Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT

 

      

      

 

Edited Administrative Training Institute Monographs 1-20. Kolkata. 2005-2009:

 

      

    

 

Edited Samsad Series on Public Administration. Kolkata, 2007-8:

 

      

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking the All-India Railway Strike 1974

By

1. It was 1974. Mihir Kumar Das, an officer of the West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) cadre, was posted in Chandernagore sub-divisional headquarters of Hooghly District in West Bengal, as one of three Deputy Magistrates on duty. He had spent about one and a half years in the Subdivision. He used to perform Treasury work in the first half and Court work as Executive Magistrate in the second half of the day. He was also assigned magisterial duty in law and order problems either at Telenipara or at Champdani as and when required. These were communally the most sensitive places of the Subdivision.

2. Chandernagore was then otherwise a very beautiful place to live in. It had been a French colony and was culturally rich with a heritage background. It was additionally attractive for its excellent riverside strand. The Subdivision consisted of three rural blocks viz., Singur, Haripal and Tarakeswar and two municipalities viz., Champdani, Bhadreswar and the Chandernagore Corporation.

3. In May 1974, the All India Railway Men’s Union called for an indefinite strike of the Indian Railways all over the country under the leadership of George Fernandes, later a Central Minister. The strike started from 7th May.  Pradip Bhattacharya, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1971 batch, was the Subdivisional Officer (SDO) since mid-1973, aged 26. He deputed Das for law and order duty at Kamarkundu Railway Station (RS) on the Tarakeswar-Sheoraphuli line. Kamarkundu was a very important business hub.

4. It was Bhattacharya’s first subdivision. He strongly believed in teamwork, successfully rehabilitating about thirty thousand evacuees from Malda to Rajshahi in Bangla Desh in 1972. On account of the prevailing severe crisis in cement, Petroleum Oil and lubricants (POL), baby food, rations and electricity, and the strike in numerous jute mills, work had to continue well after office hours. The SDO made it a point to arrange for refreshments in the late evenings for sharing with his officers so that their energy level did not flag and the massive workload could be handled. When his officers had to camp out­side headquarters for law and order duty, as during Muharram etc., he would drive out to them with magazines and food to maintain their morale.

5. Das reached Kamarkundu RS by the office jeep early in the morning of 7 May 1974. An Inspector of Police had also reached by then along with a group of other police personnel and was holding a temporary camp office in a tent. There was a Rest Room meant for railway officials at Kamarkundu RS and Das put up there.

6. None of the railway employees attended to their duties but many of them were standing outside the station watching the situation. Das asked them to come in and join their duties but it was of no use. There were constant announcements over the microphone outside, urging the employees to make the strike a success. But Das had something else in his mind. From the very beginning, his mission was to run the train services at least be­tween Sheoraphuli and Tarakeswar, which is a major pilgrimage centre with a Shiva temple. Moreover, Tarakeswar is the terminal station of this railway line and the farthest point of the Subdivision. The region was very rich in agriculture and the produce was sold in different parts of the state. Indefinite strike would result in heavy economic loss.

 The first day was uneventful.

7. From 8.5.1974, the second day of strike, Das began do­ing ground work. He tried to convince the employees to join their duties and assured them of their security. At the same time he contacted the concerned officers of the Divisional Superintend­ent’s Office, Howrah Railway Division (DS Office) asking for their help and services in resuming a shuttle train service between Sheoraphuli and Tarakeswar during the strike.

8. The groundwork started yielding results from 9th May. The Station Master and one or two sweepers joined duty on that day. More were in the queue. Overhead electrical wires had been either removed or damaged. Das re­quested the DS Office, Howrah, to repair and restore the overhead electric wires and to repair the rakes lying at Tarakeswar RS by sending technical staff through a dummy train. The police officer camping at Kamarkundu RS was requested to arrange patrolling in the residential area of the railway employees, the road between the residential complex and the Railway Station and the Bazaar area where the staff willing to join duty were expected to go.

9. On 10th May, in response to Das’s suggestions, DS Howrah sent a train with extra staff to Tarakeswar. They took one of the three rakes lying at Tarakeswar RS for using them in shuttle service. It was noticed that miscreants had cut the motor cables. Therefore, the rakes had to be sent to the workshop for repair. Overhead electric wires were replaced and/or repaired and electric connection restored. Some passengers were put into the dummy train that ran on that day as a signal to both the striking employees and the regular commuters. It helped a lot to boost confidence among the public.

