Austerity, Andhra ishtyle

"Andhra Pradesh goes for '5-star' austerity!" screamed newspaper headlines. Barely a week after issuing a circular on austerity measures, the AP government spent Rs 21.70 lakh public money to hold the district collectors' conference at Taj Gateway, Vijayawada. The participants obviously discussed poverty, starvation deaths, rural migration and the like, sitting in five-star comfort.All the participants, ministers and their staff included, were booked into star hotels in the city, naturally.
Strikes you as odd? Calm down, and fasten your seat belts for a roller coaster ride. We will see more such anomalies, since we have borrowed the frills of the rich countries but not their virtues, like say?work ethic, sincerity, scientific temper and so on. It is not that the state was always profligate. It is also not that politicians and civil servants lack role models.
Take the case of JPL Gwynn, the last of the British ICS officers to serve the young state of Andhra Pradesh. When he was asked to enquire into the matter of a government servant according undue favours to a private company, he landed at the scene of action, a suitcase in hand. Having smelled the arrival of a high-ranking official to resolve the matter, the representatives of the said company rushed to the railway station armed with bouquets of flowers and an invitation to stay in the air-conditioned comfort of the company's guesthouse. The guesthouse would have been a great temptation to lesser mortals, since the town, being located in the coal belt, could get to sizzling levels and, the town had no government guesthouse worth the name.
However, Gwynn was not your everyday Joe; he politely declined both the flowers and the invitation and spent the night in a rundown local choultry instead, alongside noisy pilgrims and itinerant traders. Gwynn's story entered Andhra's Civil Services' lore, and was repeated over several generations. However, in the present hedonistic mood, such acts of simplicity may be scoffed at as naïve and Gwynn would be considered a simpleton!
Now, there is another equally ?naïve' politician, Nripen Chakraborty, who was the chief minister of Tripura from 1978-88. Chakraborty belonged to the rare breed of politicians for whom austerity was not a token or political statement to impress his electorate, but a commitment of a lifetime. He did not understand the concept of self-indulgence, or luxury, particularly at the people's expense. He would have sat ill with the present lot of politicians.
To collaborate with his work, he handpicked his chief secretary, SR Sankaran, that legendary IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh, for whom the then AP government had no use. Sankaran did not fit into the scheme of things then, for he talked of bringing in fundamental changes to the socio-economic system. Such was the impact he made on the disadvantaged peoples' lives that years after his death, the two young tribal children who climbed Mount Everest recently, carried his photograph to the peak. Together, Chakraborty and Sankaran worked as an unmatched duo in tackling the serious problems of Tripura.
There is one little incident that Sankaran himself shared with yours truly, to express his admiration for his CM. While on one of his many tours, Sankaran spent a cold night in a ramshackle guesthouse in a remote village of Tripura. The next morning, he found a man sleeping on a bench outside his room. Mistaking him for the watchman he woke him up to ask for a cup of tea; imagine his horror when he realised that the man curled up in the verandah was not the watchman but the CM of the state! After the initial exclamations and explanations, the two men strolled across to the nearby dhaba and discussed urgent state matters over chipped cups of chai!
Needless to say, the CM had no official entourage, motorcades or security. The CS did not run the state from the air-conditioned comfort of his chambers. The CM and his CS were no swash-buckling heroes promising to usher in a new dawn in the twinkling of an eye. No glamour, no glitter, no fuss, no muss. They were ordinary mortals like you and I, very human and reachable. They stand tall in our memories.
"Jaane kahan gaye woh din?" crooned Mukesh famously in Mera Naam Joker. "Jaane kahan gaye woh log?" we might add. "Kahan se kahan pahunch gaye?" we might further ask, for good measure.
(The writer is a heritage and environmental activist. She can be reached at ranisarma2010@ gmail.com)