The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

A YOUNG IAS OFFICER, A YOUNG CHIEF MINISTER, A YOUNG PRIME MINISTER IN WAITING AND A DEMOCRACY IN TATTERS

How deep is the rot is evident from this incident where an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer was allegedly, wrongfully shunted and suspended on behest of the sand-mining mafia of the notorious criminal belt of western Uttar Pradesh?

It was an incident of the district Gautam Budh Nagar (popularly known as Noida and Greater Noida), that earns maximum revenue for Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with a distinction of giving the country maximum number of prime ministers and ironically a state now that can be termed as the worst place for development politics and a haven for the criminal goons entering the mainstream of Indian politics.

The cities high on growth radars, not just in Uttar Pradesh, but anywhere in India, are the hot-spots for corrupt politicians and bureaucrats to earn quick money. And instances where bureaucrats, in this case Durga Shakti Nagpal, are rare who cannot be predicted to be driven by what but display rare honesty and follow integrity, in a world infested with corrupt bureaucrats in brazen cahoots with the equally menacing politicians.

It is not about certifying Durga Shakti Nagpal. But yes, she is a young and brave IAS officer who has worked with iron hand to establish the rule of law in a lawless land her brief career record of almost three years shows.

It is about the symbolization that her harassment has created (and any other similar incident sets) and its subsequent implications.

It can be said the hyperactive Indian media has played a sensible role here by highlighting Durga Shakti’s issue giving it a campaign sort of coverage with follow-up stories.

But how deeper is the rot can be gauged by the responses of two other directly involved stakeholders in any such issue – politicians and bureaucrats.

Once the media made it an issue (mind you, such issues are, indeed, non-issues, as Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot was saying over the transfer of the Jaisalmer Superintendent of Police who dared to open history-sheet of father of a Congress MLA, or as the Samajwadi Party politicians are saying over the suspension of Durga Shakti), the political class had to take position based on the side of political opportunism it was.


The political opposition in Uttar Pradesh saw points to score and the BJP, Congress and other outfits came out in open support of the suspended IAS officer though each of these political outfits have manipulated and colluded with the bureaucracy to indulge in corrupt practices to gain unfair advantages.

So a senior and honest IAS officer Ashok Khemka is transferred on questioning suspicious land deals of Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi and every democratic norm is subverted in giving Vadra a clean chit.

So, the top-wrung administrative officers of Gujarat turn a blind eye to the riots that take lives of hundreds. Many of them, for reasons known only to them, carry out fake encounters and are facing trials now.

So, the honest IAS and IPS officers and whistleblowers are either victimized or killed and the bureaucracy and the polity play silly politics on how to protect the ‘honest’ breed.

But, in fact, no one from these two stakeholders (bureaucracy + polity) wants to protect the remaining vestiges of honesty in bureaucracy. (There is no need to write on honesty in Indian politics. It was killed long ago.)

Victimization of the honest officer by corrupt seniors from bureaucracy and polity – it has been so routine in India that even the dumb filmmakers of India (they are in majority) have been weaving mainstream cinema stories around it for years. The subject has grown into an evergreen theme by now. Yes, in films, the victimized officers come out stronger winning over the final battle establishing the values of honesty and integrity.

Alas! That doesn’t happen in real life. (The reel life in this case, and in every such issue, is an extension of the suppressed emotions in the real life. And in India of the day, the difference between the reel and real life over such issues is there to stay.)

Politicians cannot loot this country so brazenly and shamelessly until they are not hands-in-glove with bureaucrats.

In fact, the lobby of IAS and IPS (Indian Police Services) officers is so strong that if they decide to raise an issue, politicians would think hundred times before taking an obstinate posture like Akhilesh Yadav and his party took in Durga Shakti’s case.

It is never wrong to say that bureaucrats run (and so manipulate) the system and so the country. Instead, their stronghold on the system is increasing with increasing criminalization of Indian politics where a growing number of half-baked and quality-illiterate politicians are finding chairs in the highest seats of policymaking.

But expecting a war cry (and indeed, by now, the nation should have heard the war cry by the lobby of bureaucrats loud and clear) on victimization of an honest IAS officer is like expecting from the Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s Haryana government that it would reopen the dubious land-deal cases of Robert Vadra for further investigation.

How can we expect this from the class of bureaucrats who, no matter how poor they were born, die filthy rich; who amass millions and millions of disproportionate wealth; who rush to touch feet of politicians to be in their good book; who brazenly allow and cover-up the wrongs of the political goons; who seldom visit the hinterlands but frame policies deciding fate of millions; who plot to siphon-off the public money by being complicit in the chronic political corruption eroding whatever little left in the name of democratic weaving of the country.

No surprise then that the Indian bureaucracy is among the most corrupt and least efficient in the world.

Yes, the issue is still raging, though slightly pushed to the background in last two days due to the ugly display of politics over Pakistan killing five Indian soldiers at Line of Control in J&. It reflects in the continued debate over the issue, in the suppressed emotions of ‘we, the bystander Indians’, and so the media is expected to cling to it for some more days. But what once the TRPs start drying up?

And that has started happening. So don’t think long term.

Anyway, don’t expect that some miracle is going to happen.

Some senior, obedient and ‘reverent’ bureaucrat of Uttar Pradesh would have advised the state government to exploit the system to put the brave lady in the dock as the chargesheet served to her says. It can be safely said politicians of Uttar Pradesh do not have that much of intellectual capital to implicate her falsely until they get advice from some seasoned bureaucrat.

But yes, true to the trademark brazenness of politicians, some cooked up cases were imposed on the lady in addition to the chargesheet served by the government of the young chief minister of Uttar Pradesh who had won the office with a landslide victory on promise of giving a reformist government.

But badlands of Uttar Pradesh remain the story of everything, where every parameter of a civilized society is taking a regular fall.  

The issue also, once again, unmasks the doublespeak of yet another young face at the political forefront, Rahul Gandhi. It goes without saying that nothing in the UPA government can move if Rahul Gandhi doesn’t approve of. But he didn’t speak vocally on Durga Shakti’s harassment. Why of it - only he can answer, like on many other vital issues.

Yes, Sonia Gandhi did write to Manmohan Singh to look into the matter. And thus spoke Manmohan Singh, the comfortably numb prime minister of India, promising that rules would be followed in the case.

Now, the developments into the matter, as expected, say of some backdoor understanding between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress. Congress needs SP support for the Food Security Bill. So, the emphasis, now, is on to hush up the matter.

So, the possible outcome in Durga Shakti’s case is going to be:

Her suspension would be revoked once she replies to the chargesheet as Akhilesh Yadav has indicated. It will satisfy the political ego of Uttar Pradesh government as well as will address the compulsion of the UPA government to act in the matter as Sonia Gandhi has publicly written for it.

After some time, once the controversy dies down, Durga Shakti, as reported, would seek and be given a cadre change to move out of Uttar Pradesh.

Three young faces, a 43-year old prime-ministerial nominee and dominating face of the largest party of the ruling coalition, a 40-year old chief minister of India’s most populous state and a 28-year old IAS officer, all, willing or unwilling, characters of yet another tragic drama in the botched history of Indian democracy – they sum up the irony of Indian democracy – that its weaving is increasingly becoming undemocratic.

An increasingly undemocratic atmosphere where the political class is getting more and more intolerant, alienated, lineage-based and corrupt; where political and bureaucratic corruption has percolated to almost every part of the society; where protesters and activists are targeted, suppressed, silenced or killed; where democracy is being pushed backward every passing day!

Indian democracy – a democracy in tatters and we are not doing enough to address it! 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/