| Friends,
Recently I had gone to Pune for a Seminar organized by Sadhana Management Institute of an impressive personality Sri M S Pillai. I was invited there as the President of the National RTI forum and the students were quite curious about the facts, figures and aspects related with RTI. There incidentally I and Sri D R Karthikeyan, the IPS officer whom we all know not only as the ex-Director of CBI but also as the head of the SIT team that investigated into the Rajiv Gandhi murder case got placed in the same session. Here along with other things, he also presented one famous quotation by German Pastor Martin Niemöller, an avid anti-Nazi theologian, which has become a bye-word of public conscience. I had possibly heard this before but somehow that day this quote made a great impact upon me and hugely affected my thinking process. The present the quote (despite knowing that for many it would be nothing more than a repetition)-
"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
In my own speech, I gave a live example, which I would like to present before you as well. It is related to a police officer Mr A (who considers himself a right-thinking officer) when he was posted in a district. During those days police officers were being transferred at a very rapid pace, so much so that there were even instances of an officer posted in the morning having got his/her transfer order by the day's end. In the same circumstances, one fine day an officer in an adjacent district of mine got transferred. He had barely come a week or a fortnight before. Mr A, during his talks to his immediate supervisory officer, who was this transferred officer's boss as well tried to show his dissent to this kind of rampant transfers giving his own set of logic and arguments for this being detrimental both for the state and the affected individual. To this A's supervisory officer gave a brief sermon where he not only tried to justify such acts as being necessary for an efficient administration but also being a result of close performance based evaluation. He even warned Mr A of the same, if he didn't improve his performance to the desired level. Mr A got the message and intelligently turned the topic.
As luck would have it, barely a week would have passed when the same supervisory officer got transferred. And now Mr A again phoned this officer, but the moment A said that such transfers are not good for the health of state's administration, this officer's tone and language was completely changed. This time he not only completely agreed but also added a few more facts and figures to show how such rampant transfers were producing such an adverse impact impact on law and order. His final verdict was that if the same situation prevailed, the day was not far away when the State would get completely out of control. Mr A nodded and apparently agreed to this once more, albeit very well understanding everything.
The same situation we face each and every day, in all walks of life. We are being averse and unaffected to other's problems. "Mujhse kya matlab?", "What is my concern?" and "Why shall I poke my nose" are the usual refrains and the usual reactions to all such situations. But then, are we assured that such things are not going to happen to me and you. And hence after the Communist, the trade-unionist and the "Jew', it might very well be the turn of a decent person. Sadly, by that time there would be no one left to defend that decent person.
It was a pleasure and privilege listening to Sri Karthikeyan but at the same time, I must say with a bit of pride that he also seems to have smiled (if not laughed) not less than a dozen times along with the large number of students when the undersigned was delivering his impromptu speech.
Amitabh Thakur
IPS,
Currently at IIM Lucknow
# 94155-34526 |
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