Following is a mail from Sh.E.M. Samuel, Retd. SSPOs that has been expressed by Ms. Madhuri Dabral, Director O/o the DG Post New Delhi and Mr. T.B. Reddy, Retired PMG who was Director when Sh. E.M. Samuel, was posted at Indore. The letter is all praise for Sh. EMS and else this letter is showing the apathy of administration towards their subordinates particularly IP/ASP and is a call for the officers of the department to wake up from the slumber.
Dear Shri Samuel,
Some time back when I received a heavy yellow packet by speed post, I opened it with curiosity & expectation & found your book. Thank You. The first chapter held my attention so much that I put down the book only after I had completed it ! I am narrating a small unforgettable incident of my welcome in the Department. My first posting as a Divisional Head was in August 1992 in Pratapgarh Division, a nondescript place in Uttar Pradesh, which I found hard to locate on a map. I landed up in Allahabad Railway Station, with a hot & sultry August sun blazing in all its fury, to find that the sarkari vehicle so graciously sent to fetch me, which arrangement had been agreed to & confirmed after my repeated telephonic entreaties before embarking as it was my first trip to Allahabad – an unknown city, being mysteriously hijacked midway at the last moment on the directions of some higher Gods! Determined as I was, I managed to squeeze in along with my luggage into an auto to reach the Regional Office, as I had no acquaintances in that city & had nowhere else to go & thereafter started my trials & tribulations in this journey of another kind in the “chariot of time”. Incidentally I worked from September 2006 to May 2008 in Indore as a Director. While I never had an opportunity to work with you but the places, incidents & people are familiar. You want my views about the book, here it is.
At last we have a long overdue book & the first attempt of its kind from an Officer who rose from the ranks & has dared to question with audacity an unfair system. And from this prevailing unfair system, he was able to snatch back slipping dreams & what was his rightful due. The pain was so piercing that even after 15-16 years of his retirement in 1995; it still rankled and took expressions in the form of this book. The book can be termed as a catharsis, a release of all the pent up feelings & consequent cleansing. The story of an Officer who dared to question the system & its inadequacies in his own style & suffered in the process. Sir Edmund Burke had once observed, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Well at least one good man chose to pick up cudgels & give expression to his thoughts, rather than sit around and do nothing. The book will serve as a guiding force to all those officers similarly placed, quietly suffering in loneliness, bearing the unbearable pain of an insensitive system. It is heartening that amongst those suffering millions at least one man had the courage to pick up his pen & write about his pain & sorrows. I feel that this book should be read by all Officers & staff in the department as an eye opener. For those in higher management who treat the lower staff like machines with no feelings, a system which wants everyone to fit in & confirm & that any kind of aberration needs to be tamed with force. The close door mentality & conveyer belt syndrome after all can mass produce only faceless, heartless officials with little feelings, carrying out orders mechanically, without application of mind.
This journey starts from a small picturesque village in Kerala, “that was specially created by God & dropped from heaven” and ends in Bhopal. The scenic descriptions, though brief are a sheer joy & some of the expressions in the book are exercises in pure innocence. The description as a child going or returning from school, “we all carry plantain leaf over our head to protect ourselves from the rain. It was a rare luxury to have an umbrella made of palm leaf” is bereft of any pretence. The description of walking to church traversing, “muddy roads and muggy paths through the paddy fields where the lifted leg had to wait a little to find a place for a footing”. The book is full of such poetic, lyrical expressions which capture the innocence of the times.
The harsh facts of life which many fresh entrants to the Department feel have been truly reflected. The sense of decline, visible lack of pride in the service & department, gradual erosion of fierce loyalty of old times, the intolerance & fear of any expression of dissent as a challenge to authority, without going into the spirit & idealism behind a questioning mind, of stiff closed minds & stifling hierarchies which block fresh ideas & an unfeeling higher management that only uses the lower levels for its purpose but lacks the human touch to provide succor & human bonding & feeling of family has percolated in all fields & is reflected in the manner the staff is treated. Frustrations are passed off giving way to & generating more frustrations amongst subordinates. Lack of role models & examples to be emulated has accentuated these feelings of alienation. In fact seeing upright officers being persecuted actually scares everyone & emulating them is hara-kiri. After all who has ever heard of pygmies preferring giants for company will they not stand exposed? Choosing from there own lackluster ilk is safer. Thus mediocrity thrives. In the training centre at Saharanpur young Samuel was advised by the instructor after seeing his mark sheets in matriculation and inter science, “Leave don’t choose a job that will ruin your life. Leave the department & start a cycle shop for gluing the puncture of tyres” which only reflects the esteem & pride the instructor had about his own job that stunted growth & free thinking. A happy & satisfied employee will give more output & work atmosphere will be positive but a staff which is bitter & feels persecuted & in despair, that there is no one to turn to for succor, does not auger well for any department. Therefore this book sounds a warning signal that the rot needs to be stemmed. Samuel questions, “was I not getting training to become subservient to the selfish wishes of others surrendering my own honesty and freedom to tell the truth, the protection of which cost a hard time consuming battle in the active period of my life?”
