On Birthdays

 I have had a contentious relationship with Birthdays. Like most kids of my generation, I have two of them. One of them is the official one, which is 'gifted' to us by our teachers at the time of our admissions to school - in my case, by the starchy nuns of Christ The King Convent School, who found that "1st of July" made their task much easier. The other is the very day one was born on this earth, which is today. Most of us, in the modern world, like to celebrate our birth anniversaries. Earlier, we used to have this curious thought - why would someone celebrate the fact that they have one less year to live! To the juvenile mind, life was a zero sum game. Later, we felt as if we were celebrating the aging. That also felt odd, until some genius reminded us most people hate growing old, until faced with the alternative!

I am not so naive. I know that human life is fickle. So every year we complete is an achievement, against illness, and the wear and tear of the modern, tense, anxious work life. Being a father now, I can experience the delight in seeing one's offspring take down various milestones of his little (yet) life. However, personally, I feel it is more apt to mark a secret notch, smile to oneself, and carry on. Having a public party, with people clapping and singing for one, makes one feel a bit queezy. It puts a great pressure for appearance, and, at the heart of it, it is just a celebration of one's birth - an event which was neither an accomplishment, nor something one strove for!

However, the greatest reason that makes ones relationships with birthdays  so contentious, that it makes me all tensed up till the midnight passes on it, is the anxiety, that if the day is ruined, it would rankle a lot more than if it happened on any other day.

It was not always so. As a child, before the boarding school days, I used to look forward to my birthday. If not for anything else, then for the cakes, the food and the gifts. My father used to be posted at rather wayside stations then, and it must have taken herculean efforts  to arrange those colourful parties. We also used to gather more kids of my age (as compared to our daily playtime), and in the duration of the party, we could play in a sizeable gathering. Some of us (not me) would showcase talents. It used to be a good time.

Once I entered the boarding school, birthday meant a lot more to me. Our longer term ended on 30th November, and we left for winter vacation. Which meant that my birthday would commence when I would be speeding on the train back home. A railway kid could desire no more! In the earlier years, we simply distributed victuals procured from the railway hawkers, as a token birthday party. Later, as the "attendance" on this wheel bound birthday party started increasing over the years, we brought actual party food on board, including birthday cakes of appropriate size. Some nice photographs of the same are still strewn across my facebook wall.

Then college came. For my birthday, I gifted myself a nice bicycle. I had a good luncheon, with my besties. I used to pretend we four were the Pantnagar Marauders - I don't know who I put in for Peter Pettigrew. However, once the luncheon was over, I was called up for some 'urgent business' by my 'boss' at the Training and Placement (T&P) Cell. I should probably tell my readers that, as an undergraduate (or even post graduate) student, I had a hard time facing selection through Group Discussion, and T&P was all I could make when our batch was sorted into various student bodies. So we pretended here to call up the HR Executives of big companies, to invite them to come and employ us. Of course it was all make believe. However, as the wish of the lone guy, who took me under his wings when none would, it was command for me. So I took to cold calling on his behalf, wasting my precious birthday on a futile pursuit. My pursuits put me down as a rule - some politely, some rudely. After wasting 5 to 6 ours on this sad routine, I put it up to the "Adjutant" of T&P. Instead of appreciating my effort, I was hauled over the coals for not 'converting' any of the calls and wasting the 'T&P' list! I was flabbergasted. Worse, when I left the senior hostel, I found that my brand new bicycle had been nicked. I ran from pillar to post, and found that one worthy senior had 'borrowed' it. It was returned to me around midnight, tail lamp broken, mudguard bent. I was close to tears. It was not something that bad - shit like that happened in all hostels. However, it happened on a birthday, that too my first birthday away from family (except for the one in 1994, since that year we had an extended term owing to curfew vacation - a surprise vacation on account of the Uttarakhand agitation, during September and October, and hence, December was spent in school.) Since then, I have been rather defensive about this day.

In retrospect, I think birthdays are fun when it is someone else's responsibility to make it special for you. Parents do that. Once one oneself has to make the day special, in an adult world of 24x7 job and responsibilities, it is a struggle. I shared this thought with my wife. She told me that in adulthood, it is the spouse's job to make the day special. As I type this, sitting under a tree all lit up with orbs, and glittering with confetti and festoons, with crumbs from a wonderful repast all around me, all arranged by her, I think that is a really nice idea.

