BACK TO JALPAIGURI- 1997-99 =ART II Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling Districts are blessed by nature and are among the most beautiful in the country. The three Ts- Tea, Timber and Tourism- are important to them economically. While Darjeeling is exploiting its tourism potential except when the Gorkha groups call for bandhs during the tourisr seasons- summer and autumn. Jalpaiguri lags behind though Duars area has fabulous forests, wild life and tea gardens. People will be surprised to know that tea industry developed in North Bengal, Darjeeling and Assam as a strategy for waste land development during the British regime. After the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was created it was vested with several responsibilities including development activities. Only Law and Order and Land Administration remained with the State Government. The role of State Government was only advisory in developmental activities. In Jalpaiguri, it was not so. I planned a Duars Tourism Festival in the winter of 1998 to focus on the tourism potential of Jalpaiguri and it was an unqualified success. Newspaper Reports indicate that the Festival has become an annual feature just like the Kalimpong Flower Show which was organized for the first time at my initiative in 1978. It requires vision to introduce something new and the successors will have to build on it instead of reinventing the same thing through trial and error. What is happening in SSC for the past 21 months is that the present of officers have decided to destroy and rebuild except that most officers do not have the capacity for sustained hard work and a bit of vision to rebuild. The inevitable result will be half baked attempts with the fond hope that the successors will complete the process of rebuilding. But, why should they follow their incompetent predecessor when the predecessors themselves had shown scant regard successful model left behind as legacy to them? Wild life abounded in the forests of Duars with elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, bison etc. It is common to see herds of elephants on the National Highway between Mainaguri and Mal Bazaar and near Hashimara Air Base. I have seen several herd during my 18 months as the Commissioner. Rhinos are common in Jaldapara and bison in and around Garumara. It is difficult to sight tigers which are elusive but with some luck you can see them in Jaldapara and Garumara. The salt licks in Garumara and Jaldapara, just a few meters from the Guest Houses which are built on stilts to avoid intrusion of wild life, provide a panorama of wild life before and after sunset. I was invited by the Forest Department to an official dinner in Garumara once and when we reached the Guest House, the road was blocked by a herd of bison which hardly took note of our presence. In Jaldapara, we could not see any wild life during the morning elephant ride and the forest officials were equally disappointed. One enterprising Forest Ranger woke us up at 11 pm in night and we had a grand spectacle of variety of wild life near a grazing ground. Later it transpired that he had used drummers to herd wild life into the grazing ground so that the Commissioner did not leave with the impression that there was hardly any wild life in the Wild Life Sanctuary. The pilot cars were sometimes a nuisance especially when I travelled from one District to another. There was the unavoidable ritual of change of the pilot at the district border entailing ceremony and delay. At the nearest Guest House in the District I had to also accept a Guard of Honour every time I entered a new district. You may be tired and urgently in need of use of the wash room and a hot cup of tea yet you had to accept the Guard of Honour before entering the Guest House! I decided to dispense with the pilot cars during my trips to the Bagdogra airport off Siliguri en route to or returning from Kolkata. During one such return trip my car was stopped by a mob and was badly damaged. The driver and the Personal security officer sustained minor injuries. It transpired that the driver and the security guard had picked up a quarrel on the way to the airport and the mob was waiting to ambush them. The natural reaction of an officer facing mass fury is to be vindictive but I did not file even a formal complaint with the police, which hounded the village however and except for women and children, everyone ran away from the village for several weeks, I was later told. The major problem of working in West Bengal is the unpredictable nature of the mobs which collect all of a sudden and are not harmonious. I had often taken pride in my ability to convince such mobs. But, in that case the mob was not even aware of my official position and targeted the driver and the security guard. The State Government took it seriously and pulled up the police for not insisting that I should not travel without pilot cars. The then Indian Ambassador to Bhutan was of the view that we had to institutionalise the interaction with the Royal Government of Bhutan. We had a meeting in Thimphu in the Summer of 1998 and followed it up with another in the winter of 1998 at Jalpaiguri. The issues requiring coordination and interaction were thrashed out in the meetings. The meetings were so successful that they became annual features after that. The visit to Thimphu helped in understanding their religion and culture and we could appreciate thereafter that our cultures are intertwined though racially the two peoples may be different. Nature is not only beautiful but also displays uncontrollable fury occasionally in the form of natural disasters. Malda and Darjeeling Districts faced natural disasters