Why I left the Indian Administrative Service?

The present rage on the OTT platform is the movie ‘12th Fail’ that documents the struggles of Manoj Kumar Sharma in becoming an IPS officer. Lives of everyone may not have been as dramatic as that of Manoj, but most of us who gave UPSC Civil service exams certainly lived some part. The lanes of Rajendra Nagar with its bookstalls and tea shops, or the small pigeon hole rooms in Mukherjee Nagar/Jiasarai are all too familiar to any aspirant. All of us also remember pile of books that filled entire room and neatly pasted information posters on the wall.

The gruelling exam cycle went on for more than a year starting from filling the prelims form, then giving long subjective Mains exam and finally the terror of the interview board. I still remember that eternal struggle to clock 12-14 hours of study time and looking at pictures of toppers who cleared the exam. Their folklores survived in those Delhi bylanes while they moved on to the LBSNAA Mussoorie. Any successful or unfortunately not so aspirant can talk about these struggles on and on.

I felt like destiny's child when I cleared the exam in my first attempt and entered the hallowed Indian Administrative Service (IAS). I wonder if anything else can match the sudden orbit shift in an ordinary student's life when you turn from an aspirant to a small time celeb and newspapers and aspirants cannot have enough of your wisdom words. It touches not only you but your entire clan. I remember distant relatives distributing sweets in their neighbourhoods when someone with whom they hardly ever spoke cleared this exam.

So how does one reconcile with leaving something that one struggled for so hard? After reliving a part of that struggle watching 12th fail with family, my son incredulously asks me, "Why did you leave the indian administrative service?”. It was difficult to explain to my toddler what IAS officers did and it is even more difficult to explain why I left.

I owe this answer to many who have been a part of my life. Whatever it is, it was certainly not an easy choice. After 16 years in service, it doesn't remain a service but becomes a way of life, a sort of alter ego or identity that one cannot even imagine to leave. Many still ask what did your parents say? How could your family let you do that?

I do not say that the service did not offer what I was looking for. The kind of diversity, respect and exposure that IAS provides can rarely be matched by anything else. And IAS officers also serve. The exam selects brilliant people and despite challenges in everyone’s professional life, they contribute in different manners. Yes there are aberrations amongst IAS officers, but they exist in all walks of life.

Having been there and done that, I can say for sure that it is easier to enter the service than to leave. While one is preparing, you just need to work hard and everything is black and white, you either get selected or you do not. The decision to leave is mired with ifs and buts and everything appears grey. There is the persistent thought of this being a one way street, with no chance of coming back to this comfort zone of respect and assured career path. I could live what the poet Kunwar Narayan meant in his poem ‘Antim Unchai’:

कितना स्पष्ट होता आगे बढ़ते जाने का मतलब

अगर दसों दिशाएँ हमारे सामने होतीं,

हमारे चारों ओर नहीं।

कितना आसान होता चलते चले जाना

यदि केवल हम चलते होते

बाक़ी सब रुका होता।

शुरू-शुरू में सब यही चाहते हैं

कि सब कुछ शुरू से शुरू हो,

लेकिन अंत तक पहुँचते-पहुँचते हिम्मत हार जाते हैं।

हमें कोई दिलचस्पी नहीं रहती

कि वह सब कैसे समाप्त होता है

जो इतनी धूमधाम से शुरू हुआ था

हमारे चाहने पर।

It was difficult but I could also hear a clear voice inside my heart that it was time to move on. There are no rights and wrongs in life, but what matters is if we can hear our inner voice. In the end everything remains a personal choice based on what one is seeking in life. All the reasons I have can be argued equally against, but I present them in all humility to my friends and well wishers, who have often tried to understand my thought process.

The first reason was that I felt too comfortable in life. It is difficult to express that, but seeing the next twenty years of my professional life was unnerving in a sense. I had seen a good part of what service had to offer, and the chances of getting surprised were getting narrowed down. A sign of youth is that one is full of possibilities in life. You can be an entrepreneur or you can travel and explore the world. You can also think of joining the elite IAS. There is a thrill in finding new challenges in life, and continuing here was sort of accepting old age, metaphorically at least.

