One Last Time – Perhaps, and Perhaps Not!
(Disclosure: This, of course, wasn’t meant to be uploaded here but
on the CGDA website and written accordingly; even there is a reference first up
to my last message as CGDA on September 30, 2015. Last week, I had spoken with
Shri S.K. Kohli, then Additional CGDA [now CGDA-in-charge from June 1, 2016],
when he had visited my office in South Block and mailed it to his personal
email ID on May 31, 2016. When it wasn’t uploaded
till the evening of June 1, 2016, I spoke to Shri Kohli with a request to kindly upload immediately and sent him yet another email attaching the Message.
Nothing happened though. I waited and waited – for another full day and a bit, anxiously
awaiting the CGDA to upload. Sadly, that wasn’t to be. Having exhausted all
options and not to lose any more time, coupled with the fact that I didn’t wish
to leave my extended family of DAD staff and officers without one final Message
conveying the contours of my thoughts after being a part of this family all my
working years, the same is published here, though not without ample regret and with
a stab of pain that one wouldn’t like to carry as a parting shot. I would have
appreciated if I were told that the content was too disturbing to carry as a
legacy and hence it wasn’t possible for the CGDA organization to upload the
Message of the FA(DS) on his retirement, who incidentally also once served as
the CGDA not too long ago, and had initiated the practice of communicating with
the entire DAD family from time to time through his messages From the CGDA’s Desk (still available in the CGDA
website). Hence this clarification, to grant the message the much needed “clarity,
nostalgia and placement” – no kinship sought with the Defence Accounts
Placement Board (DAPB)’s proceedings and office notes I had put out in public domain
for sake of transparency and openness, which everyone is familiar with.
Alas! Amen!)
The last message I wrote was From
the CGDA’s Desk, exactly eight months ago when I bid adieu to you all
from the Department and joined the Ministry of Defence. Now the time has come
for me to bid a final adieu on my superannuation from government service. It’s
been a long journey – from Patna to Siliguri to Meerut to New Delhi to Balasore
to New Delhi to Pune to New Delhi to Bangalore and finally New Delhi – almost a
marathon one trotted and at times cantered along. But all the while it was one
change after another that followed in interminable succession, while as years
rolled by, the change became the constant. And it was this constancy of change that
has stayed with me, and it is this I’m going to take it to my superannuated
years.
It is difficult to convince people how
happy I am – to retire! In fact, I’ve been getting happier by the day as the
day of my transfer to the pension establishment has gotten closer. Now that I’ve
reached the finish line I am thrilled to distraction. It will grant me time to
relax and indulge my passion that I always strove for but never got in ample
measure. I never harboured any ambition of a post-retirement sinecure or even a
temporary employ in Committees/Commissions which most retired bureaucrats often
aspire for. In point of fact, I have always abhorred any thoughts of
post-retirement sinecures because I believe such favours often compromise civil
servants’ role as honest advisers in the government (especially in the last
years of service when they hold senior responsible positions) and have, over
the past several years, placed my thoughts in the public domain in my columns
in national newspapers and in my books. Even I have teased and tantalized the
favour-seekers tempting them if a more permanent solution couldn’t be found in
retiring retirement!
Transparency was – still is, shall always
remain – too dear to divorce myself from, even in retirement. In my thinking, all
scams and scandals trace their origin to opacity and secrecy. Opacity, born out
of secrecy, breeds manipulations. Much hullabaloo is made of in the name of
secrecy to shroud things, quite strange in today’s time, when the world thanks
to technology pretty well knows what the other person is up to. Transparency is
the answer to ridding wrong decisions and illegitimate moves – of corruption,
nepotism and manipulation. Sunlight is the best disinfectant available freely
and in plenitude. It must be invoked and leveraged. The mere openness of
processes scuppers any invidious moves to perpetrate wrongs. Instead, it
creates a level playing field. In India today, sadly, the distribution of
opportunity has typically become an insider trade. It’s a win-win for networkers!
This needs to be busted.
In my own humble way, it has always been
my constant endeavour to impugn this system so rife with nepotism, and where I
saw opacity ruling like a potentate. Transparency and an arm’s length system I
tried to put in place all my life, fully convinced that it was the only way to
take the processes of change and progress forward. Of all that I did during my
short tenure as CGDA, transparency was at the top of the heap. Putting the
processes in the public domain came naturally to me. I saw transparency working
its own magic, empowering people all around and granting voice to the
voiceless. Fairness and objectivity became the jingle. I tried to set them in
stone. I came to realize how powerful a weapon transparency is. It exceeded
even my wildest imagination. I carried the same baton when I moved over to the
Ministry of Defence. I did whatever was possible on my part, working up a
furious pace and in the roller coaster ride if the processes upset the high and
the mighty I was as unfazed as ever. So be it, I told myself. And I let it be.
As a card-carrying transparency (st) – a cyst that’s stayed
with me all my living years – I didn’t care less when the networkers screamed
and ranted before scurrying for cover. I enjoyed their disquiet, their
discomfiture.
As Father Time moves on, the old order
changes, the new takes over, and we must make way gracefully. But the constants
of transparency, objectivity and fairness shall always remain, and only because
they are a part of human verities. They have always been a part of me and shall
always stay that way as lodestar, buzzing about my head and finding utterance
at every available opportunity. I shall carry this with me as I begin my second
innings and pursue what I always wished to but never was granted in full
measure. The reason I say this, as I formally bid you adieu and officially take
your leave – you the members of my extended family – is because your battle cry
of fairness, honesty and transparency which I realized during our journey
together shall keep me going and agog. I will resurface now in a new avatar, in
my home turf, in an arena, I’ve always loved so much – my BlogSpot, Babupaedia [babupaedia.blogspot.in] –
which dimmed just yet shall light up soon and hover about time and space as one
(dis)interested ombudsman keeping a watchful eye over citizen’s sense of right
and wrong, battling dishonesty and constantly endeavouring that the righteous
have, eventually, the last laugh.
Adieu, then one last official time –
perhaps, and perhaps not!
Date: May 31, 2016
Sudhansu Mohanty