My Way Or The Highway

In the early years of my career, I was fascinated by the way a very senior officer conducted meetings. At the very beginning, he announced what decisions he wished to be taken on the items placed on the agenda and then said with a smile, “The decisions will be taken by consensus and the meeting will continue till all of you agree with what I am proposing.” In due course, I realised this is how most bosses operate and this gentleman was only candid enough to say it.

Dr Hrushikesh Panda was Forest Secretary for a brief period when I was the Conservator of Forests of Bhubaneswar Circle. Soon after joining, he took a meeting of senior forest officers to spell out how he would like to run the department: “Forests like air and water are common property resources and communities have the first right over them. They don’t need commercial species like teak. Henceforth, no DFO will take up plantation of such species, only those local species will be planted which are traditionally used by the communities. I am going to issue an official order specifying the indigenous species which will be planted. I wish I could go one step further and ask the DFOs to uproot the teak seedlings planted in the past three years and replace those with indigenous species.”

Although I am a strong believer in community participation in forest management, I still had an eerie feeling on his idea. I responded, “Sir, two years back your predecessor, sermonized that at the time of independence Odisha and Maharashtra had almost the same area under teak plantations, but the latter went for largescale teak plantations in the past six decades and their revenue from the sale of teak has skyrocketed while in Odisha it has dipped. He wanted us to plant only teak, nothing else. Now you want us to uproot all those seedlings. Who knows after two years, your successor would want us to uproot these seedings and plant something else.” Dr Panda hardly remained for a few months in charge of the Forest department and with his transfer, his idea was shelved.

Dr Aurobindo Behera was a strong advocate of management of forests by communities and community-based organisations. But, one of his illustrious predecessors felt Community Forestry was a sham and was a mechanism to facilitate swindling. Under the enthusiastic leadership of Upendra Nath Behera, Odisha was the first State to prepare the State Climate Change Action Plan, while his successor questioned whether Climate Change was real. With such drastic swings at the policy level, top foresters shuttled between learning and unlearning person-specific management strategies; but the rule was simple ‘my way or the highway’. Luckily for us, most secretaries were receptive to technical advice and the extreme views were more of an aberration than the rule.

Anindita Das is a close friend of my wife from her school days. She runs a non-government organization (NGO) and is an activist on several contemporary issues. Once she argued with me that, social workers, particularly women, are greater victims of ‘my way or the highway’ attitude. She cited an example from her experience: “A young girl whom I had groomed once narrated her plight. I won’t name her, but you listen to her predicament and tell what options she had. As head of a small NGO, she had applied for a small project that was to be funded by the government. On getting selected she was excited and met the concerned officer to thank him. But, the gentleman told her, ‘You are yet to be selected, only your name has been recommended by the committee. It still needs my approval and the file is on my table. Let us go to Puri now for a night and I will clear the file tomorrow.’ It was ‘his way or the highway’ and she chose the highway.”

A young and dynamic civil servant joined a large private company for a hefty pay package. His main job was to facilitate getting government clearances for various projects of the company. But the owner-cum-Chairman of the company was not happy with his output. The young entrant to the new environment explained, “In Government, you have to follow certain rules and regulations and it takes time to get things done after complying with the laid down norms and conditions”. But the Chairman was quite assertive: “Gentleman, when you joined us, the understanding was quite unambiguous, ‘I pay, what you ask for and your job is whatever I assign’. Your strength I believed is your experience of working in the Government system. I have given you a free hand, you are supposed to get the work done using your skills and contacts. Now, don’t throw the rule books at me. In that case, why should I engage you at a such high position, I would rather have an experienced and qualified person from the market.” He had no option but to quit. Now he is running his own NGO.

Once I too almost hit the highway. As Conservator of Forests, Bhubaneswar Circle, I upheld the orders of a Divisional Forest Officer cancelling the license of a sawmill. The aggrieved party went on appeal before the Hon’ble High Court. Knowing very well that they had a weak case they manipulated to ensure that I didn’t receive any Court notice. Surprisingly, the Government Advocate, who was supposed to be pleading on my behalf instead of talking to me, told the Court that I was deliberately avoiding appearing, and painted it as arrogance on my part. Hon’ble Court directed the Government to replace me with another officer, while I remained blissfully unaware of all these developments. However, the State preferred an appeal in the Hon’ble Supreme Court and the Apex Court set aside the orders of the High Court and directed that I continue in my position.

Unfortunately, this is the situation in several instances and many are left high and dry on the highway!