“So Bhishu it is nice of you to have come on such short notice” CM welcomed.
“Sir, it is always a pleasure to meet up with you” Bhishu replied politely.
“You know why I wanted to see you, don’t you?”CM asked
“Not exactly, your PS explained to me that there was some problem faced by one of the local leaders. I did not exactly understand which case it was. I thought it rather prudent to talk to you directly and find out.” Bhishu responded with extreme respect.
CM got the drift of Bhishma’s response. He realised that this could be a complex case. Knowing Bhishma he knew it was not easy to get him to make any exceptions. On the other hand, he could not afford to appear that he is not willing or capable to get leniency for this local leader.
“There is this case of Mr. Ramanujam who is running a college in my constituency. He has complained to me that your department was harassing him on a matter of some small technical mistake.” CM explained
“Oh I am not sure of the details of the case. If the matter is only a small technical error we will definitely let it go” Bhishu offered
CM understood the meaning. He knew that Bhishu had initiated the case. When Bhishu had offered to close the case if it was only a technical error, it meant that there was some more dirt under the carpet. He did not want to get caught in a mess. He also realised that Bhishu was giving him a way out.
CM buzzed his PS.
“Ask Mr Ramanujam and his friends to come in”
Mr Ramanujam accompanied with few other local leaders came in.
“Ramanujam, meet Mr Bhishma the officer from the Ministry who is giving you some trouble. Explain to him what your problem is. He is a very fine officer and he has promised to look into the matter” CM said
Ramanujam was very happy. The CM has called this overzealous officer and now the problem will be settled.
“May be he would be taught a lesson too. The bloody rascal has grown too big for his boots. He did not know who he was dealing with. He needs to be transferred out to some far corner of earth. “ Ramanujam mused
Ramanujam knew he had to play his card right to nail this fellow.
“Sir, We run a very respectable college. We do everything by the books and we comply with all the regulations. Unfortunately for the last two months there has been a shortage of two teachers as against the norm. Normally we have more teachers than needed. But recently some recruitment team from the gulf came and recruited a bunch of our teachers and we have become short staffed. We have already initiated the process to recruit and the vacancies will be filled soon. For such a simple matter the dept has decided to initiate an enquiry. This is not fair sir” Ramanujam explained almost condescendingly.
“Sir, it is quite unfortunate that Mr Ramanujam is harassed for such a small exception. If this is the case, then I can assure that this is only a routine enquiry on the basis of a new initiative in the department. We randomly select a few institutions where there are any exceptions so that every institution with any exception is covered some time or the other. Otherwise there could be criticism that we condone exceptions terming them as technical errors.”Bhishu explained.
“Now that the enquiry has initiated, we will look at few areas and if as Mr Ramanujam has explained the fault is only this shortage of staff, I promise to close this case expeditiously.”Bhishu promised.
“But Sir,”Ramanujam butted in. He knew that if an enquiry took place many more skeletons would fall out.
CM also realised this. He stopped Mr Ramanujam
“What more do you want? All of you heard what Mr. Bhishma has offered. There is no need to waste any time on this. You don’t have to worry anything if the problem is this minor technical error. You guys get going” CM dismissed the meeting.
Ramanujam realised that there is nothing more that could be added.
“Sir, why don’t you please join me for a coffee” PS asked Bhishma
“Ok, I will join you.”Bhishma agreed
He did not want to walk out with Ramanujam and listen to more spurious explanations and implorations.
Bhishma walked along with the PS to his room.
“Thank you for inviting me for a coffee, Vivek” Bhishma told the PS
“I should say thanks to you for coming over to my office. It is a privilege for me Sir” Vivek replied
“Sir, I was really scared today what was going to happen. I know that the CM is a very demanding person. He never likes to let down leaders from his constituency. I have also heard that you are an uncompromising officer. I thought we are going to have fireworks” Vivek continued
Bhishma gave his charming smile and continued to sip his coffee.
“Sir I think I got the drift of what happened today. I know you had initiated the enquiry; but you came with no file and pretended you did not know which case was being discussed. You showed politeness and respect to the minister without exposing to any possible compromise and commitment. It gave you the opportunity to make an offer to study the file and revert if any inconvenient demands were placed on you.”
Bhishma continued with his encouraging smile.
“How come the CM agreed to your offer that you will close the file if the problem is only technical error?” Vivek asked
“You see, Ramanujam is not anything special for CM. He is a local leader with some clout. CM would like to help if he could. But he doesn’t want to sully his hand. So when I made the offer, he realised that there could be quite a lot of mess underneath. So he invited Ramanujam and the local leaders who came to recommend for him. He had me in front and I promised that I would let go if problem was only the technical error as Ramanujam had represented before the CM. “
“So now if you find nothing in your enquiry, it will look like CM helped. If you unearth lot of muck, CM cannot be faulted. Isn’t it?”
“You are learning, Vivek. See very often we face situations like this. The political leaders have their compulsions. We should try to find a solution, if possible, without compromising our principles and their compulsions. There is no point in open defiance to feel like a hero or there is no need for heeding to every request to make your boss happy. In fact this is the mistake often committed by officers. The overzealous ones become a martyr. What we should try to achieve is a balance.”Bhishma responded. He had a twinkle in his eyes and he smiled indulgingly.
“But all cases may not be like this and the boss may insist on doing as he wants” Vivek responded
“In that case, politely tell your boss that you would study the file and do the needful and walk away.”Bhishma replied.
“You may get a transfer order soon” Vivek pointed out
“That is the price you should be willing to pay, if you don’t want to sell your soul” Bhishma replied
“Let me go back, Vivek I don’t want to take more of your time”
Bhishma got up and left.
This was Bhishma, very clear in his thoughts, unassuming, result oriented, self confident and clean. He spent almost 20 years as a successful officer to the government. He was lucky to get many postings where he was blessed to have seniors who shared his thinking which helped him to make a mark. But in his heart of heart, he could not stand the continuous wrangling within the bureaucracy and snail’s pace in which anything moved. It is practically difficult to implement any transformational project. Any such project that disturbs the status quo faced enormous resistance. He felt that there was a gradual decline in the moral fibre of governance within the political and bureaucratic class. Fighting private agenda and bureaucratic inertia was getting even more painful. He knew it was practically difficult to take up initiatives and nurture to a steady state. Most the of time would go into persuading the various interested parties and by the time it was ready to take-off, it would be time to move on to a new assignment. Sometime if the initiatives are inconvenient to some very powerful people, one can get booted out to Timbaktu sooner than you think.
He thought about it deeply and came to the conclusion that it made sense to get out of the system and try to do something instead of staying within and complain.
****To be continued
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