00:00Two incidents, one in Odisha, the other in Himachal Pradesh, exposing the gundaism by netas towards bureaucrats.
00:06As I pointed out, Odisha's additional commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation brutally assaulted by a BJP cooperator and his supporters.
00:14Arrests have been made in that case.
00:16And then today in Himachal Pradesh, an NHI official was assaulted in the presence of a Congress State Minister, Anirudh Singh.
00:23Terrible both of those incidents.
00:25A real shame that happened in both these cases.
00:28Is this netagiri or gundagiri?
00:31Has politics become a license for gundaism?
00:34Who will stop this abuse of power?
00:35Let's get a quick takeaway from Raghav Chandra, former chairman, NHI, former IS officer.
00:41T.R. Raghunandan is also former IS officer.
00:44I want to get these two IS officers to tell me how they view what has been happening.
00:48First to you, Raghav Chandra, because you saw that NHI official who was very badly beaten up, allegedly, by people close to the minister in Himachal.
00:56How do you respond as a former chairman of the NHI, sir?
01:09And I feel that it is absolutely not expected of a politician or anybody in authority to behave like that with a civil servant, with a public servant who is only doing his duty.
01:26Because this sets off the wrong, you know, creates distrust.
01:34It spoils the morale of not only that individual, but of everybody around.
01:40And most importantly, it should be treated as a criminal event rather than just an exercise of public duty by the political authority.
01:50So, the law should take its turn.
01:53There are serious legal channels by which redress can be found by anybody who is aggrieved by an officer.
02:00In this case, there is no clear reason why the political minister should have been aggrieved by any action of this officer.
02:08He's just a young man with seven or eight years of service recruited to the Union Public Service Commission.
02:13As an all-India engineering service officer, he has high expectations of being able to do his duty diligently, honestly and fairly.
02:23And the National Highways is doing a lot of important work in Himachal Pradesh.
02:27I'm told they're doing something like 20 projects worth about 25,000 crores.
02:32And clearly, this should not have happened.
02:35Happy to say that Gadkariji, the minister, has written a very comprehensive letter to the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh,
02:44where he has very clearly pointed out that if protection and support cannot be given to civil servants who are doing their duty,
02:53then the state will lose the support of the government of India to complete the projects in the state.
02:59And I think that should be how it should be.
03:01It should be dealt with as a criminal event, on the one hand, and seriously and strictly...
03:06So the minister should be criminally prosecuted, am I correct?
03:10Yes, absolutely.
03:12Okay, very, very strong words there.
03:14T.R. Raghunandan, you know, where are these politicians getting the impunity?
03:19It's generally their supporters doing it.
03:20We saw this in Odisha yesterday.
03:22We've seen it in Himachal Pradesh now.
03:24Is it the belief that because they are proximate to power, they can get away with anything else?
03:29Where do you think they get the impunity to target an additional commissioner and beat him up in this manner or indeed an NHAI official?
03:36The impunity comes from the behavior of higher-level politicians.
03:42Unfortunately, over the past decade or so, we've seen higher-level politicians dog-whistling, indulging in unacceptable behavior, saying some terribly provocative things.
03:54And the media has highlighted it further.
03:57So what has happened is that there is a lot of voyeurism now.
04:00The people of India seem to be quite enjoying this kind of public display of violence.
04:07And it's become so much that, you know, every day people look forward to the next violent event, which they can gloat over or, shall I say, enjoy on their TV screens.
04:22I mean, the way that our higher-level politicians have encouraged troll armies, IT cells heaping abuse, rape threats, you know, lynching and things like that.
04:36And now what is happening is that this is spilt over and the administration…
04:40So you're saying something very important.
04:42You're saying there is a normalization that has taken place where people believe they can get away with it.
04:46Absolutely. And even to some extent, though, I've really, my heart goes out to this particular officer, who is sadly the helpless victim of this kind of a trend.
