply Rules 1 to 6 above to stay out of trouble.

Good luck to all my fellow civil servants and may we never have to meet in any Central Jail!!

26 Feb

The Importance of Being Irreverent

Posted by vramani in human interest, irony, political economy, public affairs. Tagged: , , , , , .

Irreverent:

A lack of respect for people or things that are generally taken seriously (Oxford English Dictionary)

Not showing the expected respect for official, important, or holy things (Cambridge Dictionary)

We live in truly dystopian times. Times when an M.F. Husain is exiled from his country for his art, a Wendy Doniger has her book pulped for apparently blasphemous content, a Perumal Murugan is hounded out of his town by outraged religious-caste groups and a Gauri Lankesh pays for her writings with her life. Apart from these, we have had valuable manuscripts in a research institute in Pune destroyed because of the apparently derogatory reference to a major historical figure and violent protests against a movie which depicted a queen who was only a figment of a poet’s imagination. That all this has happened in the past couple of decades is a sorry testimony to the depletion of a sense of proportion in a country where the population has thrived on a rich diet of multicultural jokes and where poking fun at communities and important public figures has been a staple component of Indian democracy.

These developments are hard to stomach for many of us who were reared on community jokes and developed a capacity to extract a good laugh out of any situation. We started young and at home: my father would keep us kids in splits with his imitations of office colleagues, relatives and prominent politicians. The school environment was equally refreshing: we played football with our principal, an Irish brother complete in his cassock, and revelled in his one-liners and his ability to wake up a somnolent noontime classroom by sweeping all our geometry boxes off our tables.

But our irreverence was well and truly honed by the atmosphere at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. Rags like Kooler Talk and Spice indulged in sly satire and societies like the Wodehouse Society exposed an entire generation to how humour could be gently used to expose the asininity and foibles of the nobs of British society. Direct action was also forthcoming, as when tomatoes were hurled in protest at the participants in a fashion show and when that parliamentarian par excellence, Piloo Mody, was pelted with pieces of chapati when he entered the college mess prior to a late evening session with college students. Our riotousness continued during our post-graduation phase in the Delhi School of Economics: the male members of the class turned up in lungis for a morning class in econometrics. Unfazed by this, the venerable Professor continued as if nothing had happened. Our PG class also started SPOSIDS (Society for the Preservation Of Sanity In Delhi School) to counter what we saw as a curriculum that was out of touch with the real world.

This refusal to take life seriously was maintained after entering the portals of the hallowed Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The targets were politicians and pompous senior officers who took themselves a bit too seriously. Peccadilloes of officers and politicians were the staple at gatherings of younger officers. Along with this there was a certain scepticism about the zeal shown by the powers that be for their pet programmes. It was recognised that politicians were in the game for continued access to power and the bureaucracy for the collateral benefits of glory, perks and prestige, and, increasingly, rentier income. Since flippant notings on musty files were frowned upon, gossip sessions over innumerable cups of canteen chai with one’s colleagues and bosses provided opportunities to laugh over the shenanigans of ministers and other politicians.

Having grown up in and been exposed to such an environment throughout one’s student and working life, I feel a deep sense of sadness today on seeing the barrage of hatred and abuse that accompanies any attempt at humour. Like Irish and Russian jokes, we had our existence enlivened by gentle barbs at Sardarjis, Bengalis, Parsis and Malayalis. Cut to the present and, if we are fortunate not to be lynched electronically or physically, we can look forward to a court summons from distant Guwahati or Bhubaneswar: if you don’t believe me, see what Abhijit Iyer-Mitra had to face for his admittedly silly comments on a particular state and its religious icons.

The quality of irreverence is a sine qua non for a healthy democracy. Go back to the middle ages and you have astronomers facing the threat of the stake for venturing to claim that the earth moved around the sun, refuting Ptolemaic wisdom. Christian Europe moved through the Reformation to the Enlightenment only because of a questioning attitude to life. Soviet Russia and its satellites were toppled by the growing irreverence of their citizens, who were heartily sick of the ideological diet that they had been fed for between forty to seventy years. And Indian democracy has been immeasurably enriched by the likes of Shankar, Laxman and Abu, who exposed the foibles and failings of politicians with their cartoons — Pandit Nehru invited Shankar to make fun of him. Contrast this with China or North Korea, where a hearty laugh has probably not been heard for decades.

So what has gone wrong in India? Why have we started taking ourselves so seriously? The demise of humour was heralded, ironically, at a time when the Indian economy seemed to have finally cast off its somnolence and started to acquire some dynamism. Growth was booming, the middle-class Indian had started to extend his/her reach to distant Silicon Valley and women were (at least in urban settings) increasingly asserting their independence. Patriarchal attitudes were, however, not going to accept defeat so easily. The threatened Indian male ego retreated into the world of religious chauvinism and misogyny to protect its position. Liberalism and gender equality were seen as threats to the existing traditional order. Established social norms were slow to adapt to the changed economic environment. The situation was exacerbated by a growing divide between groups — educational, digital and economic.

A moribund education system has seen a young population going through school and college without receiving “education” as such, if by education one means the ability to use reason and employ critical and analytical thinking to assess issues. A crucial reason for this has been the gradual demise of liberal education, grounded in the realities of society. Add to this the preponderance of technical and management courses with multiple-choice questions and you have a generation which cannot present cogent arguments in essay form. With most jobs not requiring analytical abilities and with the WhatsApp-Twitter era in full swing, pithy bytes are more popular than lengthy written discourses. It is easier to spew vituperative bile when one has only 260 characters to play around with.

While one may understand, even if not stomach, the growing expression of intolerance by India’s “educated” classes, what causes more dismay are the responses of institutions charged with protecting the right to freedom of expression. The highest court of the land refused to stay the arrest of a journalist by the Odisha government. Granted, this person shoots off his mouth intemperately, but forty days in the jug for a minor misdemeanour was rather harsh. As if that was not enough,  the Indian government (run by whichever party is in power in any state) tends to throw the rule book at any dissenter. If the charge of criminal defamation fails to stick, the government moves on to imposing the far graver charge of sedition. When even this accusation seems flimsy and liable to rejection by the courts, governments take recourse to the sledgehammer of the National Security Act, as experienced recently by a Manipuri journalist,  whose only crime was to refer disparagingly to the Chief Minister. Of course, as a last resort, governments can use the draconian provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) which enables long periods of incarceration of the accused while the wheels of justice grind agonizingly slowly.

All these developments over the past two decades have seen censorship (both by the self and by others in authority) cast its ominous dark shadow over the democratic landscape. It takes threats from just a few crazed fanatics for an author to stop writing, a filmmaker to rewrite a script, a university to withdraw a teaching assignment to a reputed scholar or a journalist or a dissenter to face assault culminating in murder.

The attack on perceived “irreverence” has adverse implications for creativity, with deleterious consequences for the development of the economy and society. Newton, Darwin and Einstein would never have made their path breaking discoveries if they had been nervously looking over their shoulders all the time for potential assailants. More critically, it contributes to damaging the delicate framework of checks and balances that are the bulwark of a democratic society, leading to irreparable damage to institutions. If civil servants cannot freely give dissenting opinions, police officers cannot crack down on offenders, judges cannot give judgments unpalatable to the political bosses of the day and academics cannot critically examine the policies of the government, that day is not far when a sheep like, adoring population is persuaded to jettison democracy for the charms of an all-powerful leader. We must let that prescient lawmaker, B.R. Ambedkar, have the final words “in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship”.

 

 

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