Thank God, Kiran Bedi has retired

That might seem like a strange reaction to the superannuation of a Magsaysay award winner. It might also be a premature celebration since Bedi has only applied for VRS. Yet indications are that India’s first woman IPS officer will soon become an ex-officer.

I have nothing personal against Bedi. I have met her only once in my life when, years ago, she came one morning to play tennis at the Bombay Gym. She didn’t speak to anyone; she just hit the ball around with the coach, stroking the ball with the fluency you would expect from a former national champion. But I have seen her since then many times; in fact, too many times. On television, in newspapers… In fact, on every available media.

The problem with Bedi isn’t just about her lifelong courting of publicity (though that is a very large element); it’s more that she wanted the best of all possible worlds. She complained about the glass ceiling in the police force due to her gender, yet didn’t shy away from the acclaim she got for being the first woman in the IPS.

Then there was the ‘crusader’ image that she cultivated throughout her career. There are several others before her who did the same, people like Arun Bhatia and GR Khairnar, who also became media darlings. They all had one thing in common: the publicity they received for ‘taking on’ the powerful, was extensive and their resultant celebrity was heady, but their period in the sun was short-lived.

That is to be expected:  common sense (and tradition) tell you that civil servants should neither be seen nor heard, and the people who have built glittering careers in any of the services, have been discreet, kept their own counsel while always keeping the big picture in mind before jumping into action.

Contrast this with Kiran Bedi’s record when she was in charge of traffic in Delhi some years ago. By all accounts, she did an excellent job. If she had continued for her full term, people say, she would have made a huge difference to the capital’s traffic system. But she didn’t stay for her full-term, preferring the brief blaze of media glory which came from taking action against ‘important’ people for minor traffic violations.

If she hadn’t taken ‘stern action’ against defaulting VIPs, she wouldn’t have got media attention, but perhaps she would have stayed in her job long enough to finish it. Successful civil servants go through life having to make small compromises; in fact, almost everyone — unless their job is of a Mahatma — finds that it’s a necessary tool of survival. And for getting done the important things that matter.

Another factor in any successful career is the ability to get along with your bosses and  colleagues. Yet, it’s a notable feature of ‘crusaders’ that they regard this as completely irrelevant. Note Kiran Bedi’s comments when she was bypassed for the post of Delhi’s Police Commissioner: I lost out, she said, because I didn’t go out to parties every night, and didn’t booze and hobnob with colleagues and bosses.

The implication was that the IPS officer who did get the job got it because he did these things and not because he was meritorious. There was also the implication that anyone who had ever been promoted owed it to networking rather than working. It’s not a comment which will endear you to your colleagues, and it also shows an attitude of mind which is bound to have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

In Kiran Bedi, and others like her (because this column isn’t just about her but her kind of person), there is also an attitude of self-righteousness that proclaims: we are the only ones with principles, we are the only ones with the interests of society on our minds, we are the only ones who fight for causes.

This is not only self-serving, it’s also patently untrue because others do a lot of good work too, but they do it without shouting from the rooftops. In the end, these crusaders prove to be their own worst enemies. A pity, because devoid of megalomania, they could have done the world a lot of good.