10. In response to Das’s request on 10 May, telephone con­nections between Howrah Control and Tarakeswar and Kamarkundu RS were restored. Electricity in Tarakeswar RS was also restored.

11. There was no arrangement of tea, breakfast, lunch or dinner where Das was put up. The SDO used to send his lunch from Chandernagore everyday. When he came to meet Das to review the latest situation on 10th May, he him­self carried his lunch to Kamarkundu. Das had left behind his aged mother, wife and a three year old son at Chandernagore while proceeding to Kamarkundu.  There was no male member to look after them in his absence. The SDO regu­larly looked after Das’ family in his absence. Unlike now, the telecommunication system was then very poor. Das could not keep direct contact with his family. The SDO regularly kept him informed about his family members.

12. On reaching Tarakeswar RS on 11th May, at 8.15 a.m. Das found the Station Master and the Commercial Transportation Inspector (CTI) deputed from Bandel to provide phone connection with Howrah Control and electricity at Tarakeswar RS. By then, a group of technical personnel viz. Permanent Way Inspector (PWI), Signal Inspector (SI), Traction Driving Inspector (TDI) etc. had reached Tarakeswar RS with a patrol-special. Two rakes were found sta­bled on the first railway track on Tarakeswar. Das requested the PWI, Signal Inspector and the TDI to spike the other subsidiary lines and keep open only one line i.e. the 3rd line so that a shuttle service between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli could be run. They informed him that the rake was in operative condition and could run as shuttle up to Howrah.

13. Through interaction with them, Das learnt that the TDI was initially a Motorman. At his earnest request, the TDI hesitatingly agreed to drive the train but requested him to take the approval of the Divisional Operating Superintendent (DOST), Howrah. The DOST Howrah immediately approved of the scheme and desired to talk to the TDI who in turn told him that the rake was not in a condition to move to Howrah and that the Magistrate (Das) was unnecessarily forcing him to drive the defective rakes. He further stated that being a Senior TDI he could not drive a rake without getting clearance from the TXR (Train Examiner). When the discussions between the DOST and TDI were over, Das again talked to DOST and informed him that the TDI had earlier certified that the rake was all right for moving to Howrah and that he was willing to drive it.

14.  After the conversation, Das asked the TDI why he made such a contrary statement to the DOST. In reply he stated that he could not run a rake based on the orders of a Magistrate and what he required was a permission from the Chief Op­erating Superintendent (COST), the superior of DOST. He also denied that he had agreed to drive the rake if he got the permission from the DOST. As no force been applied on him, he was asked to explain why he used the words ‘unnecessary force’ while talking to the DOST. He then begged apology. Das made it clear to him that what­ever he was doing was in the exclusive interest of the public at large and that if a shuttle service could be run between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli great public confidence could be earned. He found the TDI most unwilling. Das could not understand if his request to run the rake had hurt the ego of the TDI. Perhaps, he felt that he was no more a Motorman to run a train as he was holding a higher post.

15. So, Das started thinking about some other alternative. He asked the PWI and the driver on the Steam Engine carrying the Patrol-Special if the Steam Engine could carry the rake making it a ‘Special’ to run up to Sheoraphuli. Both of them thought it to be a good idea and assured him of taking necessary action in the matter. PWI, SI and the Driver concerned arranged every­thing and the rake was ready for movement. Das decided to start the train immediately. It was about 10.30 a.m.

16. Meanwhile, most of the railway employees posted at Tarakeswar RS assembled and expressed their willingness to join their duties. It was learnt that all of them had reported sick and remained absent since 3rd May. Das first talked to everyone to ascertain their willingness to work. He also made it clear to them that there was no pressure on them from the Civil Administration to join under duress. All of them expressed their firm willingness to join. They joined their duties willingly.

17. In the course of this Das had announced that a ‘special’ train would leave for Sheoraphuli shortly and requested passengers to board. There was a good response from the public. The rake, which had been declared unfit by the TDI over phone to the DOST, left Tarakeswar Station at 11.10 a.m. as the first Special drawn by the steam engine of the Patrol-Special carrying a good number of passengers. Before the train left, Das sent a message through the Emergency Control of the railways to D.S., Howrah with a copy to SDO, Chandernagore, District Magistrate, Hooghly etc. which is reproduced below:

FROM: DAS, DY. MAGISTRATE, CHANDERNAGORE, CAMP TARAKESWAR.

TO: DIVISIONAL SUPERINTENDENT, HOWRAH.