The next  important reason was that I feel India is going to change in the coming decades. I remember how we waited for months to get a landline, and how the world changed with the advent of mobiles. Today's smartphone users cannot even imagine that time. I believe emerging changes would be far greater in the coming decades. I also believe that while the Government would continue to be a regulator and a facilitator, the private sector would be the real leader in this change. Indian per capita income has doubled in the last seven years, and we can only imagine how the next few decades are going to be like. While I had just begun to toy with this idea, I met a founder of a Unicorn. Realising that he could create a wealth of billions of dollars in such a short span of time was an attractive thought. The creativity, the pace and the horizon to achieve myriad things thrilled me beyond words.

Also, when we think of life in IAS, we often think about life in the field or in the districts. There one is closer to real India and creating an impact, however small, gives satisfaction. As one rises up the hierarchy, the canvas becomes large. It is difficult to conduct small experiments and see them succeed owing to the scale of impact. Working in the secretariat, be it in a department or any government corporation is somewhat closer to the work in the private sector.

A lingering thought also was that we have only one life. I had seen IAS for sixteen years and I felt excited with the idea of reinventing myself. Modern world is complex and people not only change jobs but their area of work.

I also felt that we called IAS to be the steel frame of the country but as democracy matures, real representatives of people i.e. elected politicians take charge. In today’s competitive electoral politics where the electorate are impatient for results, politicians love to work with a committed rather than a neutral bureaucracy. There can not be two power centres and thus there is nothing called ‘strong bureaucracy’ in modern times.

In most developed countries, bureaucrats are relegated to the background and civil services are rarely the first career choice. I believe in developing countries like ourselves where rule of law is still not perfect, being in the services makes certain basic services guaranteed. One is saved from unlawful harassment from the State or can be assured of finding a hospital bed in crisis times like Covid. As markets mature and a country progresses, these become less attractive. This may also be seen in career choices of children of serving bureaucrats, with very few opting for civil services.

It may also be said that a person needs to be self driven in services like IAS. Government jobs do not offer incentives to innovate and often officials fall in the mediocrity trap. The ecosystem makes it challenging to continuously upgrade oneself. There are other reasons like that of generating wealth and earning like my other IIT batchmates or having exposure of different kinds but I will not say they really mattered when I decided to move on.

It is not that I am not scared, I had more sleepless nights than I had while preparing for the UPSC exams. This was the most difficult decision of my life and I still get nightmares with thoughts like this isn't some आई मौज फ़क़ीर को, दिया झोपड़ा फूँक moment. May be this deserves a separate blog and one day I would pen that.

But I am happy and proud I could do this. It wasn't easy and it will not be easy but I am excited. Once again in my life I feel the sky's the limit and I again have a reason to dream. It has already been more than two months and everyday I have butterflies in my stomach. I asked GenAI to generate an image for me entering the unknown and it is the one you see at the top. Wish me luck on this ride!

जल गयी है शमा, आ गए हैं परवाने

आगाज़ तो अच्छा है, अंजाम ख़ुदा जाने

Welcome, you have Arrived!

You had more faith in Newton’s law of Inertia than Newton himself and state of rest was all you ever wanted in life. This was not the world of your dreams and you have wife and kids who have been applying an external force to take them out. You sustain the force for a long time but it grows exponentially with time. You soon realize world peace is more important and even Newton would have chosen it if given a choice.  

Your wife says she wishes to go to a place that is popular yet pristine and you tell her that was an example of oxymoron. You complement yourself on wisecrack but anyways suffer the consequences for voicing that. You are now family’s odd one out and even the kids are on the other side of this divide.

You demonstrate your seriousness and surf the internet for a long time looking for various tourist sites. You search for hotels and flight discounts. During this time, you have gifted yourself spams for a lifetime. You start getting deals for hotel/airlines and there are even offers for baggage loss insurance.

