Footprints

 

The only way a civil servant thinks he exists or has ever existed is to find his name on something called a Succession Board. Most government offices have this board where the serial numbers, names of the officers and the dates they occupied the hallowed chair are written and prominently displayed, usually behind the chair. Some of these boards go back to ancient times, much before India’s independence also. 

Given this, despite putting in 33 long years in the Indian Police Service, I wonder whether I have ever existed because my name doesn’t figure in (m)any board/s. 

The problem started with my probation/training days itself. Our outdoor in-charge used to be very innovative and introduced two large brass plaques on the training ground at the National Police Academy (NPA) recording the names of all the IPS officers who had passed out from the portals of NPA. After passing out, for some reason, the Academy recommended that I should be removed from service and pursued it vigorously. They succeeded in ensuring that orders terminating my services were issued. Apparently, there were jubilant celebrations in the Academy when news of this reached there and, in the middle of it, someone decided to remove my name from the brass plaque. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the honourable President of India who is never pleased was pleased to cancel the termination order so I survived. Later, when I visited the Academy, I checked to see whether my name had been put back in. It was. While returning from the parade ground to my room, I ran into the officer/ faculty who had vigorously campaigned for my removal. He enquired, “Aur, kya ho raha hai?” I replied, “Woh sab nahi ho raha hai,” and moved on. I wonder whether the brass plaque and my name are still there. 

In the cadre, my first posting was as Sub Divisional Police Officer in Alipurduar. The post was very old and the succession board in that office contained the names of many celebrated officers dating back to really ancient times. It was a matter of pride to see my name alongside theirs. Unfortunately, the sub division has now been converted into a district so there is a Superintendent of Police there and the post and the board have ceased to exist. 

On promotion, I joined as a zonal Additional SP in South 24 Parganas district. Unfortunately for me, that zone has now been subdivided into three full-fledged police districts so, again, the old board is gone. 

My next assignment was a United Nations deployment in Mozambique. In those deployments, there is no system of succession boards. In any case, once the mission winds up, hardly any trace of it survives. Sometimes, the country also doesn’t survive, let alone a succession board. 

After I came back, I was posted for a few months as Additional SP in North 24 Parganas district. That office has now got shifted and succession board, if any, of the post also must have been subsumed in an unmarked grave of the interminable march of time. 

On promotion, I was posted as SP, Calcutta airport. Those were pre-Kandahar hijacking days and airport security was manned by local Police of the state where any airport was situated. After the Kandahar hijacking, the government decided that the airport security would be handed over to a Central force and CISF was designated to take over the security at the airports in a phased manner. Accordingly, the security of Calcutta airport is now under the charge of an officer of CISF designated as CASO (Chief Airport Security officer). The earlier post and succession board are long gone. 

The next post, DC, Enforcement Branch, Calcutta Police was already in decline when I joined because the control orders were being cancelled one by one. It has now been fairly reduced to a long-deceased letter box and has been relocated. I have no idea if a succession board exists when the post itself faces extinction. 

North Dinajpur, the district where I was SP was carved out of another district called West Dinajpur which might have been carved out of an undivided Dinajpur during British times – the East Dianjpur part became part of East Bengal/ Bangladesh. When this happens, that succession board of the original district disappears, to be replaced by succession boards of the new units, starting with when the unit was formed. Unfortunately, North Dinajpur district has now been splintered into two districts. 

I went on Central deputation as a Commandant. This organisation was undergoing a transformation at that point of time, to becoming a border guarding force. The unit I was heading was in the hinterland and was now merged with other units and the combined unit was located at the border. With this went any hope of mine to have some kind of existence on a succession board. Later, on promotion in that organisation, I held a combination of assignments simultaneously and these combinations were changing frequently so the question of any succession board didn’t arise. 

My second central deputation was with Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and since the demands on the organisation were far greater than its capabilities, I devoted my entire energy into a massive reorganisation. All the designations also underwent a transformation. Thus the post of Commissioner became Director General. My name figured in the posts of Commissioner and Joint Commissioner but it’s unlikely that those boards exist any more. In that sense, I dug my own grave by organising the overhaul of BCAS.

My last assignment in the service was so insignificant that there was no succession board. I tried to find the dates my predecessors had occupied the post  so that I could create a succession board but even that record didn’t exist. Thus, I faded gently into that post-retirement good night, unseen, unheard, unrecorded for posterity. 

In my quest for some kind of footprint on the sands of time, I compiled a selection of these blogs into a book hoping that there would be at least some traces of my existence. Unfortunately, just a few days back, my publishers informed that they are winding up their Indian operations and after this month, my book will stop being listed in Amazon, etc., unless I get it reprinted by some other publishers. 

Leads me to think, do I exist? Have I ever existed? I seek solace in Einstein’s quote about Mahatma Gandhi:

But then, apparently, no one knew Gandhi until a film was made on him. I wonder whether anyone ever would make a film on me.

