Interesting take on Governance

I will reproduce a section of the article appeared in Sunday Guardian by Virendra Kapoor. This has a very different take on governance and it is difficult to accept what Jawaharlal Nehru did.

THOSE DAYS WERE DIFFERENT

The other day, when someone seeking his 15 minutes of fame falsely alleged that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's wife and daughter had misused a naval aircraft while on a visit to Goa, another BJP leader's wife recalled an incident to make the point that in the earlier times such things would have been simply inconceivable. Roxna Swamy, who probably boasts of an even better academic record than her Harvard-educated husband, Subramanian Swamy, recalled in an e-mail that "in the early 50s an American journalist interviewing Nehru expressed a desire to see the floods in Bihar from the air. Nehru, always with a glad eye for a comely white woman, assured her he would make her wish come true.

"Accordingly, he ordered the Defence Ministry to make a plane available to the lady. The file came to my father, a joint secretary, with a proper respect for the nation's property... A stickler for rules, my father turned down the oral requirement of the PM. An indignant Nehru hauled up my father's superior, H.M. Patel, and demanded to know who had the temerity to disobey him. He ordered the errant officer to be hauled up before him... My father presented himself before Nehru, who gave him a long lecture on India and freedom and the need for sacrifice for the country and demanded that my father sign the requisition.

"'Give to me in writing', said my father. Whereupon Nehru treated him to further abuse of which the least offensive was that he was 'a hidebound bureaucrat'. More abuse followed but Nehru did not give the requisition in writing. The American lady was disappointed... My father was sent to the boondocks with a reputation for being difficult..."Her father, the late J.D. Kapadia, was an ICS officer, who had served as the collector of Mumbai and Ahmedabad in the 1950s. Though senior-most, he was denied the post of Chief Secretary of the newly-created state of Gujarat because of his deserved reputation for being a stickler for rules. He took premature retirement and pursued his academic interests till his death.

However, the moral of the story his daughter was keen to convey is simple. These days when asked to bend, bureaucrats begin to crawl. All for private gains. This should stop if the quality of governance is to improve.

Other article worth reading: Nehru's Vacationing.