                TO MEET PUBLIC DEMAND ONE RAKE WITH PASSENGERS BE­ING MOVED UP TO SHEORAPHULI WITH THE HELP OF STEAM EN­GINE OF PATROL SPECIAL WITH LIMITED STOP AT HARIPAL, NALIKUL, KAMARKUNDU, SINGUR AND DIARA (.) THE SAID RAKE MAY RUN AS SHUTTLE BETWEEN TARAKESWAR AND SHEORAPHULI AT LEAST 4  TIMES A DAY ON UP AND DOWN LINE EACH (.) THIS IS REQUIRED FOR EARNING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE (.) TWO ASMS THREE TCS TWO BOOKING CLERKS ALL SWEEPERS, PORTERS, SHUNTERMAN, BOX-PORTER, ONE GATEMAN AND ONE CABIN-MAN REMAINING ON SICK LEAVE AND AVAILABLE HERE ARE ALLOWED TO JOIN THEIR DUTIES PEND­ING FURNISHING FIT CERTIFICATE FROM AMO, KAMARKUNDU WHEN AVAIIABLE (.) EXPECTED MORE PERSONS TO JOIN (.) THEY WILL ALSO BE ALLOWED TO JOIN (.) D.S. WILL KINDLY APPROVE OF THE AR­RANGEMENT (.) MESSAGE ENDS (.)”

18.  Enormous popular support was received when the first ‘Special’ was started. Das got the station cleaned up by the sweepers after they joined. At 11.45 a.m. the Engineer-in-Chicf (EIC) ar­rived with his team at Tarakeswar RS in response to the radio­gram message to D.S. Howrah sent on 10.5.74. Another rake was then run on 3rd line, which was also spiked by the PWI’s men for making the said line operative for running one shuttle only. The EIC, Mr. Banerjee approved of Das’s action. He then engaged his men to get the rake examined and certified. Mr. Banerjee informed Das at about 12.05 hours that the rake was ready for movement. He also acknowledged that 80% of the work had al­ready been done by Das. He was surprised and most delighted to learn that most of the railway employees had joined their duties sportingly. He then desired to start the rake at 12.20 hours but Das proposed to start it at 12.30. Thereafter he contacted the Station Master, Tarakeswar RS and the local PS and requested them to make a public announcement that a train would leave as ‘Special’ between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli at 12.30 hours. At this, many passengers, including pilgrims, boarded the train which ultimately left with an escort at 12.45 p.m. The vendors’ compart­ment was full of vegetables. The local people rejoiced.

19. Das requested the EIC to ensure that the rake would henceforth serve as shuttle between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli till the strike was over or any better arrangement was made. He assured it by issuing an order to the Sheoraphuli RS.

20. Das instructed the Officer-in-Charge (O/C), Tarakeswar PS in the Inspection Register maintained in the PS to guard the Railway Station and the rake that would be lying at night in Tarakeswar RS, to patrol the Railway colony and the railway Running Room in order to boost the morale of the employees who joined duties that day. He also asked the O/C to make the Railway employees feel that they were not insecure.

21. Das arranged a lunch for the Engineer-in-Chief and his Assistant Engineer Mr. Pillai. They left at 14.00 hours. The EIC remarked that he never dreamt of leaving Tarakeswar before 16.00 hours and thanked him.

22. On his way back to Kamarkundu Command Post, Das found Haripal and Nalikul RS abandoned. All the Railway Quar­ters were found under lock and key. He thought that he would try the next day if he could find out some willing employees to work in those stations.

23. He came back to Kamarkundu at 16.00 hours and sent an R.T. message to SDO Chandennagore informing him of the running of two shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli with an available EMU Rake being drawn by the Steam Engine of a Patrol Van, one at 11.00 a.m. and the other at 12.45 p.m. leaving Tarakeswar. He informed about the necessary arrange­ment made to run regular shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli with the available rake.

24. The District Magistrate (DM) Hooghly with the Superintendent of Police (SP) visited Kamarkundu RS at about 16.45 hrs. Das narrated everything to the DM as to how the shuttle services could be run. The DM praised his action and was very happy. In fact at that time a shuttle was moving towards Tarakeswar. The DM saw the train in motion and the result of Das’ action.

25. As per the arrangement made by the DM, Das’ duty finished at 14.00 hours but he could leave Kamarkundu RS only at 18.00 hours for Chandernagore. Then he reported the whole mat­ter in detail to the delighted SDO Chandernagore.

