Book(s) Review - Works of Manu Joseph - A Worldview sans Blinkers

As I finally put down my copy of "Miss Laila - Armed and Dangerous" in the wee hours of a cold December night, I felt a very strong urge to put a quote from the book on my wall. By the time dawn broke, I was thinking that the author justified a whole article, and not a mere quote.

I first took notice of him when I came upon an article, being circulated on the Batch Whatsapp. It was bad-mouthing the IAS. There was nothing new about that. In the perception of the officers, those who whine about, and against, the Service, are those unfortunate lot who drew the shorter sticks in the gamble that CSE ultimately is. Yeah, we are smug philosophers that way. Yet, there was something about the article that hurt - a tinge of wit which could not be put down with a brush of superiority. The brightest kid of the batch told us that the author was a "brilliant guy". We took his judgement at face value, and hated him (the author) all the more.

Since then, various newspaper editorials began to show some of his articles. HT started placing a regular column of his works. Mercifully, he wasn't going about the Service now, and, removed from the personal assault on one's daily bread, one could start to appreciate the eponymous "brilliance". The articles were short, and insightful. They were based on honest accounts of social realities. They dangled, before the readership, truths, which we were either trying to ignore; or worse, had successfully ignored and suppressed to unconscious. All of the articles ended with an introduction of the writer, who, among other things, was known as the author of 'The Illicit Happiness of Other People'.

There is something attractively mischievous about that title itself, isn't it? In this age when finding a PDF of any work is too easy, this book proved quite elusive. So, for the first time, one discovered the ease of buying a book directly from one's Kindle. There was no looking back since then. Once "Illicit Happiness" was done with, we went ahead and got "Miss Laila". Poor internet connection, and an effort to read something non fiction, like Roger Penrose (a failed effort, of course - a brilliant scientist he may be, but either he has no idea about popular science writing, or he has too inflated an idea about popular intelligence!), delayed my start on the first novel - "Serious Men"; a lacunae that has since been made up for, at the first possibility, and now I am half way into it.

Whenever we write book reviews, we must write something about the author's style. The author writes in third person, but from a very intimate third person perspective, as if the narrator were a guardian angel, privy to the deepest thoughts and desires of the characters. Of course, the social commentary of his articles does play a big part even in the novels. The revelatory devices that adorn the articles are also present; even if a character appears to have been first presented as a stereotype, his denouement seldom remains so. However, the most endearing part of each of his novels is the gripping plotline. All the three novels are different 'genres' that way. 'Illicit Happiness' is about the idiosyncrasies of a dysfunctional family, where three characters have secrets, whose exposure drives the plot, to the biggest anti climax in the written word! 'Miss Laila', of course, is a (very very very) thinly veiled account of the (in?)famous Ishrat Jahaan 'encounter'. There is nothing much to hide there, but still it is quite fast paced, with a few diversions that bring in the social commentary, including merciless digs at the 'liberal industry'. 'Serious Men', am only partially through though. What makes the plots interesting that the author is able to convey very domain specific ideas, without over burdening us with facts. 'Illicit Happiness' brings us to the world of psychiatrists, and their subjects. In 'Miss Laila', we see the world of intelligence officers and sting operations up close. In 'Serious Men', I am in the thick of office politics I guess our professors at Engineering Colleges must have had!

The language of the author is his USP - it is irreverent, and deliberately shocking. Only he could have described a building to be 'pus coloured', and introduced characters with their body odors! There are so many quotable lines, that I feel compelled to put down a few. Sample these - "The problem with reverence in this country is that some people convert it into folk dance." "Do the lonely deserve sympathy? Some surely, but most people are lonely because they, too, have rejected people; they have rejected lovers and friends who wished to be with them but were not good enough." "They can see the feudal system, where the strong use the weak to attack the stronger." "There are faces that only an Indian can make. Like that baffled face when he is shocked by the most logical outcome of his actions. He crosses the road like a cow, and he is startled by a truck. A vehicle on the road? How? He walks across the railway track, and he finds a train hurtling towards him. A train on a railway track? He is stunned."(All from Miss Laila) "My love, I feel terrible without you. It is like being with you." "Because to fool a person, it appears, you have to first fool yourself." (All from Illicit Happiness) "That men, in reality, did not have friends in other men. That the fellowship of men, despite its joyous banter, old memories of exaggerated mischief and the altruism of sharing pornography, was actually a farcical fellowship. Because what a man really wanted was to be bigger than his friends." “The fate of every love story, he knew very well, is in the rot of togetherness, or in the misery of separation. Lovers often choose the first with the same illusory wisdom that makes people choose to die later than now.” “Yes, Yes. Indians were the oldest civilization on Earth, the greatest, the best. And only Indians had culture. Others were all dumb nomads and whores.” (All from Serious Men) "Celebrities are often too close to power to take the side of ordinary folks. It is as though good life holds them hostages in a paradise." "Economics would have been such a beautiful idea if only it weren’t so complicated by the long term." (from various articles)

A regular complaint against any writing which intends to convey a social message in this country, is that it tends to be downright boring. The author clearly, is not of that mould. He makes efforts to engage his readers, so that the 'message' goes in like hot knife through butter, and not like a sledgehammer. It is a conscious effort, as the author says, in 'The Moral Obligation of India's Media' -"But what do the authors want editors to do? Push stories that their audiences have persistently refused to read or watch? Isn’t it wiser to be a temple, insidiously leading the faithful through the ruse of entertainment into its sacred heart? Some of our finest novelists do this, too. In the transaction between storyteller and reader, the hook of the plot is what the writer offers to win the right to say things, serious things. To that end, being entertaining is a form of humility. Academics might find it useful."

