Manohar Parrikar Could Have Been a Great Defence Minister

The BJP’s gain in the recent electoral battle has, in a way, been the nation’s loss. Arun Jaitley has been given the additional charge of the defence ministry but it isn’t the same as having a regular raksha mantri and, in particular, with a Manohar Parrikar at its helm. I’m not aware of the games that are played on the political chessboard – in this case, the BJP’s – but looking from the confines of the defence ministry, sadly I can’t think of anyone in the ruling party who can remotely match Parrikar’s intellectual brilliance and penetrating insight into the vastly complex issues that confront the ministry.

Parrikar was new to the national scenario when he, much against his wishes, was made the defence minister in November, 2014. He was new to the Union government, to the murky world of Delhi’s politics and to the even murkier world of defence deals. The defence ministry is vast and humongous. The issues at stake are complex and roiled in tangles of rules and procedures. Decision-making is layered and at the same time labyrinthine. Each of the services has its very own shibboleth and reading a few sentences on a file will make clear the so-called minefield of lingo that one is likely to trample upon.

But Parrikar acquitted himself well – and rather quickly. About six months into his term when, as the controller general of defence accounts, I met him for the first time to discuss the pesky and complex issue of OROP, I discerned his clear understanding of the subject. All the three services chiefs were present at the meeting, as were senior bureaucrats of the ministry. Parrikar seemed to have all the facts of the case, intricate as they are, at his fingertips. He gave everyone a patient hearing, probing the issue deeper, thinking along as he hammered out the necessary calculations almost concurrently.

Soon after, when I moved over to the defence ministry, I saw more of the same on any issues I discussed with him in his chamber or in the many meetings he chaired. He was a hands-on minister like no other. He was quick, but behind his quick decision-making lay a mind that had reflected long and hard on crucial aspects of the issue. He was a brainiac who would dissect procurement cases, and expatiate at length on the pros and cons in the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) meetings as if he was slowly peeling off layers of an onion. But he granted every official their right of say, no matter how much he disagreed with them. He knew his every move was under media scanner and the ubiquitous defence lobby, but he was firm and open in his conviction.

DPP planning

But more than anything that I saw during my tenure was when the new defence procurement procedure (DPP) was a work-in-progress. Of the many discussions we had in meetings, including in the DAC, the meeting of eight-ten senior officers of the ministry and services headquarters that Parrikar called for us to hammer out the DPP clauses is etched in my memory. The meeting went on for a good six hours. What to my mind still rings loud is the new concept of evaluation that he brought to play on the ‘essential and enhanced’ parameters in the services qualitative requirements granting nuances to the progressive, pragmatic way for single vendor situations in the DPP. “Essential Parameters – A and Essential Parameters – B (if applicable) are non-negotiable requirements to be met by the vendor, prior to commencement of equipment delivery. Essential Parameters – B to be used only when required, with DAC’s approval and not to be used when two or more vendors claim to possess the same at the RFI stage and not to be included in ab-initio single vendor cases. Essential Parameters – B may also be incorporated in the SoC, for provision of partial quantities of the items being procured, to meet different/higher specifications for specific operational requirements.”

This is no place to elaborate on other issues he wished to institutionalise in India’s protracted and scam-laden defence procurement procedure, like the concept of reverse LD to fast track cases in the ministry, but I can’t help alluding to his ability to see and weigh both sides of the coin and provide a transparent level-playing field to all. He certainly played a crucial role in pushing the government machinery to move faster than it has in decision-making.

Flip-flops and delays

Not that we didn’t have our share of disagreements on various issues and his dilly-dallying (the Indian Ministerial filibustering; I called it Parrikaring!) on many others. As a politician he flip-flopped at times; but given our societal value system and cohort pressures, and the times and ethos we live in, plus that he was a relative newbie in the arcane world of the government of India, graduating as he was from the corporation (coined from a friend) of Goa, I’m prepared to grant him the benefit of flip-flops. Cases that have haemorrhaged public funds for years and continue to do so, which he understood very well, readily come to my mind and with immense sadness. But notwithstanding that, I’ll always admire his cerebral sparkle and the hard yards he put in, his focus on Make-in-India that put LCA on centre-stage and the encouragement that he unstintingly provided to Aeronautical Development Agency and the DRDO.

Critics often complained that the Make-in-India project in the defence sector had failed to take-off. Sadly they fail to grasp, given our ecosystem, how tough it can get, how protracted the procurement of arms and weapons/platform are, and how long it takes to show results. The same goes with the recent criticism of the parliamentary standing committee on inadequate defence budgetary outlay. The expectations are immense but so are the imponderables, not to say anything on the need to appreciate the nation’s budgetary outlay in a holistic vein. Anyone who has dealt with issues knows the periodic pitfalls of achieving milestones and the payouts.