The book gives first hand experience of a young recruit joining the department directly in the cadre of Postal Assistant, the working conditions were painful, the workload was excessive, the supervisors indifferent to the needs of subordinates who didn’t bother to post an extra hand, thus the efficient are punished by being over burdened with more work and the shirkers thrive. The same work culture prevails everywhere but to give words to these feelings and bring it out on paper & give it the wings of expression needs an all consuming fire that can goad towards such ultimate achievement and Samuel deserves kudos for it. It brings tears to my eyes to read about the duty conscious Sub Postmaster at Raisen S.O living in post attached quarters on the first floor whose daughter expired while he was doing his duty downstairs but was not relieved even on office arrangement by the administration to attend to the dead body of his daughter. But fact of life is we all contribute & make up this system & perpetrate such injustices either by directly being the cause or by being the reason by encouraging it through maintaining our silence.
The Divisional Offices & Circle Offices being the power centers full of domineering, officious looking clerks taught him the hard lessens of life. While in service, his applying for GPF loan on bogus grounds, consequent vulnerability at the hands of a clerk of Divisional office who wanted to show his importance & thus deliberately delayed sanction. It is typical of Samuel to write, “Had he refused to sanction the GPF loan claimed on bogus ground I would have praised him today”. “The service in the department had a sucking effect of all talents & only after getting higher education & a better job, I could think of marriage”. But fate had other plans for him.
Early in life he realized that “My physical appearance had always caused shivers of misunderstandings in the mind of some teachers & some of my superiors in service. This has caused untold miseries, misfortunes & sometimes irreparable loss at the hands of the people who judge the people by appearance & not by performance.” The injustice of the chemistry lab peon who removed the crystals to settle scores. The book is blunt & expresses the feelings of hurt & injured pride at the hands of a callous & cruel system. But then at this altar of a vindictive, heartless system many a dream has been shattered & many tragedies enacted.
Samuel highlights the obvious, which is known to all, but never brought to the lips, lest the sensibilities of the perpetrators are disturbed. Thus a town inspector was a post misused by the officers in the circle office and the divisional office for miscellaneous works. An inspector of post offices is a beast of burden, an attendant to his superiors, a peon in his own office, clerk & typist as it is a single man office who bears the brunt of all failings in the department as he is at the lowest rung in the administrative hierarchy. “The results – the postal employee becomes prematurely old, silently and slowly dies in service while alive …..” He questions the staffing patterns & outdated system of continuing with semiliterate Mail Overseers who are unable to take strides with changing needs. The postman comes second only to be the most exploited cadre in the department “despite being the service and face of the department”. Samuel declares with finality, “No organization will last long with the service of its frustrated employees. It is therefore necessary to strengthen the backbone of the department with a fair deal.”
This book has been written by a man who has loved the Department with all his heart & soul despite the persecution. He has described with vivid details of incidents of coteries of employees giving information to officers and swaying decisions, successful union strike in only Gwalior division because the “divisional head did not move from his chamber on the day of strike listening to the weasel words of praise coming from the sugar coated tongues of petty unionists”, the usual receipt of sanction for opening of BO in the last week of March & mad rush to meet targets, the various fraud cases, practice of traditional floral reception of officers at railway stations, “subordinate officers acting as court fools by praising officers”. Samuel minces no words when he mentions about his being unfairly charge sheeted & being censured thereafter & the appellate authority accepting his appeal & issuing a severe warning, a penalty that existed nowhere in the Conduct Rules, of more than 400 EDAS working without any appointment orders, of an advocate approaching him with recommendation of then President of India for appointment of an EDDA & Samuels refusal & his consequent threat to take up the matter with higher authorities, resulting in a vigilance inquiry, his mulling resignation “if the department was not able to protect its officer who wanted to work” & conclusion that “the consequences of doing good work are unbearable and are sometimes at the peril of even service,” of highly rated divisional heads having outstanding ACRs visiting town sub offices & being entertained with “tea, cigarettes & chitchat” & conveniently forgetting to physically verify the cash balance, the numerous instances in which the system connives to break the person who takes a stand, favoritism in granting ad-hoc promotions, RMS being considered the dustbin of the Department, inaccessible high ranking officers & their prejudice towards IPOS/ASPOs cadre, tendency of staff submitting fake medical certificates for availing leave and the mad scramble for medals after an event is over like spoils of war. His strong castigation of the uncertainty in the schedule of examination which “was an indication of inefficiency & inconsistency at top level of administration, but who could go against the steel frame?” all this sounds so familiar.