Dial M for Murder (of Democracy)

 

During this entire election (Lok Sabha, 2024), I have been appalled by what the Election Commission of India has done and more so, by what it has not done. The incidents have got curiouser and curiouser.

This has been the longest electoral exercise in India ever, except for 1951-52 when it was held over four months and 68 phases. However, the situation and the process were different then. 314 constituencies elected one member using the first-past-the-post system and 86 constituencies elected two members, one from the general category and one from scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. One constituency elected three representatives. The majority of voting took place in early 1952, but Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 as its weather is usually inclement in February and March. Plus, India was a young nation and the logistics were truly challenging.

Even now, in India, elections are a mammoth exercise. The electoral roll comprises around 96 crore voters who cast their votes in 12 lakh odd booths. The sanctioned strength of Police all-India is 20 lakhs plus and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) have around 10 lakh personnel. Obviously, the elections cannot be held on one single day. However, was it really necessary to have seven phases spread over 44 long days? A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that it can be done with three dates spread over 15 days only. How? 

During elections, due to extensive deployment of forces in an area, regular Policing, border guarding and other stresses on the Police are much less so easily, 50 % of the above 30 lakhs personnel can be mobilised. Looks like a tall ask but, if forced to, a lot of flab in terms of personnel deployed for non-policing duties (I saw one retired officer having 50 CAPF personnel in his house) can be trimmed down. In the current elections, 3.4 lakh CAPF personnel have been mobilised. That can easily go up to 5 lakhs. 

Secondly, my experience is that the personnel at the booth cannot thwart a depredation. A few polling booths are combined into a circle/sector and a force is deployed for each circle/sector. This is the force which patrols the booths in its jurisdiction and is the real deployment that makes for the effectiveness of the election police arrangement. Rather than manning the sensitive and hyper-sensitive booths by CAPF instead of local police, these circles should be made smaller and manned properly. That will reduce the absolute numbers and make for better policing. 

Half the CAPF personnel may be deployed each for Phase I and Phase II, a week apart. Bulk of the CAPF deployment in the Phase I may be relocated for Phase III and will get 10 days for movement and acclimatisation. 

Thus, the elections would be over in two weeks. 

When this is possible, why was the election spread over 44 days during the current elections? The reasons were not logistical. It was just to facilitate one particular “star campaigner” of one particular party to go around the countryside and campaign as much as possible. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired. Badly. So, ‘Viksit Bharat’ immediately gave way to many things starting with M – Mutton, Machhli (Udhampur, April 12), Musalmaan (Ajmer, April 6), Mangalsutra (Banswara, April 21), Muslim Cricket team (Dhar, May 7), Mujra (Patliputra, May 25) and towards the very end, Mahatma, the unknown (TV interview, May 29). The whole thing was rounded off with a bout of Meditation with or without spectacles but definitely with the cameramen. 

For good measure, there were a few non-M words also, Ghuspetiya (Banswara, April 21), Vote jihad (Barasat, May 28), Reservation to Muslims at the cost of SC, ST, OBC (Dumka, May 28), the “Non-biological Divinity” (Varanasi, May 14), and so on. 

Section I (1) of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) requires that “No party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic." 

Section I (3) of the Model Code of Conduct states, “There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes …” Would the M-tirades be violations of MCC? Of course, they were, apart from falling foul of various sections of the Representation of People’s Act and IPC. The Election Commission of India (ECI) was silent. It remained silent when the voters were told that not voting for a particular party would be a “sin” as opposed to voting for it which would be “auspicious.” It also remained silent when campaign interviews were telecast in areas in “silent period” before polling. The so-called meditation which was nothing but a campaign ploy was telecast all over during the silent period before the last Phase poll on June 1. 

Then there were the prodigious amounts of lies and untruths purveyed with contemptuous glee. 

“They will put Ram Lalla back in a tent...,” “They will put a Babri lock on the Ram temple...,” “They plan to bulldoze Ram temple...,” “As per their manifesto, 15 % of the budget/ resources will be given away to ghuspetiyas…,” “If you have two buffalos, their government will take away one,” “No one knew about Mahatma Gandhi until a film was made about him…” It’s another matter that no such words were available in any manifesto and around 12,600,000 books on Gandhi are available in the US Library of Congress collection. Tempos loaded with cash of Ambani and Adani were never found. 

MCC does have prohibition against lies. Section I (2) directs, “Criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion shall be avoided.” 

Experiments with weaponised lies aren’t supposed to succeed with such ease, even if they come dressed in supreme arrogance. 

Unless future Election Commissions dig even lower, the current elections will probably go down in history as the rock bottom in terms of transparency, probity and fairness, with obvious implications for its presiding deities.