DOG-WALKING IAS COUPLE TRANSFERRED TO FAR ENDS OF COUNTRY

China had a civil service even before Confucius was born. For a short period he was himself a civil servant. Those aspiring to become civil servants were required to pass rigid tests, oral and written.

India had no such tradition. The British introduced the Indian Civil Service. ICS. After 1947 the IAS was created by Sardar Vallabhai Patel. The IAS examinations are among the most competitive in the world. In the first thirty years of its birth the IAS attracted outstanding young men and women, who helped build modern India under the visionary leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel.

As the years went by the best and the brightest started gravitating towards the corporate sector. Inevitably the quality of those joining the IAS, IFS, IPS and other civil services got progressively eroded. A recent example of this process was the despicable conduct of an IAS couple.

The Indian Express carried a startling report in early June that an IAS couple used to go out for a walk in the evening in the government-run Thyagraj Sports Complex, accompanied by their dog. All the athletes who used the ground were turned out more than an hour before closing time, so that IAS officer, Sanjeev Khirwar and his wife, Rinku Dugga IAS could take their evening stroll with their canine.

The Home Ministry acted promptly. Khirwar was transferred to Ladakh. His wife to Arunachal Pradesh. The decision of the government was largely but not wholly welcome. Some critics asked why the offending, insensitive, arrogant couple had not been sent to the Andaman Islands.

What had Leh and Arunachal Pradesh done to be given “such presents”. They should have been immediately suspended, if not dismissed. The wags are having a ball, “We don’t care a damn for the couple. We are worried about their dog.” One conclusion is inescapable, serious damage has been done to the prestige of the IAS.

ABOUT ISLAM If I am not mistaken the world wide population of Muslims is over 1.5 billion. Islam is the religion of 55 countries. All are members of the United Nations and other International agencies.

When did Islam come to India. More than a thousand years ago. How many Muslims live in our country. If you ask this question to a Muslim, his answer is likely to be, “25 crore”. A non-Muslim will put the figure at less than 15 crore. The combined population of the UK, Germany and France is about 15 crore.

The Islamic World extends from Morocco to Indonesia. 90 percent Muslims do not encourage birth control or family planning. On the 5th of this month derogatory remarks were made about Prophet Muhammad by the BJP national spokesperson, Nurpur Sharma and its Delhi media head, Naveen Kumar Jindal. Both have lost their jobs.

The Islamic countries have been offended. However their criticism has on the whole not gone over the top. But there is no getting away from the fact that in the Islamic world there is now a question mark after the words, “Indian Secularism”. Here, theses countries are mistaken. The word secular is enshrined in our constitution. But hardly any one in the establishment uses the word.

I am a Hindu. My mother tongue is Braj Bhasha, which is spoken in Mathura, Vrindavan, Goverdhan, Gokul, Bharatpur. It is a pleasure to speak Braj Bhasha. Its in Braj that Bhagwan Krishna played with the Gopies and ran away with their clothes.

Why has the reaction in the Islamic World been muted. It is aware that India is the largest home of Muslims in the world- after Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The anti- Islam Indians should realize that 15 crore Muslims cannot be thrown either in the Bay of Bengal or in the Arabian Sea. They are here to stay. In 1947 they chose India as their home and not Pakistan. Gandhiji had respect for all religions, that did not make him a lesser Hindu.

Religion and politics can co-exist and have co-existed in our beloved country. Of late Hindu verbal overkill is damaging our age old tradition of religious tolerance. Verbal incontinence should always be kept under control. I am at the moment reading a fascinating and revealing book, “The Legacy of Violence” by Caroline Elkins. She is a professor of History and of African and African American studies at Harvard University.

Her first book, “Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya” established her as a distinguished historian of a younger generation, who was not sentimental about the British Empire. On the contrary she exposed the pervasive use of brutality of the British Empire and merciless racism.

‘Spanning more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals an evolutionary and racialized doctrine that espoused an unrelenting deployment of violence to secure and preserve British interest… when British could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, it retreated from its Empire destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices.’

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

K NATWAR SINGH The author is Former Minister of External Affairs of India