It was an innocuous, nay, an innocent fad, he indulged in. So did his wife. Walk their dog every evening. Animal lovers would have loved to cheer the couple, clicked a selfie with them. The next moment the community would have gone berserk on social media, lauding the way they loved their pet and looked after him, putting an entire stadium, its staff and paraphernalia at his disposal. But what they were feting their dog on was not their personal fiefdom. They were not supposed to hold athletes to ransom and not let them in to sweat it out, either, for Common Wealth Games.
Rinku Dhugga IAS
Sanjeev Khirwar IAS
When news of their indulgence broke two days back, all hell broke, causing outrage among the political class. Action came thick and fast. In a swift move, the Ministry of Home Affairs sought a report from Delhi chief secretary. No sooner the report confirmed about their bizarre fetish, IAS officer Sanjeev Khirwar was packed off to Ladakh. His IAS wife Rinku Dugga, too, was shunted out to far off Arunachal Pradesh, in what is known in India’s omnipotent babudom as punishment posting. Sources in the MHA, in charge of the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT), the cadre the IAS couple belong to, were quoted as saying that “necessary action will be initiated based on the report.”
After their swift transfers, social media platforms went abuzz with netizens wondering aloud, “Where will the dog go?”
The IAS officer would have the Thyagraj Stadium cleared off the last of the sportspersons practicing there before he sat his foot there, with his wife in tow, and walked his dog. The stadium is a multi-discipline sports facility, where athletes were not being allowed to practice beyond 7 p.m., much to their chagrin, by the stadium staff at the behest of the IAS officer. Commonwealth Games, scheduled to take place in Birmingham this year, are only two months away, and all medal hopefuls would have liked to practice as hard and as long as their discipline demanded. Swinging to action, the Delhi government also issued instruction to keep the doors of the stadium open for practicing athletes till 10 in the evenings.
The action against the IAS couple, which some circles in the bureaucracy call harsh, is a knee jerk reaction. For the political class, which was baying for their blood no sooner the news flashed, forget that they send the same bureaucracy on an errand as mundane as restoring a poodle, which goes missing, to his political master in 2016. Or, take for instance, the restoration of the poodle to Delhi Police chief many years back.
Khirwar was the Principal Secretary (Revenue) and the Divisional Commissioner in the Delhi government, also had additional charge of the Environment Secretary, till his penal transfer. The 1994-bach IAS officer has served as Private Secretary to then Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath.
The unsavoury controversy over the walking the dog by one of the top bureaucrats in the Delhi government has again put the spotlight on the Indian bureaucracy, which is known for their fetishes and fads as much as their political masters, for all the wrong reasons.
Although “Yogah karmasu kaushalam (Excellence in action)” is the motto of the Indian Administrative Services, the bureaucracy is known for inefficiency as much as it known for corruption. A decade back, a report by Hong-Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy had put the country’s bureaucracy among the worst in terms of efficiency. Had the prestigious consultancy firm factored in corruption in their rating, our babudom would have fared even worse.