You show all this to your wife as an alibi in being helpless in locating any site and you are reminded of ‘one that should not be named’ popups that have been receiving without any complain for a long time. You quietly open your laptop and book the first exotic holiday that appears on the website. You feel a large hole in your pocket and show the amount to your wife to salvage some pride. You get a consolatory pat on the cheek. Next few days are spent in shopping for suitable dress, hats and goggles and you are ready with an attire that screams ‘See how a tourist looks like’.

The D-day arrives and you board the flight. Your kids punish the flight attendant for committing the mistake of offering a candy one time. They also compete in who can press the flight attendant call button more number of times.

After a long arduous journey, you are at the hotel and it does not disappoint. All you want to do in the hotel room is to sleep on the soft bed and wonder why there is no such mattress in your house. You have competitive kids and they treat the bed as a Bouncy and demonstrate their high jump capabilities. You remember the fortune this booking has cost and do not ask your kids to stop. They also scribble their names on the hotel walls.  

Next day, you request the hotel to book a Cab and your driver is an English-speaking man. You now can only get impressed. He confidently tells you about the not to be missed sites and for next three days, you are his ungrudging hostage. You visit/do not visit places that he recommends and you sincerely want to live up in his eyes. You eat, drink and shop at places that he says befits your stature and you enviously calculate his cut in your mind.

Long traffic snarls in the place tell you that it is anything but pristine now. You buy chips packet, water bottles and cold drink cans like all other tourists to leave your own mark at the tourist spot. You still have to negotiate a long queue in entering tourist attractions and you haggle with salesmen and beggars during that.

Your kids take toilet breaks at odd places at odd times and locating a public toilet is now your favourite pastime. Soon you have experience of sniffing public toilets of various kinds and you realise finding a clean toilet would be the ultimate dream of any Indian voyager. You have also started appreciating Graffiti on the toilet walls. There are complex biological concepts demonstrated, love professed in pure primal forms and simple copulation described. You are confident that A L Basham named his book ‘Wonder that is India’ after having a look at graffiti on toilet walls.   

You reach a historical site and since you already have been tricked, you do not mind becoming a fool one more time. You hire a tourist guide at an exorbitant price. Soon you realise hearing him may spoil chances of your kids studying history any time. You spend rest of the time in reading information written at the spot to your children and the tourist guide. You extract your revenge by not buying anything from the souvenir shop that he guides you outside.

On last day, you buy Souvenirs for neighbours and relatives. One cannot miss telling them about the great time that you had and see their envy of not being at this site. You also duly click pictures at all places and make funny smiling face. You realize breathing out when the picture is clicked helps as it hides your family pack. You keep on doing that all the time. Once you are back, you get an uncanny feeling that your trip was a waste. You still post pictures on your Facebook wall.

You finally feel that your trip was a success when you have attained the objective of getting maximum likes!

The Idea that drives India

On 15th August 1947, a strange nation started its ‘tryst with destiny’.

There was hardly an iota of homogeneity in its nationals; they spoke myriad languages, had cultures poles apart, and consisted representation of all diverse religions. Not only that, it was left high and dry by its colonial masters.

So the entire world predicted doom, and doom’s day they said was not far away. They waited and predicted, and predicted and waited. But then nothing happened. Actually they missed that an idea was driving that nation; and that was its Democracy.

Thus this new blog is dedicated to the magic called democracy and the means to achieve it, free and fair elections. I know quite a few eyebrows must have been raised by now.

Before my readers put me down with zillion cross questions, I remind them of a quote of Churchill ‘Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried’. And trust me, I cannot agree more.

Democracy has power to smoothen all the folds of the society; it has power to merge different colors of society and mind it, none of them lose their identity. In years of human existence, democracy faced just one strong opponent, Communism, but that too got completely crushed by the fallacy of its own weight.

Now let me come to the phrase ‘free and fair elections’. Its normal to question ‘Are we anyways near that?’ and my answer to that shall be a loud Yes. As an insider to the government machinery, I can say with full confidence that I have never seen a process as efficient as conduct of elections.

The process starts years before any election is due. Voter lists are periodically revised and re-revised. Booth level agents go door to door to confirm who has moved in and who has moved out. All political parties are asked to give their views and objections to the entire process.

When election comes near, almost all other government work comes to a standstill. The letter with mark ‘Election Urgent’ acquires topmost priority.