It is hard not to ascribe political colours to any piece of writing these days. There is a famous joke in circulation-

A - So, what do you do for a living?

B - I am a journalist.

A - Oh. So, for which political party?

In these times of clear loyalties of the media, mainstream as well as social, the author comes across a a breeze of fresh air. Politically, his views lie in the area where, I am sure, much of the silent majority of India, which is getting tired of the shrillness in the political debate, lays it allegiance. As far as the political discourse is concerned, this vast middle ground is left unserved right now. Everything is 'my way or the highway' in the public discourse. If the political climate is being vitiated; then the cure being offered is no better than the disease itself. This very fact is why the author's writing shines like a fog lamp through this whole murky cloud of partisan opinions. It shows that there is a place for logical opinions, and there is no need for us all to be servile ideological minions of either of the camps. The author does in real life what his protagonists do in the plots. Sample this brilliant piece from 'Miss Laila', which was the quote I mentioned I wanted to adorn my Facebook wall with - "The victims of her pranks are not merely liberals, but heroes of the left, heroes who are light as feather. In the battle between presumed good and presumed evil, good is hiring poorly. Does Ms Iyer see the plain fact? Evil is an equal-opportunity society where the darkest rise. Liberal heroes, on the other hand, are made in a very different sort of place, a place where the gentry suffocate honest competition. Here the midgets rise. What chance do they have against naturally selected arch-villains?"

Taking the middle path does not imply in any way that the author is given to fence sitting. As a reviewer of Miss Laila has written, she felt worried for the author once she started reading the book. Writing something like this, even by a person of the most establishment borne class, would surely be invitation for a lot of trouble. On the other hand, here is this guy, with an obviously Christian name, who writes as if he is daring the mob to go after him. The reader is hereby informed that this article has not quoted any of scandalous parts; the obvious references the author has made to very real (and very powerful) persons. What explains his sang-froid? Is he confident that his writing would go above the heads of the masses of "offence takers". Or, does he believe (and one does pray that his such belief is true), that, like his character The Patriarch in 'Miss Laila', there are some wise heads, who see the need for sanity to prevail. We just don't know. One can only hope that this prophet of the post truth age goes from strength to strength, and we may, someday, see him do what Ms Akhila Iyer does to "P. Sathya, whose malady of interest is rural affairs"!

If I have been not able to stoke your curiosity yet, may be you need to go through these one off articles to make your mind up. What about that original article that bad mouthed the IAS? It seems I cannot find it on Google. Maybe it was not him, but someone else nursing his wounds. Maybe as a fresh entrant to the Service I had been too touchy and taken a harmless article in the wrong sense. Or maybe the IAS is more powerful than what it appears to be, even to us, and made the article 'disappear'. My bad. Happy reading!

On EVMs - and Post Truth Elections

Rarely does the opportunity (and the urge) to posit one's views occur so frequently. However, the recent controversy over Electronic Voting Machines got me thinking. In 2015, I had the opportunity for getting counting conducted with the traditional ballot papers. It took 28 hrs. 28 hrs of wakeful alertness, dealing with impromptu protests, genuine mistakes, malicious 'mistakes', and generous recounts. Still, by the end of the day, we had 3 different roadblocks, by candidates (losers, obviously) demanding another recount. Contrast it with recent EVM counting, which was over in most places within 7 hours.

The Honorable Election Commission has gone on a high tech highway in the new millenium. With due respect, most of these 'hi tech' initiatives have made life difficult for the officers conducting the election. (With the staff that we have to rely on!) The EVM is a huge exception to this rule. It has been the biggest blessing to all Returning Officers. It has ended the scope for invalid votes, ending the opportunity for biased returning officers ruling as per their leaning - one main point of contention between candidates. It gives consolidated results - which ends the scope for unscrupulous counting staff making bundles of 45 ballot papers (or 55) and counting it as 50. Which ends the scope for loser candidates lengthening their 'stay in the fight', by demanding recount after recount, using their 'supporters' to mount pressure on the administration. By removing the idea that the count of votes can change on different recounts (as it frequently does happen in ballot paper counting, due to a combination of human error as well as human mala fide), it removes any doubt as to the finality of the loss of the losers, thus depriving any smidgen of legitimacy to their attempts to 'protest' for a recount.

For those not involved in the Election process, here is a quick summary of the EVM supply chain. Usually, most places do not have the requisite number of EVMs to begin with. Some 6 months before the elections, EVMs are usually transported from some other place where they were in use recently. This location is randomly chosen by the Commission. Then, some time before the elections, each of these machines (its two components - Ballot Unit as well as Control Unit) is checked, in front of the representatives of all the political parties. Mock poll is conducted on them - which means that a number of votes are randomly polled on these machines, in front of these political representatives, and then the results thereof is shown. Any machine which shows any mismatch between the polling and the counting has to be weeded out. (I am yet to see a single such case.) Then, after the nomination process, when the list of contesting candidates (the ballot paper) is finalized, the Returning Officer gets the EVMs prepared for polling. At this stage too, all political representatives (and even the independent candidates) are invited to witness. Again, a mock poll is conducted, with similar conditions as before. Finally, on the day of the poll, before the actual poll starts, a mock poll is carried out in front of the agents of all the candidates, at each and every booth! So there is no scope for 'loading' an EVM in favour of some candidate. Again, an EVM is not connected to any network, so it cannot be 'hacked' online. If one says that someone is manipulating the EVMs post poll, after breaking myriads of seals, then one can only say that the humble ballot box is even less secure, for after breaching all the seals, manipulating a computer chip would still be tougher as compared to, say, simply replacing the polled ballot papers inside a box!