26. Das’ five day stay at Kamarkundu ended in success. His attempt to run at least shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli succeeded. He had been sent to Kamarkundu RS simply on law and order duty. Neither the SDO nor the DM had asked him to try for keeping the train service in the Tarakeswar line operative. There was great risk in doing so. His life would have been endangered by the extremists amongst the strikers—but that did not happen. Das felt that his conscience prompted him to do so and saved him too. On the recommenda­tion of the SDO, the Home (General Administration) Department of the State Gov­ernment sent him a ‘Letter of Appreciation’ in recognition of the services rendered.

27. When he had left for Kamarkundu RS, Das had thought that it would be a job of one or two days, but it actually went on for five days. He felt that he would not have completed his mission successfully but for the support of his SDO.

Annexure: 1

The Railway Strike

Abbreviations and special terms used in the Railways :-

1. R.S.                         :Railway Station

2. D.S. Office             :Divisional Superintendent’s office, Railways

                                                – Now-a-days Divisional Railway Manager was called

                                                Divisional Superintendent Railways during the period    

                                                under report.

3. P.W.I                       : Permanent Way Inspector

-His function is to examine the railway-track, find out defects / faults, if any, to repair the same and also to undertake regular maintenance. While examining the track he uses the Trolley being drawn by men i.e. Trolleymen       

4. CTI                          : Commercial Transportation Inspector

                                                -Looks after transportation of goods through Railways

5. S.I.                          : Signal Inspector

                                              – Looks after signaling system

6. T.D.I                       : Traction During Inspector

               -Superior officer of the Motorman (the Driver of the EMU train is 

                called Motorman)

7. DOST                      : Divisional Operating Superintendent

                                        – The first officer of a Railway Division Controlling the 

                                           operating work of the Division

8. COST                      : Chief Operating Superintendent

                                       – Operating head of the Zonal Railways i.e. Eastern Railways,  

                                         Central Railways etc.

9 TXR                         : Train Examiner

                                       – Before a train is put into run, a train is thoroughly examined.

10. EIC                       :  Engineer in-Chief

                                          -Chief of the Engineering Wing of a Railway Division

11. Spike                     : To arrange the Railway track for movement of a train by

                                       shifting the track. It is operated from the cabin.

12. Patrol – special      : A train that carries technical staff for examining the

                                      Railway track to ensure that those are in good working 

                                      order.

LEADERSHIP AND POWER: ETHICAL EXPLORATIONS

By

Edited by S.K. Chakraborty and Pradip Bhattacharya (Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001. x + 453 pages. 2001. Rs. 595)

Ambitious.  Perceptive.  Timely. Academic. Unrealistic. Inspirational.  Hold-all.  One can relax in the easy chair mulling over ever so many epithets like this to describe Leadership and Power and yet fail to project its thrust.  Maybe Marcuse has to be invoked for an echo:  “In reality, evil triumphs, there are only islands of good to which one can escape only for short periods of time.”

But then, that has never been the way of the Indian ethos.  From times immemorial, we have sustained a positive, life-affirming philosophy of action.  And even when people  act as if they are deaf, the Spirit of India continues to speak as the Bharata Savitri, so gently noted by  Pradip Bhattacharya in the last page of the book:

“I raise my arms and I shout –

but no one listens!

From dharma comes success and pleasure:

why is dharma not practised?”

Dharma must be spoken, whether others react or not.  The subconscious mind of India has continued to react to Dharma, hence we are able to speak of a civilization that has flourished for several millennia as the Vedic stream and the Sangham culture.  The way of Dharma is undefinable, being sukshma.  Yet we strive to follow it thanks to the garnered experiences of all our yesterdays.  Mark the recurring phrase in our ancient texts:  esha dharma sanatanah.  One had to rise above the “me” all the time and work for the good of others, giving precedence to the Way as the Rishis said:  dharmamaahu pradhaanam. The secular legends of our ancient past have all sought to define our day to day life by presenting the crisis that comes upon people as dharma-sankata and analysing how each person solves the problem in a different manner though all of them move within the broad framework of the sanatana dharma, the Ancient Way.

Though it is often said that today we are living in a highly competitive, complicated world, nothing has really changed when it comes to a man’s personal decision to act in a particular manner.  Our ancients were helped by a crystalline faith in the phrase esha dharma sanatanah, and this Ancient Way continues to be a living guide.  

