Maya versus babu

If there is a single entity whom Mayawati loathes more than Mulayam Singh Yadav, it is the babu. Throughout her tenure, she has attacked the bureaucracy head on, transferring, suspending and overruling faster than you can say, 8220;ji huzoor madamji8221;. Now, once again the steel frame of Uttar Pradesh finds itself at the mercy of the wrath of the chief minister who recently embarked on a series of auchak nirikshan surprise checks on state officials. Over the last few days she has suspended and publicly humiliated officers, questioned their eating habits and poured scorn on the tone of their voices. Why does Maya hate babus? She once said she had wanted to join the IAS and didn8217;t do so because mentor Kanshi Ram had drawn her away from such a perilous compromise with the forces of manuwad, urging her instead to join the struggle for the true liberation of the bahujan samaj. Thus with polls on the horizon, with the bahujan masses waiting to be mobilised, the need to emerge as a tough administrator with nothing but the interests of UP at heart has clearly led to this new offensive against the bureaucracy. If only Mayawati would realise that simply unleashing a reign of terror on civil servants and alienating all officers in the name of good administration is only a token shortcut towards attaining the caste-less utopia.

Of course, there is no doubt that in UP the bureaucracy has for decades been an alternative power centre. In Lucknow, babus routinely travel accompanied by as many retainers and white ambassadors as any local neta. In fact, the steel frame has become rusty in all parts of India. Political interference in the civil service has become notorious and the days of Indira Gandhi8217;s 8220;committed8221; bureaucrats have given way to cabals of politicised bureaucrats dancing to professionally beneficial political tunes. Although in states like Maharashtra, the civil servant is less vulnerable to political machinations, in regions where the chief minister is a larger than life figure such as in Tamil Nadu or UP or even in Madhya Pradesh, bureaucrat and politician are generally on a collision course. The only post Jayalalithaa mostly approves for officers is when they are prostrate at her feet and if the recent controversy on electoral rolls is anything to go by, even that designer-democrat, Digvijay Singh, is not immune to turning a blind eye to state bureaucrats dabbling in election procedures.

There are no clear indications yet that Mayawati8217;s war on the bureaucracy has had any positive affect on public welfare. In fact, governance itself might become all Maya if the agents of the state are so completely demoralised and neutralised.