Something (more) about West Bengal cadre

 

These chronicles will not be complete without mentioning an officer named B.B. Biswas (now deceased). He was from the State Police Service. When I first met him, he was Additional Superintendent of Police in the adjacent district of Coochbehar. In Police, when a law and order situation develops, it is communicated urgently on the wireless. This being a one-to-many communication, all important officials and stations get to hear it simultaneously and take action, as required. Whenever there was any such situation reported on the wireless in Coochebehar district or any district where B.B. Biswas was posted, such a message was almost immediately followed by a message that the Additional SP (i.e., Biswas) had rushed to the spot. However, someone did some research and found that although there were numerous reports of B.B. Biswas having started off immediately for all the trouble spots, there never was any report or evidence of his EVER having reached any of them. All the SHOs of all those Police Station areas are still awaiting his arrival. 

When the post of Additional SP, South 24 Parganas was falling vacant, B.B. Biswas moved heaven and earth to get posted there. That was not because the jurisdiction was huge or because it was close to Calcutta. One reason he was desperate to be posted there was that he had three wives belonging to three different Police Station areas of the concerned zone. It was a logistical nightmare for him to coordinate his domestic arrangements from a remote posting. The second reason, as stated by him, was that there were 19 Police Stations in the zone so if each one contributed at least Rs. 2,000 per month, he could keep his assorted wives in relative comfort. His logic and his efforts to achieve the outcome became widely known. However, unfortunately for him, I got posted in the zone instead. This sent him into depression but when someone was trying to commiserate with him, he replied that he was almost posted there but at the last minute, the typist made a mistake and typed out B.B. Dash instead of B.B. Biswas. May his soul rest in peace.

 

In Bengal, no one used to attend office before 11 A.M.. On the other hand, there was a rush to leave office at around 5 PM. In one of the offices, in a fit of idiotic insanity, I thought there should be more discipline and asked the Bodo Babu (Section Officer) as to what actually was the government-mandated office time. He hemmed and hawed and scratched his head and indicated that he had never come across any order specifying it. I set him and others to search for the order but to no avail. One day, I just walked into the office at 9.30 AM and marked everyone absent for the day. People started rolling in at 11 AM as usual and were horrified. By 11.05 AM, all the relevant orders pertaining to attendance magically appeared on my table.

 

The actual office timing turned out to be 10 AM to 5.30 PM. Later on, while I made it a point to land up in office at 10 AM, I generally deferred to the local custom of 11 AM start to the office by the others. When I was IG (Admn), sitting at Writers’ Buildings, the bastion of state administration and also then the bastion of militant unionism, one day, a Section Officer turned up casually at around noon. There was something important to be dealt with and I was upset and made known my displeasure at his tardiness although as per his calculations, he was late by only one hour. The same evening, I was discussing a file with him and immediately after 5 PM, he kept looking at his watch pointedly. I was annoyed, pointed out that he had come inordinately late in the morning and asked why then was he looking at his watch at 5 PM? He said, “Dekhen Sir, Sakale ek baar late hoychhilam; eki dine dubaar late hote pari naa.” [See Sir, in the morning, I was late once (arriving); can’t afford to be late twice (while leaving also) in one single day.]

 

To go with the militant trade unionism of the subordinate staff, we also had a fairly militant IPS association, albeit without the rights of industrial action. One particular year, there was a hotly contested election between two groups of officers who openly branded themselves as “the haves” vs the “the have-nots.” The “haves” were further divided into “grass-eaters” and “man-eaters” but that’s for a later blog. The “haves” took the floor first and held forth on how they will transform the cadre by increasing the cadre strength, creating extra posts at the senior levels, etc.. The “have-nots” talked about district assignments for all, reducing arbitrariness in posting, and so forth. Meanwhile, a senior officer, known for his excessive militancy, wanted to have his say and rushed towards the microphone. Many other senior officers tried to grab and restrain him because with him at the mike, anything could happen. Somehow, he managed to escape all the clutching hands and shouted into the mike, “All these big things are bunkum. Tell me what you’re going to do about medical reimbursements.” When everyone was surprised at the question, he added, “I still haven’t been reimbursed for my wife’s first delivery. The child is now grown up and about to get married …”

 

In the state Intelligence Branch, two officers of the same batch were posted as Addl Director General. One of them was heading the Branch and the other one was holding another important post. There was constant struggle for establishing supremacy. Things came to a head when the second officer landed up in the office early one day and parked his car under a portico leading to the offices. Traditionally, the car of the head of the Branch used to be parked there and there never was any trouble earlier because the other officers in the Branch were always either junior or from junior batches. When the big chief arrived, he was aghast to see that “his” spot was taken. The other officer refused to get his car moved. Things escalated through the Home Secretary, the Chief Secretary and finally to the Chief Minister. After a lot of heated discussion, it was finally resolved that the car of one of the officers will occupy that space for three days in the week and the car of the other officer, the remaining two days. Why the cars couldn’t drop off the officers and be parked elsewhere is a question that was never asked.

[Names changed to protect identities]