during the 1998 monsoon. Several bridges between Kurseong and Darjeeling on the Hill Ghat Road were washed away. I had to order transportation of food grains using the steep Pankabari Road, which is difficult to negotiate for heavy vehicles, and the normal spectacle of huge rise in price of essential commodities whenever Darjeeling was cut off could be avoided. The Army sought six weeks to build temporary bridges so that road transportation to Darjeeling could be fully restored. The State Government was worried about the situation and I took the responsibility of liaising with the Army. By then my renal problem due to failing kidneys had been diagnosed and my ankles would swell to thrice their normal size after an hour’s car journey. Yet I would visit Kurseong on every alternative day, inspect the sites of each damaged bridge site where work was going on, often crossing the areas on foot and travelling by a jeep till the next site and so on. The result was that the road was opened for traffic in less than 15 days. The Chief Minister complimented the Minister from Siliguri for the feat while his contribution was only holding a preliminary meeting in Siliguri after the bridges were washed away. My good work had never been recognized and rewarded by the Government, either State or Central, though I never cared about it. In late July 1998, I was invited to lay wreath in the Martyrs’ Memorial near Darjeeling. That morning at 4 am I became unconscious for a few moments in the bathroom and Mr Ramesh Kumar, DM of Jalpaiguri rushed in with the Chief Medical Officer in tow. The ECG did not reveal any abnormality and the MRI taken in Silguri later that morning also was normal. I attended the function in Darjeeling despite feeling dizzy and took a few days leave to visit Chennai for further investigations. A check up in Apollo Hospital revealed that my kidneys had started failing and it was a shock to me and my family. I started treatment with Dr Muthusethupathi, the then Head of the Department of Nephrology, Madras Medical College, and he has been treating me since then. He advised me to take up a light assignment in which case he said I would need a Transplant after five years and if I continued to have heavy assignments he said that I should get ready for a transplant in three years, I told him that it was just not possible to have light assignments at the level of Secretary to the State Government. His prediction came true and my kidneys completely failed in just three years. I took leave of one month to absorb the news of my illness and it was a difficult period. Three weeks into the leave I heard on the TV that there was a serious flood situation in Malda and cutting short the leave I rushed to Malda immediately. Almost the entire district was under water though the situation was ably handled by Mr M V Rao, the DM. Howver, he needed guidance and support to handle the situation when the flood waters receded leaving behind water borne diseases and the pressing problems associated with relief and rehabilitation. After spending three days overseeing the relief and rescue operations and interacting with the State Government to meet the needs of the district I returned to Jalpaiguri . Within a few days Mrs Sonia Gandhi visited Malda and I was requested by the Chief Secretary to visit Malda for making security arrangements for her visit. The family of Indira Gandhi and Mr Jyoti Basu had excellent relations which transcended political barriers. As she did not have an official position in the Government except as the Congress President I refused to receive her but made all other arrangements for her visit. It appears that the places where the VVIPs interact with the public, often alighting from the cars, appears to be randomly chosen by the VVIPs . In reality it is not so and the places rare carefully chosen beforehand. I personally chose the places where she would alight from her car for the ‘impromptu’ interaction, making sure that only women were allowed to gather near the selected places. I declined an invitation for dinner from her un the Circuit House where I too stayed. Many colleagues considered it a foolish decision as familiarity and not merit is often taken onto consideration by the politicians when they select officers for important assignments. I had never cared about ‘networking’ during my career and continued to be so till my retirement. Normally, the Commissioner gets the best room in the Circuit House but I allowed use of the room by her, occupying the second best room. Mr Mani Shankar Iyer accompanied her and I did not meet him either. The Divisional Commissioner does not handle any live Law and Order situations. Nor does he have magisterial powers. But, in my case, the State Government depended on me heavily to resolve ticklish issues. One such occasion was the Parliament Elections of 1999 when the All India Gorkha League had given a call for boycotting the elections and I was requested by the Chief Secretary to stay in Darjeeling till the elections. To defuse the tension, I decided to call on the Chairman, Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council immediately after I reached Darjeeling. I carried a silk ghaddar as a mrk of respect for him and he had one in hand to offer it to me as a mark of respect. The ice was broken and he assured me that his party would not do anything to precipitate violence during the elections. However, fool proof arrangements were made to identify trouble spots and reinforce security arrangements. The DM might have felt uncomfortable with the Commissioner breathing down his neck but was also happy that the Commissioner was taking all responsibilities. The elections passed