COMMITTENT TO SATYA - Satyendra Dubey

In November 2003, when Satyendra Dubey was murdered, he was lauded as a symbol of courage. Fellow IIT Alumni around the world lionized Satyendra as a martyr who lost his life for fighting against corruption.  All across India, public meetings were held to protest against the murder and to honor Satyendra. The All India Management Association posthumously gave him the Service Excellence Award. UK 's Index on Censorship magazine awarded him the "Index Whistleblower Award". He was given Transparency International's "Annual Integrity Award". Media coverage of the Satyendra story made it sound like the beginning of a revolution for honesty and integrity in public life.

The excitement and passion for honesty in public life faded and the desecration of Satyendra's martyrdom was accepted by June, 2004.This raises the question: were the earlier actions honoring Satyendra's acts inspired by a social commitment or a mere fleeting fancy?

Let us first briefly review the sequence of events.
In November 2002, Satyendra Dubey sent a letter to the PMO detailing systemic corruption in the National Highway Authority of India. He named four contractors and gave details of their misdeeds. In order to protect himself, he also made a special request that his name be kept secret when the PMO investigated the matter.
Satyendra's name was not protected and the file containing his complaint was circulated to various offices. This was like issuing a public contract for his life.
A year later, on 27, November 2003, Satyendra was murdered in Gaya, the town where he lived and worked for NHAI.
News reports about Satyendra's murder stirred the Nation and unleashed a storm of outrage.
Within days the Prime Minister's Office and NHAI issued statements defending themselves and trivializing Satyendra's death.
On December 14th, 2003 , the case was handed over to the CBI. 
By 26 th December, the CBI said that according to the evidence given by rickshaw puller Pradeep Kumar, Satyendra had been killed when resisting thieves who were trying to rob him. Most people refused to believe this and the CBI's explanation further intensified the public outrage. 
In mid-January, 2004 key witness, Pradeep Kumar, "disappeared".
Two other witnesses, who were interrogated by the CBI in this case, allegedly committed suicide within a day in the end of January.
There was no investigation of these murky happenings or the CBI's role in these suspicious deaths. After keeping quiet for about six months, the CBI again repeated the earlier story in June 2004.
There has been no public investigation of the alleged corruption within the NHAI and thus no attempt to set things right.

In light of this sequence of events the posthumous honors heaped on Satyendra seem like a mockery. How can we on the one hand honor Satyendra and on the other hand allow the CBI to get away with the claim that he is the random victim of a common thief who killed him to get hold of Rs.4500?

If the CBI story is true then all of us who saw Satyendra as a martyr to honesty, have to admit that he was an ordinary person and the awards, public adulation and hero worship were all a big mistake. It means then that the Satyendra saga is a collective fiction -a falsehood created to fulfill our desperate need of a hero for honesty. Most people do not accept the CBI's claims and view its handling of this case as a cover-up. Enough people know that the CBI's investigation is now itself a matter that needs to be investigated. Yet there is no public clamor demanding accountability from either the CBI-or the Prime
Minister's Office, where the buck really stops.

However, it is still not too late to act. If all the institutions, which honored Satyendra as a martyr, again raise their voice, the truth could still be brought to light. The institutions should do this not merely for the sake of honoring whistle blowers but for salvaging their own credibility. Otherwise the next time the All India Management Association or the IIT Alumni Association talk about the importance of good governance, they will seem shallow and lack credibility.

Even worse, our failure to take effective action will be a signal of both our apathy and our collective fear in dealing with the Government. The primary reason for the affluence of the
developed nations is a public culture of insistence on accountability and honesty in both public and private life. What is really at stake here is this process of evolving such a culture. Satyendra Dubey is important to this struggle, not as an individual, but as a symbol of courage and honesty. The question most people ask is: "But what can we do?" The simple answer is to find multiple ways of raising a clamour about the following demands:

One: The PMO must reveal the names of the officers who passed on Satyendra's letter without protecting his identity and take action against them. Similarly action must be taken against the officers in the Ministry of Roads and Transport who circulated the file with Satyendra's letter to all and sundry.

Two: There must be an open public investigation into the charges of corruption detailed in Satyendra's letter.

Three: The CBI must explain how and why one witness to Dubey's murder is missing and two other people died within 24 hours of being interrogated by the CBI.

Our collective failure to get action on these points will not just mean that other honest people will be ever more reluctant to blow the whistle on corruption. More significantly it will mean that our aspiration of making India a world-class economy is a shallow pipe dream. We must create conditions where honesty is honoured, not desecrated.

- Shailesh Gandhi

Key issues raised by Stayendra Dubey which have not been answered 

Satyendra's letter gave the names Centrodosity of Russia, China Coal of China, LG of S.Korea and Pioneer Constructions Ltd. as being guilty of taking the contracts by manipulation and bribing and subsequently giving it away to subcontractors and making huge profits without doing any value adding work. He also talks of upto Rs. 40 crores being given to a single contractor as mobilisation advance, which is evidently diverted, -partly to pay the bribes. Equipment advances are also being given.

There is no justification for giving advances to Contractors. If they do not have the financial capacity to do the jobs they should not be awarded the contracts. The buyer is the Government of India, and the corrupt practices highlighted by Satyendra are probably a routine in most of the Infrastructure projects. Customs and excise duty waivers mean that the budget of India indirectly subsidises the work and makes mechanization appear cheaper than it really it is. Needless to say that the equipment stays on and is used elsewhere. This in turn leads to making mechanization appear far cheaper than it really is. Why is it that no serious investigation has been done on the detailed allegations made by Satyendra? The true reason is that they point to a serious rot in the entire rush for big projects.

Raj Kamal Jha ending his letter to Satyendra Dubey in a moving 'Ode to a Mate' wrote, 'But the next time-and there will be a next time- there is a Satyendra Dubey, from IIT or wherever, who walks into a lonely place to blow the whistle, he will look right and left. He will look over his shoulder, it will be cold, the wind will blow hard, and he will then look up. And he will see you shining there.'

Yes Satyendra,-he will see you and take the right lesson- honesty will not be tolerated. If he is foolish enough to sacrifice his life, we will first make a National past time of honouring him, but ultimately desecrate the memory of his death.

The issue is not only about the Indra of Satya. The minimum ethical stand we need to take is that when as Institutions, Organisations, or Media, we do not compromise our public stand on honesty. Whenever these Institutions deviate, others must challenge them. It is far better to admit mistakes than to pretend we are infallible. To refuse to admit errors is becoming a characteristic of our entire leadership from the political, bureaucratic, business or intellectual class. If all the institutions which honoured Satyendra's memory raise their voice,-at least for the sake of their own credibility,- the truth will come out. This can have a positive effect on economy and good governance, leading to a more ethical, sustainable and equitable society. Honesty is a value, which is basic to the well being of a society. As individuals and as a society, we have to bring it to the center stage of our National agenda and debate. In the first five decades of the last century, Satyagraha was the prime mover of our nation. The primary reason for the affluence of the Developed Nations is also an insistence on Honesty privately and publicly. In India when Business or professional interests are at stake, people bond together to safeguard themselves and get more. The organized workers have also managed to defend their own turf. Who will defend Satya?

And without Satya can there be a better India ?