S.K. Chakraborty and Pradip Bhattacharya have done well to rely heavily on the ancients for guidelines  when power devolves in our hands and leadership is thrust upon us by the forces of history.  Apart from independent essays on the Ramayana (C. Panduranga Bhatta) and the Mahabharata (Pradip Bhattacharya), the volume echoes to the itihasas quite often.  Again we are never a page or two away from four gifted children of this Vedic-Upanishadic-Itihasic stream, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi.   Even Hiren Mukherjee goes on record with an unambiguous statement:

“…though I am an unbeliever, an atheist, for over sixty years now an unrepentant communist, somewhat allergic towards `spiritual’ themes, I believe the four great `illuminates’:  Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo, whom the MCHV (Management Centre for Human Values) salutes, have been among the `makers’ of our civilization, `God-gifted organ-voices’ of our land, builders in different fashion, bridge between our immense past and the incalculable future.” (p. 90)

An unbeliever, perhaps, but Dr. Mukherjee is deeply immerged in the Indian pantheon to wonder why we lack in charity, “that we can weigh the sun and the stars but cannot weigh out bread to the hungry.”  This is because of the mistaken notion that wealth is to be shunned (he quotes Shankara).   The Ancient Way, however, did not reject money but wanted us to earn more, produce more (“Annnam bahu kurveeta”, says the Taittiriya) and simultaneously share it with all (the Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar calls this “oppuravu”).  It is the “sharing” part which becomes a matter for argument.  Do we ask for sharing in the manner of Tiruvalluvar’s Oppuravu or through bureaucratic mediation as in Socialism? Prof. Mukherjee writes:

“I have recently read in New Delhi’s weekly, Mainstream a piece by a former High Commissioner of India in London, Kuldip Nayar, now a member of Rajya Sabha, relating how when abroad he heard from knowledgeable people that there was no dearth of Non-Resident Indians who could, if they wished, finance out of their own hoarded resources half-a-dozen Five Year Plans!” (p. 97)

Have we not had enough of such Planning looking for models from other countries for a socialist heaven that speedily ended in a Permit-License Raj?  No more of that, thank you.  Better get back to the ingrained humanitarian values and have faith in ourselves instead of taking the hat around elsewhere.  For this we have a reliable guide in Prof. Mukherjee himself, who expresses a lambent faith “that our youth, whatever fascination the frills and frivolities of modernity may hold, will not cease to dream dreams and see visions” and quotes young Dhruva to prove his point:  swatstyastu vishvasya, varam na yachey (let the world have well-being, I ask for no boon).

Indeed almost all the contributors are confident of India’s yesterdays being the guiding lights of the nation’s tomorrows.  R.K. Dasgupta who is not inspired by  the “the managerial revolution” votes for soul power and assures us that “Vedantic monism is going to be the philosophy of the future for the whole world”, reminding one of  Chakravarti Rajagopalachari who said:  “The good in every man is an atom too, of measureless potential.”;  Shashi Mishra leaps to the Feminine Principle and plunges into the Bhakti Movement and comes up with the hladini shakti of Radha to consider work and leisure as  worship (Radha is in aradhana too);  Guttorum Floistead puts the focus on family power which is in essence woman-power, like Dr. Dasgupta’s grandmother wielding the family finances;  Arabinda Basu speaks of the secular nature of India’s sacred idiom as in the concept of the Purusharthas and the sacred/secular divide in the West (“Egoistic sacredness leads to abuse of power.  Secularism is egoistic anyway.”); and M.V. Kamath expounds Swami Vivekananda’s maxim that power is generated through renunciation.

Since many of the contributors are well-known, there is nothing that is sharply new in their perspectives.  But when there are surprises, it is a great pleasure to savour them.  Rose McDonald discoursing on `The Anarchic Power of Money’ writes about the John Frum Movement in Tanna.  The Tannese who had been colonised and forced to conform to a Christian theocracy and an imposed plantation economy rebelled after four decades of such rigorous transformatory practices.  They abandoned the Church, withdrew from the schools and the plantations.  Enough is enough they seemed to think as they went back en masse to their traditional ways of living and morality.  The ultimate insult to the angry whites was when “the Tannese were to be seen all over the island throwing money into the sea.”  The inspiration for this return to their paradisal past (though it was considered chaos by the whites) came from the prophet, John Frum.  Christianity was not rejected but Christ was redefined as a Tannese by Frum:

“The ten commandments too were reinterprerted as having existed in customary belief long before the arrival of the white man bearing this supposedly `new’ message.  But as John Frum encouraged acceptance of the whites’ rhetoric of integrity, the whites themselves, and their economic order, were to be wholeheartedly rejected.  Money would not be the measure of man or the shaper of society in the new world.” (p. 253)

While   Leadership and Power is busy exploring the past experiences and the present considerations to programme new ways  to give the best of both for the good of mankind,  necessarily the authors are overcome by memories of their professional lives.  Never a dull moment here!  Reading Hiten Bhaya, one could lose faith in the T-shirt one is wearing.  Ah, the chicaneries of trade union leaders for a free plane ticket!  According to Bhaya, corruption in Indian administration has a face of its own:

“…I was surprised to find some people whose very appearance betrayed them as political agents – touts to be more blunt.  The chairman introduced them as the local office-bearers of the ruling party in the district where one of our plants was situated, and asked them to discuss their problem with me.  What they were after was some contract that would enable the contractor to contribute to the party fund for a forthcoming election.”

