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        DMK president Karunanidhi has issued a statement to the following effect:

        'Those officers who are supporting and patronising the ruling AIADMK party in Tamilnadu are given additional responsibilities and placed in-charge of many departments. Jayanthi, Surjit Choudry, Rajendran, Supria Sahu, Selvam, Shanmugam and Ramasundaram are holding more than one post. It is not known what action will be taken on this by the Election Commission.'

        I am pained by the statement issued by Karunanidhi. As a former member of the Indian Administrative Service for nearly 30 years, I am fully aware of the fact that no IAS officer can refuse to obey the orders of any government. Such an act of refusal has rightly to be viewed as an act of insubordination. No IAS officer in our decadent democracy run by pseudo-democrats in the name of 'secularism', 'social justice', 'casteless society', 'uplifting the people below the poverty line,' etc, etc can ever dare to attempt to distinguish between a government in power or a party in power. This kind of clear distinction existed in Tamilnadu to some extent only till 1967.

        With the coming of DMK to power in Tamilnadu in 1967, a strong message was conveyed to every officer that DMK party and DMK government are two sides of the same coin. This message later became an accepted convention and practice at all levels of public administration in Tamilnadu.

        Independent-minded officers who sought to distinguish between the two aspects in their approach to public work were marginalised and posted to non-sensitive posts. There also only the DMK party and the government under the control of Karunanidhi took the decision to treat neutral independent officers as enemies of the government and those officers had just to comply with the orders of government.

        Officers elevated to the highest positions by one government with great gusto and fanfare are marginalised by the successor-government unceremoniously as good for nothing and this is what I call the Unwanted Convention established by the Dravidian parties in public administration in the grandiloquent name of 'Dravida Parambaryam'.

        In short, this tradition has been not only maintained but also enriched with lethal consequences during the last 10 years. Consequently, several groups of IAS officers with different types and categories of paratrooper strength founded on caste, colour, creed and religion and having their subterranean links with one or the other of the range of Dravidian parties have been created which does not augur well for the future of Tamilnadu and its people.

        Against this background I am rather surprised that such a statement has been issued by the very person who created such an unsavoury tradition in public administration in Tamilnadu. In his first tenure as Chief Minister, Karunanidhi had a great favourite as his secretary, who later got involved in a CBI case for his Himalayan deeds of corruption. This officer had been Karunanidhi's favourite right from 1962 when Karunanidhi contested the election for the second time.

        The next officer who was chosen as his secretary belonged to his own caste and functioned almost like a de facto Chief Minister with the full blessings of Karunanidhi from 1972 to 1976. The same officer later became Home Secretary when DMK government came to power in 1989. The track record of this officer is also too well known to merit any detailed discussion.

        I can say with certainty that many of the senior IAS officers were witch-hunted with single-minded virulence only during the rule of DMK from 1996 to 2001. Many innocent IAS officers were dragged into Courts of Law for their only fault of being loyal to the government of the day (not to the ruling party, of course). In order to settle his political scores against the AIADMK, maximum number of criminal cases were filed against the IAS officers. Most of these cases ended in honourable acquittal.

        It was the DMK government which gave a deathblow to the morale and prestige of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS) in Tamilnadu. Rooted in this kind of tradition, it is no wonder that Karunanidhi has chosen to attack the innocent and neutral government officers, on the eve of Assembly elections in Tamilnadu in order to get some political mileage on the one hand and also to create a political division in the ranks of the IAS.

        All that I am saying is that a leader like Karunanidhi having been a Chief Minister for more than 12 years in three spells should show better understanding of the functioning of government machinery and should not indulge in cheap mudslinging against individual officers who don't enjoy the same freedom to go to the press and thus defend themselves against his unfounded allegations.

        The IAS Officers Association in Tamilnadu which has always remained neutral between the fire brigade and the fire ever since its formation, should now come forward to defend the legitimate interests of the officers individually named by Karunanidhi. If it is so for a few officers today, it may be so for all others tomorrow.