Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety, wrote Shakespeare in his description of Cleopatra. Unfortunately, when it comes to India’s retired bureaucrats, Shakespearean poetry may not be adequate to describe the ageing variety of our ruling gerontocracy. Retired bureaucrats, as revealed in an exclusive column in the Sunday Express almost never fade away. Instead, they become advisers, governors, ministers of state, convenors of security cells and directors of RAW. The Indian veneration of age and seniority has created what might be called the Dhritarashtra syndrome, by which the aged and often infirm are entrusted with tasks suited for much younger people. During the riots of the forties, for example, critics of Sardar Patel argued that the lapses of security had resulted from the fact that the home minister was trying to handle as many departments as a 30-year-old when he was over twice that age.In a civilisation blessed with the concept of vanprastha, or that stage of life after grihasthi when the householder retires from active work, retirement, as far as former babus are concerned, is simply a well kept official secret. Indeed, a glance at the newspapers, news channels and think-tanks all over India will prove that retired bureaucrats are reinventing themselves as journalists, strategists, historians and even novelists, their commitment to remaining employed as steely as the frame they once manned.Nor is the bureaucracy the only institution afflicted by the Dhritarashtra syndrome. Indian politicians are notorious for being “overweight, overpaid and overage”, with the present prime minister, home minister and defence minister all over seventy. Reports say that in the period 1991-97, for example, more than 80 VIPs went abroad for treatment, accompanied by over 60 attendants. This cost the taxpayer approximately Rs 80 crore. In an age when world leaders like Putin, Blair and Bush are all in the region of 50, when Bill Clinton became president at 45 and retired at 53, the contrast with India could not be more stark. Of course the greying mandarins bring wisdom and experience to their work, yet at a time when there is a need to think boldly for an uncertain future it is hoped that the rule of the retired will not become a case of old men at sea.