If seen within the recent period, the political objections against EVMs would seem partisan. However, today's winners were equally graceless losers in their times (I won't take names, and I shall leave the googling to you. I can give a hint - the movie, Rajneeti, released in 2010, had a scene inspired from those allegations.) Hence, it is, in a long run, a bipartisan assault against a Constitutional (and largely Administrative) body. 

So, why is this issue more urgent now, as compared to 8 years ago. Well, we now live, officially, in a post-truth world. Here, the facts can be twisted and presented ( or plain lies substituted for the truth) on the 24x7 media, which also likes a good controversy to run its mill. Without proving anything in a court of law, the detractors can vitiate public opinion and trust, the bedrock of electoral democracy. The Election Commission (and all the State Commissions) are manned majorly by ex Civil Servants. Any attempt, by Civil Servants, to counter the malicious lies in the public arena, against politicians, would come out very feeble, for this is the politicians' playground - the press, the TV, the radio. Today one was witness to an Honorable SEC defending the 'safeguards' of an EVM, amidst vociferous (but illogical) detraction by politicians. It was like watching baby seals getting clubbed! The efforts of the Honorable Commission need to be in an arena where facts and logic still matter - the Court of Law. They should demand an injunction against irresponsible comments against the EVMs, unless backed by proof, which the Court would satisfy itself over. In essence, a judicial gag order - the kind one of our political luminaries had got when he was videographed in some compromised positions. If the same is not done at the earliest, the cacophony would smear the whole electoral process with doubt, and thus shave off legitimacy. Not only for this time, but for times to come. Who knows it might pressurise the powers that be into bringing back the ballot paper, with its associated mess. Then, deprived of the painfully obvious judgement of the EVM, the elections will again be mired in a thousand fold louder cacophony - throwing up no clear victors or vanquished. It will be, truly, a post-truth election!

Disservice to the Service

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.” This quote is attributed to Margaret Thatcher, the first woman PM of the UK. She definitely has the credentials to say that. She was quite powerful. Plus, she was a lady too.

We shall return to the Iron Lady in some while. First, we need to look over a list of some powerful persons. Here is a list of Judges of the Bombay High Court. Observe the initials “I.C.S.” at the end of most of the entries, ending slowly somewhere around the entry for “Mr. V. B. Raju, M.A., Diploma in Economics (Madras), I.C.S”, somewhere around 1959. Then, this is a similar list for the Allahabad High Court.  Read the initials at the end of the entries at numbers 5, 8, 11, 22, 24, 25, 33, 44, 54, 91, 96, 102. In fact, 102 became the Chief Justice too. Finally, here is a bio of a former Judge from the website of the Supreme Court of India, which reads as (partial quote) – “Ramaswami Vaidynathier, Msc. Bar-at-law – Born, 30th October, 1904, Educated in Presidency College, Madras. Universities of Allahabad and Oxford and Inner Temple, London. Joined the I.C.S on 9th October, 1929. Asstt. Magistrate and Collector in Bihar from 9th December, 1929 to 29th June, 1933; Secretary to the Orissa Committee under the Government of India; Reforms Officer from 30th June, 1933 to 15th November, 1933; Joint Magistrate in Bihar from 21st November , 1933 to 24th February, 1936; Chief Justice of the Patna High Court from 30th April, 1956. Appointed Judge of the Supreme Court from  4th January, 1965.” 

 

In that magnum opus on the Civil Service, “The Men Who Ruled India”, Phillip Mason describes the avenues of promotion available to the officers of the erstwhile Indian (formerly Imperial) Civil Service. Starting at a post variously described as Assistant Collector / Joint Magistrate / Assistant Commissioner, followed by a short stint at the Government, and then the coveted post Collector & Magistrate, the officer had a choice. He could continue in the basic “Revenue” department, and go on to be Collector, followed by the post of a Divisional Commissioner, and then the Board of Revenue and its Chair (Theoretically the senior-most Civil Servant of the Cadre). He could switch to the Secretariat and go on various mutations of “Secretary to the Government”, ending at Chief Secretary. He could join the Political Service and serve as Resident in the princely states or represent the British India abroad. Finally, he could opt for the Judicial branch, and rise through the Sessions Court to the High Courts of the Presidencies, and even become a Chief Justice.

