This refers to Jitender Bhargava's article "Bureaucrats and the write stuff" (September 20). Of the reasons cited by the writer for not publishing memoirs while in government service, the fear of reprisal is the genuine one and rightly so. What is the use if a passionate bureaucrat resigns and publishes the matter only to find that the system continues to function the same way after a few hiccups? However, from the public point of view, the timing of Sanjaya Baru's book was appropriate since it may have helped fence-sitters decide whom to vote for in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
The genuine test of such writings is the lasting impact their revelations make on the public mind and government machinery. M O Mathai's books Reminiscences of the Nehru Age (1978) and My Days with Nehru (1979) were highly detrimental to Indira Gandhi's reputation, but she not only survived but prospered more. Our bureaucratic and governance apparatuses have probably become so opaque to disturbing disclosures that only a massive concerted drive can uproot them.
Y G Chouksey Pune
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