Commentators are also often wont to rile against the lower budgetary allocation towards the defence sector. To me though the reference to percentage of GDP is so misplaced that I find this betrays a complete lack of appreciation of the algorithm of a nation’s growth model. To cite a simple example: if a human body requires ‘x’ calories for an optimal life, must greater prosperity mean a greater/higher calorific intake? Common sense says no – it’ll be asking for trouble. The same too goes for the nation and its insurance mechanism. This is not even taking into account the available pool of resources that funds all areas of national development and sustenance. Frankly, I can see no correlation between the defence budgetary outlay and the GDP unless of course we wish to get carried away by the western world’s paradigm of comparative national defence outlays that SIPRI, among others, does. Incidentally, even SIPRI includes pensionary outlay as a part of defence outlay, which the learned commentators disavow and, instead, hammer out their insular architecture.

Parrikar learnt and inhered these issues rather well. He treaded cautiously, as a sensible man would, on issues of strategic partnership that carries in its womb plenitude of ramifications, both for the present and the future. This heaped infinite frustrations on the industry and the industry-driven media ever keen to swoop down on the slightest flaw. The only flaw I can discern here is Parrikar’s penchant to shoot his mouth off on such issues rather than holding back.

But how “correct” was it for Parrikar to leave the ministry and go back to his home turf? It is not for me to go into political calculations, but that he upped and left suddenly after doing the hardest part – understanding the DNA of the ministry that takes years to fructify and show results; the machinations and vacillations in its everyday functioning; the many flawed past trajectories; the many countervailing dynamics and interplay of personnel/middlemen/defence and civil bureaucracy et al – is unfortunate.

He left when he ought to have stayed put.

Columnists have opined that unlike other politicians he wasn’t fond of money, but he loved power in an architecture where he was the numero uno. Far from the general public perception of his ineffable ordinariness and beneath his plebeian visage, he was hubristic and won’t let go a chance to so adumbrate.

Also, coming to Delhi after years of helming the tiny city-state, the overwhelming world of Delhi may have underwhelmed his overweening psychology and worldview. He tried creating his own world almost wholly made up of people drawn from Goa but Lutyen’s Delhi had its own inexorable ways of breaching his citadel from time to time. His periodic, resuscitative visits to Goa didn’t exactly help his cause to carve out a niche in India’s capital.

He longed to get back to Goa. I sensed his heart was in Goa but his head was in Delhi – so well he had understood the defence ecosystem to lead from the front. Notwithstanding these foibles and his many gaffes, which likely would’ve ironed themselves out, he had it in him to be among India’s distinguished raksha mantris. While his party’s political calculations and internal dynamics are theirs, India doubtless needed him more than Goa did.

(Reproduced from The Wire)

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A Citizen’s Wish: Decency, Self-restraint, Realism in Public Life

For a concerned citizen, three not-too-past events concerning the apex court in the last few months are troubling. The first relates to the former CJI Justice Thakur’s ranting against a senior advocate, Rajeev Dhavan, in the Sahara case. During the hearing, the CJI is said to have commented that Subrata Roy should go to jail and then the court will hear the counsel on merit. Irked by this, Roy’s counsel Dhavan replied that “It is the most unfair comment by the CJI.” This retort riled Justice Thakur, who reportedly shot back at Dhavan, “Don't tell us what we should say or do.” Further, the CJI allegedly seems to have made certain uncharitable remarks about Dhavan as a lawyer and his conduct in court behind his back. Does such behaviour dignify the high office of the CJI? I leave you with this thought.

The second issue concerns Justice Markandey Katju and the bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi that slapped a contempt notice on the former. The manner in which a former judge of the apex court was invited, then humiliated in full public glare, with the security asking to escort Justice Katju out of the courtroom, not only breaches every strand of public decency/etiquette, but also diminishes the dignity of the apex court.

Worse is that the contempt of court law, is a relic of medieval past when judges exercised power delegated to them by the king and any offence to the court was deemed as offending divine kingly power. So misplaced it is today that even the hidebound Brits have given this law a heave-ho long ago. For not only is it antediluvian, it’s also anachronistic in a democracy where power lies with the people and where public servants are mere servants of this master.

“Justice is not a cloistered virtue,” Lord Atkin said, today a cliché in common parlance. “It must suffer the scrutiny and outspoken comments of ordinary men”. It must, much as in democratic India all organs of public service suffer from criticism and open discussion. More when the clamour for transparency has reached fever pitch and openness is the buzzword. No institution is absolute; the separation-of-power and check-and-balance architecture is a conscious design, done after much deliberation and premeditation in the Constituent Assembly to stop untrammelled power. This is what defines a mature democracy – to ensure a citizen’s freedom of expression is not stymied.

But rather than going into the merit of criticism, what’s agonising is the punitive manner in which contempt of law has been exercised to shush voices of dissent. Dissent is at the heart of democracy. It needs encouragement; unless the administration of justice is impaired, there is no contempt.

