Dilli Ka Babu

Cautionary tales: Beware of ex-babus who, no longer restrained by service rules, pick up the pen and unburden their minds. Last month saw the release of a memoir by Promilla Shankar, former 1976-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, who made headlines before her retirement in 2012, when the then Mayawati government suspended her for leaving headquarters “without permission”.

Though the Centre quashed the order, the incident highlighted the troubled relationship between upright bureaucrats and their political masters. Ms Shankar’s account of her career does not paint a flattering picture of many senior IAS officers.

Now, sources say, retired diplomat Arundhati Ghose has penned a magazine article in which she has written candidly about the travails of Indian women diplomats in the course of duty, especially on foreign postings. She has written about the existing gender bias and how female diplomats face discriminatory attitudes from their colleagues. Hopefully, these views will induce some chintan in the right quarters.

Loyalty pass: It’s now well-known that it helps to ensure that one stays firmly in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s good books. Some ministers and their aides learnt this the hard way when, a few weeks ago, some lowly ministerial staffers attended the birthday bash of Mr Modi’s bête noire Sanjay Joshi. Besides being asked to explain their “conduct”, some aides were quietly shown the door thereafter.

Dilli’s babus recalled that when news of a close aide of Union home minister Rajnath Singh being directed to surrender his ID pass issued by the ministry trickled out. Amrendra Pratap Singh, an Indian Statistical Service officer, was requisitioned by the minister to serve as his additional private secretary almost immediately after assuming office last year. There was a row between the Prime Minister’s Office and Mr Singh earlier too, when the PMO insisted on vetting the personal staff of all ministers. While the ministry refuses to comment on the aide’s exit and return to his parent cadre, the rumours refuse to die down.

Wages of honesty?: The Karnataka government forcibly retired M.N. Vijayakumar, a 1981-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, just three days before he was due to normally retire, thus denying the babu his full retirement benefits. But more than that, the order has sent ripples through the state’s babu corridors.

Mr Vijayakumar, sources say, had ruffled many feathers in his career. He had also built a reputation for honesty, they add, pointing to his frequent transfers and insignificant postings. However, state chief secretary Kaushik Mukherjee insists that the forced retirement was a “justified action”. While serving bureaucrats are expectedly not discussing this issue, former babus have criticised the government’s decision. It is now being said that Mr Vijayakumar may approach the Central Administrative Tribunal to demand full retirement benefits, denied to him by the forced ouster.