Tuesday 6 August 2013

An Open Letter to Educated Indians


Dear all,

The trigger for this letter is IAS Durga Nagpal’s controversial suspension from duty. The trigger is also everything that follows the UP government’s move – be it what I see in the mainstream media over heated debates and campaigns for justice, or discussions in our drawing rooms over glasses of whiskey and gin. 

And I write this letter from first-hand experience, since my husband is a bureaucrat himself. 

Through him, I have come to know and know of countless officers in the Indian bureaucracy. Some are what you read about in the black book. But many others, although not material for prime time news, are stuff that inspiration is made of. You probably do not know too many of those diligent ones. It’s understandable. One, because the “good” ones are perhaps too few and far between to garner attention or even a little column dedicated to the historic changes that they have wrought about. And two, it takes being a part of the government machinery to really know it and understand it from the inside, rather than how popular journalism portrays it. 

I know. Things are not just tardy in government offices they can be downright unfair and even illegal. I see it more often than you do. And do you know why? Not just because something is rotten in the state of our Indian bureaucratic “system”, but also because something is amiss within us as citizens seeking services.

I have come to realize that in India we exist in various levels of ‘Power-ty’. Everyone has power, over someone or the other, which they greatly enjoy. And they want more. The daroga over the havaldar, the permanent driver over the ad hoc one, the principal over the teachers, teachers over the students and senior students over the junior ones. RWA Presidents over the colony residents, Chairmen over board members of companies and parents over their own children, why not. It is like a food chain of power. And at each level, we do not sit satisfied. We are ambitious. We want to be more powerful than we already are, more successful than everyone else in the city, and better than the neighbour, certainly. And in order to have that comfortable upward mobility, we seek and patronize those apparently sitting cushy in the proverbial corridors of power. How? 
  
It is not power that corrupts, it is need for power that corrupts. And it corrupts not just the powerful but also the powerless. Ever since my husband assumed office, his phone has not stopped ringing. Calls asking for pulls and pushes to do with school admissions, request letters for special discounts from marriage pandal organizers, calls-upon-calls for settling property disputes and even demands for arranging boxes of liquor for someone’s parties. The list is endless, and often borders on the bizarre. And no, it is not just so-and-so’s helpless neighbour or Mr. X’s poor sister-in-law calling for lazy files to move in the right direction. It is even those friends and family members who sit lambasting the government and it’s functioning as a fashionable topic over parties or on Twitter's hallowed pages in better weather, but waste no time in picking up that phone when it comes to a little favour, even if of the extra-legal kind.

When a young officer assumes charge, two things can happen. One, he will go with the flow, become a spoke in the wheel, especially if that is why he wanted to leave all other lucrative career options behind and get a powerful post to enjoy in his sarkari naukri. Or two, he will reject becoming a part of what he does not agree with and try to bring to the system his mind, heart, sweat, career and ideas, all towards contributing to his/her sense of duty, responsibility towards a post and position and with a hope for a better tomorrow. The latter are so scarce, we can barely see them, as I mentioned above. 

But then I ask you - do we want to see them? 

What if one of the shareef ones cancels the license of our cement mill? Or Mr. Clean refuses your packet and asks you to pay your duty in its entirety for your imported car? Today, we shout slogans to reverse Durga’s suspension. Tomorrow, we will be visiting the service tax officer with a box of laddoos, and more, so that the interior designer under his jurisdiction waives off a few lakhs for designing our new condo, or finds you a house maid from a reputed agency. And the day after, we will again be spewing venom against the same system that we have helped prop up on our favour-seeking attitudes – not just in helpless situations, please note, but otherwise too. 

Ask yourself, honestly. What scares you more? A corrupt babu you know you will be able to work your way around for whatever you want, or a clean civil servant who will not sign on the dotted line and not pick up that phone to get your daughter admitted to her engineering college? 

When you have answered that, ask yourself now. Are you angry over the unfair suspension of dear Durga and what she stood for, or are you protesting because you have got another reason to protest for the sake of protesting against the favourite goat – the government? Did you bother to find out and be thankful to the many Durgas who are working in your cities right this minute to keep your roads free from lawlessness, or your trains running smoothly, your hospitals ticking or your terrorism-infested districts safe? As a people demanding services and your rights, what do you do to incentivize those who you know as honest, hard-working and fair, so that they continue as exactly that and not fall to the many temptations around? But then, I guess we do not even prefer to have that breed around any more. Because we too are part of a certain nexus, which has no room or use for those goodly kinds. 

I do not condone or deny the rot. God knows we get to see it every day. But as the wife of a bureaucrat husband, I do realize how much easier it is to generalize, to opine, to blame, to other, and then even to protest. And how very difficult to realize the parts that we, the so-called educated people, play in the perpetuation of wrong. The system will not change, because we do not want it to change. We are all very hungry. The corridors of power are present in every home, and we want to keep them gleaming with comfort and we want to keep ourselves, our rashly driving sons, our daughters caught in rave parties and our factories evading duty as safe as bribery can buy. 

We, as a people, are bureaucratic existing at various levels of ‘power-ty’. We create mai baaps because we ourselves dream of being a bigger one. And while we do that, the real aam junta which cannot read this post sits and suffers, hoping for change.

And ‘Change’? Just a 6-letter-word we paint on our posters but are simply not interested in working towards in our daily life. I wish some sign campaign would work towards changing that attitude too. Perhaps that day, my husband's phone will stop ringing so much!  

Regards,
Sakshi Nanda.