Recall the three decade-old Spycatcher case when an English newspaper called the judges “You Old Fools”. No contempt notice was served. Roll back two decades to 1968 when Lord Denning’s telling observations captured the spirit of times: “Let me say… that we will never use this jurisdiction to uphold our own dignity… Nor will we use it to suppress those who speak against us. We do not fear criticism, nor do we resent it. For there is something far more important at stake. It is no less than freedom of speech itself… We must rely on our conduct itself to be its own vindication”. If some 50 years ago the law was seen as obsolete and out of date, invoking such provisions today can only smack of arrogance on one hand and a willful winking at history and reality on the other.

In a democracy, even the head of the government – PM – isn’t spared; he’s often attacked mercilessly. Nor such privileges are accorded to other elected representatives. Recall President De Gaulle’s memorable words during 1968 Paris strike when Jean Paul Sartre was arrested: “You don’t arrest Voltaire!” To invoke such anachronism can only invite derision and detract from fair play, dissent, openness and transparency – a vivid antithesis for dispensation of justice!

The third issue is the Supreme Court’s order on national anthem, which inter alia says that in cinema halls “the citizens of the country must realise that they live in a nation and are duty bound to show respect to National Anthem, which is the symbol of the Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality.” What is Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality as symbol for citizens? Won’t duty binding citizens ‘to show respect to National Anthem’ encrypt a fuzzy notion in people’s consciousness?

Rousseau’s paradox of freedom in a layered social compact – for all its polemics on surrendering a fraction of individual’s right – doesn’t even envision anything remotely as this. Also issues of implementation: How? Who – to ensure compliance? What punitive measures? Related issues will follow: what about other entrepôts of entertainment – songs and plays in theatre, sports in stadia, horse-race in racecourses? Are they to be exempt? Why?

Confident nations need no such forcing. Respect is not enforced; when done it ceases to be respect, diminishing the very symbol of veneration; it morphs into coercion, verging on interference in citizens’ private space. Yes, it can be instilled, even inculcated; yet given its abstract nature it is best left to citizens to feel, inhere, and appropriate. No intellectual forcing can be foisted and made enforceable much as no abstraction can be mandated; it would hollow out, sounding oxymoronic in terms.

The Supreme Court is too precious an institution to suffer diminution in citizens’ perception. We look up to it as the bulwark of liberty and as our constitutional umpire. We respect it like no other institution. Hence, the need to firewall it from dross. Yet, given our feudal makeup, public offices can vest public servants with outsized sense of importance where individuals make institutions identify with their actions and breach turfs. Hence, the need for conscious self-restrain and emerging of individual and institutional prescriptions. Also, the humility to internalise that public functionaries are but mere instruments for discharging public duties within the bounds of propriety, courtesy and realism, both enjoined and expected.

(Reproduced from The Quint)

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Defence Budget’s Need of the Hour? Outcome-Oriented Quality Checks

While Budget 2017-18 is upon us, the defence budget – the largest – deserves a closer look. The defence outlay for financial year 2016-17 was a whopping Rs 3,40,922 crore: Rs 82,333 crore (24.15%) on pension, Rs 1,62,759 crore (47.4%) on revenue spends and Rs 86,332 crore (25.32%) on capital acquisition. The sheer size, magnitude and complexity of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and its multiple organisations, make any changes in outlays a challenging ask. The Shekatkar Committee appointed by the MoD has already submitted its Report; hopefully its suggestions will help re-balance the defence budget – where revenue spends outstrip capital outlays by a long measure – while recommending measures to enhance the armed forces’ combat capabilities.

Reduce Replication of Assets

To begin with, reducing replication of capital assets without compromising on the three services’ individual roles is crucial not only for reducing cost, but also for true ‘jointness’. Scientific simulation methods to optimise common capital asset creation can help. Cost-centric analysis for each service, formation, and units will also help prioritise the mutually varying needs and facilitate decision-making – to add/retain or modify outlays.

A priority-based budget plan for cost-centres based on need for defence preparedness, threat perception and practicality, with needs categorised – (A) absolute; (B) medium to high; (C) medium to low – can be worked out with each dynamically reviewed on changing priorities and with percentages too varying across services. With huge capital expenditure incurred in past years, the financial burden of maintenance of systems acquired will, naturally, weigh heavy in the foreseeable future. A comprehensive policy for maintenance of inducted weapon systems – both Indian and foreign – keeping in view the Make in India policy, will therefore need articulation.

Similarly, there’s a need to streamline policy for maintenance through Indian-deemed OEMs or foreign OEMs/government-nominated Agencies, benchmarking costs of maintenance, escalation percentages with foreign vendors (especially Russian-origin in the wake of the depreciated rouble) etc in order to bring down the repair and maintenance costs of inducted systems incurred with foreign vendors who leverage monopolistic situations. What we need is an analysis exploring possibilities to breach this monopoly by Indian industry with an assured order to kick-start indigenous production of spares.

