The price of clean

Remember the bump, the one in Rajasthan? I’m thinking about it again (For those who came in late: I’m talking about an impressive speed-breaker squatting in the middle of a glorious nowhere. No road. Just a speed-breaker). I wonder how much it cost. How much does a road cost? How much did the contractor pay the PWD guys? Or did it cost some guy his life?

Say, the PWD engineer decided he wasn’t going to attend this enormous cost-cutting party. Say, he fined the contractor or blacklisted the firm. Can you imagine it? I can: Engineer babu is out alone one evening when he finds himself surrounded. Or there’s the ratatatatat of machine gunfire. Or perhaps, he tumbles out of a high window in a public place.

That’s how it was for Yogendra Pandey, executive engineer with the public works department (PWD). That he ‘fell’ to his death from the collectorate is known. That he had fined and blacklisted some contractors (and was considering blacklisting more) is known.

That he was beaten up is known. That he asked for security cover twice between 2008 and 2009, but was not given police protection is known. Then in 2009, he either jumped or was pushed from the highest building in Sitamarhi.

Which was it? Jump? Push? Either way, he was killed.

Engineers working with the government have a bit of a reputation. One strong indicator is that they’re much in demand as bridegrooms amongst dowry-happy dads; in the north particularly, it is taken for granted that money will be made ‘over and above’. But on the other hand, there’s Pandey. And he’s dead.

So is Manoj Kumar Gupta. He too was a PWD engineer, lynched by supporters of BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari. Last week Tiwari was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special trial court in Lucknow. Interestingly, except Gupta’s wife, the only witness who did not turn hostile was CD Rai, also a PWD engineer.

Earlier this year, I read a news report about an engineer working at the rural works department in Bihar. He went into hiding after allegedly being forced to show fake expenses of Rs52 crore from the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Another engineer who works in the tubewells division in Uttar Pradesh has reportedly resigned, citing a threat to his life. There’s yet another report about a junior engineer with the Varanasi Development Authority being threatened. All the junior engineers went on strike to demand that an FIR be lodged.

Yes, just to demand that an FIR be lodged. That’s how hard it is, even for bureaucrats. You have the power to halt a multi-crore project. But you’re as vulnerable as anybody else when the gunmen come for you. Corruption isn’t just a choice as simple as whether to take bribes or not. Sometimes, it’s a choice between living, or not. And if you die, your employer — the government — will not necessarily avenge you.

When Yogendra Pandey ‘fell’ to his death, 20,000 engineers in Bihar reportedly went on a three-day strike, demanding a probe. I have not seen more news reports about developments in the case — Who is investigating? How long will it take? Remember, it took seven years for convictions in the Satyendra Dubey murder case. Who knows if the taxpayer’s money has been recovered?

You do remember Dubey, don’t you? Google him, if you don’t. And next time you come up against an engineer babu in the PWD, think of Yogendra Pandey. He was clean. But he paid for it. And I wonder whether I could have paid that kind of price to stay clean.    

— Annie Zaidi writes poetry, stories, essays, scripts (and in a dark, distant past, recipes she never actually tried)