Friends,
Recently I had gone to Pune
for a Seminar organized by Sadhana Management Institute of an impressive
personality Sri M S Pillai. I was invited there as the President of the
National RTI forum and the students were quite curious about the facts, figures
and aspects related with RTI. There incidentally I and Sri D R Karthikeyan, the
IPS officer whom we all know not only as the ex-Director of CBI but also as the
head of the SIT team that investigated into the Rajiv Gandhi murder case got
placed in the same session. Here along with other things, he also presented one
famous quotation by German Pastor Martin Niemöller, an avid anti-Nazi
theologian, which has become a bye-word of public conscience. I had possibly
heard this before but somehow that day this quote made a great impact upon me
and hugely affected my thinking process. The present the quote (despite knowing
that for many it would be nothing more than a repetition)-
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
In my own speech, I gave a live example, which I would like to present before
you as well. It is related to a police officer Mr A (who considers himself a
right-thinking officer) when he was posted in a district. During those days
police officers were being transferred at a very rapid pace, so much so that
there were even instances of an officer posted in the morning having got
his/her transfer order by the day’s end. In the same circumstances, one fine
day an officer in an adjacent district of mine got transferred. He had barely
come a week or a fortnight before. Mr A, during his talks to his immediate
supervisory officer, who was this transferred officer’s boss as well tried to
show his dissent to this kind of rampant transfers giving his own set of logic
and arguments for this being detrimental both for the state and the affected
individual. To this A’s supervisory officer gave a brief sermon where he not
only tried to justify such acts as being necessary for an efficient
administration but also being a result of close performance based evaluation.
He even warned Mr A of the same, if he didn’t improve his performance to the
desired level. Mr A got the message and intelligently turned the topic.
As luck would have it, barely a week would have passed when the same
supervisory officer got transferred. And now Mr A again phoned this officer,
but the moment A said that such transfers are not good for the health of
state’s administration, this officer’s tone and language was completely
changed. This time he not only completely agreed but also added a few more
facts and figures to show how such rampant transfers were producing such an
adverse impact impact on law and order. His final verdict was that if the same
situation prevailed, the day was not far away when the State would get
completely out of control. Mr A nodded and apparently agreed to this once more,
albeit very well understanding everything.
The same situation we face each and every day, in all walks of life. We are
being averse and unaffected to other’s problems. “Mujhse kya matlab?”, “What is
my concern?” and “Why shall I poke my nose” are the usual refrains and the
usual reactions to all such situations. But then, are we assured that such
things are not going to happen to me and you. And hence after the Communist,
the trade-unionist and the “Jew’, it might very well be the turn of a decent
person. Sadly, by that time there would be no one left to defend that decent
person.
Amitabh Thakur
IPS,
Currently at IIM Lucknow
# 94155-34526