Utilise Vast Tracts of Defence Land

That said, the need for optimal resource utilisation can’t be overlooked. Nor can the many other issues that seem insignificant – for when aggregated, they tote up to sizeable numbers; they need drastic tinkering and fine-tuning. Expansion of alternate sources of non-conventional energy is one such; solar energy in vast tracts of available defence land will also help promote a response to climate change. MoD, incidentally, is India’s largest holder of land.

The colonialist has left, but the mindset hasn’t; the vast tracts still remain amid turf battles and mounting pressure to house India’s billowing population. Close scrutiny will help identify surplus defence land for non-defence use. Even the vast defence lands and buildings must be leveraged to gain revenue.

Sadly, the revenue generated through commercial utilisation of defence land is siphoned off to non-public/regimental funds with only a pittance credited to the government account. A ballpark figure will suggest diversion of Rs 5,000 to 6,000 crore in the last 40 years; in reality, it could be a lot more; maybe more still if indexed to the present value of money.

What’s galling is the ingenious way adopted to siphon off these funds; splitting the license fee into two components: Administrative Charges (Rebate) and License Fee – the bulk (rebate) going to the Non-Public Fund/Regimental Fund and a minuscule (License Fee) amount to the government account.

The Parliamentary Committees have scathingly criticised such haemorrhaging of government revenue. In 2013-14, the Public Accounts Committee had directed the ministry to formulate policy to realise government dues from commercial utilisation of defence land within six months.

Three years later, nothing has changed. A similar diversion of funds is endemic in the running of various Guest Houses/Transit Facilities, and commercial utilisation of land for golfing. It’s shocking that despite severe indictments by Parliamentary Committees, far from plugging such reprehensible and depraved motivations, they go on undeterred.

End Foreign Junkets

Such impulses, like numerous fun-filled, even frivolous and trumped-up visits abroad (Pre-Despatch Inspection [PDI]) involving spending huge government funds abroad rather than Joint Receipt Inspection (JRI) in India at sellers’ cost, to cite an example), lavish and conspicuous consumption, showing up India-Bharat as a veritable twin-nation, are sheer anachronisms in any modern democracy.

Very few inside the government, even in the MoD, know that the taxpayers pick up the tab (Business class airfare and per diem) for the Army/Air Force/Naval Chiefs’ spouses’ visits abroad. It sounds surreal but the truth is this relic of the Raj continues to this day – a good 70 years after independence! What seems a pittance in the huge defence outlay is citizens’ hard-earned money!

While no one can question the defence need, we can’t miss the woods for the trees: there’s a limit to government spending on insurance; unmistakably every rupee spent on defence is a rupee denied to development.

Sadly, the MoD’s vision on budget outlays isn’t inclusive; most fail to grasp the full picture – the taxpayers’ money sits lightly on their collective consciousness. Important social ministries get crumbs, just a few hundred or thousand crore, for the huge job they’re tasked with. They’re forever starved; denied additional funding on important programmes – not because their needs aren’t appreciated by the finance ministry, but because precious little is left in the kitty. Sadly, the parliamentary committee examining the detailed demands for grants too fails to take a holistic view, often swayed by the Services’ blinkered vision trotted out with patriotic vehemence and ebullience. While all Indians are equal, some sure are more equal than others!

Need for Greater Accountability

It’s time to fully exploit the DRDO’s potential by dovetailing the Services’ demands with theirs through joint accountability and creating a convivial ecosystem in quest for ‘Make in India’. Aeronautical Development Agency’s (ADA) LCA is a shining example; just that the faith has been reposed belatedly only now. Realistic project completion timelines and costing with strict monitoring and deterrence (financial and technical) are crucial; delays demand joint ownership, explanation, accountability and traceability. Apart from huge savings, it’ll be hugely gratifying.

In the spirit of propriety for spends from the public funds, accountability can be embedded by hugging FRBM principles to ensure inter-generational equity in fiscal management, long run macroeconomic stability, better coordination between fiscal and monetary policy, and transparency in fiscal operations of the MoD. With the risk of broken confidentiality and compromised secrecy looming large over national security, limited disclosure as deterrence can be considered, with nodes provided to relevant functionaries in the MoD, Services Headquarters, CGDA and other important functionaries who are already part of decision-making.

Yet the need for transparency in other areas – especially in Revenue non-salary, non-core procurements – ought be via e-procurement as per existing orders, by generating supply orders and contract agreements through the system in real-time with access granted to all stakeholders in line of activities, such as higher CFAs, financial advisers and internal audit. Thus enabled, internal audit can carry out concurrent audit and take care of sanction audit with a simultaneity that will facilitate quick transparent payment, which remains another bugbear and has immense scope for corruption.

Focus on Quality of Expenditure

There is yet more scope to delegate to cut delays, prompt every layer to value-add, and take responsibility. While the DFPDS-2016 has set the tone with more delegation, it has suggested greater accountability through transparency by leveraging technology, aided by concurrent audit that’ll throw up poor decision-making to deter malfeasance/misfeasance and mismanagement of public funds. Going forward, more innovative and non-intrusive ways of Internal Control Risk Management (ICRM) framework and oversight mechanism will have to be injected into the system.

