Home Minister Ramesh Bagwe and his 19 Degrees
In April 2010, Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Home Ramesh Bagwe announced in the Maharashtra Legislative Council that Pune’s Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh would be transferred and steps would be taken to upgrade security following a spate of high profile crimes in the city.
Political observers were surprised, when within hours of his announcement, his senior, Home Minister R. R. Patil, distanced himself from Ramesh Bagwe and said he was not aware of the announcement and that Bagwe had not discussed the move (to transfer the Police Commissioner) with him.
Incidentally, Home Minister R. R. Patil belongs to the NCP, while Ramesh Bagwe belongs to the Congress and represents the Pune Cantonment constituency.
Some observers will remember Ramesh Bagwe for picking up Rahul Gandhi’s shoes at a public function as an act of shame.
Later sequence of events, clarified the reasons for Ramesh Bhagwe’s ire and announcement.
Lakhmi Gautam, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) later confirmed that :
- There were 19 criminal cases against Bagwe
- 15 of those were cognizable offences, and
- 4 were non-cognizable offences.
Lakhmi Gautam clarified that that Bagwe had been acquitted by the courts in some cases, while some cases were still pending against him.
All the furore arose at this point of time because Bagwe had applied for the renewal of his passport in January. All passport applications are sent to the police for verification. They verify whether the applicant has any criminal record.
The police found that some cases were registered against Bagwe in some police stations in the city.
The police sent their report about the cases to the Passport Office in Pune which refused renewal of his passport.
On the 15 May 2010, the Maharashtra Home department sought explanation from Pune’s Police Commissioner, Satyapal Singh as to how a junior police officer was allowed to speak to a journalist against the minister of the department that governs the police force.
The Real Issues
- The real issue is not whether Bagwe manages to get Satyapal Singh the Police Commissioner transferred out of Thane.
- The real issue is also not whether the Lakhmi Gautam, Deputy Commissioner should not have spoken to the press and some minor action will be taken against him.
- The issue is also not about the renewal of a minister’s passport.
- The issue is are we so much short good politicians and administrators that the ruling party(ies) find it difficult to find a clean person for a sensitive post.
- The issue is whether a person with as many as 19 cases in different courts can or should be appointed a Minister of the very department which is in charge of investigations against him.
- Think over. Morality, ethics, common sense and judicial propriety all defy any logic in this appointment.
Issue of Passport
The State Government can not issue a Passport.
Issue of Passport is the Centre’s prerogative.
The Regional Passport Officers have to necessarily refer all applications to the police for verification. And they have specific guidelines on what to do after receiving a negative report.
Obviously, the police could not have suppressed mentioning the case in their report.
Minister with 19 degrees
Come to think of it, when I was Commissioner of Income Tax in Chennai during 1986 to 1993, I used to take part time classes for MBA and P.G. diploma courses in Madras University.
I decided to acquire a number of PG qualifications. I obtained 4 PG Diplomas and a Masters in Law in 6 years.
So in hindsight, a person with so many pending and disposed off criminal cases is perhaps the best person to head the department.
He would know the ins and outs of the working of the police.
And to say the least, Bagwe’s threat to file a defamation suit is simply ridiculous.
And it would be far more ridiculous for the Congress to support him in this infamous case. They should remove him or at least transfer him.
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This is merely a repetition of hundreds of incidents occurring all over India in all the states ruled not necessarily by the same party or the same combination of parties. This is our culture. This is our religion. To claim privileges at all levels and, that too, after doing away with ‘Privy Purses’ and the privileges of the erstwhile fiefdoms of surrogate native rulers ( were nothing but big ‘zamindars’ enjoying royal privileges and patronage in return for their total submission to the colonial rulers). And, think of the persons who, with their entire families, enjoy ‘security cover’ of different grades at the cost of the state.
And this is apart from the private brigades maintained by almost all political leaders of all levels and all hues, with their garland currencies.
Then, who does not know that hundreds of our civil servants from top to bottom, particularly those entrusted with the jobs of enforcing and administering various laws, and their family members have duplicate and bogus passports and keep visiting abroad every now and then and maintain foreign bank accounts? And this huge number includes lower functionaries working in Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Delhi…., etc. And not that this is not within the knowledge of the officers of the departments concerned-the only prerequisite is that the cess/levy for these services have been paid and the periodical charges are paid regularly.
Ours is a country with a long history and tradition of corruption in all spheres of our life. Even in our Mythological epics we find recorded evidence of this and our converted secular brothers from the protected minority segments are no exception. And, that is precisely why, in India, there is fast and widespread and an amazingly equitable distribution of hunger, poverty, homelessnes, malnutrition—all as against equitable distribution of wealth and incomes! Our religious potentates want their pound of the flesh, meaning ‘power’ and authority-at the cost of greater needs of the poor and the steadily increasing number of the deprived, fashionably called ‘the marginalised’, who are politically and intellectually referred to as the BPL-masses.
Hence, the religious leaders have no responsibility to their weaker fellow-humans and building temples is their priority, but NOT building a at least a huge hospital for the poor and common people of all religions in the disputed lands, in the very name of one who is called the greatest of the great men! No, they have no duty whatsoever toward the poor and the hungry and the ailing. That will be taken care of, as usual, by the Missionaries who naturally and reasonably take the opportunity to induce the sufferers convert to their faith by incurring the wrath of the religious mafia of the majority who are never seen to spend money on opening schools, colleges, hospitals, dispensaries, libraries, night shelters for the street dwellers, soup kitchens (even with cattle-grade food, as is the Indian culture), etc. They have no time or priority for organising relief camps during natural calamities. They are not at all interested in ensuring assistance and support to and helping deserving students from the weaker sections pursue higher studies. The poor, poverty, hunger, healthcare, slum-clearing, community service, and the other burning human issues do not matter as long as they can hold the life of the common citizens to ransom with impunity, And, in the shadow of this colossal disregard for the socio-economis ills, the anti-national forces are sowing the seeds of unrest and subversion while rampant corruption and exploitation fan these fires.
