Dr Subbarao's book of revelations

The former RBI governor's second book is a delightful read, filled with riveting anecdotes that shed light on the doubts and dilemmas faced by a civil servant with a clear sense of right and wrong

Just a Mercenary? Notes From My Life And Career

Author: Duvvuri Subbarao

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 435+XVI

Price: Rs 799

In 1974, a bright young Assistant Collector from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) did something that, by his own admission, was not straightforward. He had topped the 1972 batch of IAS candidates and reckoned that to enjoy the powers of a magistrate as part of his career advancement, he would need to preside over at least a dozen disputes that go through the process of arguments and are not mutually settled leading to their withdrawal, also known as “contested disputes”.

What worried him was that as his training period as an Assistant Collector was about to end, there were only ten such cases to his credit. He was desperate to preside over two more. A case with two men involved in a street brawl appeared to offer an opportunity. In the normal course, this would have been settled mutually. But then, the case would not count as one of the “contested” cases he needed for career progression.

So he struck a deal with the lawyers in which they would argue the case, at the end of which the presiding officer would let off both men on the premise that no offence had been committed. It appeared to be a workable deal until conscience struck the young IAS officer. Breaking the understanding he had reached with the lawyers, he issued an order sentencing the accused to one month’s jail each. All hell broke loose. The matter was referred to his immediate boss, who ordered the officer to take that judgement off the record and rewrite it suitably. That episode offered a lesson on the limitations of his knowledge and powers as an IAS officer.

About a year later, after the Emergency was imposed by Indira Gandhi, this officer, posted in a Naxalite-infested district of Andhra Pradesh, decided to deliver justice in a way that displayed his “youthful arrogance and enthusiasm” and blinded him to the risks of disciplinary proceedings. He would employ a novel method to punish big farmers who would hold stocks of food grain over prescribed limits. Since many of them would exploit loopholes in the judicial system and get stocks released in no time, he decided to ask these farmers to donate a significant amount to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and be let off the hook in return. This method was neither right nor legal and it was sheer good luck that he was not hauled up by higher authorities in government.

Many such riveting anecdotes that bring to light the questions, doubts and dilemmas that a civil servant faces have been recounted in this book. Its author is a well-regarded civil servant, who rose to become the finance secretary at the Centre and later served a five-year term as the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It requires courage and candour to confess to such injudicious acts at the start of one’s career. Few civil servants would make such disclosures. But Duvvuri Subbarao is an exception. His ability to look at himself and his work dispassionately and often in a self-deprecating manner makes his account refreshing apart from offering insights into how governments really function in India at various levels. His account of how his final interview for the IAS examination, which was nothing short of a disaster, is also an example of how Dr Subbarao can laugh at himself.

This approach fits well with the objective that the author set for himself. Dr Subbarao describes the book not as a memoir, but a collection of notes from his life and career. In the process, it stands apart from his earlier book, Who Moved My Interest Rate?  which was an autobiographical account of his stint as RBI governor.

The structure of this book is different. In short sections, he summarises how he spent the first day and the last day as an IAS officer and also as RBI governor. He is an excellent storyteller. The drama and suspense he creates while recounting how he got to know of his success at the civil services examination or how he failed to keep the rupee stable in spite of raising the interest rate by one percentage point will make many an accomplished writer envious. His account of how he had to deal with N T Rama Rao, then Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister, is a lesson on governance challenges for a civil servant.

The last section written as a letter to his mother provides a peek not only into his close personal equation with his parents but also into how they helped build his value system. However, the short insets on a wide range of issues often disrupt the narrative. Perhaps they could have been made part of the larger storyline.

Those who have read Who Moved My Interest Rate? may not find anything substantially new in the short sections on his days as a central bank chief. This is understandable. But his account of stint as finance secretary is lively and informative. His stance on the idea of a “presumptive loss” of revenue in the grant of telecom licences, also known as the 2G scam, is a revelation of how two senior IAS officers could take a different view on how and why a government could accept a revenue loss and under what circumstances. What the reader will miss is how as the finance secretary he dealt with INX Media’s controversial investment plan. But even without that account, this book is a delightful read, providing a deeper understanding of a sensitive person with a clear sense of what is right and what could be wrong.