Budgetary outlays are mere estimates of likely expenditure. It is likely spends are asymmetrical, often with residual funds available in the last fiscal quarter. The focus hence should be on quality of expenditure, not on full utilisation of budgetary outlays, and allaying the popular misconception that non-spending leading to lapse of funds is a sign of management failure.

It’s time we moved out of this past vestige by reposing faith in public officials who abhor invasion of market economy values to sculpt a virtual market society that has no place in a regimental order. Outcome-oriented qualitative transparent expenditure with clear deliverables – tangibles and non-tangibles – must take centre-stage rather than mere typecast quantitative utilisation of budgetary outlays.

(Reproduced from The Quint)

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The Inscrutability of Life in a Polarizing Marshland

I had just finished reading a well-researched narrative piece on Narendra Modi by Vinod K. Jose in the March 2012 issue of Caravan magazine. Sundry thoughts stirred in my head, uppermost, naturally, being demonetization. Was Ashish Nandy, the political psychologist, percipient in his 2002 assessment of Modi after meeting him in late-1980s when he wrote: “More than a decade ago, when Narendra Modi was a-nobody, a small-time RSS pracharak trying to make it as a small-time BJP functionary, I had the privilege of interviewing him. It was a long, rambling interview, but it left me in no doubt that here was a classic, clinical case of a fascist. I never use the word ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse; to me it is a diagnostic category comprising not only ideological posture but also the personality traits and motivational patterns contextualizing the ideology.

“Modi, it gives me no pleasure to tell the readers, met virtually all the criteria that psychiatrists, psycho-analysts and psychologists had set up after years of empirical work on the authoritarian personality. He had the same mix of puritanical rigidity, narrowing of emotional life, massive use of the ego defence of projection, denial and fear of his own passions combined with fantasies of violence - all set within the matrix of clear paranoid and obsessive personality traits. I still remember the cool, measured tone in which he elaborated a theory of cosmic conspiracy against India that painted every Muslim as a suspected traitor and a potential terrorist. I came out of the interview shaken that, for the first time, I had met a textbook case of a fascist and a potential killer, perhaps even a future mass murderer.”

The piece quotes a RSS leader: “Shivling mein bichhu baitha hai. Na usko haath see utaar sakte ho, na usko joota maar sakte ho.” A scorpion’s sitting on Shivling, Lord Shiva’s holy phallus. It can neither be removed by hand nor slapped with a shoe.

It didn’t feel like real, it felt surreal. Disturbed, I WhatsApped Ashish Nandy’s assessment and the “bichhu analogy” to friends. One friend asked for my take on demonetization. My answer was nuanced: India isn’t Gujarat, and it’s foolish to expect all Indians not to dissent. Fighting corruption is admirable, if it’s sincere. I support demonetization of 1000 bills, not the 500 tenders. 500 today is the 100 of 7-8 years ago. The queues refuse to die. It’ll be a year before notes demonetized are replenished per the printing SOP. Any planning post-monetization? No. Any expert advice sought? No. It’s instead been all bluster and grandstanding. But histrionics and theatrics don’t make for governance. It needs understanding and reflection on the roadmap consequent to the big step. Because, like medical science, economics (if a science) too is stochastic, not a physical science. None can predict how the future will pan out. This is where expert advice and reflection helps – to limit damage amid vicissitudes of change. See the flip-flop in policies – 100-odd times since November 8!

Yet, all that’s palpable is a fear to dissent. How much dissent is frowned upon today! Not all dissenters and contrarians are anti-national, Desh Drohis. In a democracy, dissent is the core, not the bought-out press’s spewing spiels or the abject yes-sir, three-bagful-sir applause of blind followers. Dissent is the heart of democracy. It needs encouragement even on judicial pronouncements. Recall the 1980s Spycatcher case when an English newspaper called the judges “You Old Fools”. No contempt notice was served. Cast back to 1968 when Lord Denning’s telling observations captured the spirit of those times: “Let me say… that we will never use this jurisdiction to uphold our own dignity… Nor will we use it to suppress those who speak against us. We do not fear criticism, nor do we resent it.” The manner in which Justice Markandey Katju, a former judge of the apex court was invited, then humiliated in full public glare with the security asked to escort him out of the courtroom, not only breached every strand of public decency and etiquette, it was a shocker: of judicial arrogance – the very institution the public reposes faith in drawing the lakshman rekha for executive and legislative’s impudence and overstepping their remit. “Justice is not a cloistered virtue,” Lord Atkin said, a cliché today. “It must suffer the scrutiny and outspoken comments of ordinary men”. Recall President De Gaulle’s memorable words during 1968 Paris strike when Jean Paul Sartre was arrested: “You don’t arrest Voltaire!”

