Surviving the storm

In the mid 90s,a committee within the Indian Administrative Services UP Officers Association decided that the image of their cadre had sunk low enough. They arranged for a secret ballot: members would vote on who among their number was the most corrupt. Near the top of the list,with the second highest number of votes,in fact,was Neera Yadav. She had shot to prominence as head of the Noida Development Authority; and on Tuesday she was sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment for abusing that position. Ashok Chaturvedi,the head of the private sector company she had favoured,Flex Industries,was also handed down the same sentence.The Prevention of Corruption Act,under which Yadav and Chaturvedi were sentenced,is too rarely allowed to work. Even in this case,political interference got in the way till the courts directed a case be filed,in 2002. Even so,Mulayam Singh Yadav appointed her UPs chief secretary in 2005; and last year,she joined the BJP amidst fanfare. But politics is only half the story. The bigger story is in the fact that,as witnessed by the IAS officers voting for her in their straw poll,her peers in the services suspected what she was up to,and werent able to stop it. Public opinion in India is in a dangerous place,one in which profession after profession finds itself vulnerable to scorn and marginalisation unless it holds itself up to the highest of scrutiny. The civil services have been quiet witnesses to the slide in their professions standing. That slide,earlier only a matter of perception,has now finally begun to show in convictions and sentencing. The many members of the IAS whom this concerns can no longer be silent witnesses. They need to start thinking,and voicing aloud,their own suggestions. How can we fix our processes? How do we introduce greater redress and accountability into the system? Unless this discussion is visible to Indias public,the civil services reputation will not survive the coming storm.