Having never been a member of the Planning Commission or a Chairperson of any of those huge “new temples of India” and having done nothing more managerial than haggling over the price of vegetables in the local market as a thrifty housewife, I would love to get a description of the sartorial and other appurtenances that betrayed the face of corruption to Bhaya.  Were they like the warped Dwarf-Titan in Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, I wonder.  Bhaya has a lot to reveal (without mentioning names) before coming to the conclusion that the right management of power  lies is “strength of character to resist pressure for doing the wrong things, courage to support the right action, strength of will to control one’s own temporal desires and compassion for one’s colleagues and subordinates.”  To put it pithily in the words of Tiruvalluvar: 

“What determines the worth of the worthy?

The Light within, nothing else!”[i]

The shakti that rises from the “light within” is underscored by M.V. Kamath (Swami Vivekananda), Rajmohan Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), S.K. Chakraborty (Sri Aurobindo and Rabindranath Tagore) and Manoj Das (Sri Aurobindo), while contributors like C.R. Irani note that managing power in independent India is not all that easy.  Where is the hero who can resist temptation?  We are understandably unnerved by the manner in which Rajiv Gandhi tried to keep his vote banks intact, and how one had to show scant courtesy to law for one’s survival. 

“Whether you have a particular kind of schooling, whether you have a phone or a ration card, almost everything depends on some grace and favour because the kind of socialism we have practised all these years, from Indira Gandhi downwards, meant two things:  first create an artificial scarcity of every essential item and then exploit that scarcity.”

If a few survived, it was thanks to the “light within” emitting a soft glow in the words of a poor old airport loader, in the action of a harried customs officer.  Judges, businessmen, politicians, aye, even newspapermen seem to possess such ugly feet of crumbly clay!  And Irani can sentence somebody to life-long squirming by just a sentence: “Of course, Sonia Gandhi was protecting him.”  The Italian connection. Power in the hands of such leaders, eh?

Yet another revelation from Irani is the difference in approach practised by the blocks (judiciary, business, government).  They are all in it for the grabs but look at the way business is run.  Biren Mukherjee is the exception that proves the style of business that thrives on tipping the essence of power in its favour:

“You want to evoke a response, you persuade people to do it.  You don’t do it, like Indira Gandhi, pukdo, bandh kardo, grab him, lock him up!  That is not the way to do it.  But at the end of the day, if the law is not enforced, there is bound to be more crime and more breaches of laws.” (pp. 269-270)

But who cares?  Ah, we do, say Chakraborty and Bhattacharya, giving out reasons for this compilation at a time when materialism, commercialisation of education and research have devoured almost the whole of traditional wisdom.  Theirs is an attempt to examine the problem, make a list of the diseases and suggest remedies in the light of earlier experiences.  The contributors were given wide freedom, and since they come from a variety of work-areas, Leadership and Power has shaped itself into a double-jointed inter-disciplinary tool.  There is a charming variety of subjects and style.  While Dasgupta is all Eliot and Goldsmith, Ambirajan peppers his paper on the private business organizations of India with R.H. Coase and Alfred Chandler, Champaka Basu and Francis Fukayama.  Sugita Yoneyuki and Marie Thorston deal with the very difficult problem of “managing power among the vanquished” when cultural values have to be reformatted in terms of a “situational ethics”.

When seen in balance, the twenty-nine papers in the collection usually zero in on either political power or corporate power and discuss the tremendous pressure upon a leader in either of these areas.  Lord Acton casts his shadow everywhere: “Power tends to corrupt”.  So we should be careful lest we handover absolute power into a single person’s hand. If those who are leaders realise that “all power is a trust” (Disraeli) all should be well.  V.R. Krishna Iyer’s language is ever a delight and his eloquent advocacy of Case-flow management in judiciary points to making India “a social justice nation”.

