I am originally the native Indian clerk of the British era, who has survived to continue as an obligatory symbol of indication to represent the whole lot of the country’s bureaucrats and other government servants of different ranks and files. I am the one who hints at a truly pan-Indian special work culture (as alleged but may not be always true.) I have fallen out of favour in civil society for obvious reasons; and because of me, the Right to Information Act has come into force to keep a check on any tacit underhand dealings — the assumed corruption that includes my supposedly opaque dispositions, as they say.
Do you know that across my work table of trivial powers, never mind if I am a petty stuff most of the time, the person pleading is not always the much-tormented, much-awaited, starved-of-justice, vulnerable man so typically depicted in television series and in movies? Believe me, more often than not, I am the one who is sweet talked into fixing some quick, without paraphernalia, out-of-the way deal by some cajoling, hand-greasing client, who is agitated enough to not mind parting with a few ‘gandhis’ in exchange for an ungentlemanly, but generous offer of prompt service that would save his precious time and energy. You know all the rules and the procedures he has no time and patience for. This breed of harried gentlemen may afford to buy right away everything that is within their paying capacity in lieu of their time. They must escape impatience and having to wait at any cost, I know. You also know.
Blame it, if you can, on his ubiquitous presence in all workplace premises where he strikes a deal with the innocuous babu-in-charge there for a priority-based service and privilege. It could be a railway reservation counter, a busy auto service station, a government office, a club, a restaurant, a hospital, a passport office or even a jail or police station — why, even the Sulabh Sauchalyas where he needs a special corner that is kept ‘extra clean’.
The morality imbued rhetoric of a brilliant, moralist student in a university or the fire-engulfing speech of any new follower of the new age social activists are hushed in their conscientious minds within days of joining a job, because the crisis is everlasting. We the triumvirate — consisting of the offer, offered and the offerer will always remain agreeable to the existing easy set-up. It is only for the reluctant, rebellious and the poor that the RTI Act may serve as a tool to harass me and my brothers and sisters. Though some of my cooperating clientèle may take recourse to this extreme step when they will be pushed to the wall — which we are learning to avoid. We all are least likely to attend any ethics or morality class to tune our souls to the call of our social conscience, because even modern age spiritual gurus charge an extra fee for any priority-based, personalised delivery of spiritual counselling and sermons.