When did it all end? With the Independence, and the amalgamation of the States within the Union, there was no need for Residents, and the newly born Foreign Service took the diplomatic assignments. Various Departments (like the Board and its equivalent) were systematically subordinated to the Secretariat through the various “Business Rules” and later enactments. However, the biggest body blow given to the Service came from elsewhere. The Indian Administrative Service was born in 1946, taking over as a successor of the "heaven born" ICS. However, it seems not to have been a neat succession. The CMs' (or, as they were kmown then, Premiers') conference of 1946 resolved to take the Judgeship off the plate of their soon to be subordinates, and the subsequent Constituent Assembly debates on the matter went quite unanimously as far as these political wishes were concerned. The Constitution of India, enacted in 1949, contains the qualifications for becoming a Judge in the Supreme Court in Article 124(3) – “A person shall not be qualified for appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court unless he is a citizen of India and (a) has been for at least five years a Judge of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or (b) has been for at least ten years an advocate of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or (c) is, in the opinion of the President, a distinguished jurist.”  Similarly, for the High Courts,  Article 217(2) states that -  “A person shall not be qualified for appointment as a Judge of a High Court unless he is a citizen of India and (a) has for at least ten years held a judicial office in the territory of India; or (b) has for at least ten years been an advocate of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession.”  Notice the preference given to Advocates at all the stages. This can be attributed to the fact that adjudication is largely a legal field (and the fact that the Constituent Assembly, and the Freedom movement itself, had a preponderance of participants from the legal background!) However, the Higher Courts are not merely adjudicators. They have the onerous responsibility of overseeing the governance structure itself. Increasingly, this work has seen a significant rise in importance over the adjudication role (if the headlines judgements, and the rise of court cases pendency are seen). Hence, the role of administrators here is conspicuous by its absence. Constitutionally, there still is a leeway. Notice the language of 217(2)(a) – ‘has held a judicial office’. Who can hold such a judicial office, as per the Constitution? Article 233 states that – “233. Appointment of district judges (1) Appointments of persons to be, and the posting and promotion of, district judges in any State shall be made by the Governor of the State in consultation with the High Court exercising jurisdiction in relation to such State (2) A person not already in the service of the Union or of the State shall only be eligible to be appointed a district judge if he has been for not less than seven years an advocate or a pleader and is recommended by the High Court for appointment.” Again, there is an entry for advocates or pleaders, but a person already in the service of the Union or State are not Constitutionally barred from getting in. Still, the trail of Lordships from the Civil Services seen above dries out somewhere around the late 1950s. 

Why have I detailed out all this Constitutional arcana? This is because, of late, there has been a lot of heartburn among the brethren of this Service, about the ‘decline in the power and prestige’ of the Service. As scholars (which all of us became when we prepared for the Services), we must understand that in a mature democracy, power vests in institutions, and not in individuals. Even among institutions, most are confined to their very specific mandates. They must be  subordinated to the wishes of the ‘customers’ who use their services. It is a thoroughly Indian phenomenon where servicing acustomer is a rather menial task in itself (and the same has been detailed out in this earlier post.) However, one institution, which shall always retain its Majesty and Honour, is the Court. It is so in the oldest of the democracies – the UK and the USA. Even in that dramatic scene in the movie ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, when the prisoner Prince Salim is brought before his father (and the Emperor of India) Akbar, the great monarch refers to himself as ‘Ye Adalat’ (this Court). He is supposed to the all powerful monarch, and yet the majesty of the Court exceeds his own! However, as a service, we have failed to recognize this. (And if we have succeeded in that, then we have failed, even more spectacularly, in acting upon it.) The drafting committee of the Constitution had a number of ICS officers. Yet, they (we?) could not prevent the drafting of Article 50 in this particular manner – “The State shall take steps to separate the judiciary from the executive in the public services of the State.” Which culminated in the enactment of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which created a new class of Magistrates, the judicial magistrates, and reduced the powerful District Magistrate and Subdivisional Magistrate to the category of “Executive Magistrate”. No doubt, the tradition of vesting the executive and judicial power in a single person was wrong, if not for any other reason then for Natural Justice itself, as the prosecution is usually an executive prerogative, and the District Magistrate did (and still does) exercise control over it, and thus he used to be a judge ‘in his own cause’. However, separation of services itself has no justification in that doctrine. A contemporary IAS officer may write a two page noting on how a project of his Department is very well justified, and then, if transferred to the Finance Department, can write an equally powerful two page noting on how the project is infeasible! There was no reason why the same officer, as a District Judicial Magistrate, would have concurred with the District Executive Magistrate (unless of course, he held both the posts, as he did prior to 1973.) In fact, the term Executive Magistrate has confounded me a lot, although I have served almost 3 years as one (and look forward to some more years in a similar seat – powers willing). Theoretically, Executive Magistrate is not qualified as “Executive” Magistrate – he still (theoretically) is ‘the’ Magistrate (notice how the terms DM and SDM do not have an ‘executive’ qualifier, as opposed to CJM and SDJM) – minus the power to hand out judicial punishments. He is the residuary authority. He has to maintain the rule of law and governance structure (as the word Magistrate has its origins in the word “Master”.) Devoid of his judicial powers, however, he must, legally speaking, do so while the persons, against whom he must guard the rule of law, know that he can do little more than complain to the judicial magistrate, in case they thwart his attempt to maintain the rule. (Of course, Sections 107 to 122 of the CrPC can still be managed to become the Legislator, the Judge and the Jailor in one go – tricks of the trade.) In practice, however, the term Executive Magistrate has seen decline in its prestige. Regular EMs hardly get to do much court work. Then there is this heavy reliance of ‘magistrate deployment’ – nominating an army of officers of various departmental services as Special Executive Magistrates, for very menial sort of work. At any festival, or VIP visit, we can see the spectacle of such ‘magistrates’ guarding doors with a stick in the hand. One senior PCS officer I know called them ‘barsaati’ magistrates, drawing a parallel to the monsoon borne insects due to the seasonal nature of their deployment. Well, not only barsaati magistrates get such ignominious duties. The author has also performed quite a lot of them. Of course, being close to the area of expected ‘breach of peace’ is supposed to help. However, for such eventualities, the CrPC, vide its Section 129, empowers even a Sub Inspector of the Police to take the appropriate action. In fact, the SI, and his police superiors, would be in a much better position to act in these circumstances, owing to their training. If the idea is not to use the powers under Section 129, but those under Section 107, then why not go ahead and complete the loop by micro-appointment of Special Judicial Magistrates too, to summarily punish such breaches of peace, as and when they happen. (In my opinion it would be much more effective!) However, the judiciary is too smart to let its dignity be rubbed to the ground thus. In practice, the SEMs are not supposed to use even the powers under 129 (unless they want to be tried criminally, ironically, by the Judicial Magistrates!) They are simply supposed to coax, beg, whine and do what it takes – to sell off personal and professional dignity to keep a semblance of order. It reflects on the ‘hallowed’ Service too – if an executive magistrate is embodied in the ill trained and ill equipped ADO riding his hired rickety jeep as the ‘magistrate’ of an election ‘flying squad’, his boss the District Magistrate loses a lot of the awe he is supposed to inspire.