After each election, the Election commission gets wiser and now they are monitoring at multiple levels. There are government observers, there are agents of all political parties and then there are also some random citizen checks.

So have we become perfect? My answer is no. There are still evils to be tackled; like those of criminalization of politics, politicization of religion, use of money and muscle power etc. But if you feel the sheer magnitude of election operations, you cannot resist but call it magic.

After all, isn’t this the magic that has, and god willing shall, keep India moving.

Eternal err English August

As the days pass by, my appreciation of the eternal ‘English August’ keeps on increasing. It has been good twenty years when the novel was published, but not an iota has changed in the districts. I wonder when the trickle of trickle down theory will reach the interiors of India.

I got married recently. I know this, my colleagues in office know this and I doubt entire Bankura district knows this. So from all the corners I receive the query “Is your family staying with you?” Family, which family! I do not understand how I can create a ‘family’ after two months of marriage.

I have received official mail addressed to “The AS, IAS”. Well, well, well I am happy. There is The Himalayas, The Ganges and to and to give competition to all there is ‘The AS’.

I live in a palatial circuit house. Bathrooms here are almost equal to the room size. And there are some co-inhabitants too. At least eight lizards live in my room and the count is still on. Everyday my meal becomes a little spicier because of the 5-6 ants that mistake my daal for their swimming pool. You see, I live in perfect harmony with nature.

For those of us who have lived in cities, rural India presents a completely different picture and you have to live it to believe it. Add to that a different language and a different cultural milieu and that leaves me pondering if I actually know India.

Reading ‘digital divide’ in newspapers is one thing and feeling it on the ground another. I have to go to 50kms to another district to watch a decent movie in a mall. It was hard for me to explain to my driver what internet is and his sole idea of internet is examination results.

Otherwise Bankura is a beautiful and different place. Here bicycles outnumber the automobiles by many times. For the first time I have seen saree as a school dress and girls as small as in class sixth wear sarees. The taste of Rosogulla is beyond words and even other sweets are way better.

The natural beauty of the district is very good. In case you want to see some pictures of Bishnupur in Bankura, you can see them here.

Bharat Darshan Chronicles-II

This is in continuation to the first article on Bharat Darshan. If you have not read it, you may see it here.

Early in the morning we started for Kirandool block. It is two hours drive from Dantewada. The BDO of the block had come to pick us up and we were going to stay in the government quarter allotted to the BDO. He himself stayed in another town which was good for the education of his kids.

The schedule for the day was to visit some nearby villages. The BDO decided that first he will take us for lunch which was organized on a Waterfall known as 'Phoolpada'. I was amazed by the beauty of the waterfall and its surroundings. Some years back it used to be a favorite picnic spot for the tourists but today hardly anyone went there as the region was badly naxal infested.

The arrangement of our lunch was done by men from a nearby village. They had carried with them utensils, cooking material, vegetables etc inside that dense forest. Lunch arrangements for four of us had required not less than forty people!

There I interacted with the Sarpanch of the village. He was illiterate, naïve and knew nothing about the government schemes. But he told me about the reasons for rise of Naxals, also called as ‘Andarwale’ in the region. I was also not aware that Dantewada has been declared as the capital of the red corridor by the Naxals.

Incidentally I also discovered an interesting fact there. Tribals still hold their arrows with forefinger and middle finger and they never use their thumbs. Does that remind you of Eklavya’s story?

After having our lunch, we went to visit the village. From a long distance we were welcomed by a Gaur dance party which escorted us into the village dancing and our entry became almost like a procession.

Tribal villages are divided into small ‘Padas’. Not more than six seven houses are clustered in a Pada and the next Pada can be half a kilometer away. This causes a big burden on the administration in providing electricity, water supply and roads.

Also, people live in joint families and they never go for division of agricultural land. They still have big plots of lands registered in names of their ancestors deceased long ago. This causes a big problem in providing them the government benefits as majority of them are designed for small and marginal farmers.

We came to our quarter in the late evening. On TV, news was being flashed that a police station in a nearby district has been attacked by the naxals. The peon staying with us consoled that naxals ‘generally’ do not attack civil servants, only police is their target.