04:56But even the administration, some of the things that the administration have said and done are totally unacceptable in a civilized society.
05:02Things like bulldozer justice. I mean, have you ever heard of these terms a decade back? No, we never did.
05:08The point is that the rule of law has broken down completely.
05:12This kind of alpha male, macho behavior on behalf of many people.
05:18You see, it's not merely that an attack has happened.
05:22There are people actually recording this.
05:25And it's another thing that you got this to put it on TV.
05:30But I'm sure this has already been circulated on social media and people are counting the hits they are getting on their sites.
05:37Violence has become a paying business on social media.
05:40Absolutely. You're making very, very, both these officers, I hope everyone out there is listening.
05:46These are very strong points being made by two senior IS officers because this impunity must stop.
05:51Raghav Chandra, you see, the worry, of course, is that at the end of the day, because the politicians control the system,
05:58the bureaucrat is beholden to the politician, and therefore, even if he tries to in some way raise his voice,
06:07he will have few options. At best, he'll get transferred instantly.
06:12Do you believe that, therefore, there's a complete asymmetry in power between the top politician and an NHAI official
06:19or indeed an additional commissioner of police, additional municipal commissioner?
06:25Even if there is an asymmetry of power, which there is, the rule of law does not permit assault or anything like this,
06:35where people abrogate and indulge in anything as criminal as assaulting an official.
06:41And so, therefore, this should be dealt with at the level of a criminal case.
06:48Action should be taken both politically, that is a separate matter for the political party to establish its credibility
06:55by saying that they abide by the rule of law, and therefore, they are taking action against their respective political people
07:01who have indulged in this. But purely from the police point of view, strict action should be taken
07:07because this is a criminal matter. And that is the only way that this asymmetry can be bridged
07:15and some amount of reasonableness and some amount of trust can be built in, which is very necessary
07:21for a civilized, ethical, progressive society, where India is poised to take off in this century.
07:28If we are to achieve the economic goals that we've set ourselves for, we must not only be good, but appear to be good.
07:35I want to ask you, Mr. Raghunandan, therefore, in conclusion, why don't IAS officers' associations come together,
07:42use the might of IAS officers present and past to speak out against politicians?
07:48These are the issues where you would expect your collective to speak out in a way that there is a red line that is drawn.
07:54Oh, I am sorry that that doesn't happen, Rajdeep. I have been the secretary of an IAS association in the past
08:01and I find that what happens is that IAS officers very often, I mean, there are exceptions, of course,
08:07but very often they stop just short of outright condemnation of politicians.
08:13And that is because a lot of senior officers are within the zone of consideration for higher level posts.
08:19And so they do not want to say anything harsh about politicians, lest they lose their career opportunities.
08:25I am very sorry to say this, but the IAS is very competitive, the IAS is very career minded
08:31and sometimes people play strategic games and they do not want to get on what they believe is the wrong side of politicians,
08:41particularly when they are in the zone of consideration for higher posts.
08:44And this is extremely sad.
08:45I myself have been part of, I mean, I've seen some of these things at close quarters in earlier instances,
08:53none of such a terrible nature, but in earlier instances where officers were subjected to injustice,
09:00there is often no consensus on the, on an outright condemnation.
09:05And there are always people who would like to soft peddle it.
09:08I am quite skeptical about IAS associations taking this up in a very big way.
09:13They should.
09:13I haven't seen two officers engage in such plain speaking in a long time.
09:18Maybe when you retire, you have more, you have the space to speak out.
09:24I don't say that in any other way, but I really feel that a lot of what you have said should be heard by IAS officers
09:30as well as by those in power.
09:32At the end of the day, our netas need to change.
09:35The lumpanization of politics has gone far enough.
09:37These two incidents in Orissa and Himachal Pradesh only highlight the extent of what was once described as,
09:45what is really seen as a really serious crisis of our political class.
09:50I appreciate, therefore, both of you, sirs, joining me.
