By Gregory Shullai
An old Greek Ode states, “Nature gave horns to the bull…to the lion a chasm of teeth”. This basically suggests that in order to live one must possess a weapon to procure one’s goods and eyes to see what is and what is not good. So, what does this have to do with the reemployment of retired public servants? To breed or to groom a public servant to follow the right way – because there is only the way of the rules – is the most paradoxical requirement if we view it from what is going on at present. The overall character of Government service is from the very beginning not something that has been borne out of chaos; there is a necessity that one stage follows another in an orderly fashion, in a structure that has form and beauty and predictability and selection of the best and whatever else our aesthetically attractive human qualities are called. In such a structure it is natural that the departure from the rules is by far the norm, the exceptions being when the rules are followed as if they have a secret purpose. We cannot at any point in time presume that the rules are to blame for the constant failures that the system was built upon. It is also true that we must beware when we demand that the rules are to be rigidly followed even though they are a necessity, but in implementing them one must proceed with caution and care, ultimately it is the rules that have given the greatest contribution to the growth of the purpose for which public service was contemplated in the first place. Isn’t it a fact that every employee was appointed by the rules and not just picked and chosen randomly? If that was what we gave ourselves in the beginning why not in the choice of extended appointment after retirement? Do we look or do we not look at the past service rendered by an individual before reemployment? Do we trust the future in someone who has been proved untrustworthy? These are the important paradoxes that deserve to be examined before any individual is reemployed and I can tell you that even the friendliest arbiters would find nothing to say in support of some that have been reemployed.
To do justice to a letter on this subject, one has to have been an officer in Government service who has faced upto the fate of retirement and carries an open wound seeing officers being rewarded for lack of integrity, initiative and leadership time and time again…the whole thing takes a few years to be accepted before it fades away. And yet there is no denying that there are higher men, good men that are and have been reemployed because there was an undeniable need to get something of the greatest importance done for only such men would dare undertake such tasks.
Previous circumstances on post-retirement employment were not only too cautious but altogether innocently directed, because as long as public service morality was not offended by the public servant, re-employment was not felt to be a violation against the community and the rules. To some extent those that recommended it felt it necessary because our politicians were relative green horns at public service and required to be properly initiated as they were unaware of government secrets and how filing was carried on. Things have changed since then in a big way and something incredible is happening now. The mere question of what is written in the files on the antecedents of a member in service, not to mention court rulings that may have convicted an individual are now of no importance, as long as the individual is prepared to bend backwards and promise to keep one eye closed. Under these conditions is morality in public service good for anything now, or is public service a sham and a disgrace despite all the Disciplinary and Vigilance Rules? There are all kinds of ways that a politician can shield an errant public servant from a penalty against a wrong doing and ultimately the most credible evidence can always be turned into something requiring further investigation, in order to procrastinate so as to ensure ‘no action till completed’ and offer the hope and scope to make certain evidences as refutable. And with regard to the Legislature taking action, let us beware of thinking that since oaths are taken by them that the individuals will uphold that oath and that the instinct to nourish oneself becomes secondary or tertiary to it – no, the opposite is true. Public servants under disciplinary proceedings are the most amenable to the directions and demands of the Legislature. How can one become as wealthy from public service as one who carries on a private business? We have a very good idea of what a public servant can and should land up with on retirement, and from what we see now, are we supposed to interpret that the assets acquired have come from legitimate sources? Have the records of the assets and liabilities provided by the public servant ever been scrutinised when evidence of malpractices have been raised against the individual? We have a pretty good idea of what goes on when an accusation against any public servant is raised these days and I will refrain from making any comments – just the thought is disgusting.
Let us not tarry over the thought that the retiring public servant who is given reemployment is a great asset to the State; he is certainly not constructed for work that requires brain, even less brawn and least of all with the fortitude of one who will uphold public morality in service matters, since he sees things with only one eye, and therefore one must ‘miscalculate’ to find a way to arrive at the price paid for his reemployment – and the conditions upon which and for which reemployment is granted. Do we know these? The condition when reemployment is a necessity for whatever reason is generally a lie under the present circumstances in Meghalaya. To put it differently, calculating the costs-benefit analysis of reemploying a retiree is the fundamental necessity so as not to sow the seeds of doubt that this is more of a favour than a necessity, and even less in such a way as to suggest that this is done more out of the good nature between employer and employee, because that is what the myopically good natured person on the streets comes out with when this subject is broached. Present day retirees in Meghalaya display an attitude more assured to surrendering the need of the community and focussing instead on total submission to the politician so as to ensure privileges and money for self. In simpler terms many officers who are on the verge of retirement do whatever is required to be done to prevent from having to settle down to retirement. This is especially the case with those that have proven misdemeanours against them in their official files. They want to ensure that the respect and authority they enjoyed while they worked for the Government in their high ranking positions continue because on their own they would have to settle to a life of an ascetic or a lonely wanderer without friend or companion, or to be fair they would now be required to play the role of a solitary nomad which in all probability they are unable to stand up to, and to a certain degree they probably conceive this sudden loss of reputation and authority as something nihilistic; let us not deceive ourselves about that.
In these times of an abundance of supply, one observes a sad, stern but resolute countenance in the demeanour of a high-ranking officer about to retire – an eye that looks forward like the eye of an explorer in a lonely desert so as not to look inwards perhaps? So as not to have to look back at what one is leaving behind – a life that offered opportunities to obtain whatever up-to-date gadget that was on-line, the opportunity to fly to exotic destinations on LTC, the assurance of receiving “gifts and gulps” from businessmen and women connected with supplies and works in the office in which the person is employed, etc, etc. The person understands that here on there will be fewer friendly faces wishing “Good Morning” when the person passes by, because now mouths will be silent, and the only audible sound the person will hear is “hi” – as if to imply that from here you are the symbol of pity.
In the end, the question arises, “of what does one suffer when one retires but does not get re-employed?” That employment has done a terrible injustice to the individual by not preparing the person for the time that was certain to come when it would bring about a total life transfiguration and leave the person high and dry like someone who still looks eagerly forward to the beginning of the month but to such a degree that it is a decadent beginning of the month; and no longer the start of month flowing with milk and honey so to say. Assuming that a retiree experiences the effects of retirement in this way and accepts that it is something of his/her own making then the person accepts the way things are, and if that is the case then what has been stated above is something exceedingly understandable and honest because it is better under such circumstances to accept one’s lack of foresightedness and not tell the truth immediately after retirement.
One remains silent with regard to what goes on in Government service while still in service because of the rules, but what about after retirement? Does anyone really think that one who has served Government for 35+ years can easily bring out all the venom of what goes on in Government service just like that? Let me tell you the plain truth: after retirement everything one knows about that which is venomous in Government service one will hold back because the truth is that public service was good while it lasted. There is no doubt that after retirement if one wanted to uncover the hidden misdemeanours one could but such categories of employees/retirees are very few because by the time one retires one becomes ever lazier and more impoverished in one’s instincts with an enviable appetite to gobble down without any trouble good and bad faith as well as openness and take on instead the demeanour of a disciple of the humble. Beyond any doubt, on retiring one becomes an idealist. I have witnessed many who have retired before me and after me, and after carefully including myself among them, I have off-loaded the irrationality of reemployment of retired personnel in the best that I could.