We were slightly worried that night and our worries got magnified by the gunshots we heard in the late night. You might like to know that we were in a house whose front doors even could not be bolted due to misalignment. I forced myself to sleep but I remember having restless dreams. Early in the morning we called the SP who told us that everything was all right. The gunshots were fired by the police itself to check their preparedness.

Next day, we went to visit a local ‘Haat’ or the markets organized weekly which were marked by heavy police presence. There are two things that shall always be present in a Haat. One is the traditional cock fight. Blades are tied on the nails of the cock and the winner cock bleeds its opponent to death. A considerable amount of money is gambled on such fights.

Second is the ‘Sulfi drink’ or the ‘Bastar beer’. This is local booze made from the Sulfi tree found in the region. Enjoyment of life is a major component of tribal society and social drinking is also a part of it. Both men and women consume liquor and in the late afternoon many of them can be seen drunk.

They have many customs which we may not be looked favorably in ‘cultured’ society. During spring season, unmarried boys and girls go in the forest to collect forest produce. In the night they sing, dance and booze in the forest and spend the night there itself. It is also a method of finding one’s spouse.

Tribals live a contended life. They are happy with their lives and many times they do not like the externally enforced ‘development’. They also do not want to work hard for improving their lives. I still wonder what is important in life; to be happy or to be ‘developed’.

We also interacted with other government officials posted in the region. They have their own set of problems. A doctor told us that naxals coerce them to treat their wounded members. After that police harasses them for helping the naxals. Police also at times pressurizes them to issue fake postmortem reports when they have not even seen the dead bodies. And then we wonder sitting in cities why no doctor is ready to serve in interior areas.

Two days passed away safely in the block. We had to see the same ‘Gaur dance’ three times, drink ‘Sulfis’ everywhere and take petitions for electricity, hand pumps and government benefits. The initial enthusiasm was waning away and it was becoming difficult to maintain the same zeal. Next day we came back to the NMDC guest house. A major thing in the area that was left till now was to see a ‘Salwa Judum’ camp.

Literally Salwa Judum means meeting for peace. When Naxalism was deeply entrenched, naxals started targeting innocent villagers in order to force them for joining the naxal movement. They also started imposing heavy levies on the traders. This created resentment among the general public.

In one Haat, people decided to march towards interior villages and convince the villagers to quit naxalism. When a big crowd entered the village, naxals were not able to frighten them away. This became a method and it caused a sharp decline in the cadre strength of naxals.

They retaliated by brutally killing innocent villages whom they suspected to be Judum members. Exodus of villagers started from the villages towards the cities.Thousands came abandoning entire villages and Sulwa Judum camps were set up.

So next day we went to visit Dornapal camp. Its population is more than 17000, which is many times the original Dornapal village. It looks like any other city slum with narrow lanes, bad sewage system and dense population. But I must say that administration is taking good care of them considering their scarce resources.

Government has given support to many for building houses. Ration is provided to every family free of cost. There are Aanganwadis, primary schools and ration shops. And these families keep waiting for the time when they will be able to go back again to their homes.

The strategy of Sulwa Judum has always been controversial. But one thing is certain. The tribal way of life is completely changed in the camps. Many houses have got electricity connection, TV’s and their clothing now is similar to the urbanized people. I doubt if anyone in camps shall ever go back. The question remains that, is changing the way of life of tribals an affordable price in fight against naxalism.

Our official assignments were over and the plan for the day after was to visit the Kanger Valley National Park. The park is famous for the ‘Gandak’ limestone caves. Dripping water causes formation of protruding limestone structures. It is completely dark inside and we had to carry many torches and a horde of guides with us. Then we went to the Tirathgarh waterfalls where steps have been made by the falling water. Chattisgarh has good potential for tourism and this part had considerable presence of tourists as effect of naxalism was less in the region.

