Babu at large

There are very few truly saintly people around. The general rule is power corrupts, unless an originally corrupt person manages to become powerful. Either way, the end result is the same. No matter how brilliant one is, and how difficult it is to pass the Administrative Service exam, if the Babu so generated uses his intelligence and expertise to manipulate people and situations for personal gains, the situation is of total loss for the society and the country. There was such a Babu, an AMC, who was in charge of the appointments of lecturers in medical colleges. He had a niece who was desirous of becoming a lecturer in Ob-Gyn in the most central institute (my institute), but was not adequately meritorious to reach the top spot. The top spot was occupied by me, thanks to a life time of studying. So he decided to post the toppers to the most peripheral places, so as to improve those places. As if a new lecturer could improve anything. He should have sent veterans there. But even then, she would not reach the center, since her rank was in-between the top and the bottom, so his next trick was to place the topper (No. 1) to the most peripheral place, No. 2 to less peripheral place, No. 3 at less central place, and No 4 (which was his niece) at the central place. Then he started another cycle of No. 5 to No. 8. The flaw in this policy was obvious. No. 1 and 2 should have been placed in the most peripheral places, if the peripheral places needed them for improvement. Sending No. 5 there instead of No. 2 was defeating that purpose. There was another major flaw in the policy. This policy was not applied to all subjects uniformly, but only after a cut-off, the cut-off happened to be between the morning and afternoon of the same fateful day. Orthopedics interviews were conducted in the morning, and Ob-Gyn in the afternoon, There was no need to apply old rule to half the specialties and the new rule to the other half, since the appointments were made in all the specialties after all the interviews were over. The real explanation was that it was not convenient to apply the rule to Orthopedics, there being influential candidates near the top of that merit list. The Babu got away with it, because non-influential people cannot fight the system and win. People without money do not go to court against the system, because the have to spend their own money (if they have any) on court cases, while the Babus use the resources of the system, which uses public money (paid as taxes by poor people). The same Babu was involved in a scam of selling land of a port. He got away honorably, probably by using standard means, like money or influence. His niece took advantage of the system like taking maternity leave, full vacation for undergoing appendectomy (which she never underwent) and then left. Those doctors like me who truly wanted to work had to struggle to get back into the central institute. But that we will keep for another post.