No organ of governance is absolute; it’s the defining image of mature democracy – to ensure citizen’s freedom of expression is not stymied. The world’s changed, there’s ferment; technology has empowered the citizen courtesy social media. The days of hectoring are long gone. It can raise its ugly head and show up in dribs and drabs, but thankfully not for long. Democratic India must suffer criticism and open discussion, more when clamor for transparency has reached fever pitch and openness the buzzword.

The responses to my message, polarized, came thick and fast. One wrote in sarcastic fury: “I’m not aware of a textbook definition of the term ‘fascist’ but Ashish Nandi’s description would fit many persons, to some permanently and to a larger number during certain passing phase of their lives while driven by ideology, or goal or some purpose. Many a time we admire the quality of not yielding, not wavering, but we also consider bending to strong wind a useful attribute; it needs to be evaluated and even admired with reference to context. I personally am somewhat ambivalent on Modi, he is different and perhaps the difference will bring some good tidings but it’s just a PERHAPS. The nation had to live with a gang of suckers for long and didn’t complain, the so called intellectuals of left content with the crumbs thrown at them and making mostly politically correct noises. Things are a bit different now, a difference one couldn’t have experienced otherwise from the bandicoots of yore. Despite my cynicism I’m willing to wait and watch. I liked a joke on WhatsApp on demonetization: ‘Modi said let the nation have cashless economy... the ATMs went dry.’ Hardly a joke but it does show imperfections in planning, yet all said and done I’m willing to wait.”

Another wrote in ostensible anger: “Modi’s vision and intensity of commitment is tremendous. India perhaps requires a dictator for a brief spell, and then doused like a circuit breaker. In UPA time, the pendulum swung to one extreme. Now it will swing to the other before reaching equilibrium.  Sadly Modi isn’t an economics-appreciating politico…he’s like a bull in a China shop. His intention/goal is commendable. Whether this venture succeeds or fails, the end either way will be spectacular. The opposition is decimated; there should be some sane voice to set the trajectory at par. This’s missing with a castrated RBI.”

Yet another wrote: “Anyone who’s rational (and not a Bhakt) and thinks critically would agree. Just because someone wears a white outfit doesn’t make him blemish-free! Taking bold decisions is one thing, taking apparently illogical decision is another! This is akin to pushing people into deep water and asking them to learn swimming with a hope that only those are targeted would drown! Everyone knows and it’s no secret that corruption hasn’t vanished... it’s just become more centralized! So who’s being fooled? …I am told that this is already a Harvard case study of failed policy decisions and implementation! Policy with such large repercussions launched without any ex ante policy evaluation! No statistics by Govt on policy deliverables and how they’ve been achieved! So those who think with an open mind are bound to question the decision!”

I welcome dissent; I like my ideas critiqued on empirical facts and on cold calculus. This time around though it was different; it bristled with mounting passions: Hope versus Vitriol; Anger versus Chimera; Reasoned Analysis versus Bhakt’s Worship! How polarizing demonetization is? In each of the 3 metros (Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi) and two provincial cities (Cuttack and Bhubaneswar) I’ve been to post-demonetization, I’ve spoken with varying people to gain insight. “We’re sunk; we’re doomed; we’re without work; we sell our farm produce at 95% discount” have been their responses. The pain-points stay – for the poor, the marginalized, the rural folks and the wretched of earth. Time lost is productivity lost for good, never to be made good. Sops as poultice won’t do. Timeline for printing notes too can’t be shrunk; if messed, it’ll lead to further delays haemorrhaging tax-payers’ money. The loss off flawed currency note printing post-demonetization is already a whopping Rs 10,000 crore! Stop-Work will reign. Surgical strike of the corrupt, over days, changed to Cashless society, then morphed to Less-cash society and now to Digital India. I know Digital India too won’t hold for long, given today’s infrastructure and literacy level; it’s a fanciful wish coined by thespians for effect and bites. My uncle, an octogenarian, a senior retired government officer tells me he has never used the ATM to withdraw money from the bank, let alone use net banking. “Can the government force me to go digital? he asked me. “I don’t use a mobile phone. My hands are not steady, my eyesight is getting weaker, my mind is often addled. Can I be forced to learn now and do as the government orders me to do at my age? And if I don’t, why should my age deprive me of digital incentives granted to others?”

The PM’s much awaited New Year eve message conveyed precious little. Some sop here, some sop there, amounting to naught. The pain stays: What’s the roadmap? When will things limp back to normality? Isn’t it, hence sardonic, as a WhatsApp message quipped, PM Modi has wished the nation a Merry Crisis and a Happy New Fear! Are we drowning? Is there light at the end-of-the-financial-year tunnel? This, the inscrutability of life as we begin 2017 Anno Domini!

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REFLECTIONS ON DAD-DAY, OCTOBER 1, 2016

October 1 – the DAD-Day – every year is a time of joyous celebration for all DADizens, past and present, of the Department. Meetings and merriment in various hues are a natural accompaniment. The atmosphere is incredibly electric, when everyone seems to be on a high – something reminiscent of a family get-together. After all what’s DAD but an extended family!