The question which faces us starkly, is why did did come about to happen? Out of all the engaging and powerful bastions the service held lien on, why did we end up putting all our eggs in the most vulnerable of the baskets - the Secretariat service, and failed to defend the most insulated one? Not only that, we steadily eroded the status of the Departments vis-a-vis the Secretariat. Thus, the powerful Board (with apex revenue jurisdiction) was made a parking place for out of favour senior officers (the Board has recently regained some of its lost glory, for sure, though.) Thus, in a period of around 15 years (from 1960 to 1975), our highest eligible post came down from Chief Justice to Cabinet Secretary (and Chief Secretary in cadre). We are not counting post retirement Governorship that many of our senior colleagues get as service is not a qualification for that. There is just one post of Cabinet Secretary in the country. There are hundreds of High Court Judgeships, over which quite a number of our senior colleagues would have been posted had the system continued. When the Courts took the activist route, these administrator turned judges could have bolstered the good intention of such judgements with a dose of practicality. They could have ensured that the Political leadership did not hammer the Secretraiat wing of the service into a "committed bureaucracy" mode by misusing the tools of administrative control. Alas, these are but wishful thoughts. For we chose to bet on the Secretariat service more. Knowing fully well that of all the Wings, this one had to play a second fiddle to the Political executive in a democratic setup. Why? If I am allowed to be cynical, I must say that it was the lure of limelight and 'action' that the members of the service still get. In Mason's book, it is known that even in the British Raj, those who opted for the Judicial branch were considered not 'manly enough' for the service - mere bookworms. Even today, Revenue officers who spend more time in Court (instead of on the field, and in front of a camera!) are seen as laggards, whereas they might be solving more problems than the latter. So, maybe when the Constitution was being drafted, our seniors decided to do away with this needless diversion. If I am allowed to be at my cynical worst, I think pecuniary considerations were also at play. The British Raj was largely a Police state, and secretariat work was just a bit of pen pushing and rule drafting. However, the INC had made it very clear that the Republic of India was to be huge Welfare State, with the Secretariat at the very nipple of its famed "mammaries". So, it was the new happening place, and the dry court work must have lost whatever charm it might have held. May be I am wrong here. May be, our Service ancestors, the departing ICS, just out of whim, flipped an enormous bird in the face of their younger IAS brethren! Maybe the political bosses held too firmly to the resolution of the Premiers' Conference. The fact, whatever the reason behind it may be, is that we have holed ourselves in a very precarious situation - we have locked ourselves in with a tiger, thrown away the tranquilizer, and are riding it hoping not to be eaten.

