A Reluctant Bureaucrat

 

I had the impression when I was in school or college, great men write autobiography, those who have made names in national or international field; they have contribution to society in any field, like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru or Bertrand Russell. Our teacher advice to read biography and autobiography, their life and achievement inspire, motivate to be a good human being or a great man. I am fond of reading biography and autobiography, not to become a good human being or a great man, but I have curiosity to know their life and time, their experience, and the society they live in, and simply enjoy reading their stories. I try to understand them, their philosophy of life, to imagine the society they lived in; I derive pleasure.

In course of time, my idea of an autobiography changed. Everybody’s life, his journey in the society is unique. A man has his own experience and realization, which are different from that of others. Their autobiographies, stories of their lives, contribute to the collective wisdom of the society. The reader has the opportunity to understand persons of different classes or living in different strata. I believe, every person, whatever may be his position in the society, whichever class he may be in, should write his autobiography. Life Less Ordinary of Baby Haldar, a domestic help, The Autobiography of a Sex Worker by Nalini Jameela, Amen: The autobiography of a Nun by Sister Jesme, The Truth about Me: A Hijra Life Story by A. Revathi, to give examples of a few, are good reads and best sellers.

One day I decide to write my story. I am an ordinary person; doing a job for my living. I have retired from government service after I have served thirty years in Odisha Finance Service. One of my seniors teases, “What is a government? Who is he? Is it the secretariat building or the Chief Minister or the Cabinet? Government is you, me, Deputy Secretary Parija or Secretary Tripathy. The things you, I or they do is what the Government do.”

The story I have written cannot be, in true sense, called my autobiography or memoirs. In this story I am just a character, rather, the protagonist in an autobiographical novel. It’s an attempt to portray what I have witnessed and experienced as a government servant, how the system works, who really does and how he decides.

During my tenure in office, the government brought the greatest reforms in the field of indirect tax structure in the country. VAT (Value Added Tax) replaced the state sales tax in 2005; GST (Goods and Services Tax) replaced a plethora of state taxes like VAT, Entry Tax, Central Sales Tax, etc and Central Taxes like Excise Duty, Service Tax, etc. Great changes took place in the tax administration. I had an active participation and association in implementation of VAT and later, GST in the state. I was involved in policy making process both in the state and at national level. I have reflected my take on the reforms and the process of their implementation in the book.

One day I met Das Behnur, an eminent writer in a marriage reception. He asked me what I was doing at the time. I told I was writing my memoirs, and had submitted the first chapter to a magazine. He said, “Don’t publish the chapters in advance. You finish the book and then, publish. If you publish chapters in advance, you will get a number of phone calls and letters. That will impact your writing. You will lose objectivity. You may be afraid of writing what you intend to speak.”

But I had already submitted. The magazine published. I got a huge number of phone calls in praise and a few calls critical of it. The critical callers were my former colleagues. Some of them who had worked with me in some or other office, and I considered them my friends, were annoyed, and almost severed their relations, whatever they had with me. I remembered Das Behnur and stopped giving the chapters in advance to the magazines, though they (magazines) asked me for the other chapters. Some of my friends and colleagues of the organisation I was working are not willing to take it a story; a critique on a system, and is not against any individual.

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