Is Cheif Secy PDP’s Backroom Recruiter?

Muzaffar Baig says Iqbal Khanday in 1999 pitched Haseeb Drabu as Mufti’s teammate 

SRINAGAR: As retired bureaucrats and freelance technocrats make beeline to the local political parties, Kashmir’s powerful bureaucracy is suffering from the worst ever credibility crisis. The crisis seems even more deepened by the fresh disclosures indicating that the incumbent Chief Secretary Iqbal Khanday might have played as a  ‘backroom recruiter’ for the Peoples Democratic Party, now a resurgent political force in J&K. Top PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig has claimed that Iqbal Khanday had pitched Haseeb A Drabu, former journalist and advisor to J&K government, as the best suited teammate for Mufti Sayeed as he was about to launch his Peoples Democratic Party. 

“Actually Drabu Sahab’s name was suggested to me in 1999 by Iqbal Khandey (present Chief Secretary). We had not even formed PDP at that time. He (Khandey) called me saying there is a bright journalist in Bombay and his name is Haseeb Drabu. He told me if you ever form a government his services should be utilized,” Baig said in his latest media interview.  “And one day when I was in Delhi I received a call from Drabu that he wanted to see me. But I was going out and we couldn’t meet. That time it was so theoretical and farfetched idea for me to ask him (Drabu) to join because PDP was yet to be formed,” Baig has revealed in the interview.

For past fortnight, various sections of Kashmiri society have been wondering if the civil service was a means to worming one’s way into top echelons of power, supplanting the conventional political practice whereby a cadre rises through ranks.

 “A political worker toils for whole of his life and dies as a mere worker of the party . But an officer who hates even sweating crowds, joins a party and becomes a sahib. I think politics here is being taken over by the officers and we are mere foot soldiers who provide headcount during rallies of this powerful elite,” says Ghulam Muhammad, a longtime political activist.

“We know officers who would refuse to use official vehicles. Public service was their life’s motto. They would not spend mornings and evenings at the mansions of politicians. And after retirement they would at best join the local mosque’s administration. All that has changed. Now the officers spend their energies to help the political party they wish to join after retirement,” says Abdul Qayoom Shah, a social worker from old Srinagar’s Fateh Kadal area. 

The chief secretary’s name has been mentioned by no less than a former Finance Minister and a top PDP leader Muzaffar Hussain Baig. It’s has been almost two weeks since Baig “spilled the beans” but the top official of the state did not rebut. 

“It’s not an ordinary disclosure. It’s a top PDP man saying that a senior state official was busy finding able recruits for a party which was yet to be born. It should not surprise us if Mr. Khanday joins PDP after his retirement but it represents a deeper malaise that has inflicted our system of governance ,” says an observer. 

In the runner up to the state’s assembly elections, several senior administrators, most of them tainted, and police officers have joined political parties in recent weeks. 

A nonpartisan administration was something that even Jagmohan projected as a way of resorting order. Although Jagmohan in Kashmir has earned a dubious image of being an RSS-minded governor, his idea of de-linking the bureaucracy from politics in early 1990s had gone very well with people here. “You can blame him for many things but not for politicizing the bureaucracy,” says Muneer Ahmad, a businessman from Anantnag. 

Given the post-retirement shift of a host of bureaucrats, many have started viewing administration as the ‘front office’ of political parties. The officers, according to a reigning viewpoint, who don’t enjoy desired favors during a particular regime start sulking and  working for a political opposition. “This has corrupted the whole system and a sizeable chunk of officers is nursing political ambitions, leaving the administrative assignments unaccomplished.” 

Using administrative machinery to win elections has been a signature tactic of Kashmir’s politicians with National Conference having earned enough notoriety for the art. Now, a new trend of secret political loyalty among bureaucrats is growing which has entailed the organic relationship between officers and the politicians. This ‘power nexus’ is giving rise to a bourgeoisie officialdom that serves its political masters rather than the people. 

Observers here believe that the bureaucrats including Police officials should be bound by certain constitutional and legal restrictions that would not allow them to use their official position to achieve political goals of a particular group or individual. 

“The claim made by Muzaffar Hussain Baig has not been rebutted  by Iqbal Khanday. It raises many questions. How can you expect judicious delivery of services when the state’s chief secretary happens to be the backroom recruiter of a political party”, asks a veteran administrator who did not wish to be quoted by name.  

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