In the evening we met the collector, briefed him about our observations and thanked him for making our stay comfortable there. Next day early in the morning we went to the famous ‘Danteshwari Devi’ temple. From there we started our journey to Vishakhapatnam, where we were going to have our Navy Attachment. In the evening when we were reaching Vishakhapatnam, we got the news that Jail has been broken in Dantewada and more than 300 naxals have escaped!

Bharat Darshan Chronicles-I

As promised earlier, I shall share with you all my experiences of Bharat Darshan. They will be long, they may be boring….. but trust me they will tell you about ‘Bharat’; which may be different from your perception of India. To minimise the boredom, I shall keep the chronicles in small episodes.

With the beginning of December, the cold was getting worse in Mussoorrie. Foundation course had just ended and those not into IAS had gone to their respective academies. LBSNAA wore a deserted look and we all who remained here wanted a desperate change. So we were happy to pack our bags and move on to Bharat Darshan.

Bharat Darshan Tour, alternatively known as the Winter Study Tour is an integral part of IAS training. It is an eight week tour of almost entire India starting from first week of December. The course handbook describes its purpose as “to expose officer trainees to a wide range of organizations and situations they are going to run into during their careers and also give them a glimpse of the diversity of our cultural heritage.”

Our journey began on 8rth Dec. The group had 11 members with one lady officer. Our first destination was Dantewada, the heartland of Naxalism where we had our tribal attachment. We started by a bus from the academy to Ambala and from there we took Chattisgrah Express to Raipur.

The entire journey was more than 48 hours long. I chatted with the group, started reading ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth, sat idle, walked in the train and tried to kill the long idle hours. I sat at the window for hours looking outside. Civilizations came and went; lone lights twinkled at the far ends and fields made way for the cities. At times the monotony was broken by the rivers; and also by the the sound of train passing over a steel bridge. Looking outside the window was a serene bliss and when I look back, the path was more beautiful than the destination. Perhaps the same holds for life too.

We reached Raipur station on 10th morning. And that was the place where realization came that we are into a premier service. Five Boleros had come to pick us up, there was a horde of local officials present and a meticulous arrangement was in place to welcome us. From the station we proceeded to the newly built State Transit House.

Raipur is a mid sized city, still very much different from the densely populated cities of north India. Roads do not qualify for being of the capital of a state. Big construction works are visible and the State Guest house was also recently made. A small surprise was waiting for us. Dantewada was still eight hours away and these Boleros were meant to carry us there.

We started within an hour as it was not advisable to get late in reaching Dantewada. The countryside of Chattisgarh is full of forest cover. Teakwood is abundantly present along with other dense vegetation. After half the journey when we passed a district called Jagdalpur, there was a noticeable difference in infrastructure. Roads became narrower, they were in bad shape and the signals of my Reliance mobile went away. There was unfinished work going on at many places and the number of police pickets increased. Incidentally, the naxals heartland had just begun.

It was quite late when we reached Dantewada and we were taken to an NMDC guest house. I was surprised to see a public sector maintaining such a good guest house. The rooms had all the modern facilities and the staff was very cordial. Most of them were Malayalis and the guest house had the entire staff from Indian Coffee House. Next day our tribal attachment had to formally begin by a presentation by the DM and SP.

On the way to collectorate, a small program was arranged for us in a village. We were traditionally welcomed by flowers and garlands and the local villagers presented the traditional ‘Gaur dance’ for us. The dance was performed by more than thirty men and women with all the paraphernalia like big drums and head-gears having Bison horns. We also met some orphan physically handicapped children who were looked after in a nearby ‘Ashram’. The Ashram system in Chattisgarh is a kind of boarding school. Books, dresses and food are provided there and children go to their houses once in a fortnight.

We were touched by the elaborate arrangements done and the respect shown to us. We could not understand why they are taking so much pain for entertaining us. We were just probationers and we could have done nothing for them even if we wanted to. But then we realized, they did not want anything from us. It was due to the respect that IAS still commands. The dancers were elated when we took their drums and headgears and had a photograph with them. Our appreciation of the work that Ashram was doing for the orphans was good enough to bring a smile on their face. There are times when one feels good to be in service, and this was certainly one of them.

