Cabinet secretaries, who head the country’s civil service, have normally been silent persons. The very fact that they rise to the top of the greasy pole, after tough stints, make them careful with words. They head anywhere between 50 to 60 committees at a given time, and deal with thousands of files a month, making them grim. T.S.R. Subramanian, who died this week, was a rare exception. He was a dynamo of an official, who would hold forth on various issues. He headed the bureaucracy during the weak coalitions of H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and A.B. Vajpayee, which also helped him to be more forthcoming than if he had worked under a strong prime minister like Narendra Modi.
Subramanian had developed a reputation for speaking out for the bureaucracy in newspapers and television programmes, especially after his retirement. But when he was in service, there were complaints from some officials that they were pushed out of key positions to oblige prime ministers and powerful ministers. Post retirement, Subramanian was such a visible face on television (he lived close to Noida’s Film City, where most English news channels have their headquarters) that many anchors called him cabinet secretary, omitting the prefix “former”. He preferred to be a speaker and a thinker, than accept lucrative post-retirement assignments. He was one of the strong voices on reforming the bureaucracy during the anti-corruption movement launched by Anna Hazare, but he refused to join the movement. He had organised bureaucrats to petition the Supreme Court that bureaucrats in key positions be given fixed tenures.
Illustration: Bhaskaran
His greatest, but so far unseen, contribution has been the preparation of a far-reaching modern education policy, commissioned by an enthusiastic Smriti Irani, after she became human resource development minister in 2014. Subramanian listened to all stakeholders, but did not pay heed to the priorities of the RSS, which was keen on developing the “right” education policy. His recommendations rattled the HRD ministry. IAS officers and heads of entrenched regulatory institutions like the UGC cried foul. Subramanian’s recommendation for upping the spend on education to six per cent of the GDP alarmed the finance ministry. Finally, Irani herself lost enthusiasm. Her successor, Prakash Javadekar, too, has failed to tackle the vested interests, and the report remains under wraps. An internal committee has been set up to examine the pathbreaking recommendations. One of the objections against the report is that some of its recommendations would trample on the rights of the states.
Subramanian, in his last job, proved that he would rather be the voice of the people, than be any master’s voice.
sachi@theweek.in