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An Outsider Everywhere: Revelations by an insider
Kaw is a 1964-batch Himachal cadre IAS officer, who acquired a wide array of experience in several prestigious departments and retired in November 2001 after putting in 42 years of service. The book throws an interesting insight into a bureaucrat’s skirmishes within his own clan. At times he also has to deal with with political cohorts owing allegiance to opposing camps. While the Chief Minister appears to be the supreme in a state but how vulnerable is the post to a single whip of the party high command and how the party’s diktat weighs heavy is demonstrated. The dependence of the politicians on the use of tantra to settle scores with their detractors is another revelation of their insecurities. Kaw has chosen a witty title for the book as he believed he was an outsider everywhere, including in his professional and professional life and in his leisurely pursuit of writing poetry. The book also throws light on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits who had fled the Kashmir valley following turbulent times.He failed to pick up regular education because of this flux. His humble beginning, where he had to study under the streetlight as electricity was a rare commodity during those days, and effort to overcome all the odds and pursue his education proves his grit. This, however, did not deter him from getting selected to the country’s top service. This was a triumph and showed that it did not always take a famous school or college education to produce intelligent people. Even an ordinary school and college is as good a learning ground. He devised significant policies not only in the state but also for top technical institutions of the nation through the All-India Council for Technical Education. His experience as the Member Secretary of the Fifth Central Pay Commission, including his close brush with death, while trying to collect first-hand information about hardships of the defence agencies explain the painstaking effort he undertook to get a feel of their tough life. In contrast to the hard work put in to collect relevant information what is eventually implemented is a politically suitable postmortem of the final report, where the liberal recommendations are flayed yet refined to please all. The reformist approach to deal with issues like over-staffing etc., remained low on priority. The string of experiences associated with the variety of transfers in various departments and the experiences involved in orchestrating them proves his mettle as a officer who did not buckle down under pressure. He makes no bones about how transfers are considered the most flourishing industry in Himachal and how politically motivated decisions covertly add to the state’s deficit, with politicians sparing little thought to economics, while making lucrative promises to woo the masses. His spiritual brush with Sathya Sai Baba and how his entire family benefitted from their unrelenting faith on him goes on to prove his religious moorings. Kaw, an honest, upright civil servant, did not toe the line blindly even in the most trying circumstances and adopted a pragmatic approach in dealing with political high-ups. He not only become the fair-haired official in the state but carried this tag even while serving various ministries and was known as one who could to carry the team along. Kaw has given versatile tips to budding bureaucrats who can learn a lesson on successful governance, especially in circumstances where one has one’s back against the wall and there is little choice than offending demanding politicians. Kaw has also come up with a gist of advice to the new entrants to the prestigious IAS which he terms as ‘words of wisdom.’ Replete with pictures and apt use of poetry the book is a peek into the rigmaroles of a bureaucrat’s life as he has a brush with politicians and their yes-men in bureaucracy.
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