Rule Britannia, Rule....

Like hundreds of young men joining the State Civil Service every year, I too had bubbling wishes enshrined in my heart to do my best to alleviate the miseries of the poor, and try my utmost to provide administrative assistance as well as protection to those who needed most. Where, due to any inhibiting circumstances, I would find myself  powerless in that regard , I should at least be patient and sympathetic in my interaction with them. Secondly, I must maintain a low profile while discharging my public duties, and  upon successful completion of any official action, try not to make that a matter of personal glory.

In an introspective mode  regarding  first item of my well-meaning wishlist , I re-live a few happy moments when I had met with success. I regret the moments when despite my best efforts, I failed to achieve what I thought was right to do---often not before being greeted with verbal as  well as administrative brickbats. Over the time I learnt to take those in my stride. May be my premises were wrong, may be my execution was  flawed ! But sometimes I bled as I could understand that the real cause of such rejection/resistance was not based on an objective appraisal of my moves in question, but as a part of  some extra-official issues. Fortunately , I believe that I was not the only  one to undergo such a roller-coaster experience in their respective service careers.

The basis of my disposition towards my conduct in public service as an officer was not tutored in any formal way. In fact all through our induction-level training these essential inputs were never touched upon.The entire exercise was  confined to imparting knowledge  on as many Acts, Rules and Regulation of the government as possible.

In the hindsight, I reckon I imbibed the spirit of reaching out to the economically backward section of the society as I belonged to a family of modest means. That does not,  however, imply that people from affluent families would necessarily be incapable of appreciating  the pangs of poverty pervading the millions of families of the State, especially in rural areas and vice versa. 

Regarding the second idea of remaining  away from publicity gaze, it had something to do my  understanding of the British bureaucracy of the yesteryear. A newspaper item from the U.K. had  a lasting impact in my mind when I was a school student. It went like some thing that in Great Britain, as a time-honoured tradition, the names of the bureaucrats were not mentioned while covering any government function. For example, if the event of arrival of a V.I.P to the city was to be covered, the news item could run like this; ".....among the dignitaries present at the airport to receive "His Highness ZYZ", the Deputy Prime minister of "ABC" country, were "Sir DEF", the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, The Chief Constable of the " XYZ Metropolitan Police",...etc.. etc." Things might have changed over the times in  the U.K  perhaps. But it is difficult to rationalise the publication of the news of routine transfers and postings of  Block / Thana-level officers  by name in print/electronic media, especially in vernacular press based in our State.Some may relish the trend, but at the end of the day, that might lead to the erosion of basic idea of solidity, neutrality and permanency of the bureaucracy in democracy. However  this matter may be debated further. Is it  a mere coincidence that number of ex-bureaucrats joining active politics all over the country is increasing day by day? 

I spent first two years of my life in British India. Hence there was no chance for me to have a first-hand idea of how oppressive  the British Indian bureaucracy was. It is not open to debate that colonial rule for over two centuries  served the purpose of the the colonial masters--not the millions of general population of our country.But the framework of democracy and the prevalence of the concept of Rule of Law in day-to-day transactions between the citizens on one hand and the government on the other are a few of the British legacies  that we must cherish, no matter how we celebrate our hard-fought freedom from the British rule. The Criminal Procedure Code ,1973 ( modeled on the Cr.P.C of 1861), the Evidence Act 1872, the Indian Penal Code,1860,the Civil Procedure Code,1908  have continued to be the backbone of the judicial system of independent India. Should we blame our stars for these? Introduction of a  liberal  formal education system by the British rulers may be argued to have been necessitated to further their colonial agenda.But should we evaluate the archaeological discoveries of immense value after scores of rigorous journeys into inhospitable remote parts of our countryside undertaken by the Civilians, many of whom were of British origin in the same light? What about the volumes of painstakingly collected information on rural Bengal of the day in the form of District Gazetteers?

The fact of torture and humiliation  perpetrated by the Neelkar Sahebs (Indigo Planters) in many parts of Bengal were immortalized in Neel Darpan, the Bengali play by Dinabandhu Mitra. However besides local resistance offered by  the farmers, it was the politico-legal tools used by the British Civilians that played a decisive role in reining in the Neelkars, their own countrymen. Its a different matter that the cultivation of indigo met its natural death with the increased production of synthetic compound to replace the indigo plant.

A plain reading of the the foregoing paragraph, may appear to some that I am a great admirer of the British bureaucracy,or in other words, the British rule over our country.No, I am not, considering the foreign rule as a whole. In fact the British bureaucracy is being criticised everyday for many reasons in the U.K. itself. For that matter bureaucracy has remained at the receiving end of public outcry against government in independent India too.

I have a good mind to deal with the subject of public perception about the bureaucracy in general in my publication in the near future. The process of collecting the necessary inputs is already on.

Now for a change, I will relate a real life story involving "rule" of a different kind and connotation

In course of a heady session of argument on a question of government rules with active participation of all my Probationer colleagues, It appeared that the issue could only be resolved through perusal of the relevant part of the Treasury Rules of the Government. So we called in the Attendant attached to us to fetch " ট্রেজারী রুল" (Treasury Rule ) from the 'বড় বাবু " (Head Account) of the Treasury. Ordinarily it should not take him more than 5 /10 minutes to do the work. But we waited and waited....he did not return. We were getting impatient and one of us was about to rush to the Treasury to see for himself what was happening. At that point he barged into the room with a wooden roller("রুল"), often used to draw straight lines manually in  office registers etc. He explained to us that the Head Account was using the "Rule" ("রুল' ) himself, so he had to wait for catching hold of the"রুল "( Rule ). He could not be blamed. He had gone  by his local vocabulary. The wooden roller was indeed called "rule"("রুল") in colloquial Bengali in that part of the State. In his wisdom he just put location-specific  value to his understanding of "Rules"

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