off smoothly though the polling was very low, except a few booths in remote villages of Kalimpong Sub Division where reelection was held later. The Chief Secretary congratulated me in the evening but requested me to rush to Malda where over 30 polling booths were gutted in fierce attacks by tribal villagers. It is an eight hours journey by road to Malda and with the renal problem becoming acute it was uncomfortable to travel though I broke the journey in Siliguri for the night. When I reached Malda, where a promoted IAS officer was the DM, I was informed that a few days before the elections a horde of Bangladeshi had entered the bordering tribal villages and looted the cattle and all valuables. The infuriated villagers had attacked and vandalized the polling stations in their area. No senior police officer had been deputed to Mlada about which I was unhappy. I made arrangements for maintaining law and order till the reelection and left for Jalpaiguri. I had been away from the Head Quarters for almost a week and I was anxious to get back for recovery. I might have stayed back if a senior police officer had been deputed. I have seen some outstanding promoted IAS officers in West Bengal but unfortunately those posted as DMs have political backing rather than merit and they are dismal failures in emergencies. I had barely reached when I was informed that there were serious law and order issues after I left. I decided to return to Malda after only a few hours in Jalpaiguri but told the State Government that an IG level officer should be deputed to Malda ad the DM and SP combination had proved ineffective. I stayed in Malda till the reelection. Most of the Indo Bangladesh border in Malda District was fenced and it was inconceivable that hordes of Bangladeshis could raid Indian villages without the connivance of our para military forces patrolling the border. The unfortunate situation is that the protectors often prey on the hapless villagers. There is rampant smuggling across the Indo Bangladesh border and It is just not possible without the connivance of our security forces. This may seem to be an unpatriotic remark but true nevertheless. I put in place a three tiered security mechanism to avoid any untoward incident, not depending on the border force. Flag march was held in the tribal areas to convey the message that the villagers could not take the situation in their own hands. I participated in a few flag marches. The IG, BSF, was summoned and he was sternly told that he had to ensure that there was no infiltration across the border. He was also advised to arrange Flag Meetings between the Commandants and their Bangladesh counterparts. The efforts were successful and the reelection passed off peacefully and till I was the Commissioner there was no intrusion of Bangladeshis into Malda District. My health was deteriorating day by day and blood creatinine and urea serum levels were on the increase, indicative of a fast failing kidney. The problem was that there was no cure as biopsy had revealed that the problem was due to IgA Nephropathy, a rare renal problem. I was traveling to Chennai every quarter for a review and traveling by train was becoming more and more painful. Yet the work had to be done and it involved extensive traveling in the Division. Life is not a bed of roses for civil servants and those who take their work seriously have even more serious problems. The State Government was aware of the situation yet I was more useful in Jalpaiguri and perhaps my acceptability to the politicians was as bad as ever. Visiting VVIPs would not understand the problem and those in constitutional posts would insist on my presence during meetings. One such VVIP was Mr Gill, then the Chief Election Commissioner, who insisted that he should host a dinner for me in Darjeeling and I and to travel for three hours each way just to attend the dinner. The visits of the Central Teams to assess the damage caused by floods, which have a bearing on the quantum of assistance, was another event which the Commissioner could not avoid. He mere presence of the Commissioner during the terrestrial and aerial surveys was enough to lend weight to the State Government’s demand. I was hearing rumours that I would be shifted to Kolkata to some important assignment. In February 1999, the Deputy Chief Minister and I attended a function in Siliguri to mark the inauguration of houses built for the State Police personnel. He informed me that I was posted as the Secretary, Home(Personnel and Administrative Reforms) Department, considered an important post in West Bengal as the incumbent handled postings and transfers of the IAS, WBCS and Secretariat officers, beside handling Vigilance and Administrative Reforms. I told him that perhaps he was aware that I did not like political interference and that I might be a misfit in the post. He assured me that there would be no political interference at all and that senior appointments like the DMs and above would be decided by me and Dr Surjya Kanta Mishra, the Panchayat Minister, jointly. He said that the Government was keen to put in place policies to govern the postings and had identified me for the post as I did not belong to any group of bureaucracy. Dr Mishra and I had worked together in Midnapore District earlier and we had healthy respect for each other. I knew that the arrangement had been worked out carefully. I prepared to leave for Kolkata. I did not realize that it would be an eventful and rewarding tenure and that I would have serious health issues in Kolkata, again due to the huge work load.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:31:01 +0000
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