The war cry that should have been heard by now – loud and clear!
Though it is true the thousands and thousands of IAS and IPS officers are spread across the length and breadth of India and so lack a coherent structure of unity but it is equally true that they come from a same source and are trained in same schools and such issues should be clarion call to raise the voice for the cause.
Feeling for the fraternity, camaraderie or simply the professional lineage to belong to place!
But! Alas!
Though it is true the thousands and thousands of IAS and IPS officers are spread across the length and breadth of India and so lack a coherent structure of unity but it is equally true that they come from a same source and are trained in same schools and such issues should be clarion call to raise the voice for the cause.
Feeling for the fraternity, camaraderie or simply the professional lineage to belong to place!
But! Alas!
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.
How deep is the rot is evident from this incident where a young IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer Durga Shakti Nagpal was allegedly, wrongfully shunted and suspended on behest of the sand-mining mafia of the notorious criminal belt of western Uttar Pradesh (including a politician from the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh)?
How deep is the rot is evident from this incident where a young IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer Durga Shakti Nagpal was allegedly, wrongfully shunted and suspended on behest of the sand-mining mafia of the notorious criminal belt of western Uttar Pradesh (including a politician from the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh)?
But no one from these two stakeholders (bureaucracy + polity) looks in mood 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.)
In fact, the lobby of IAS and IPS (Indian Police Services) officers is so strong that if it decides to raise an issue, politicians would have to think hundred times before taking an obstinate posture like Akhilesh Yadav and his party have taken in Durga Shakti's case.
It is rightly said 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 more and more half-baked and quality-illiterate politicians are easily 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) on victimization of an honest IAS officer from the fellow bureaucrats is like expecting from the Bhupinder Singh Hooda's Haryana government that it would reopen the dubious land-deal cases of Robert Vadra.
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 cursed to live in those parts; who plot to siphon-off the public money by being complicit in the chronic political corruption eroding whatever little left in the name of the democratic weaving of the country.
Don't expect that some miracle is going to happen. Some senior, obedient and 'reverent' bureaucrat of Uttar Pradesh would advise the state government to exploit the system to put the brave lady in the dock. 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.
And while writing this, the reports say the lady IAS officer has been served the chargesheet by the state government.
Indian bureaucracy is infamous across the world and is seen as among the worst performing bureaucracies. A study last year by the Hong Kong based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Limited rated Indian bureaucracy as the worst in Asia. Corruption figured as a major factor responsible for its inefficiency.
Findings of yet another study done jointly by the Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University and the Department of Economics, Iowa State University, say 'Indian bureaucracy attracts more corrupt people than the private sector'.
It is no surprise then that we haven't yet heard even a consolidated voice from the bureaucrats on this injustice being done to one of their colleagues, a young, brave and honest IAS officer.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
