The Unsung 'Untouchables' of the Lokayukta Report: Fighting the Mining Mafia

The Inside Story: Unmasking the Billion-Dollar Scam and Its Architects

Early last week I met one of the men behind the explosive report of the Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde on the illegal mining in the state. I was waiting at the Secretariat complex to meet the e-governance head at his office when Vipin Singh ambled by. When I congratulated him, he replied in his characteristic style ‘Kaahe ka congartulations yaar, itna kharab report niklaa hai’. Maybe the final report was not satisfactory by his standard but in a short span of time he and his team had uncovered a large web of illegal activities and their modus operandi that had robbed the state to the tune of 13000 odd crores of rupees. What he meant was had they enough time on hand they could have dug deeper like the huge mine pits that now dot the landscape of bellary and the extent of uncovered loot could have doubled. But the Ammo on hand was enough for Justice Hegde & he had to fire it before taking the final bow as the Lokayukta.

I had extensively interacted with this career IFS officer during a project execution with the forest department. At that time he was in Bidar and his territory was one of the 4 pilot divisions selected for my project (FORDIS). His name then had cropped up several times during my meeting with the Senior officials and I had quickly gathered his reputation as a sharp no-nonsense IT savvy official in the dept. An alumnus of IIT, he had done some excellent work in the e-govenance areas while on deputation, notably setting up the citizen service initiatives like the BangaloreOne delivery centres. When I first met him, I wondered what a guy like him was doing in a far flung place like Bidar ? In his characteristic nonchalant way he replied that it was a conscious decision and he wanted it that way . Maybe he had opted to be ‘far from the madding crowd’ after a heavy duty assignment that had him in the quagmire of politics, and murky administration. ‘Khoon Jalana padta hai’ he non chalantly had said about the nature of his work. Our interactions over the next couple of days was intensive & meaningful and then I was back in Bangalore.

Soon I heard that he was once again recalled to Bangalore to head the state SWAN (state wide area network) initiative. I chuckled at the thought that hard as wanted to be out of the limelight it dragged him into it. Later several times I had passed by his new office but found it conspicuous by his absence . Strange I felt till the time I saw this recent article in ToI

From E-Governance to Undercover: The Quiet Courage of Hegde's Handpicked Team

It now emerges that he was one of the 5 people picked by Justice Hegde to have a go at the mafia. Exactly the way Kevin Costner (Eliot Ness) goes about in the movie ‘The Untouchables’ - a special team of agents handpicked for their courage and incorruptibility, nicknamed by its title.

And undercover they went about their new assignment while they held to usual official positions on paper . Another official, Bishwajeet Mishra who was a part of this team , and whom I had interacted on few occasions even attended one of my workshop in his official capacity of a DFO . He probed me with some searching questions during the workshop & little did I realize then that he was into something else.

These officials worked discreetly , put their lives & limbs on the line of fire (and as Justice Hegde mentioned in an interview on NDTV the other day – he even feared for their careers) and away from the glare and glimmer of limelight. Unlike Hegde they have not walked into sunset, they will still be around (for greater things perhaps) but their collective reputation like the ‘ The Untouchables’ will hopefully be remembered for time to come.

Predator on the prowl

This year RCB has been propelled by sheer Gayle power. In many a matches of IPL that featured RCB pitch report has been inconsequential, what has mattered is the weather report which many a time has warned about the impending Gayle storm. And struck it has with brute force like in yesterday’s match (against MI) where  the opposition was numbed by the onslaught. 

Yesterday my friend Shaz made a prediction based on numbers (termed  Numbo-Jumbo) that said ‘Prepare for the Gayle-storm on Friday the 27th, a D9C9. His name number adds up to 27, and his tee reads 333'.

By the 5^th over the result had been scripted and as one of the commentators mentioned ‘it was already showing on the body language of the Mumbai Indians’.

Watch this guy closely, when he walks on to the crease along with his partner the difference in physical attributes is not the only thing striking. His imposing frame apart, with the helmet on and his beaded hair streaming out at its sides I cant help but imagine of the Predator in the 1987 flick. In the movie the creature (that looks a bit like horseshoe crab) has a mask on with hair like appendages struck to its skull. This creature is supposed to be ‘a  member of a warrior race which hunts aggressive members of other species for sport’. 

Exactly  what appears to be happening with Gayle vs others in this edition of IPL.

Trudge

A fine Victorian era poet and his soulful lines left an abiding impact in me as I sat reading some of his poetry on a lazy weekend. One of it particularly made sense of my situation 

We cannot kindle when we will

The fire in which the heart resides;

The spirit bloweth and is still,

In mystery our soul abides.

But tasks in hours of insight will’d

Can be through hours of gloom fulfill’d

                                                  -Mathew Arnold

(It is difficult for man to have inspiration at his beck and call. Tasks proposed when inspired shall have to be carried out patiently even when inspiration has passed away  and weariness has prevailed upon man)

Remembering 'Uncle Pai'

Uncle Pai had passed away a month back. I got to know of it when a small postcard invite fell on my doorstep from his  hometown of Mangalore to attend the 12 day ceremony. Another Uncle Pai (of Amar Chitra Katha fame) also passed away almost in the same period. To me these two Uncle Pai’s had something in common; they left a legacy - a body of  work with a lasting imprint on the minds of the elderly & children respectively. 

The Uncle Pai (Kulyadi Madhav Pai) I am referring to is related from Wifi side and I regret I couldn’t attend his last rites due to some commitments.  But the time I spent with him & his memories will be cherished. With a small note he religiously book posted whenever the  newer editions of ‘Kaggokti Sampada’ hit the stands. The Book and its series were an illuminating body of work on decoding one of  the great literary works in Kannada literature by D.V.Gundappa (or DVG as he is popularly referred as) 

DVG was a literary colossus & his Mankuthimmana Kagga is considered a Nobel prize winning material, if it had been written in English. This was followed by  Marula Muniyana Kagga which Uncle Pai had translated . The beauty of this work ( and there lay in it its greatness he used to say)  is that- it makes the reader see himself through the poems, to interpret the thoughts of the poet in his own way. 

Kagga is a beautiful and profound collection of 945 poems. Each poem is of four lines. Some of the poems are in old Kannada style (Halegannada). Kagga poems are profound, and poetic and like a bee attracted to the flower Uncle Pai was drawn into it. 

An instance (roughly translated to English):

Life is a Horse driven cart, Fate its driver
You're the horse, Passengers - as allotted by God
Sometimes rides to a marriage, sometimes to a graveyard
When stumbled, there's always the earth - says Manku Thimma

In  his book preface Uncle Pai  writes ‘DVG’s Marula Muniyana Kagga’s   beautiful play of words with profound meaning of life  urged me to interpret in a layman’s language. It was a long journey though, it started when I by-hearted a few kaggas; the meaning of which took some to sink in. I later took some more & the experience was overwhelming. Based on my initial experiences I began to write but was not happy with the outcome.   So I discarded the effort and waited for the next couple of years to truly imbibe the work for an accurate representation’

 

Finally egged on by friends & encouraged by the “Samyukta Karnataka” newspaper he began compiling the works which went into 7 volumes by the time of his death.

R.I.P Uncle Pai