He has questioned at several places the judgment of “little men in great authority”. “The avalanche of invectives by the CPMG his glower and abuse ….is a classic example of how junior officers suffer at the hands of some higher authorities who assess the former through sycophants around them” the situation in which “many stick in the mud with mud in head was catapulted to hold lucrative posts in the circle and awards were conferred upon such people which earned ridicule from the staff in general”. The rivalry amongst DPS & PMG, “Both were perfectionists and were unconsciously vying each other to have distinction in their performance.” During his relentless fight for justice he observes, “Arrogant with power, no authority considered it necessary to give reply to my representation”
It has been mentioned in the foreword that the ACR of every Officer is written at two levels, one by his superiors and the other by the staff unions. The foreword to his book has been written by the General Secretary of one of the unions & needless to say he has earned an outstanding ACR in the second assessment which may not have formed a part of the official records but which certainly ruled in the hearts of real human beings.
The style is reflective with shades of pain but without any malice & at times written in a light hearted humorous style with rustic simplicity which does not lose the irony but accentuates it. Forgiveness is a virtue and human endurance can only become stronger. It is a life of struggle that is a life well lived, after all what is a life, in which one has confirmed, played safe, took no initiatives, risked no decision for fear of repercussions and lived a lackluster life of conformity and the situation of the obvious. A life traversed on unchartered experiences, full of adventurous trials and tribulations, for things do not come easy to those who take on the system and dare to think differently, who have the courage to usher in change that kindles hope and faith. Small everyday injustices, add up to create a ripple, a wave and then a revolution which sweeps off all these injustices perpetrated by small minds.
For postal staff and officers the book rings a familiar bell and for others not aware of postal working, an opportunity to know about its internal functioning & complexities of hierarchy. While the situations in all likelihood will strike similarities, however there is no description of the characters involved and incidents narrated are delivered with out right frankness, so it can be enjoyable for those who have actually worked with these protagonists & know their style of functioning. For instance the incident where Samuel is asked to bring half a dozen pictures from Indore to Bhopal for furnishing the conference hall is outright hilarious. It irritates him no end when the DPS calls up and instructs to be very, very, very careful while handling the framed pictures as it is a great responsibility given to him. Samuel shrugs off with annoyance at the stress on “very, very, very” and “great” as he felt neither as he had carried out far bigger responsibilities. And ends with the realization that “higher officers are pleased with such small performance in which they are involved. Booking a berth in the train or getting a plane ticket for their journey on tour count much in estimation and assessment for promotion”.
The contents of the book have been discussed at great length but as regards the form, I feel the book could have ended at chapter 37 and the 34 anecdotes cited in chapter 38 could have been interspersed at relevant places in the book, instead of being strung together in a disjointed manner & taking shape as a separate chapter. The rest of the chapters from 38 onwards are unnecessary. This would have made the narrative crisp and readers hankering for more rather than going till the end of the world, leaving nothing unsaid as seen in the writings of Victorian period. When a writer completes a book of this magnitude, the enormity of task at hand, of compressing his whole life experience in just 200-300 pages, then towards the end of such labour he wants to hold on for a while and not let go and hence perhaps the lingering unending musings in the last parts of the book.
Those were no doubt tough times when “values were sky high” and honesty still a virtue. I do not want to hazard a guess as to what the reaction of the writer would be had he worked in the present times and seen all the shades of Satan’s dark machinations at work & being glorified and classified as being practical, mature and with the times, and hailed as a symbol of having arrived and eliciting no shock or condemnation. Times have indeed changed and so have values. What appeared as a grave act of dishonesty then is just a trifle today. Going through the book in fact takes us back to the still innocent days. While the deterioration had set in, which is easily discernible yet the old world charm still remained. The pettiness of amounts in fraud cases during those times & the stigma attached to it. The incident of an SPM being caught red-handed at a bus stand in Bhind while transporting a B.O Box stolen from some P.O in which he was acquitted by the court as the department failed to prove the ownership of the box only reflects the high level of integrity of the inspecting officers because today the magnitude of frauds is such that even while running in crores no one bats an eyelid as it has become a way of life. But chronicling those times which form a valuable piece of our working history which will give a glimpse to future generations of the genesis and culmination of present day state of affairs and Samuel has done yeoman service. Many of us make strong resolves that we will pen our thoughts but it is only a few who venture that far. Samuel has taken the dare with an audacity that needs to be admired and he deserves all the accolades for having written with such intense feelings yet there is no trace of any malice and it sounds more like recounting a tale with childlike innocence & in the process, touching raw nerves, but never offending. The book has set a high standard and anyone venturing to chronicle their life and times in the department will have to try their best to live up to this benchmark in order to sustain attention.
With this I bid adieu & wish you the best in coming times.
Regards.
Madhuri Dabral