Nowadays, our Service brethren suffer a lot of heartburn when the other allied services ask for pay and service conditions equal to us. Theoretically, they are not wrong. ICS used to be paid better as they held higher posts. All Central Services are theoretically eligible for empanelment (the protest is simply to make the theory a practice). However, only the ICS used to diversify to Judicial (and hence Constitutional) posts, where there was no question of parity. Even today, we say that the Benaami Act has hugely empowered the Revenue Service, and various anti corruption legislations have done so with the Police. However, most of these are investigatory powers, with some quasi-judicial standing. We inherited the powers above the investigators, that of Courts, and we have squandered them off slowly but surely. Even today we have enormous court powers. An SDM in UP still has the power to decide titles of Agricultural land, which is 80% of the Land Area of the State. This is in addition to the powers of a Criminal Court under CrPC, which, if properly used, are still good enough to maintain the rule of law and strike fear in the hearts of those who wish to disrupt it. Sample the wordings of the Section 107 (1) - "When an Executive Magistrate receives information that any person is likely to commit a breach of the peace or disturb the public tranquillity or to do any wrongful act that may probably occasion a breach of the peace or disturb the public tranquillity and is of opinion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding, he may, in the manner hereinafter provided, require such person to show cause why he should not be ordered to execute a bond" etc The Websters' New World Law Dictionary defines 'wrongful act' as "Any act that will damage the rights of another, unless it is done in the exercise of another equal or superior right. For that reason, the scope of wrongful acts is not limited to illegal acts, but includes acts that are immoral, anti social, or libel to result in a civil suit.etc." Thus, this section gives the Executive Magistrate (not just the DM, ADM or SDM, but even the ADO in his rickety jeep on Flying Squad duty) the power to order a person not to do some act which may breach peace, the act being not confined to the list of currently legislated illegal acts. That, my friends, is practically the power of legislation! The same EM can, after hearing out the person, order him to undertake not to do the act under section 117, and commit him to jail if he does that act after giving this undertaking! This is the theoretical part, though. What we do, practically, is to simply state the police report verbatim in our notices under 107, and take undertakings without any hearing, from persons who are too illiterate to know the law (and their rights under it), aided by counsels of similar nature. When we decide that a person is too much of a threat to be left out, we pass orders under 116(3) instead of 117, and then hold the person in illegally in the name of 'verifying the sureties', instead of the easier exercise of passing the orders under 117 and committing the person at the first attempt to breach peace under 122 - which is the legal way. How can the young Magistrate learn all this if he is not to be present in his court, but on the field, ingratiating himself with all and sundry low life local politicians to keep peace in a way Neville Chamberlain would have been proud of. He is supposed to do Grievance Redressal in 7 days. Well, the populace does not approach an SDM with the corporate style grievances like - "Excuse me, my pizza is a little cold, kindly change it". Sample any list of public grievances, at any forum - the daily hearings of BDOs and SDMs to the PG Portals of PMO. Most of these are about land and property related disputes - someone encroaching upon others' field, either maliciously, or simply because someone else has encroached upon his own field in the first place. A person has sold his land holding to two different persons, without subdividing it, and now both purchasers are fighting over the better located roadside area. Or simply, the villagers of a village have signed a mass application for a road that connects their village to the highway. If all such applications are combined, the demand for funds outstrips the supply by 50 times, not to speak of the engineering manpower of the district. These are not grievances that can be redressed in 7 days, whatever the rules may decide. If such issues were amenable to 7 days resolution, our courts would not be cluttered with decades old suits. And asking the officer to 'go to the field and solve it' is even worse. It ensures that the days' business is confined to that particular issue alone, whereas the same officer might have seen 10 - 20 issues off had he spent the day in his court instead. Secondly, it lessens the authority and majesty of the officer. There is hell and heaven difference between going to the miscreants backyard and summoning him in your Court. We need to understand the difference between political work and governance work (and also make our political masters understand it). "Going to the field" at every occasion is the job of the politicians, who must seek votes. The permanent executive was insulated from the whims of people simply to enable them to take practical, if less popular, decisions. Governance is not the business of pleasing people. It is the business of keeping order and making things flow unimpeded as far as possible without disturbing the order. Politics, on the other hand (especially a deep democracy like ours) needs to be people pleasing, or populist. It would be undemocratic if it were otherwise. It was our job to make the twain meet. A political master once told that they could do away with the IAS and work better with the provincial service. True. They might. It was not our role to race the political ambitions and ideas to their desired conclusion, whatever may the implications be. It was to aid, advise and occasionally dissent. However, from the highest policy making levels to the lowest implementation levels, we have 'rolled over'. Government orders, and even legislations are churned out at the drop of a hat. My old timer Collector told me that when GOs used to be issues in his starting years, it used to news worthy - that government has changed some policy. There used to be quality in legislative and subordinate legislative drafting. The land acquisition act of 1894 served us well for over a century. Opportunistic politics played on impractical ideas. We could have dissented, and played the 'bad guys',and drafted a practical legislation. Instead, we got ourselves the Act of 2013. The rest, as they say, is history. The role of the dissent has already been abdicated to the judiciary, who have taken to it with aplomb. Our equally, if not better, qualified brethren are made to appear stupid when judiciary plays that role. Simultaneously, at the field level, the lower role of control has also been systematically eroded by tying the Collector to actual execution of almost all departmental schemes (instead of control). Instead of keeping a check that the implementation is done as per the norms, the Collector must now push to the target, norms be damned. The departmental officers have turned blunt, and look up to the Collector to get all their schemes implemented. All GOs are now addressed to the Collectors and Commissioners, and similarly, all District Level correspondence to block and lower level functionaries is being signed increasingly by the Collector. At the end of every month, we have this ridiculous spectacle of Collectors urging the Departmental officers to fudge their figures, so that the Collectors' rankings go up! The turtle on whose back the Elephant of the empire rested has been steadily reduced to the donkey who hauls the cart of the Welfare State. That was not the idea with which the British created the post of the Collector and the ICS, or the one with which Sardar Patel retained the two. Outside of his core work of Revenue, Law and Order and Elections, the role of the Collector should be that of control. If we do that, majority of the writs from the myriads of departmental works would stop clogging the higher Courts. A very good idea would be to stop posting IAS at positions where simply following procedural orders exceeds 50 percent of the brief. The service was raised to apply its mind, challenge and question. There are much better options available if all that is needed is a "Yes sir", and a click of the heels.

As far as our mode of solving our Service issues is concerned, I feel that we should take Maggie Thatchers' words quite seriously, and let our effectiveness do the talking. Even on this date, even with all the decline in its standing, the Service (or rather, individuals from the service, within the government executive at least,) wield(s) a lot of power. If all of us decide (the emphasis is on ‘all’ of us), not to let bad things happen, they won't. Our senior colleagues are still holding the highest offices of the government. If the stands taken by us in public is correct and based on facts, why wont our senior colleagues act on it in their official capacity and prevent the miscarriage of justice. The investigative agencies, the prosecution, all are under various departments of the government headed by our senior colleagues. Even if they weren't, we, through our Associations, have the calibre to move the Court and put our version better than most lawyers. However, we choose to wield decidedly political tool of public protest. Politicians are way better at that, and would beat us comfortably each and every time on their home turf. Also, picking only on graft cases is a PR Disaster. When was the last time we defended our court powers. The CrPC, in its Section 132, clearly says that - (1) No prosecution against any person for any act purporting to be done under section 129, section 130 or section 131 shall be instituted in any Criminal Court except –

with the sanction of the Central Government where such person is an officer or member of the armed forces;

with the sanction of the State Government in any other case.