The meeting with the DM and SP turned out to be an eye opener. We came to know about the gravity of situation in Dantewada. DM and SP were not using government vehicles due to the frequent landmines. Most of the policemen were in civil dress. The entire district is in a complete war like situation and battle lines are clearly drawn. And the administration is fighting a real war when the region is not even declared as ‘disturbed’.

The big deal about declaring a region as ‘disturbed’ is that special schemes can be adopted there. For e.g. there is 50% lack of administrative staff but no incentives can be provided to those working in the interior areas as it would be against general financial rules. If shoes have to be procured for the policemen, it will take the normal hierarchical chain where a file may have to pass through twenty tables, and a small query at any level may send it downwards tracing the same path.

Before visiting there we all knew that Naxalism is a socio economic problem. The simple solution is, develop the region and Naxalism will vanish. But we were wrong. Reasons of emergence of Naxalism are socio economic, but once it finds its roots, it becomes a law and order problem. Why will Naxals allow development if it can threaten their own existence. Hence in the interior villages, there are no schools, no connectivity, no electricity and in short no government. In case you want to know what is ‘interior’; today also there are police stations where it takes 72 hours for any outside help to reach!

Next day we had to move to interior areas, live there for three days and understand the ground situation. No security cover was given to us as it could have invited trouble. Our drivers told us that naxals must have by now come to know by now that we were going to visit their terrain. To tell you the truth, we were all little scared!

The chronicle shall continue. I have many more things to tell, so keep coming back.

Reality Bytes: India Revisited

What is your caste?

Within minutes of landing in the village, I faced this question and I was almost shocked. This was my first interaction with real India. So I am back from my village tour, somewhat wiser about India, little more curious about Bharat.

The village we went to was Mehandwas, in Tonk district of Rajasthan. In a way it was somewhat a developed village. It was on the national highway, so definite signs of development were present. There was eight hour electricity supply, a primary health center, four schools, many motor cycles and innumerable mobiles present in the village.

We received a royal welcome there. In fact their hospitability touched our hearts. Everyone wanted to meet us. I do not know if they trusted us but they liked that someone from government was hearing their woes. There was that old lady who took us to her house to show how bad road to her house was. Then there was that SC sarpanch who was so happy because we ate at his house against the wishes of elites of the village.

You must have guessed by now that caste was the most dominant factor in the village. And I found the caste system exactly in the way I felt was extinct in India. The village habitations were divided in caste clusters, one of Yadavas, one of Brahmins, another of Bairavas etc. And if you feel that this is it, you are mistaken.

Untouchables lived outside the village and they were treated different from schedule castes. In fact schedule castes treated themselves to be much higher than untouchables. The untouchable still had to go to the city for haircut as the village barber refused to touch them. In roadside hotels they were served tea in disposable cups!

A heartening thing to discover was that there was complete communal harmony in the village. There was no history of any communal clash. The authorities said that this is the case in nearly all villages in India. This is a big thing that urban India has to learn from its villages.

Now being a government servant, I should also talk about the government schemes. There was a great enthusiasm for National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). In fact that has made Panchayats all the more meaningful. The second scheme doing wonders is Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Now a lot of money is being pumped in mid day meal, school infrastructure and that is showing. In case you have no idea, 65000 teachers have been recruited in Rajasthan alone in last one year!

So what did we do? We tried to convince the villages that they have to be an agent in their developments. Other people can come and help them but they ultimately have to be the primary drivers. People looked to panchayat and government even for simple things. And you know what; most of the villagers were convinced.

If you want to know our concrete achievement, a lady member of our group shook the entire district administration to get a Below Poverty Line card of a widow made. Then there was this overseeing committee for education of panchayat which was meant to check teachers absenteeism, quality of educations etc. We tried to give a new birth to it as most villages complained about the quality of education in schools.

I do not say that we changed the face of that village; neither have we learned a lot. But yes, we felt that being in our jobs; we can really make difference. And trust me, even the feeling of getting just 1 BPL card made for a deserving widow is beyond words!

PS: I will write in detail about this and what I feel can be done about village development. I also have to tell what was my score in perceptions about village in last post. But in many devious ways, LBSNAA is keeping me too busy these days.