Primarily about corporate power, William Miller has pumped in a lot of inputs about the use of spiritual power in business.  Rather, he attempts to bring business into spirituality and would have us view our work as a “spiritual autobahn”.  In short his philosophy is one of “job-satisfaction” which can be achieved by following Gibran’s advice, quoted by Miller himself: “Work is love made visible.  When you work with love, you bind yourself, and to one another, and to God.”

So many authors leading us on Himalayan treks helping us look at the blossoms and thorny bushes on the pathway, the gurgling stream flowing close by, the strips of water-falls that make you blink, the dangerous gorges on the sides and the beckoning peaks of achievement beyond.  This elevating and practical adventure has been given a visual kick-start by Pradeep Nayak who has placed the leaders and their instruments of power in a capsule and whirled it into the space on the cover. Indeed, “Leadership and Power” sets a-whirl significant ideas and makes us think that transformation is possible. 

Transformation of a misused present into a worthy future.  Yad bhaavam tad bhavati.

Dr. Prema Nandakumar

[i] Translated by K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar

TKC: Till Khatiya Comes—a variation on the ‘Never Say Die’ motto

By

P.C. Alexander: Through the Corridors of Power, Harper Collins, 2004, pp.480

The last couple of years have witnessed an unusual rash of unburdening by Indian civil servants which is of particular interest because of the posts held by them: Cabinet Secretaries to the union government—the highest post in the bureaucracy—of whom two have gone on, after retirement, to be principal secretary to the prime minister. The revelations they provide are put in perspective by the confessional account of a former joint director of the Intelligence Bureau, Maloy Dhar’s Open Secret. What sets P.C. Alexander’s Through the corridors of power apart from Deshmukh’s A cabinet secretary looks back and Subramanian’s Journeys through Babudom and Netaland is his considerable experience as an international bureaucrat and his little field experience. With considerably less than a decade in the field, he opted for the central pool and never came back to serve in a state. It speaks volumes about the highest echelons of decision making in Indian government that Smt. Gandhi made a deliberate choice to appoint him as the prime minister’s principal secretary to function significantly in the political arena, both within the country and without. Alexander shares with us a treasure: facsimiles of the little notes and delightful doodles Smt. Gandhi used to pass on to him during meetings for his scribbled responses and details of her penchant for punctuality, her expertise in packing for international jaunts, her behaviour like “an empress”, her swift clearing of files and her deep concern for her three grandchildren because of which the refusal to allow Varun to meet her even once in a while left a deep emotional scar. Unlike Deshmukh who struggled to mask his attachment to Rajiv Gandhi behind the façade of a proper civil servant, Alexander is quite open regarding his unqualified devotion to the Gandhi pariwar, whether in power or out of it. Much of his earlier book, My years with Indira Gandhi has been included in this work. Of particular value is his detailed account of the events following the assassination of Smt. Gandhi and the crucial role he played in persuading Rajiv Gandhi to wait till the President arrived for being sworn in as prime minister, overruling the intense pressure of the Arun Nehru cabal for getting this done by the Vice President. Alexander gives us a deeply moving picture of this traumatic scene in the AIIMS cabin with Smt. Gandhi’s corpse where Rajiv Gandhi was being begged by his wife not to accept the post. There was no one else present, except Alexander.

True to the nature of an autobiography, Alexander does not hide his lacerated ego behind a mask. Like many high profile civil servants of the TKC (till khatiya comes) breed, he cannot rest content with retirement, but eagerly accepts one post after another: high commissioner in London (that assuages the humbling his pride suffered after the spy scandal that made him resign as principal secretary to the prime minister), governor of Tamil Nadu and then of Maharashtra, tentative candidate for President of India settling for becoming one of many Rajya Sabha MPs. Alexander is curiously akin to another bureaucrat whom he, Deshmukh and Dhar roundly criticise for his megalomania and open kow-towing to Rajiv Gandhi. Nothing sets him apart from T.N. Seshan in craving to become President of India and seeking political support for it, only to be grossly let down, exposing the political naiveté of both.

The book flaunts encomiums from Venkataraman on his professional competence, from Vajpayee who calls him not just a rajyapal but also a rajguru (which must have fanned the dream of occupying Rashtrapati Bhavan), from Palkhivala who calls his talk on Gandhiji “the greatest talk ever delivered”. There are nearly a dozen photographs of the author with VVIPs. After these to be faced with the bitterness permeating the first 50 pages (Alexander begins at the end, with how he was led up the garden path and then let down by the NDA regarding Rashtrapati Bhavan because of the Congress machinations and the ambitions of K.R. Narayanan for a second term) leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It is, of course, valuable because it tears away the entire façade of decency to expose the slavering ambition of bureaucrats-turned-politicians even when they rise to become the President of India, fuelled by the “never say die” syndrome.