Si, the junior Maharashtra Minister is a mere name in the list of lakhs of such people enjoying and wielding their power over the honest and upright civil servants-and, therefore, the corrupt system. With impunity, since every political, bureaucratic and religious potentate is doing the same thing for ages, under the protective and indulgent umbrella of their leaders and/or bosses (in politics or from the underworld or from the administrative set up).
And, the public have lost their right to protest, by acquiescing in this gradual decline in values in our national life. The anti-national, subversive, terrorists thus find very vociferous support from the intellectuals and secularists whose main abode is abroad, but condescending down to live in India for activism! Religious leaders indulge in crime in the name of protecting their faith. All this coexist with increasing poverty and deprivation and, of course, conversion and criminalisation of politics. And with the active participation in this massive plunder of the traditionally corrupt and criminal civil servants, including air hostesses, and sophisticated spies enjoying the privileges of Article 311 of the Constitution !!!
In a predominantly and traditionally feudal, and a graded social set up, all this forms part of the national lifestyle. For ages, Indians have relished foreign rule and foreign rulers. Indians are any time prepared to-and in fact, do-enjoy being ruled by foreigners. In addition, it is accepted that the ruling class, or even the local muscle power that rules the respective localities (a most commonly seen feature in West Bengal, Bihar, UP, etc.)must be given due respect by not only the residents but also reckoned as a force by the administration. This has been the characteristic of the Indian Communist movent too. The first leaders of communism in India were almost all educated in England or Germany or the US, and many even became Comintern members. Many later became ICS, still enjoying the status of “communists”. Barristers, sons of very rich landholders, and other propertied classes, who never had to bother about economic needs of their families, invariably creatures of English-medium schools and exclusive colleges, became “communists” and were readily and eagerly accepted as natural leaders. This is because of the innate romanticism of the common Indian masses for the sophisticated and English-speaking, high-brow brats of the rich landowners, and their charisma. Even today, the frontline leftist leaders, barring a very few, all basically represent vested interests of the rich and propertied classes, having been educated in sophisticated institutions, hobnobbing with-and hence assured of the costant support of-the top politician, moneyed owners of chains of print and electronic media, top bureaucrats (by dint of school-cum-college networking) and even the topmost page-3 socialites. They naturally travel in style and comfort as is their wont, keep respectable distance from the commoners, spend holidays abroad, enjoy the best of all the worlds with their kith and kin, their closest friends and associates, etc., all rolling in influence-wielding wealth and glittering media coverage by way of shareholding!
So, in this background, it is unethical and certainly inequitable to single out Ramesh Bagwe as a defaulter and an accused in the eyes of archetypal legal system. One can be sure that this Hon’ble person does not come from a rich and powerful family as even the communist leaders do with barristers, civil servants, military generals, media barons, etc. and had to come up through bitter fights in political life. As was the case of another leader in Bihar who was caught in the numerous scams that rocked the very base of Indian polity not very long ago. For him also the scams were nothing but by way of his natural reaction to age-old inferiority complex of having been born in a poor family and of the years of deprivation which he started avenging right from the day he took over the reigns of political power in the state. A most natural reaction.
I hope the writer and Bidup both accept these home truths about the fundamental and never changing characteristics of the Indian socio-economic framework. The great Indian truth.
I think the sentiments expressed by Bidup and A.Banerjee represent the absolutely correct analysis of a class of growing number of political satraps to which the minister also belongs. And so what has been penned in the article is rather one sided, devoid of realisation of the ground realities of the Indian psyche.
The terrible sense of inadequacy and inferiority complex, coupled with raging anger, vis-a-vis the affluent, the powerful, the influential, the globe-trotting leaders of both right and left alike, the Leftists’clout with the rich media personalities, the importance and mileage given to the children of the poerful in politics and, in particular, the Leftist leaders who live and rule from the cosy comforts of AC living quarters and offices without ever facing the ire or lathis of the police or torture in custody, all go to ignite an unending fire of revenge in this class called by the Leftists as “lumpen class” (until these people join the Left parties, of course).
The pathos underlying the delinquent politicians must necessarily be assessed from the angle of the marginalized, the deprived, the belittled, the ignored-for their inability to meet the requirements of high standards of sophistication, characteristic of the ruling elite, including the Communists participating in the democratic process-with the sole purpose of capturing political power, and not even remotely for improving the living of the marginalized and (as in Bengal) the “below”-BPL people.!
It is necessary that the English-educated, privileged class at least views these people from this angle before becoming judgemental and passing comments.
Binoy Sir,
I searched for your email id but could not find it, so I am using this to contact you. I am Ramadas M who worked under you in Salary ward in Chennai (1987) and then got transfered to Computer Center (Income tax dept Chennai). Then I resigned and joined GOI undertaking, left that and globe-trotted from 1996 to 2009 in various capacities, lived and worked in Saudi, Kuwait, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and now back to Chennai with a leading Banking software giant. Please contact me on ramadasdotmannattilatgmaildotcom (please read email id as appropriate). Sorry for using this but I did not find a way to contact you otherwise.