The Big Story: Delhi Bully
It is rare for a serving Indian Administrative Service officer to be arrested, especially in the manner that Rajendra Kumar, principal secretary to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was on Monday. Kumar was apprehended by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which reports to the Union government.
This isn’t a new experience for Kumar. Last year, he was detained by the CBI on the same charges of corruption – but the only evidence that the investigators could come up with were bottles of liquor found at Kumar’s residence. So biased was the investigation that a special CBI court recommended contempt proceeding against CBI officials in this case.
The CBI alleges that Kumar is the kingpin of a Rs 50-crore computer purchase scam under the administration of Congress chief minister, Sheila Dixit. Of course, given the long history of the CBI being used by the party that controls the Union government to target political opponents, this case is being looked at with suspicion. In 2013, the Supreme Court itself called the CBI a “caged parrot”.
The allegations of political vindictiveness gain weight considering how the Modi government has been using its powers over the Delhi government personnel to push its political agenda. Several Delhi government officials have been transferred without consulting the state government. Many bills passed by the Delhi legislative assembly have been rejected by the Union home ministry, leading to Kejriwal asking, “Is the Centre Delhi’s headmaster?”
Of course, none of this is new. Politicians in the Union government often use their financial and legal muscle to muzzle opponents in the states. The Congress has a long and proud tradition – starting from Jawaharlal Nehru himself – of blithely dismissing state governments who were political opponents of the Grand Old Party.
But Narendra Modi, hailing from a non-Congress tradition, promised to change this. He held out hope of cooperative federalism, as he called it, a system under which the Union government and states would work together. However, he doesn't seem to have followed through. Even as the Union government restricts revenue flow to the states, political opponents are being targeted using government machinery.
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Ramkumar is the eldest child of the family of five. His younger sisters, Madhubala and 22-year-old Kaleeshwari are both graduates, the first members of the poor Dalit family to get college degrees. Ramkumar should have been a graduate too – but he still has some financial arrears to clear before he gets his engineering degree from the Einstein College in nearby Alangulam.
Their father Paramasivan is a contract employee with telecom firm BSNL, who digs roads to lay cables. When BSNL has no work for him, Paramasivan, a sixth standard dropout, works as an agricultural labourer and a coolie. Paramasivan is the sole breadwinner of the family, earning Rs 13,000 a month from these jobs. Ramkumar’s mother Pushpam herds goats and makes some money cleaning ponds and lakes as a labourer under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.
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