What’s often forgotten in this rush of celebration when the spirit is on a high, is that it is also a Day for introspection – to assess how much we have succeeded in exceeding ourselves. This calls for looking inward, of being honest to oneself, in asking hard, pesky questions, and seeking honest answers. Introspection grants self-communing and self-criticism, even self-flagellation, and provides answers that can hit the mind hard. But they are the truth, bald and honest; they are the conscience’s response, embodying one’s internal moral compass that ought to be given free rein; and because they show how much one is true to oneself during such moments of stocktaking. It is also epiphanic. Eureka is not necessarily only Archimedes’s preserve – it is embedded in every human’s wired mind, if only he or she is willing to get a jump on it.

I say this in nostalgia, evoking memories. This, perhaps, the first time in more than three and half decades, I’ll not be a part of the celebration. But my mind is full of DAD-Day thoughts. Inevitably my mind travels back to last year’s DAD-Day, when I had waxed eloquent in my address in Brar Square that our Department has become, among all Departments in the Government of India, the bellwether of Transparency in going completely transparent. The PCsDA and CsDA had been instructed to upload the details of TA/DA claims and Office Expenses with related office notes to ensure transparency in spends from taxpayers’ money. Also, even more importantly, an arm’s length system with Defence Accounts Placement Boards (DAPBs) with IDAS officers on deputation as Chairmen and Members to ensure their independence from administrative authorities (so fundamental to neutrality) had been put in place, to ensure fair and transparent decision-making in matters of transfers and postings. This was in keeping with the Supreme Court’s judgment of 2013.

My mind travels even further back to my days when I worked as the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts at Bangalore. It was circa 2010, and I had invited Justice Santosh Hegde, former Supreme Court judge and then the Lokayukta of Karnataka for the DAD-Day function. I had already begun the practice of uploading the note sheets containing the transfer of staff and officers under the PCDA Bangalore in the office website to ensure all stakeholders are aware of the processes and principles involved in effecting their transfers. An inveterate practitioner of honesty in public life, Justice Hegde was the embodiment of uprightness and probity, and inevitably the discussion veered around the issue of getting rid of nepotism and corruption. “To me, it appears” I said, “the answer to getting rid of these cancers lies in complete transparency. It auto-corrects wrong human impulses and as ombudsman, telegraphs clandestine motivations.” He not only agreed but also highlighted the flagrant wrongs he had seen as Lokayukta. Going back in time he narrated the case of supersession of Supreme Court judges in appointment of the Chief Justice of India in 1973. “But it will take enormous courage of conviction to put transparency and an arm’s length system in place,” he said.

As CGDA and FA(DS), I found out why (more forthcoming in my Memoir). Transparency strips authorities of their (perceived) authority, and complete transparency strips authority completely! And what’s there without authority in a feudal set up like ours – the power to help and reward, to punish and chastise with no reasons cited! As a corollary, the transparency architecture discourages subordinates to cozy up to the powers-that-be – and massaging their uncertain egos and uneasy vanities – for the spoils and favours to befall them. Is this why transparency was replaced with opacity? Transparency has a potential to write finis to the way of life the networked and street-smarts have crafted out, who through manipulation and machinations and by telling yarns, tall and magnificent, have kept going up and up the totem pole without any self-worth. So entrenched and so insidious are they that, let alone eliminating them, even a surgical strike at these networkers’ camps is harder than striking the Pak terrorists in their launch pads. I call them klepto-terrorists – they steal and ransack, they plunder and pillage the system! I’ve seen how culprits (because they are ace schemers and networked) manipulate the system to get away scot-free in typical insider trade and how innocents (because they are naïve and un-networked) are pilloried. The system is so infested with this networking instinct that its busting is dire.

Networkers, because of the nature of activity, breed all ills: nepotism, corruption, shenanigan and every evil that we, as common men, confront in our day to day life. Given the obstinate grip of the nepotistic past, we must shout at the deceit of it. And transparency is the way to go in a democracy. It’s time to demand transparency as one of our basic rights. A small beginning has been made in the RTI Act 2005. But it demands more, a whole lot more. It needs muscle, it needs the sun to shine brightly – to disinfect and cleanse putrefaction. Complete transparency is the GPS for fairness, equity, honesty and justice! We must download this app and switch it on – for a better tomorrow.     

On this DAD-Day 2016, as a concerned senior, I wish all members of my extended family a very happy, healthy, peaceful, and wonderful journey ahead – filled with achievements, glory, smarts and happiness – this coming year, and in the years ahead. Let the DADizens blaze a new trail and become the numero uno among all other participating organs of this proud country. Warm wishes and Godspeed! 

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India's Tendulkar Syndrome

The news that cricket star and MP Sachin Tendulkar lobbied with Defence minister Manohar Parrikar to settle a dispute between his friend’s retreat in Landour and a defence institute over an ‘illegal’ construction is symptomatic of Indian psyche that believes that rules are flexible and can be tweaked if only the powers-that-be are spoken to by someone high and mighty. This syndrome typifies our national collective unconscious which believes rules are for the aam aadmi – for whom the arm’s length system is inviolate – not so for the well-placed, the well-connected and the networked.