To civil servants the book is of interest because of the evidence that out of turn promotion is possible even in the IAS. Alexander superseded many to become development commissioner of small-scale industries as many as three years before he was eligible. How the appointments committee of the cabinet bent the rules just because Lal Bahadur Shastri insisted is a telling commentary on the power of the political executive even in the so-called heydays of our fledgling democracy. This is a post he held again ten years later after reverting prematurely from a UN posting, sacrificing a UN pension because he was not finding job satisfaction in it. He again got promoted as secretary to the union government ahead of several seniors at the behest of Smt. Gandhi who overruled the cabinet secretary’s objections. During the Janata regime, Alexander stood up to Morarji Desai valiantly as commerce secretary and, when relieved of the post, took up an assignment with the UNITC. In a similar fashion, V.P. Singh peremptorily removed him as governor of Tamil Nadu despite their earlier good relations. Years later when Singh was his guest in Bombay, Alexander mentioned this to him and had the satisfaction of hearing the former prime minister confess that it had been a mistake. Alexander was quite thoroughly involved as go-between in negotiations between various political parties and factions within the Congress when Narsimha Rao’s candidature for prime ministership came up. He smoothly made the transition from an aloof bureaucrat to a politician, almost king-maker, playing an important role in helping Smt. Gandhi through her tense relations with Sanjiva Reddy, Zail Singh, MGR, N.T. Rama Rao and others, even recommending how the AICC should be reconstituted. Despite his recommendation in favour of Swaran Singh as presidential candidate, for reasons which he could not plumb, she chose Zail Singh with unfortunate results.

The coverage of the emergency is disappointingly sketchy. The post-emergency witch-hunt launched by the Janata government covered civil servants too. Alexander mentions the arrest of B.B.Vohra, petroleum secretary, but has not a word to say about the insults to which another secretary was subjected by a local police station. The abdication of the home secretary and even the cabinet secretary, Nirmal Mukherji, who did not intervene in any way, severely demoralised the bureaucracy. This was the time when everyone needed to come together to take a stand.

The book provides a detailed account of the Punjab imbroglio and raises questions about the inadequacy of military intelligence regarding the extent to which the terrorists inside the golden temple were armed which led to severe damage to the building as the army had to change their plans completely and bring him heavy armour. The inner wheeling dealing between the terrorists and the prime minister’s house that Alexander does not reveal (he cannot explain why Smt. Gandhi kept president Zail Singh in the dark) has been narrated in detail in Dhar’s Open Secret. The IPKF involvement in Sri Lanka is not covered satisfactorily, possibly because he did not have access to the inner goings-on of the prime minister’s office at that time.

One is surprised not to find any pen-portraits of Alexander’s batch-mates in the IAS. He has nothing to say about one of the most illustrious of them, Sushital Banerjee, who died in office as defence secretary when the Jaguar aircraft deal scandal erupted. Nor does he mention Rajeshwar Prasad who influenced so many batches of IAS trainees in the National Academy of Administration and got it renamed after Lal Bahadur Shastri. The book, with its focus on international and national politics, completely ignores another event that badly shook the bureaucracy: the resignation of the director of the national academy of administration over government’s soft-pedalling of exemplary action against a trainee who had attempted to molest a lady colleague. Alexander, as the prime minister’s secretary, did not support the principled stand of the director of the national academy nor had a word to say about its aftermath which severely damaged the integrity of the civil service. Ironically, after the spy scandal in the PMO erupted, Alexander’s own resignation was accepted, as that of Appu had been! Proudly he reproduces the editorial in the Hindustan Times commending his “excellent work” and recommending that government reject his resignation.

Actually, Alexander is so lost in himself, that nothing which does not directly affect him is of consequence. When the cabinet secretary writes asking for his concurrence to join the national security advisory board, he is offended because he feels the prime minister himself should have done so as the cabinet secretary had been a joint secretary under him. Alexander even quotes the written response he elicited after “gently chastising him”—its exaggerated tone makes one suspect it is tongue in cheek—: “you are undoubtedly one of the greatest civil servants of India.”

The book becomes, in the ultimate analysis, an account of his and his wife’s grand achievements in India and abroad, and his griping about having been taken for a ride by politicians who dangled before him the juicy carrot of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

–Pradip Bhattacharya

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