सिविल सेवा दिवस पर (On Civil Services Day)

This is the first article in Hindi on this blog. Abridged version has been published by the local Dainik Jagran, on whose request this was written in the first place. To make it relevant to the local readership, only the services under the State Government have been used as example.

भारत एक संसदीय लोकतंत्र है। अर्थात देश की कार्यपालिका, जिसे आम भाषा मे सरकार कहा जाता है, को निर्वाचित जनप्रतिनिधि सुशोभित करते हैं। परन्तु भारत जैसे विशाल, विषम एवं विविधता पूर्ण देश को एक सूत्र से संचालित करने में निर्वाचित कार्यपालिका के साथ साथ एक बहुत महत्त्वपूर्ण भूमिका स्थायी कार्यपालिका की है।


स्थायी सिविल सेवाओं का उद्भव औपनिवेशिक काल मे हुआ था। स्वतन्त्रता आंदोलन के समय सिविल सेवा का एक मुख्य कार्य कानून का प्रवर्तन था, एवं स्वतन्त्रता आंदोलनकर्ताओं के साथ सेवा का अनुभव उसी भूमिका में प्रतिद्वंद्वी के रूप में हुआ था । परंतु 1937 में जब प्रान्तों में स्वशासन प्रणाली लागू हुई, तब भारत के निर्माताओं ने सिविल सेवा की कार्य प्रणाली को अंदर से देखा और परखा। इसीलिए संविधान सभा मे सरदार पटेल ने स्वतन्त्र भारत मे भी स्थायी सिविल सेवा को बनाए रखने का पुरजोर समर्थन किया। उनका मत था कि ऐसी संकट की घड़ी में प्रशासनिक व्यवस्था निर्बाध चलाने के लिए अनुभवी प्रशासकों की आवश्यकता थी।


स्वतन्त्रता एवं उसके बाद के वर्षों में में विभाजन के घाव भरने, अर्थव्यवस्था को वापस पटरी पर लाने में एवं नियोजन की कार्रवाई के माध्यम से पहले कृषि क्षेत्र एवं उसके बाद वृहद औद्योगिक क्षेत्र में विस्तार लाने में भी सिविल सेवा की भूमिका अग्रणी रही है। यह वह समय था जब अर्थव्यवस्था पर शासकीय नियंत्रण सर्वव्यापी था। निस्संदेह तब से ले कर आज तक देश मे बहुत परिवर्तन आ गया है। निजी क्षेत्र अर्थव्यवस्था का मुख्य अंग है। जनता पहले से अधिक शिक्षित एवं जागरूक है। जनप्रतिनिधि भी उसी प्रकार और प्रबुद्ध हो गए हैं। इसे देख कर बहुत से लोग वर्तमान परिदृश्य में एक लोकतांत्रिक व्यवस्था में सिविल सेवाओं की प्रासंगिकता पर प्रश्न करते हैं। चूंकि स्थायी कार्यपालिका निर्वाचन से ना चुन कर परीक्षा से चुनी जाती है, अतः लोकतंत्र में अनिर्वाचित व्यक्तियों का शासन प्रशासन का अंग होना कौतूहल का विषय हो सकता है।


सिविल सेवा का प्रथम योगदान है अनुभवी प्रशासनिक निरन्तरता। अपने देश मे हर वर्ष कहीं ना कहीं चुनाव होते हैं। सत्ता का परिवर्तन होता है। योजनाएं परिवर्तित होती हैं। नीतियाँ परिवर्तित होती हैं। निर्वाचन के समय उम्मीदवार अपनी समझ के अनुसार घोषणाएं करते हैं। निर्वाचन के उपरांत इन घोषणाओं को संवैधानिक साँचे में ढाल कर, संविधान से विरोधाभास रखने वाले अंगों को हटाकर, चुनी हुई सरकारों की मंशा को सुगमता से धरातल पर लाने का कार्य स्थायी कार्यपालिका का होता है। सचिवालय के वरिष्ठ अधिकारीगण, जिनके पास उपजिलाधिकारी, मुख्य विकास अधिकारी, नगर आयुक्त, प्रबन्ध निदेशक, एवं जिलाधिकारी के रूप में वर्षों का अनुभव होता है, इन मंशाओं को दिशा निर्देश  एवं शासनादेश में परिवर्तित करते हैं, ताकि आज के फील्ड स्तरीय अधिकारी (जो कि कल के सचिव एवं प्रमुख सचिव होंगे) उस मंशा को साक्षात कर सकें।


