HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Dear friends and comrades,

           With today’s UGADHI starts the celebration of the New Year as per the Indian Calendar in most parts of our Country.  In various regions it is known by different names.  But the spirit of welcoming a new year remains. 

           The month of Ramzan has also started.  That is also a new event just as the Easter that has just gone by.  All these are in a way ushering in a new year.

            WE WISH EACH AND EVERY ONE OF OUR MEMBERS AND THEIR FAMILIES A VERY HAPPY HEALTHY PEACEFUL AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR AHEAD.

           Everything new is welcomed with enthusiasm just like we invite into the world every new born baby or a flower from a bud.  The belief that a New Year will on its own give us fortunes is also only a childlike belief.  Once the belief is put to test by means of the events of the past year or of our lives so far, we will find that the events in our life are the ones that merit our attention.  Time gains importance when associated with those events.  When it is true of the past, for the future, time gains importance because, our efforts when done with regard to the right time or when restrained when the time is not ripe, matters a lot in achieving our goals.

           Arnold Toynbee in his ‘A study of History’ reveals a great secret about the cause of survival or perishing of civilisations.  He underlines the importance of ‘Challenge and Response’ and concludes to say that whichever civilisation was able to rise up to the challenges in right measure, survived and whichever civilisation either over-reacted or under-played the challenge, perished.  

           The above theory holds good for any society, nation, group or class of individuals, family and individuals themselves. 

           As far as our cadre and its organisations, (Inspector or Supdt) our history is that we have failed to take note of the challenges posed.  We ignored them and followed a path of self-indulgence at the cost of denial.  The meagre activity in the name of organisations arose when there were Transfers round the corner and elections for the posts.  Even the elections did not take place in all regions in a timely manner.  Our cadre organisations have played second fiddle to the administration instead of standing on an equal footing and putting across the views of the cadre for the proper administration.  The system of checks and balances envisaged after Independence was in fact meant to make the representatives of the cadre a part of the process of administration by advising them on matters concerning the service conditions of the cadre.  But the administrators wanted and leadership of the organisations condescended to being just seekers of welfare of the cadre.  This concept of seeking welfare became narrow in many cases and got confined to lesser and lesser numbers over a period of time.  This enabled to create entrenched vested interests in several pockets.

           At an All India Level, even today we have failed to identify ourselves as a cadre.  We primarily identify ourselves as regions. Hence the regional interests have dominated the affairs of the All India bodies.  The All India leadership which was a convenient alignment of regional forces based on mutual interests ultimately was not able to take forward the real cadre issues head on.  It enabled a situation where even normal activities of the administration could be permitted to gain an importance of huge magnitude to be achieved only by the intervention of these leaders.  The real fact has been that these leaders made noises and tried to give an impression that what was normally taking place was being conducted as per their requirement/demand or request.

           The administration in our department has been behaving all along as if only what they would will could come to pass.  No organisational pressures had been heard of.  No amount of judicial intervention could help.  The administration has the capacity to elongate proceedings endlessly and beat the energy out of the litigants.  The number of cases (leading up to the highest Court of the land) on the Group A Recruitment Rules and how the ratio between the Central Excise and Customs is continued to be maintained in an openly disproportionate manner is the most classic of all cases.

           When organisations representing the cadres in different departments were agitating to be heard and taken seriously, we lost the bus by feeling as an elite class.  The feeling was perpetuated by the administration purposefully (by using the scintillating ghost called uniform) and to their advantage.  Even the other day I was intimated about a purported post by an esteemed senior officer in our department wherein he had given a discourse about the difference between unions and Associations and the difference between their rights.  Our people also thought that all other departments were allowed to have ‘Unions’ and go on strike and that we alone were a different category.  That in all other civilian departments also (from Postal, Income Tax, IA&AD to Railways) it was only the same Service Association and as per the structure under the same JCM has not yet sunk into our mind set.  Merely that some organisations may use the name Union does not in any way put them or ourselves on a different footing.  Right to strike is not granted to any of us.  But organisational show of protest is always a way forward.  Every other organisation has faced several disciplinary proceedings for such organisational actions.  Our sole instance has been the three day mass casual leave (not even a strike as very often our Income Tax colleagues indulge in) in 1998 which we still call as a ‘historical event’.  That has been the primary reason why our cadre is at the bottom of all benefits when compared to other departments.

          Immediately our members will compare the situation with the Customs.  That is a totally different ball game which is hardly organisational as far as parameters of Service Association and constitutional methods are concerned.  Such small pockets of vested interests are always loved to be created and perpetuated by any intelligent administration. 

           Thus, our cadre in general, like the child like belief that the new year will automatically bestow all the good fortunes, has continued for generations to believe that a Chairman or a Member (P&V) or one Office Bearer will come and deliver the cadre from all its ills.  But a rational mind will show that unless the cadre is prepared to see the challenges ahead and prepare to calibrate its response with the right quantum of energy, there will be hardly any improvement.

           The generation that had been selected through the All India SSC Exam but through regional selection is at the threshold of exit in the coming decade.  For them the next Cadre Review is the defining moment.  After that the department will be wholly in the hands of the members recruited through the same All India Exam but on All India Merit.  The issues for both these differ on the periphery.  But substantially it is the same.  The question is whether at least in the coming days the administration of the CBIC will consider these cadres who are really contributing in the field as thinking and feeling humans.  While those in the higher rungs of the ladder in the administrative set up can pat their own backs for the ‘achievements’ in surpassing targets, they have to be made to understand that all this is only because  ‘we’ were there to really contribute in the field.  Might be they may take pride in projecting that they could push us into doing it.  But essentially, when there is no potential, pushing around can only be a wasteful affair creating discomfort to all involved, at the best.  And how many are there to push us around? While they know that very well, it is unfortunately we who have not realised it.

           The cadre has been all along surrendering its collective self-respect by bartering these achievements for individual recognition, in whatever methods it may be.  But unless we come to understand that we are treated as a different class, that even as a class we deserve to be respected for the performance of this class, we cannot get our dues.

           This realisation may be very late in our career.  But it is still better late than never.  Let us therefore be conscious of the ‘time’ so that our cadre does not continue to suffer the ignominious condition in the coming days atleast.

           With expectations for a bright future,

                    

Fraternally yours,
R. Manimohan,
Secretary General.