More than two weeks after IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal was wrongly suspended by politicians because she became a hurdle in achieving their unethical, sometimes illegal, goals in Uttar Pradesh, all TV channels are showing the same story on loop, without introducing any new angles. No TV reporter has pursued the story from the angle of decades old conflict in India between the bureaucrats and the elected politicians. Whenever a new party comes to power in any state we hear about some IAS officers being transferred.
But the real story is that in this day and age when corruption has entrenched itself in the Indian soil and psyche, no honest, law-abiding bureaucrat can survive until he or she becomes the part of ruthless and dishonest politicians. Some of the bureaucrats succumb to the pressure and join them and the others keep on doing the right thing according to their conscience and keep on getting transferred. Some of them are even killed by the mafias hired by politicians.
Once the Durga Shakti story broke, I expected that one of the TV channels will have the journalistic sense of contacting its reporters in all Indian states and tell them to find out IAS officers who had clashed with political leaders and defied their orders and are suffering because they refused to become corrupt. But the coverage of all TV channels — Hindi and English — was driven by the urge to reveal that the Congress Partyled government, which has questioned the move of the Samajwadi Party in suspending the IAS officer itself, had transferred one IAS officer in another state some time ago.
But no TV channel pursued the positive angle that in this corrupt system there are still dozens of IAS officers who are sacrificing their comforts in life toremain honest at a time when they are surrounded by all kind of pressures to become corrupt or, at least, stop creating hurdles for those who are corrupt.
It could have become a positive story to talk to these bureaucrats and say that today’s India needs a million officers like them to overhaul the whole system. But now it is becoming increasingly clear to me that in India real journalism is being done by the print media, not the electronic media. While watching the looped Durga Shakti story on TV, I remembered reading a story published in India Today some 20 years ago. It had interviews with a large number of honest IAS officers who had dared to challenge the corrupt politicians and refused to obey their orders. The magazine called them ‘Rebels with a cause’.
Here is an excerpt from the story:
It all began with a trekking expedition to the Himalayas in 1983, when a probationary civil services officer, having had a drink too many, fired at his women colleagues with a pistol. The director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, PS Appu, quickly recommended the dismissal of the probationer.
But soon pressure began to mount, allegedly from the then home minister Giani Zail Singh’s office, to withdraw the order. Rather than cave in, Appu resigned in protest, sending shock waves through the bureaucracy and striking a chord of sympathy nationwide.
Seldom before had a government officer registered his protest in so forthright a manner.
In the years that have ensued, many more have followed in Appu’s footsteps, from highly placed IAS officers to middle level state government employees, a vast majority of them putting up stoically with vindictive transfers, punishment postings and even suspensions.
The magazine interviewed Appu, who said, “This is a revolt against all that’s wrong, but it’s not enough. What we need is a mass movement to ensure radical political reforms.”
Shanti Bhushan, the former Union law minister and noted lawyer, also spoke to the magazine: “It’s a warning to the politician that his days of unquestioned authority are numbered if he continues with his misdeeds.”
What happened in the next 20 years leading up to the Durga Shakti case was that most bureaucrats filed petitions before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and the magazine reported that such petitions grew from 18,602 to more than 27,000 in 1993. This India Today story was reported in 1994.
I am sure by now, the number of such petitions must have gone up by the thousands. So why didn’t the Assignments Editor of one of our “most award-wining” TV channels ask a reporter to find out how many petitions have been filed to date and how many of them were dealt with to the satisfaction of the IAS officers who complained? And why couldn’t the reporter also talk to some of the IAS officers who never got justice despite their timely petitions? But I am still waiting to see which TV channel pursues this story angle, and also discuss the ways the government can change some rules to empower today’s Anna Hazares. And mind you India’s powerful electronic media is fully capable of making our politicians more accountable, but they lack training and courage.
(Author/analyst Ravi M Khanna is a seasoned journalist who is freelancing in New Delhi after 24 years of journalism in USA)
Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