इसे से जुड़ा हुआ प्रश्न राजनैतिक निष्पक्षता का होता है। आज के परिवेश में ब्यूरोक्रेसी के राजनैतिकीकरण के आक्षेप लगते रहते हैं। परंतु यह भी सत्य है कि आज भी सिविल सेवकों की विश्वसनीयता विभिन्न संस्थाओं में सर्वोपरी है। गत वर्ष एक प्रसिद्ध मीडिया हाउस द्वारा किये गए सर्वे में "जिला कलेक्टर" की विश्वसनीयता जनता के मध्य सेना के समतुल्य पायी गयी थी। अतः जहाँ पर राजनैतिक मतभेद हो, वहाँ आज भी स्थायी सिविल सेवक को एक तटस्थ निर्णायक माना जाता है। सिविल सेवा, वरिष्ठतम से कनिष्ठतम तक, स्थानीय व्यवस्था में एक विविधता का पुट लाती है। अखिल भारतीय सेवा में किसी राज्य में मात्र एक तिहाई सदस्य ही उस राज्य के निवासी होते हैं, एवं दो तिहाई अन्य राज्यों के। राज्य के अंदर भी उच्चाधिकारी अपने गृह मंडल में, एवं अन्य अधिकारी अपने गृह जनपद में नहीं तैनात हो सकते हैं। ग्राम स्तरीय कर्मचारी (स्थायी) भी अपने ग्राम में तैनात नहीं हो सकते हैं। अतः किसी भी स्थानीय परिवेश में सिविल सेवक तटस्थ माना जाता है।


सिविल सेवा की एक अन्य महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका है उसका ढांचागत फैलाव। इसे ऐसे ही "स्टील फ्रेम" की उपाधि नहीं दी गयी थी। आज के परिदृश्य में एक फील्ड स्तरीय सिविल सेवक सामान्य तौर पर स्थानीय आवश्यकता, राजनैतिक खींचतान, स्थापित नीति आदि के मध्य समन्वय कर के कार्य करता है। परंतु आपदा काल बिना समय व्यर्थ किए सिविल सेवा कमांड एंड कंट्रोल भूमिका में आ जाती है। देश के कैबिनेट सचिव से लेकर, राज्य के प्रमुख सचिव गण, जिलाधिकारी से लेकर ग्राम स्तर पर लेखपाल एवं पंचायत सचिव न्यूनतम काल मे एक समेकित योजना का अंग हो जाते हैं। आपके जनपद में स्वयं जब वृहद lockdown की घोषणा हुई थी, तो घोषणा की सुबह तक ही, बिना किसी पूर्व तैयारी के, नगरीय क्षेत्र में (एवं शाम तक देहात क्षेत्र में) डोर टू डोर डिलीवरी की व्यवस्था लागू करा दी गयी थी। मात्र एक दो फोन कॉल पर व्यवस्था का स्वरूप समझ कर प्रशासन एवं पुलिस ने एक व्यवस्था को गतिमान कर दिया। पूरे देश मे इसी प्रकार लगभग एकरूप lockdown व्यवस्था संचालित हो गई। विभिन्न राज्यों में तैनात बैचमेट से सम्पर्क कर के उनके यहाँ की जा रही बेस्ट प्रैक्टिस जान कर उसे अल्प समय मे यथावश्यक संशोधित कर के लागू करवाना, यह केवल एक संगठित सिविल सेवा में सम्भव है। तुलना के लिए अमेरिका में lockdown का अनुभव देखा जा सकता है, जहाँ इस प्रकार की एकरूप व्यवस्था नहीं थी।



