From becoming a Bureaucrat to actually doing the job, the life of a bureaucrat in India is full of challenges and hurdles. With power comes the great responsibilities, but what if the politicians ask you to use the power against the law.
Senior IPS officer Roopa D Moudgil in her recent TEDx talk unfolded the ill happenings in Bureaucracy through her own experiences.
“If I’m alive and kicking and able to deliver a TED talk before you all, you can imagine the robust protection and the law available to the bureaucrats,” Roopa D Moudgil said.
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Roopa D Moudgil came to the light when she alleged that AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala had received special facilities in Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara jail where she was the Deputy Inspector General (Prisons).
She was the first Kannadiga woman to become an IPS officer in Karnataka, Moudgil is currently serving as the Inspector General of Police, which obviously puts her in the line of fire.
No stranger to defamation and privilege motion notices, Moudgil spoke of how she powered her way through political pressure. It’s a course of action available to all bureaucrats, she said. “I find many of the fears of bureaucrats to be unfounded and baseless.”
What is it like being a woman in a male-dominated police force? “The peril is that the woman officer could be ignored, taken for granted, taken lightly, her instructions can be thrown to air (sic) at times,” Moudgil said.
Quoting Karl Marx, who “once said bureaucracy is an iron cage”, Moudgil ended her talk with both regret and optimism: “I find that our bureaucrats have chained themselves. They are the ones holding the chains. The day they break away from these self-imposed chains, the day they start exercising their real powers, we will see a new India.”