Among the major democracies of the world, the concept of an independent civil service is unique to India. Though the policies and programmes are set by the party in power, their implementation according to the rules is vested wholly with the bureaucracy. The civil servants’ obedience and subordination is solely to that end. They are not employees of those in power and are actually more permanent than the ruling politicians. The civil servants are also constitutionally insulated from arbitary and ad hoc behaviour of politicians. Yet in TN’s political pot-boilers, the civil servants, IAS or IPS, have become major players, contrary to constitutional intent.The State has the dubious distinction of officers of the Government too getting entangled in corruption cases or other scandals along with politicos. One such show is now on.
When Home Secretary Munir Hoda, IAS, was placed under suspension by the erstwhile AIADMK regime, the charges against him were serious and shocking. He was accused of passing GOs, without circulating the same to the Chief Secretary and the Chief Minister as required by secretariat rules and warranted by propriety. The GOs in effect stated that the prosecution had no objection to Maudhany, a key accused in the Kovai blast case, being allowed to leave jail for medical treatment or whatever, which actually went against the stated position of the Government till then. And by such ‘clandestine’ orders Munir Hoda was alleged to have helped a ‘terrorist’ and the State Government had even recommended his dismissal from service to the Centre. The latter is still sitting on that recommendation. But Hoda himself is sitting pretty now as the TN CM’s private secretary!
If that is the story of the officer, the tale of the cop runs thus: Premkumar, the ‘super sleuth’ who was in charge of the Sankararaman murder case in which the Kanchi seers are facing trial, was suspended last week. The suspension is based on a report by the DGP which accused Premkumar of threatening a key witness in the case, Ravi Subramaniam and suggesting to him to escape in order to embarrass the Government. A very serious charge indeed against a policeman. This, of course, comes on top of earlier charges against Premkumar on which he was actually convicted by a Madurai court. Though Premkumar has now challenged his suspension in the Madras HC, he has also admitted his convictions by the Madurai court. In fact, his defence is that he cannot be punished twice.
The two, the IAS and the IPS, are now subjects of an acrimonious debate between Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, with the mutual mud-slinging covering all aspects, from sedition to sanity. While the K camp, which now includes the officialdom too, has pulled out all stops to justify Premkumar’s suspension, the J team is going to town on the anti-national leanings of Munir Hoda, and by inference, his current master. Much fuel has also been added by the seizure of huge cache of arms and rocket launchers and the like in neighbouring AP, which were reportedly manufactured and transported from Chennai. With those lethal shipments happening both prior and post polls, J & K are also debating in great detail and seriously splitting hairs over the chronology and the other’s culpability. Of course, the catastrophe that was looming had slipped their much vaunted public concern.
But what should truly worry the citizens of the State is not actually the trading of muck. That is familiar stuff. The most disturbing point about the current episode is rather the spontaneity and openness with which a CM and an ex-CM have risen to the defence and rescue of two men under a cloud. By doing so, they have clearly let their respective cats out of their respective bags. Here’s how: From LTTE to local rowdies, Karunanidhi has often been suspected of being soft on, to put it mildly, such elements. And soon after coming to power in May, he played host to a Kerala delegation of Left legislators who sought release of Maudhany. That, we know, gells well with secularism too. Now what signal is the Chief Minister sending by making a person accused of abetting bombers his own most private secretary? Forget benefit of doubt, should the CM thus stick his neck out? What is the compulsion for such indiscretion? After all, till date, there is no explanation for Munir Hoda pushing through those grim GOs. Yet, he is deemed sacrosanct.
Again, Premkumar by no means ranks as the most defensible police officer, what with those court indictments against him. Compounding that were the SC’s observations during the hearings of the Acharyas’ bail pleas wherein severe strictures were passed not just about the methods adopted by the TN prosecuting authorities, but also their motives. In the context of mounting opinion that Jayalalithaa was actually using Premkumar to settle personal scores with the Kanchi seers, her current defence of the cop, going as far as to vouch for his integrity, has only added credence to those charges.
Though a national malaise, the decadent trend of using the civil servants as handmaidens started in TN with the advent of the Dravidian rule, which can take the credit not just for cultivating a crony culture of its own in the choice of bureaucrats and police, but also for weeding out the ‘unfriendly’ ones. The result is that the executive is clearly divided down the middle with allegiances to either of the dravidian parties. There is a fine- tuned shadow bureaucracy for every ruling bureaucracy to the extent one can pinpoint the precise officers and even their posts and hierarchical positions if a change of regime were to happen. And there is much scope for upward or downward mobility even on that ladder of favour. Reason why even frequent shufflings, which should actually kindle their indignation, are instead taken in the stride by the officialdom. There are, no doubt, several honourable exceptions, but for them are reserved the Archives, Archaeology or the numerous ‘water-less forests’ that abound in TN!
A wise bard had once said that a good public servant is one who can get under the skin of the people. A rational amendment is warranted: make it ‘skin of the politician’, instead. So that even not-so-civil servants can also bank on the backing of their political sponsors.
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