By Patricia Mukhim
The much hyped case of the selection of a Mission Director, State Resource Centre for Women (SRCW) in Meghalaya has taken a curious turn. The single bench of the Meghalaya High Court had ruled on May 31 that there was ‘bias’ in appointment of Loma N Jyrwa a retired Deputy Director of the Social Welfare Department to the post, since all the norms stated in the employment criteria have been manipulated to suit her appointment. The Government has now appealed before the division bench of the Meghalaya High Court to reiterate that the process of recruitment was fair. How that can be established in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary will be something to wait and watch.
The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development had written to the State Government in April 2010, followed by a DO letter in May 2010 requesting that the State Resources Centre for Women (SRCW) be constituted in order to operationalise the objectives of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEM). The Central Government had prescribed that the SRCW should comprise of a Project Advisor, a State Co-ordinator and other support staff. The Central Government had also laid down the qualifications, skills, experience etc. for selection of candidates to be appointed to the said posts. The present case concerns the post of Project Advisor where the qualifications are Masters Degree in Social Work/Economics/ Women’s Studies/ Law/Governance and any other related field with PhD in the relevant field being cited as a desirable additional qualification. The upper age limit of the candidate was fixed at 50 years.
The State Government wrote to the Central Ministry that while setting up the SRCW the post of Project Advisor would be changed to Mission Director. However, that was not the only change. The Director Social Welfare also wrote (or was told to write) to the Government of India asking that the age limit of 50 years be relaxed “so that other qualified women could also apply.” It is clear here that this was done with a malafide intention to accommodate Loma Jyrwa who was 58 years at the time. But what is interesting is that the Union Ministry for Women and Child Welfare Union while agreeing to remove the upper age limit also left it open ended. This implies that even women nearing 90 years could apply if they wished to. While the Director, Social Welfare had corresponded with the Union Ministry concerned, the file notings reveal that the orders came from the top echelons of the administration. And the reason why the Union Ministry for Women and Child Welfare is so pliable is because at present the Secretary there is an Assam-Meghalaya cadre officer. So the ‘biradari’ actually worked like clockwork.
Now would Ms Jyrwa have applied for a post for which her age is already a barrier if she was not assured by her former bosses that she would be accommodated into the post, at any and all costs? What is of interest here is that Angela Rangad the petitioner in this case, is next in line after Loma N Jyrwa in the merit list. In fact, given Ms Rangad’s activism and engagement on women’s issues for several years and her background in Sociology from the UK, she would have been the best choice for the job of Mission Director/Project Advisor. But Angela’s activism is legendary. She has stepped on too many corns. It’s natural for Government officials to have an aversion to anti-establishment activists. That’s how the bureaucracy works. As far as Government is concerned Ms Rangad could open up a can of worms that they might find difficult to push back into the can.
But Ms Rangad is made of sterner stuff. The bureaucrats who bent the rules of appointment did not know who they were contending with. They thought, they would have their way yet again. But that’s not how justice works. Justice demands that the most qualified person gets the job. And professionalism in this case requires that someone with enough experience on women’s and children’s issues on the ground be allowed to take on the challenge in order to achieve the objectives of the SRCW and the NMEW. In a State where women face daily atrocities, malnourishment, high infant and maternal mortality , the SRCW would have been the correct platform to address the issues. And common sense should tell us that someone who has pushed files for nearly three decades is hardly qualified to head such a project!
My only point of contention here is that the pleadings by Ms Rangad seem to suggest that the Director Social Welfare, Hima Shangpliang is the only wrongdoer in this case. Knowing the entrenched hierarchy in the babudom could Hima Sangpliang a State Civil Service Officer who is relatively junior in the pecking order (not in the delivery of goods and services), have been able to reverse some of the rules governing the criteria for selection of a Mission Director to head the SRCW, considering that the rules were framed by Government of India? And by Jove what a change that was!
Interestingly, Angela Rangad, a law graduate herself was represented by a sharp legal eagle HS Thangkhiew. The Government on the other hand could not find a better person than the Additional Advocate General SP Mahanta who is himself battling a land grab case. That the Government cannot find a better counsel is proof enough that it seems resigned to losing all cases that are taken up by individuals against it. To the onlooker it seems that Government is resigned to the fact of being a wrongdoer with no legal legs to stand on. Besides, Ms Rangad has decided to take on a soft target. Her counsel accuses Shangpliang, Director of Social Welfare, for acting in a ‘malafide and biased manner’ in the appointment of Mission Director SRCW as is reflected in the High Court ruling.
The point of a free press is never to take the words of the Government or its detractors at face value but to look at both sides of the argument. Hence this article! At the time when the employment criteria was sought to be manipulated, senior IAS officer NS Samant was Principal Secretary, Social Welfare. It would be interesting to get hold of the directives given by Samant to Shangpliang about reversing the entire employment criteria. In this case nepotism has been taken to dizzying heights. So much so the upper age limit for the post was removed and it made open ended so that Ms Jyrwa could seamlessly slip into it. In other words it also meant that she could continue there forever if Angela Rangad had not played meddlesome Matty. Is there any employment on this earth (except for that of a housewife) which does not have an upper age limit? Well this one certainly has. Perhaps Mr Samant, who is now cosily ensconced in the Central Government never bargained for a spirited encounter with a woman bred in the crucible of a matrilineal system; women who are conditioned since they were born, to carry the weight of the family and the world on their ‘not so frail’ shoulders.
Going by the case records, this was a fit instance for getting Mr Samant on the stands to explain how he could have got the Secretary, Govt of India, Ministry of Women and Child Welfare to change the employment criteria (a) by changing the nomenclature ‘Project Advisor’ to ‘Mission Director’ and (b) by eliminating the upper age limit completely. I don’t believe that a legal counsel speaking for the Government would suffice for such a grave malfeasance.
As stated earlier the SRCW was meant to operationalise the objectives set out by the NMEW under the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development. It is a precocious assumption on the part of the Government of Meghalaya that anyone who has served the Social Welfare Department for donkey’s years is best placed to execute this task. Governments do not evaluate the performance of their employees. And in the absence of social audit and report card systems, non-performers including those at very senior levels just drag on. This is precisely why we have governance deficit at the cutting edge of the system which is the community and the last person in the village.
Ms Rangad had gone to great pains to get RTI answers as to the manner in which Ms Jyrwa scored over her in the interview. The Director Social Welfare was one of the members of the Selection Committee. The Committee was chaired by Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Department, NS Samant. Other members included the Deputy Secretary, Personnel Department, the Director, Social Welfare Department and the OSD Finance. It is obvious that with a Principal Secretary level officer chairing the selection committee the officials in the lower rung would not be in a position to dissent. They had to become rubber stamps. In all fairness, Hima Shangpliang should not be the only one held culpable. All the four officials of the Selection Committee should have been hauled over the coals. So why the selective targeting Ms Rangad?