[First on CNN-IBN ]

36 comments:

  1. A very thought provoking read this. Will share it on my social networks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good read..good job Sakshi and thanks Seeta for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  3. All the things mentioned are "True Facts"...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you agree, Mohmedrafi. Thanks for reading. :)

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. 'Fan' is a big word. Thank you for reading, Sudhir. :)

      Delete
  5. An amazing insightful read! Its needful to read and know 'between the lines' of whatever we see and hear as well as question our own value systems!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is indeed good to know all sides to the story, even the ones which are otherwise not known. Thanks for reading, Reeti. :)

      Delete
  6. This is really a nice article and I have learnt a lot of things which is missing in current discourses of the ethics and professionalism. I would like you to read my similar post at Read it Here

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by, Shashikant. I will surely read your post!

      Delete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. well you have confused me as i do not know what as human being we actually want. we are humans driven by various emotions and i guess it will never possible for any of us to be fair although for sake of writing blogs, articles etc many of us claim it but i do not know how many of them do or will stand for it in real life. some times i feel it is very simple for many of us to sit in AC office in posh areas of most developed cities, using an iphone or samsung tab and writing post and enjoy the artificial environment and showing so much concern & sympathy for a poor labor who we see from that elevated place, either working at 50 c temp or sustaining 10 c cold winds. but the question is how many of us instead of writing blogs, post, comments, protest, online complains etc etc go to him with a glass of cold water or with a hot pipping tea and this question will always remain here with us !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Kunal, I partly understand what you are saying and I do agree. We who are sitting under fans will not the plight of those sitting without a roof over their heads. Like you and me, using computer and internet will not fathom how a poor child sitting in a remote village communicates. And I love the thought when you say how many of us actually offer help/water/tea to those who cannot afford it.

      However, I do hope you understand that writing is a powerful medium to get opinions across, questions raised and truths revealed. After all, you too made yourself heard through this very medium. I would, at no point, consider it a crime to write, write and write more about whatever truths reality throws at you. Like I one I talk about in the post above.

      When you say it will never be possible for any of us to be 'fair', although I do not know what exactly you mean, it does sound like a certain complicity with being unfair. And acceptance of 'we are like this only. We are humans' is defeatist and leaves no hope for the future.

      Thanks for your valuable comment.

      Delete
    2. dear sakshi i appreciate your thought and post as it reflects the reality of being human. see writing is no crime infact i have always supported it because may be right or wrong thoughts have to flow. if you will not negate or support my thoughts with yours how i will able to understand where do i actually stand? so do not take in that way. what i meant to say was in general that writing is just not about writing, its about oneself, about one's thought, one's identity, and one has to stand by it. but what i see these days that as i mentioned people point out so many things but sooner or later they become part of it, whether good or bad but yes we all become part of it and that's why i wrote how many of us are actually fair and that is why i said your mind changes inner thoughts when your physical body changes its external environment from AC office to a heavy trafficked road at 50 c temperature which means inner thoughts are also driven by external atmosphere :)

      Delete
    3. I totally understand when you say "people point out so many things but sooner or later they become part of it, whether good or bad". Absolutely right.
      ABout the contradiction/dicotomy between inner thoughts and external environment, Im not sure. Inner thoughts/principles are not so malleable just because an AC is running. BUT, I under if you mean it in terms of temptation. I totally understand that.

      Delete
  9. and why i like your post that i tell you one thing my father is a district and session judge, huge post ok, through out my studies or career when i got first rank or achieved some thing my frnds and near family said this is because of your father, many times they have remarked you get value because of your father, they criticize indian judiciary particularly in front of me, they say judges are most corrupt but funny part is that when they people need any kind of help like their transfer, police problem, and they want so called sifarish they never hesitate to approach me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will be hearing the same things too. People assume that life is a cake-walk through all the phases and stages just because of our father's/uncle's/husband's job profile. I have stopped bothering. :D
      And my post is exactly about this - "funny part is that when they people need any kind of help like their transfer, police problem, and they want so called sifarish they never hesitate to approach me." :)

      Delete
  10. Nice to know that there are still honest bureaucrat(s) and that too in the Revenue Service !!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely ! Nice read this is :-)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for airing in the views of " so few" honest public servants. You have shown the other side of the picture. But its a pity for our nation that very few realise this fact that they only are the biggest contributors to this corrupt system which they want to change. Hoping that reason will dawn upon the junta and its rakhwalas some day. I hope many more Kejriwals come out of their shells and show the strength of democracy. But again, as you said , any change can be brought about only when the people, common man have the will and strength to change.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree with you. We need many more Kejriwals - men who have the guts to stand up to their convictions, and beliefs. We have to start at home. There is no point expecting miracles form others else.
      Thank you for reading, Kalpana.

      Delete
  13. Totally agree with you that it's not power that corrupts but the need for power which corrupts both powerful and powerless. We in India always loath the government for being corrupt but never realize that it's the citizens who are making the authorities so and not vice versa..
    System corrupts everyone, but when we ask ourselves why the system is so bad, we'll wonder it’s because of the people living here who are in eternal quest of power..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 100 per cent with you, Srujanmora.
      Thank you for stopping by! :)

      Delete
  14. So true. This article will stand time for many decades to come, I fear.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :) I fear the same. Thanks for reading, Diwakar.

      Delete
  15. I tumbled across your blog recently. I am impressed by the details that you have brought out without experiencing it yourself. Being a part of government is honorable. But being honest in government is to live without powerful positions. The top will place ''useful'' people at ''powerful'' positions. The work oriented ones have to silently live and love the sidelined jobs. One fights and then one fine day one gives up and accept the reality of power. That's it'!

    Very well written, but things are murkier on ground.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have experienced all of these and more vicariously through my husband, Ranjana.
      You have summed up the situation so well!
      I know things are murkier. It worries me. :)

      Delete
  16. Very well written ... "power ty" was bfully conceptualised

    ReplyDelete
  17. Nice post and blog. Please check mine too.
    www.differentcolorsofindia.blogspot.in

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...