As people demand answers, will leaders choose duty before power?

‘The buck stops here.’ Instead of a nameplate, these words greeted visitors to the office of former United States President Harry S Truman. This was the president who took responsibility for dropping the atom bomb on Japanese cities, killing thousands of people and bringing World War II to an end.This sense of responsibility or accountability for one’s decisions and actions appears to be missing among many of today’s leaders in India. This is not just the case with former Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, whose handling of the NEET paper leak issue led to an unprecedented student revolt and eventually his resignation. In Jharkhand, a similar student agitation demanding the scrapping of examinations over alleged malpractices dragged on for 24 days before the state government conceded the students’ demands. In Karnataka, B Nagendra, who faced serious allegations of corruption and embezzlement of about Rs 187 crore when he headed the Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation and had resigned as minister in the previous Cabinet, has been reinducted into the current Cabinet.Resignations after protests and exposures are often the result of shirking responsibility and defending oneself in order to remain in power. There is the classic case of former US President Richard Nixon, who denied his personal involvement in the Watergate scandal for over two years and eventually quit the presidency in 1974 after realising that the alternative was impeachment.NEET is more than an exam. It is a social contractIn the past, however, we find exemplary cases of leaders accepting responsibility and voluntarily quitting their ministerial positions. The most noteworthy is that of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who resigned as railway minister soon after a major train accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu, which killed 140 people. The accident was caused by a technical error for which he was in no way personally responsible. In 1958, T T Krishnamachari quit as the Union finance minister following the LIC Mundhra financial scandal, which was vociferously exposed in Parliament by Feroze Gandhi, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s son-in-law.A remarkable example of acknowledging failure and taking quick remedial action can be seen in the case of Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand, in the aftermath of terrorist mass shootings at mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, in which 51 people were killed and 89 injured. She displayed highly visible leadership in responding to the tragedy. She immediately rushed to the affected community, consoled Muslim families and described the tragedy as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”. The shooter, Brenton Tarrant, was quickly arrested, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment.A leader has the authority to take decisions and respond appropriately when things go wrong. Resignation from a position of authority shows ownership of moral responsibility. By owning up to a failure, a leader can also take quick action to set things right.There are cases of individual civil servants who have demonstrated accountability by taking upon themselves the responsibility of bringing about necessary changes in their assigned domains. T N Seshan, as chief election commissioner, captured the imagination of people by cleaning up the electoral process and ensuring free and fair elections, making India’s system the envy of the democratic world. Kiran Bedi showed remarkable courage as a police officer by ruthlessly enforcing traffic rules in Delhi. About three decades ago, as administrator of the then Bangalore City Corporation, I took the risk of demolishing illegal constructions.Currently, we find Thukaram Mundhe, who has a reputation for being transferred 22 times in 21 years, heading the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration and launching aggressive food-safety drives. He has strictly enforced hygiene norms across Mumbai’s food establishments — from star hotels and elite clubs to posh restaurants — irrespective of who owns them. As this concerns public health, people, poor and rich, are wholeheartedly supporting the action.What is worth noting is none of these officers acquired any special powers to achieve what they did. They simply enforced existing rules. We often blame the system, but little is done even when systems are in place. An honest officer determined to do the job can make the system work. This is true of political leaders too. In Karnataka, a similar effort to that in Mumbai — raiding food establishments and taking action against those failing to adhere to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) norms — owes much to the laudable initiative of Health Minister U T Khader.It must also be mentioned that many civil servants quietly do their jobs, bringing about change in the lives of people in areas such as education, health, and welfare, without attracting publicity. S L Sankaran, a 1956-batch IAS officer, dedicated his life to the uplift of marginalised communities, particularly the SCs and STs, while serving as tribal welfare secretary in Andhra Pradesh. He fiercely enforced the Land Restoration Act, restoring roughly two lakh acres of land. Deservedly, he came to be known as the ‘People’s Officer’.A heartening development, coinciding with the students’ movement, is the growing demand among people for accountability for various failures of the government — from civic amenities such as road maintenance, garbage disposal, and sanitation to the proper conduct of examinations and fixing the education and health systems.Democracy in India is asserting itself. Jai ho to people’s power.(The writer is a former chief secretary, Government of Karnataka)Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Source: Deccan Herald