Criminal Arithmetic I did not know him personally though I had been knowing about him for long. If you live in Lucknow you are bound to see one or more of his hoardings spread across the city partly in Hindi and partly English. It says that if one wants to study Mathematics, then he/she shall come Joshi sir. Joshi sir means Kailash Chandra Joshi or KC Joshi (in short). K C Joshi is one of the many private tutors whose coaching classes are engaged day and night in trying to make a student succeed in the fiercely competitive entrance exams for IITs known popularly as IITJEE as also for other Engineering entrance exams. It is a well known fact that these tutors are making huge money out of this educational enterprise. Kota, a relatively unknown city in India, has become the best-known symbol of the power of these coaching classes. This being so, I took K C Joshi as any other such money-minting machine who are sort of exploiting the student's extreme urge some decent career options, which saves them the fear of a completely uncertain future and gives them social respectability. I also knew the fact that he was from IIT Kanpur, the same place from where I had also graduated. In addition, I had purchased his magazine "Mathematika" which was targeted to Maths for competitive exams. I never got any opportunity to interact with him nor had any other reason to approach him. The same must have been true the other side. In fact, I am sure he would not even have known of my existence as I neither had my hoardings in the town nor was a Daya Nayak who is there is the newspapers, on a regular basis. But when something has to happen, it will happen- one way or another. I had to become a friend and admirer of Joshi and the helping tool in the process proved to be my activities in the field of Right to Information. The National RTI Forum, which I am closely associated with, had organized a Seminar on RTI. The reports of this Seminar were published in some newspapers. He went thru these reports and got my phone number. And so, one fine morning, I got a phone call from someone who identified himself as K C Joshi, the Maths teacher. We got a time fixed for meeting and he came to our place in IIM Lucknow. The crux of the meeting was that he wanted to do something for the society and for that he thought RTI was a great tool. He thought I might guide him in this regards. After this, we wandered to other topics. And the present Article is aimed exactly at that. By the time the conversation was over and we had parted our ways, I had come to know a much different Joshi than I had known or perceived so far. Here it goes. It started with my asking him since when is he in this profession. He told me that he decided to do this from the very day he graduated from IIT because he did not want to work under someone. He thought he would make a way for himself independently. And thus this young chap, hardly 21 years of age belonging to the hill districts of the then Uttar Pradesh and having no connections in Lucknow boarded a train from Kanpur to Lucknow and started doing his tutorial work. The initial periods were tough but soon he got himself established and was reasonably well-known and well-off. It was at this stage that his real travails started. As per his version, when his name spread and students started thronging to him, naturally other forces of society also came in interaction. Two of them were more important. One was the bureaucracy and the other was the Mafia elements. Some senior officers did make attempts to intimidate him in making concessions for their wards or for giving their children extra privilege. Joshi says that he decided in the very beginning that he will not buckle to such pressures and thus he started refusing such orders from the very beginning. He had some problems but could cope with them anyway. The real problem came with the criminal elements. As per Joshi, Lucknow at that time was full of such people who boasted of being termed mafias and were often taking the city for a ride. The writ of the administration was limited to only the saner and law-abiding people. Where the administration failed, these criminal elements took over. Joshi started getting calls from these mafias about either inducting some student or about reducing their fees. Though he did not comply with their wishes, yet initially he tried to avoid the situation. But a day came when he said that enough was enough. And the very day, he blatantly refused more than one of those criminal elements whom even the policemen in the city dared not to refuse. This was something unthinkable. The mafia needed to act immediately to make their relevance felt. Fear in their greatest weapon and if someone stops fearing them, what is left of their authority? So, when he was taking his classes, a few goondas came there and one of them took out a pistol. They asked him to go with them to some place. Joshi narrates that despite such a fearful situation at a time when he was a young Grad from IIT and had no exposure of the real world, he surprisingly did not feel an iota of fear. All he said was that if they wanted they could kill him but he they tried to dishonor him in any respect, he would not tolerate it and this might create awkward situations for them. He says that they took him to some place, tried to make him understand through all possible words but he did not budge. He says he was expecting something very serious but all they did was to take him back at his coaching class and leave him, making threatening gestures once more. And this was followed by a day-light attack on him. It happened in the K D Singh Babu stadium, in the middle of the city in the morning when he had gone there to play Badminton. More than a dozen ruffians, goondas and criminal elements came with sticks and iron rods and they thrashed Joshi all and sundry. This went on for some time and they left the place only when they thought they had given his idiot a proper lesson. But what can you do to a person who is made of the mettle this adamant fool was made of. Even at that time, bleeding to the core, Joshi went all alone to the SSP residence and from there he and his students went straight to the CM residence. It was followed by registration of FIR and arrests and so on. He also got some security personnel. But threats came coming for years. Joshi, the real Brave-heart did not budge at all taking all these threatening gestures with rare courage. Finally, it seems the criminal elements got tired of him, declaring him a known fool. When remembering those days, Joshi says that when I think of those days I myself feel dazed as to how a young, gentle boy got transformed into a real fighter. I salute Kailash Chandra Joshi, who in my eyes, has done truly heroic work. In my long career in active policing, I have very rarely seen such persons. I feel proud of having got in contact with him. Thank you, Kailash for having proved yourself at the right occasion and showing others the way.
Amitabh Thakur, IPS, Currently at IIM Lucknow # 94155-34526
