We lead this issue with a remarkable interview of Yogendra Narain, Secretary-General of the Rajya Sabha. The piece is noteworthy not only for what he says but also for how he says it. This 1965-batch IAS officer (UP cadre) is most unlike the stereotype image of the cautious, taciturn bureaucrat. Actually, if you know anything about the Indian bureaucracy, it is chock-full of officers like Narain – expressive, forceful, reform-minded and with something to say.
Just as progressive elements within India campaigned for decades against the licence-permit raj until it finally came apart, so too have reformist officers within the bureaucracy been leading the charge against babuism, stagnation and the hidebound attitudes of the Abominable No Men inherited from the British Raj.
Narain makes a powerful case that civil servants can and should be in the vanguard of changing and transforming this nation. He argues for political reforms that will create new specializations, greater transparency, and a new rural civil service whose officers will not be treated as itinerants or “part-time travellers”, as he so colourfully expostulates.
Proof of Narain’s contention that the Indian bureaucracy has produced change agents lies elsewhere in the pages of this issue of gfiles. Two Magsaysay Award winners (the equivalent of the Asian Nobel), Aruna Roy and Kiran Bedi, talk about their experiences in transforming society peacefully. Roy, a 1968-batch IAS officer, was part of a movement that propelled an entire youth brigade of college graduates into the brave new world of what was called “alternative development work” to campaign against poverty, deprivation, illiteracy, injustice and disease.
Bedi, often referred to as India’s “supercop” (a label she does not like but which has nonetheless stuck), tells us how a mixture of compassion and toughness harnessed to an unfaltering spiritual vision brought change to Tihar jail, India’s largest and most notorious prison.
The India Story is all about transformation. And who better to hear it from than Narain, Roy and Bedi?
Inderjit Badhwar
Inderjit Badhwaris a veteran journalist, novelist and the former editor of India Today. He has written for various Indian and American newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times and Outlook. Now based in New Delhi, Badhwar heads gfiles, India's first magazine on the Civil Services of India.