अतः यह देखा जा सकता है कि सामान्य समय मे संयोजक, एवं आपात स्थिति में संचालक के रूप में सिविल सेवा देश की लोकतांत्रिक व्यवस्था का एक अभिन्न अंग है। जनपद में सिविल सेवा के वरिष्ठ व्यक्ति के रूप में मेरी समस्त सिविल सेवको से अपील रहेगी कि समाज द्वारा स्थापित विश्वास को और दृढ़ बनाने के लिए, एवं संवैधानिक व्यवस्था के अंतर्गत जन आकांक्षाओं को फलिभूत करते हुए आदर्श भारत की ओर अग्रसर रखने हेतु निरन्तर प्रयासरत रहें।

A Hanging Left Hanging

The new year has come and already a month has gone by. It was imperative that something be written down, if not for anything else, then to justify that "hobby" of blogging which helped me face those interviews about a decade ago. Being posted in the field gives one little time to actually write. Any field posting, including this one, gives one experience and anecdotes worthy of being written down. However, I am superstitious about commenting about what is not truly done and sealed. So, some things must be waited for. I promise that it would be worth the wait. So, for now, I would be commenting on, as  the title suggests, on one of society's betting pastime of recent.

First, a clarification. People are pro or anti death penalty. I am ambivalent. With the gradual humanization of penal codes around the world, the number of countries actually practicing executions has come down drastically, so, there definitely is a hint of primitiveness to it. Most countries which are considered the most advanced, have abolished it, with the notable and quite sizeable exception of the United States! However, with the gradual (and recently, not so gradual) rightist and conservative turn in the global political narrative, there is every chance that this trend may reverse. Anyway, would the ending of classics like A Tale of Two Cities be as poignant, were Sidney Carton being sent off for 30 years in jail? Would so many narratives of Martyrs to various causes - William Wallace to Joan of Arc, to our own pantheon of heroes, exist were there no state sanctioned homicides? However, as a vessel of retributive justice, the modern capital punishment does not measure up. Criminals despatched in summary "encounters", the question about their legality aside, do sate that primal thirst for retribution quite well. Somehow, snuffing out that criminal a decade after the deed, in an anodyne setting and procedure, in full seclusion, after the media have gone riotous with human interest stories about poor chaps' poorer parents and relatives, does not do much to assuage that need. In my humble opinion, public corporal punishment would be more accommodating to that need for violence. It would degrade the criminal in front of same populace over which they asserted their physical superiority. It would do away with the stoic martyr-like imagery some sections of media like to paint, and would replace it with the spectacle of snivelling cry-babies that they actually ought to be. What's better is that it can be repeated. Unlike that one fatal drop. Thus, as I said, I am ambivalent.

 Ambivalence apart, the whole theme does inspire a morbid curiosity in me. Given the salacious details that the rags are printing about the whole process the rapist-murderers would be going through, those interviews with former and future hangmen and their families, and the details of the weaves and wefts of the Buxar jail manila rope, I must guess that this curiosity is shared by a large section of the society. And why should it not? As a society, humans killing humans is not rare. It must be the world's oldest crime. Even the State killing humans is not that rare an occurrence. Most of those go through judicial scrutiny post facto. However, when it comes to a judicially sanctioned killing, we have raised the procedure to scientific perfection, nay, art. There is that stubborn refusal to let the wretch die his own death - there is a proper suicide watch. In the United States, the needle along with the whole paraphernalia is actually sterilized, the way a vaccination syringe would be - for God forbid the injectee dies of Tetanus! (Actually the reason is said to be that the red telephone might ring till the last minute before the plunger is inexorably pushed in - and were the convict to be freed, eventually, an unsterilized needle might become a tortuous liability in a litigation happy society like US.) Even in India, during the Company era, mutinous soldiers with mortal wounds were given the best medical treatment, so that they may be hanged properly later! There is the whole fetishization of the process, with the stories (quite real) of priapism, and folk lores (of course not real) about how Mandrakes (those ugly plant babies from Harry Potter universe and elsewhere) are born. (As a side note, it shall be amusing to notice the reaction of the Basilisk - petrified people, who were resuscitated using Mandrake potions, if only they knew. "You gave me WHAT to drink!?") That we enjoy a good death row story can be seen by 3 leading movies of the last year and this one - Trial By Fire, Just Mercy, and Clemency.

