When the day was saved with a pair of sandals
Humility and humour could have dissipated the tension between the Aam Aadmi Party and Anshu Prakash
There’s a spousal dimension to top bureaucrats’ working relations with ministers. They can and must disagree in the interest of diligent decision-making. But all that has to be behind closed doors — not in public.
A veteran civil servant drew the analogy when a secretary-level official who is now a central minister attacked his former political boss for “preventing” interrogation in the 2G case of a businessman with “links” to Dawood Ibrahim.
The bureaucrat levelled the charge postretirement and on getting elected to Parliament. That he retrospectively felt a prick of conscience reflected poorly on him.
It always takes two to tango. The episode involving Delhi chief secretary (CS), Anshu Prakash, is another unfortunate case of one half letting the other down; the onus being on chief minister Arvind Kejriwal who let his party legislators misbehave with his chief of staff.
There undoubtedly was that ‘pati, patni aur woh’ dimension that resulted, so to speak, in domestic violence. Notionally, the Delhi CS has two bosses, including the CM; but, in reality just one, the lieutenant governor. Open relationships do not work in politics even when power hierarchies aren’t as confusing as they are in Delhi. But the breakdown arising out of the Anshu Prakash incident is a result of competing egos and conflicting temperaments.
In the end, neither side covered itself in glory. Having summoned Prakash to his residence past midnight, the onus was on Kejriwal to prevent things from getting out of hand. Equally abhorrent was the raid in which 60-odd policemen descended on Kejriwal’s residence to secure CCTV footage.
The lesson for Kejriwal could have been in what Morarji Desai’s health minister, Raj Narain, did to make amends for having suffering philosophically and are not carried away or cowed down. They understand that sufferings are nothing but a means to an end.
Death, therefore, comes to them as a necessary evil, and they get happily ready for an exit. They understand that death gives them deliverance from the worldly life, which is their ultimate aim.
For people who believe in life hereafter, death is welcome all the more. Such people try to be good human beings, and do meritorious deeds in life in order to be ‘rewarded’ publicly humiliated an official of the Indian Information Service. The official was late in reaching the minister in Nirman Bhawan, as he broke his sandals while walking down from his office in Shastri Bhawan. Devastated by the boss’ public outburst, the officer, who rose to become adviser to J&K governor, put in his papers. That night he had Narain on the phone dictating his own resignation. “I’d also quit if you do not report for work tomorrow…”
Next morning, Narain personally received the official at Nirman Bhawan. Even more touching was the gift the veteran socialist had kept packed on his work table for him: a pair of new sandals! “That should,” he joked, “solve the problem ….”
In public life, stooping is conquering. Had Kejriwal shown up with a bouquet of flowers at Prakash’s residence, the face-off would’ve had a happy ending. But that wasn’t to be. Nor did the L-G try to broker peace by having both of them over to his office for a rapprochement.
If not the L-G, home minister Rajnath Singh could have stepped in early. There was precedent for Singh to follow from LK Advani’s days. As home minister, Advani overruled the L-G to let the then Delhi CM, Sheila Dikshit, have the CS of her choice.
The Anshu Prakash incident brought back memories of the way Rajiv Gandhi removed foreign secretary, AP Venkateswaran, in the 1980s. The Indian prime minister announced the change of guard at a press conference in response to a question by a Pakistani journalist. Venkateswaran was among those in the audience.
The seasoned diplomat wasn’t a yes-man and had opposed many ambassadorial proposals by the PMO, then run by such important civil servants as Gopi Arora and Sarla Grewal. That he kept intact his sense of humour in his worst professional crisis was obvious from his response to my request for a meeting after the public sacking: “Yes, yes please come. I’m lying in State and you can file past me…”
Humility and humour dissipate the worst of tensions. The existing breed of politicians and civil servants seems mostly untouched by such qualities. Such is the lure of the camera, the fame, the urge to be one up that lines are crossed, not respected.
There can be no defence of elected representatives getting physical with a bureaucrat. But if politicians tend to bully and bulldoze, civil servants, too, aren’t averse to pulling rank. The former dominate when power is absolute; the latter when strings are pulled from above. There are instances of such tussles in other states and at the Centre. The rules of business are decided by where the power lies.
THERE CAN BE NO DEFENCE OF ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES GETTING PHYSICAL WITH A BUREAUCRAT. BUT IF POLITICIANS TEND TO BULLY, CIVIL SERVANTS, TOO, AREN’T AVERSE TO PULLING RANK
in their next life.
The point here is that both the believers and non-believers of life hereafter can’t be said to be on the right or wrong side of life as no one can give any reasonable evidence either way. Therefore, life or no life hereafter, we must do everything that we can for the good of all.