(2) No Executive Magistrate or police officer acting under any of the said sections in good faith;

        no person doing any act in good faith in compliance with a requisition under section 129 or section 130;

        no officer of the armed forces acting under section 131 in good faith;

        no member of the armed forces doing any act in obedience of any order which he was bound to obey, shall be deemed to have thereby, committed an offence.

Can any SDM or ADM today really believe in the above Sections and discharge his Law and Order duties fearlessly? Can he believe that the government shall not sanction prosecution because the supporters of the local MLA were lathi charged and the concerned officers in the Secretariat rolled over. Or if the Court decided to try the case without waiting for the sanction, will our associations take it up with the higher judiciary? And why only the Magistrates -  a lot of our colleagues and subordinates from the Police, from the CAPF look forward to such protection, because, in their eyes, once a Magistrate is present on the spot, every action they take is technically under a Cout order. Leave aside law and order, what do we do to defend our (rather fast dwindling in numbers) subordinates in the departmental services, who, try to do the right thing despite political pressures. If we, as a body, start taking up such causes too, then perhaps they would not be questioned so much as they are being done now.

 All is not lost. It is not possible to scale the earlier heights, nor is it proper in a democracy, where the political authority has to be ascendant. However, the Institutions must be supreme. That is where our strength lies, and that is what we must exercise. We should endeavour to reassert ourselves in the domains which are beyond the political ambit, for from there we draw our strength to resist being cowed down in the domains where we work in the supervision of political authority. To begin with, can it be argued that a Magistrate (even a lowly Executive Magistrate) derives powers from Statutes, and, more often than not, he must use them against people of political background. Hence, his administrative control vesting in a body totally comprised of political beings can lead to conflict of interest, which may manifest itself as ineffectiveness (when the ruling party breaches peace), or partial action (when the opposition is involved). We have made Civil Services Boards, but they are manned by serving officers, who are similarly encumbered by the government. One way is to include the higher Courts (as the ultimate custodian of the CrPC, under which our Magistrates work) in a better empowered Board. Perhaps we do not need to look outside. Our retired senior brethren have manned the Election Commission since its start. Since they are independent of political control, they (and under their administrative control, we) have been conducting elections quite flawlessly. That includes a much better enforcement of Law and Order under MCC. Would it not be good if the situation of law and order could be the same throughout, as it is during MCC. Would it not be good if all government work proceeds with the effectiveness of election work? We do not need to even create a new body. We just need to subordinate the Services Board(s) to the UPSC. Can we do it? Certainly it shall face resistance from all the stakeholders who have aided and abetted this decline, and have vested interest in a weakened Service. However, the biggest challenge lies within; the loosening of the Secretarial (and hence the political) stranglehold over originally autonomous institutions. The toughest fight we must fight, it turns out, has to be with ourselves!

On Uniform Civil Code

One of my friends, who is a senior officer in the State Judicial Service, asked me about my opinion on the issue of a Uniform Civil Code. Make no mistake. As a Judicial Officer, his knowledge on Constitutional matters is very wide. In addition to that, many luminaries have written extensively on this topic, since the days of the original Constituent Committee debates, to the modern times, where it has come up as a very polarizing issue. What my friend needed was an administrator's perspective, born out of personal experiences. There is a chance that some part of it might get included in his presentation to the highest Court in the land. Hence, it is indeed a privilege to share my two cents on this topic. This is not an article based on secondary source research. This is simply based on experience and cogitation there upon.

Very few young people come face to face with personal laws. Till mid 2015, my only concern with personal laws was how to calculate my coparcenary share in the rundown village property, to fill in the annual property returns. That changed, quite drastically, in 2015, when the government decided to award the victims of the Hashimpura Massacre an additional compensation. The burden for creating the file fell on SDM Meerut, a seat I occupied then. A good part of the struggle was locating the musty files dating from 1987 nearabout, and reading the grisly reports, and making notings about decidely legal domain matters. That was accomplished quite well, and the award came through. However, now we were witness to an even bigger problem. All the victims were dead (obviously), and most of the original next-of-kin were also deceased now. The obvious solution was to give the new compensation to the successors to those kin. What was not obvious was successor according to which law? As revenue courts, we decided succession to agricultural land as per the Revenue Law. However, the compensation was not agricultural land. So it was decided to go by Muslim Personal Law. By this decision, the successors of the female lines were quite disadvantaged. A lot of petitioning and cross petitioning ensued. To my surprise, I received calls from a top marquee advocate/defender-of-minority-rights (who is quite vocal against UCC) who insisted (or rather threatened me) that we desist from following the Muslim Personal Law in this case! In the matter, I humbly accepted that my knowledge of the law and precedents was much dwarfed by her knowledge, but I insisted that the objections come in a proper written legal argument form. Neither this request was complied with, nor was the threat carried out. However, it became clear that when it came to oneself, a sizeable portion of the persons who are governed by the personal law, found it unjust enough to acquire the services (may be threat services only) of a very high price lawyer.