I must admit that I had come quite close to becoming a witness myself. The courts had handed down a rather well deserved sentence to a famous murderer-paedophile-necrophile-cannibal. Since the jail where he was lodged did not have a set of gallows, he was transferred to Meerut jail. The rituals call for the presence of an Executive Magistrate. However, at the last moment the sentence was stayed and later commuted. That really challenges one's understanding of 'rarest of rare' concept. It must surely be qualifying the instances of imposition of this penalty, and not the crime itself. For, as far as criminals go, a murderer-paedophile-necrophile-cannibal should be rarest of the rare; or at least one hopes so, otherwise, where are we going as a society?

Now we come to the present Murder and Rape case, where the convicts have ostensibly made a mockery of the legal system of this country. While the media spotlight might be making it appear as if it an exceptional case of lawyerly cunning, it is just a representative sample of what happens in the system everyday. There was a question on Quora a few years back, which I had answered as a purely general abstraction. Now I may not have decided upon judicial questions of life and death, but I have presided over enough Courts to answer this. The same may be viewed here. In summary, I had opined that most of the delay in our judicial system is caused by unstructured Interim applications - and their disposal. Most of them are malafide, the only intention being to slow down the disposal. For the interested reader, the follow up questions and answers are also quite illustrative. This present case is an illustration of a case which is stuck up in pure procedure, sans any substantive part. (For the uninitiated, the 'substantive part' of the pleadings include invocations about the curtailed life span in Kaliyug, and the atmospheric pollution in Delhi, as mitigators!) So, it is just cold calculation - unless a black warrant is issued, they would not move any petition.  Once a warrant is given, they can wait till the penultimate day. Then they file a petition. Does not matter what petition. It may be totally out of the Statutes or Rulings. It may have patently absurd averments, which would be dismissed at the first hearing. Still, on the penultimate day, a petition would lie pending. Do we have a way of preventing the filing of a petition? Or is any Court of Sessions willing to execute someone whose petition is pending before a higher Judicial Authority? For petitions will come. One of the convicts had filed a criminal complaint against the primary witness / secondary victim. The complaint has rightly been thrown out by the Court. However, the whole appellate hierarchy is still available to him. Given what has been happening, each of them may start a complaint against the witness anew, in tandem. They may later impugn other witnesses. As it has been said earlier, the substance of the petition is totally irrelevant, as long as it pushes the date forward. Thus as long as we do not work on fool proofing our system against such wilful manipulation, by making the letter of procedure a norm rather than exception, this farce can continue long.

The whole nation has been riveted by the farce which has been playing out. Most of them with disgust. The convicts are well identified, and there isn't an iota of doubt about their crime, or the depravity of it all. If this is the ultimate sanction of the law, no one deserves it better. Of course, there is no doubt about how it will eventually end. Those impoverished parents and relatives from the boondocks, the subjects of our media's human interest stories, are the figurative 'bakre ki amma' (mother of the sacrificial lamb). No person who was alive in 2012 and had access to a television (or is in human contact with any person who meets the above two criteria) would mitigate their just deserts.However, as a budding scholar of law, one cannot but grudgingly admire the tenacity of the defence lawyers. They have battled this unsaid consensus, and the collective wrath of this sanctimonious society, to defend the indefensible. For such an open and shut case, these underdogs have shown a lot of fight. They have managed to pull enough rabbits out of their hat to repopulate a desert! One does not know what they may ask for next. They may seek parity with other similar death row convicts (which would be a still better argument than the Treta Yug and Kali Yug comparison). Since Courts have ruled that waiting too long on mercy petitions is a valid ground to commute even after a Presidential rejection, it may theoretically be argued that the Executive may discriminate by letting some mercy petitions linger on enough! Again, there are many other convicts, including some women, whose petitions have been (timely) rejected. To a mind as devious as one which could frame the famous Delhi Pollution defence, this should be seen as a sitting duck Article 14 petition. As I said, it is more a question of when rather than if. Whenever that happens, it would for sure leave behind a landmark case for future scholars of law, on how the defence must 'bat in the death overs.'