It is a different matter that the Raksha Mantri Manohar Parrikar declined to intervene, which is indeed commendable, given the way things get done – as exception – by dubbing it as a one-off (and not to be quoted as a precedent!) with some vague reason thrown in as justification and for future record. But what’s disturbing is: why do icons like Sachin Tendulkar, a Bharat Ratna awardee, stick their necks out to invite opprobrium from their countless fans? Is it worth it when it’s ex facie wrong?

Around the time when we joined the civil service in late-1970s, the oft-heard remark was Show me the Man and I’ll show you the rule! In no time, this changed to Show me the Man and I’ll rewrite the rule! Such was – still is – the fungibility of rules! Far from being ashamed with the nature of nepotism, apologists of this model bemoan that today’s India resembles the Gilded Age of US – alluding to the second half of 19th century when, although the economy grew at the fastest, it paradoxically was the high noon of scandal and corruption with rich industrialists like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon, and Vanderbilt dubbed ‘robber barons’ – an inevitability in a nation’s life, which with passage of time and maturing of democracy would be a thing of the past.

Little do we realize that history does not repeat itself in entirety but mostly in profile; and another nation needn’t go through the same processes since the inexorable forces of history throw up not only a dialectic of change based on lessons learnt but also simultaneous dialectic of change brought forth by technological changes, which in times now has leaped phenomenally. Playing catch-up is a lot faster in today’s world, and given the willingness, lessons learnt can be cloned literally in a nano-second – so connected the world is thanks to the world-wide-web! This, coupled with the fact that citizens have wised up with relentless real-time information hitherto denied them much as the increasingly strident media have, issues of nepotism, favouritism and crony-capitalism occupy public domain as never before. As citizens take up cudgels on perceived wrongs and with the rule of law resonating more and more, what we see today is a new dialectic: conventional, nepotistic norms of biradiri inclined to selective circumvention of rule versus uniform application of rule of law for all citizens.

While the old order refuses to accept the change, the new social order emboldened with hope of a better tomorrow via openness and technology refuses to go the beaten path. What we witness today is a battle of these two. The old order/mindset won’t give in easily, the new order having glimpsed the benefits they realize is rightfully theirs, won’t give up either. What’s inevitable is a battle of attrition – a seething, lacerating battle – where wrongs join hands and indulge in Orwellian shibboleth to paint the right as wrong and the wrong right and where the pot calls the snowflakes black! Yet, in today’s democracies, neither can the spoils system (read nepotism) nor the robber barons (read corruption) make a comeback without citizens raising their voice of disapproval. No right thinking government can risk such misadventure.

Yet in the interstices of this dialectic are efforts made with some getting reported. Thankfully, we’ve none of the compulsions of the American Gilded Age or the long shadows of Tammanyism that were born when the world was decidedly opaque. What though stays is human pathological greed and possessive acquisitiveness. The lack of transparency in body politic and administration in implementation of rules and regulations is a cause of concern. How else is one to explain the proclivity of an icon to make a request to bend the rule? In today’s time when with burgeoning urbanization the pressure on land is staggeringly high (remember Sukhna & Adarsh land scams!) and with the Ministry of Defence with 17.54 lakh acres under its charge the largest land bank, the need for an inviolate land policy and execution cannot be overstated.

Not just that. From time to time there have been alleged irregularities in gross mismanagement of defence land and government buildings built on them, such as Services’ messes in sundry cantonments, which far from being located in the periphery of cities they once were, are upscale today in rapidly growing urban megalopolises. To compound the issue, far from leveraging Government dues from commercial exploitation of defence lands/buildings, even legitimate government receipts are siphoned off to non-governmental funds. The haemorrhaging of such revenues is humongous and doubtless the nation cannot afford this, when it can be used for developmental activities such as Smart Cantonments, an appurtenant of Swachh Bharat, and sustainable development of Smart Green Cities. It is intriguing that such illegalities on specious grounds have persisted. How else is one to countenance diversion of rightful government receipts as license fee to Non-Public/Regimental Funds that clearly belongs to Caesar? The loss can easily tot up to hundreds of crore of rupees annually.

This, despite, the fact that the issue of irregular diversion of Government revenue to non-public funds had come under scathing criticism from Parliamentary Committees; as per media report, in 2013-14 the Public Accounts Committee had severely criticized and directed the Ministry to formulate a policy for realization of Government dues from commercial utilization of defence lands. 

The motivations are reprehensible. Such depravity must stop and the Tendulkar syndrome granted burial through robust policies and cast-iron execution, even strong declamation by the government that such impulses shall not be tolerated. Time it is to remember the words of Thomas Fuller, the 17th century English historian – Be you ever so high, still the Law is above you!

***

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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 

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