Our 'secular' laws, though, fare no better in perceived equity. As an Assistant Collector, I presided over a revenue court, in which matters of title of agricultural land were decided. In this respect, Revenue Laws are similar to the property related Statutes of the personal laws. Unlike our judicial counterparts, we presiding officers of Revenue Courts have to interact, as administrators, devoid of the trappings of a Court, with the public. I had in my office a lady weeping unconsolably and accusing me of 'robbing her of her property'. The matter in this case was that the succession in this case had occured when, as per law, brothers ranked higher in the succession list than daughters, and hence, when the suit had run its course, the property had to go to her uncles. Sad, but that was the law. Subsequently, unmarried daughters have been brought to a higher status. We have come a long way from the times of Jane Austen, where the Bennett sisters and their mother were perpetually under the threat of being evicted by Mr. Collins, in the event of their father's death. (They were much luckier than the Dashwood sisters in this regard!)  However, our secular laws still are examples of legally endorsed patriarchy. Time has come, that as we endeavour to neutralize the religion part out of the way our property related laws, we should also put an end to patrilineal (or even matrilineal) ideas of succession and family ties, at least in legal respect. Instead of defining successors as sons, daughters, father, mother, brother, sister, and invoking their marital status in case of women successors, the proper way should be listing these simply as offsprings, parents and siblings. Whatever restrictions apply to a widow gaining her husband's share should apply to a widower gaining his wife's share. This would put an end to the idea of daughters being 'paraaya dhan'. This would give the women their due and demarcated share in parental property. This would be a fall back for her in case of a marriage gone sour. This should reduce the demand or at least the justification for dowry. It would dramatically balance the society in a way no other law has done. On a side note, it shall make the law quite simple to administer for the presiding officers!

I have also been asked to share my view on the balance needed between Article 25 and Article 44. Being a Fundamental Right, Article 25 is, no doubt, stronger than the latter, a Directive Principle. To quote from the source, Article 25 states that - "25. Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion

(1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion

(2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law

(a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice. " 

Interestingly, this Article is very carefully worded, and gives preference to any restrictions given in this part (Part III) of the Constitution. So, we can have a look at an Article just 10 steps above, which says that - "14. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth." 

As has been submitted in the preceding paragraphs, all personal laws (and even the professedly secular Revenue laws) discriminate on the basis of sex, and within sex, even more so, on the basis of marital status. They do this for no better reason than their origin in a patriarchy, where sons are the heirs and torch bearers, unmarried women have to be grudgingly given sustenance, and married women 'belong to another family'. Thus, if for no other reason, then for this alone, a case for a gender neutral UCC faces no obstacle from Article 25. Anyway, Article 25(2) clearly states that it does not prevent regulation by the State of the matters secular. 'Secular', despite its various connotations in contemporary Indian politics, still retains its dictionary meaning as 'not connected with religious or spiritual matters'. There is no spiritual significance in how property is devolved. Unless, of course, we take a very broad definition of 'religious matters'. Religions came into existence as man, in his lack of understanding of various happenings, looked up to the skies for the answers. What was essentially a protocol for this connection between man and his Maker often exceeded its brief and came to dictate every aspect of human life. When does one wake, how does one eat, how one earns one's living, how one disposes of his wealth, how one marries, how one procreates, and million such other questions. Religion (and tradition - for all major religions can be classified as either tradition born, or propagator born) claims to be a lot more than a method to congress with God. It assumes to itself the authority of the Law of the Land (or rather, Lands, as many religions cross, and disdain, national borders). Religion and tradition would feel much better if there were no Statutes. Thus, indeed, the very enactment, adoption and giving to ourselves of this Constitution on 26th November, 1949, was the biggest step against the freedom of Religion (notice the capital R, as opposed to the freedom of religion). So, once this first blow has been struck, there should be no looking back. For the Constitution, and the 'modern' Hindu personal law were enacted in a much better political scene. Politicians, across the spectrum from left to the right, were genteel, well read, and, most importantly, secure with their electorate. Ironically, the robustness of the Constitution has led to such a deepening of democracy that the contemporary politician is very similar to his electorate, in upbringing, education, and outlook. Even if he is not so, he is forced to affect this resemblance, as the competition is very tough. In the 50's and the 60's the political leadership had the necessary influence and it actually led the electorate from their primeval predilections to a more modern and liberal position. The contemporary politician is forced to echo the parochial views of his electorate, and even outbid his competitors at that. As none other than the architect of the Constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar has told us, “Democracy in India is only a top dressing in an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic." So, the political class has no incentive to take the side of modernity in its tussle with tradition and religion. Hence, the role of the non-political State increases that much. If the Court does not pull its weight in this matter, the undemocratic soil, which, after the brief attempt at democratic dressing by the Founding Fathers, is being steadily eroded by the parochial politics, would be eroded back to the dark ages. We see it in the rise of bovine vigilantism. We see it in the burning Nagaland. We see it in Caste panchayats and fatwa-shops. There is the need for a ratchet like grip on the affairs - it needs to be shown to the populace that the society shall either stand where it is, or it shall modernize further, but under no circumstance shall it be allowed to slide back.

What does the administrator expect? Any effort by the state to modernize and to counter the backward slide would be met with resistance by people who have forgotten to be led meaningfully for a while. This may result in all the variety of disturbance, which is seen whenever the Court incarcerates a popular political figure, or cancels a popular but illegal 'affirmative action'. The administration faces it, and shall face it as it has faced it till now. The Court needs to understand that the Permanent Executive also has a big stake in an institution-led modern society. If the basic safeguards in the law and order Statutes like the CrPC, like 'good faith', are respected consistently, the administration has full wherewithal to ensure that the modernization project started by the Founders would continue and even flourish. Hence, it is a considered opinion that the Court can and should pick up where the enlightened politics left, and strive on. For, otherwise, it is a slide into an institutionless, Constitution-less dark age. Attack, then, is the best form of defence.