A Question of Answers: The courage of the quiet man

Harsh Mander is a shy idealist. He winces at the thought of proclaiming his beliefs and commitments. But he is a practicing idealist.

When he wrote a moving piece on what he felt about the Gujarat riots in March this year – which was published in The Times of India and was extensively circulated through e-mail in the Indian Net community – and ended it with the observation that he will not be able to sing poet Mohammed Iqbal's song Saare jahaan se achcha Hindustan hamara… any longer, it left a lump in the throat of Indians from Singapore to Seattle.

Soon after, Mander, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1980 batch, announced that he was quitting the service in protest. Here was indeed the courage of the quiet man.

Mander had served in Madhya Pradesh, and earned the reputation of being a pro-poor and progressive officer, working with the marginalised sections of society – tribals, the poor and the minorities.

For the last three years, he has been India director of Action Aid. He was on deputation from the Government of India. But now he is his own man, and will be with Action Aid for the remaining one-and-a-half years of the term.

He received on August 20 – the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi – the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavna Award along with Mumbai-based journalist Teesta Setelvad for his stand against communalism.

In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, Mander spoke about his decision to quit government service, and what he felt was wrong with Indian society and polity.

Not one to pontificate, he speaks in a very soft tone about the things that move him most strongly. True to the man, there is a saying of Mahatma Gandhi on the wall in his office: "Be the change that you want to see in the world."

Excerpts from the interview:

Parsa: After 20 years as an IAS officer, was it a difficult decision to quit government service? Do you feel free, or did you have to wrench yourself away from it?
Mander: It was a strange mix. 'Wrench' is what I felt. I did not regret a day of my government service. One has to acknowledge that there was a democratic space.

I never felt claustrophobic. I could actively pursue land reforms, rights of the tribals and corruption. I felt that I could do something positive within the system.

Is it vastly different now?
The crisis I see in the country – and Gujarat riots mirrored it acutely – at this point of time is the one that requires to be free from the constraints of the system. Earlier, the state's stated policy was progressive. The state is now changing from protector to predator.

You saw this happening in Gujarat?
The state's complicity in the riots was evident. The savagery of the Gujarat massacres – targeting of women and children – is unprecedented. And the refusal to rehabilitate people affected in the riots.

It was not only the politicians. It was the civil society. The NGOs, the people. They did not act. There was a tendency to compromise with injustice. And months after the riots, there is no remorse among the people.

Is the civil society in Gujarat polarised?
It is deeply polarised.

Is it something that had come upon us suddenly, or was it happening for a long time?
It has been happening for 10 to 15 years. It has been glibly described as the "laboratory" of communalism. What is amazing is that the social scientists did not notice it, and did not write about it.

What went wrong? Do you think there is need to introspect about the past?
There is nothing wrong with the ideals – with secularism, with justice. They were valid a thousand years ago, and they are still valid. There is need for greater political engagement.

Do you think that there is need for political action instead of confining oneself to work in the NGOs?
It is a question that my friends ask me quite often. Justice is a political issue, and everyone has to engage politically. I do not know whether electoral politics is the best way of engagement. I have not been able to decide on that.

Do you feel that young people getting into government service are not quite committed?
There is nothing wrong with the young people entering government service. They are of course quite different. They do not share the same ideals we had in the Seventies. But it is the system that has become unresponsive. It is not the individuals. In Gujarat, there were quite a few young officers who did an excellent job.

Before you entered the IAS in 1980, you worked with an NGO. So have you come back to the starting point?
I always tell my junior colleagues that there has never been a break in what I was doing. I never drew the line, and never saw people as belonging to either this side or the other. It was always a question of justice. It did not matter who it was – whether it was a policeman or it was an ordinary person...

What do you look forward to?
I will be with Action Aid for some more time. I will be doing the kind of work that I have been doing. I think that there is something really positive in society despite the negative trends.