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Personality over performance

With Arun Bhatia having incarnated as the new middle-class messiah, it's instructive to ponder for a moment on the evolution and denouement of G R Khairnar, a previous avatar. Recent reports speak of the former Demolition Man as planning to migrate to Jehanabad, not to join the Naxalites, but to grow medicinal herbs in Bihar's back of beyond.

From generating enough steam to invite the fire brigade by taking on Bombay's infamous builders to leaning on a plough shooting the breeze is, one would presume, not a logical trajectory. Twentyfour transfers and much heartburn later, Bhatia, now in the meditative ambience of the archives department, should reflect on the plight of his predecessor and consider whether he too wants to end up hanging his shingle with some Dutch or desi NGO.

At the moment, however, Bhatia looks less in danger of becoming a burnout than of going supernova. Others, from the venerable Anna Hazare to Gita Vir, have pledged to carry forward his struggle. In case you don't know who the latter is, she is the one who has inspired Pune's bored housewives and highflying society ladies to try dharnas and candlelight vigils as a variation of their favourite theme parties.

It is remote that, notwithstanding all their zeal, Bhatia can be reinstated or, what is far more important, the good work on which he embarked will effectively get restarted. By the time the media spotlight is turned off, the costumed crusade would have, in all probability, run its course.

Of course, the movement Bhatia has kickstarted is a wake-up call to stem the rot in our system. To that extent it is positive. But like the seasonal squalls which bring a little sunshine, a lot of clouds and an occasional silver lining, these middle class purgatorial exercises seldom go beyond the fleeting electricity they generate.

Why? The answer is in the personality-oriented nature of such movements.

Bhatia, to be sure, is an exceptional individual. Having chosen a career in civil administration he has refused to be mired in the swamp of sameness that the Indian bureaucracy is.

Unlike other civil service lifers he has avoided hiding behind his job and revel in a dark worldview. Successively, as collector, food and drug administrator and municipal commissioner he has rightly questioned the Indian bureaucrat's need to master all the arcane rules of procedure designed, ironically, to defeat him or her.

More significantly, he has allowed lowlife data -- in a country where lowlife predominates -- to filter insidiously through the ivy. Refusing to live in the glass house that the average senior IAS officer habitually occupies, he has genuinely tried, during his various tenures, to heed the distress calls of India's huge disenfranchised.

But all this can be explained as the personal proclivity of an ex-St Stephensonian with a thing for Marx and Jayaprakash Narayan or alternatively, depending on your point of view, as someone who, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, because he has corn keeps treading on other people's toes.

To move beyond mere individualist efforts, however brilliant, and become truly effective in their undertaking, people like Bhatia ought to, for a start, discard the shotgun approach. Their crusade, whether against corruption, illegal constructions, the spoils system or corporate malpractices should partake of a long-term view and accommodate a willingness to wage a protracted battle of attrition against vested interests.

The resources that a bureaucrat, who is part of a privileged elite, can command in this respect is unfortunately often underestimated by the potential protagonists themselves.

Linked to such a long-term approach should be the realisation that such battles involving systemic changes like justice and a corruption-free environment can only be won by being a part of larger political and socio-cultural movements and agendas.

It is such an awareness that an otherwise impeccable public figure like Arun Bhatia should imbibe if all his efforts are not to remain so much bridling against a flawed system. The Pune episode, in the final analysis, is a case of hyping things before they are fully hatched.

Anil Nair