The now infamous incident of Agartala, the capital of Tripura witnessed a humiliating action by an IAS officer who in the name of Covid protocol, took law into his own hands, not sparing his own police officials, pushing, using foul language in front of the ladies and accosting the newly married bride and groom and not even sparing the elderly and priest.

The video which I saw initially looked like a clipping from a Bollywood 3rd rate movie, a ‘mawaly’ Munnabhai types official is seen drunk in his powers, who is in a shopping spree of arresting citizen and suspending officials. It felt like some scene from British India. A bad copy of the Anil Kapoor starer film ‘Nayak’.

For those who are not able to relate and for the benefit of our reader just google ‘Tripura West DM’ and you will find the media reports and the viral video. I am appalled to even take the name of the official let alone give any space to narrate the incident.

What bothers me is the act of an IAS officer, whose intent could be anything and in the guise of the ‘Disaster Management Act’ just cannot humiliate the public to satisfy his alter ego, misuse his executive power and create fear in the general public. Is it some agenda he was trying to fulfill, make an example to sensitize the public about Pandemic, or was he maintaining any law and order situation?

What disaster he had averted by arresting women and the elderly late at night when no women police were available and dragging them to the police station in bulk? Will he be responsible for crowding the police station when an emergency protocol is in place? Is he paid by the taxpayers to conduct an awareness and sensitization program at the expense of public humiliation? Is it so that he the God (IAS) can become angry and the rest of the subjects are born to take his nonsense. If an officer is nonsensical then he should equally be sent for medical examination.

The whole episode has exposed the disparity in the Government system, where an executive is being fed the tonic of British Raj and Legislature are the silent culprits who get their acts and agenda fulfilled through them. In Tripura or anywhere else, it shows that the present political class has lost its leadership capabilities where an executive becomes so powerful that he losses his mind and becomes a nuisance.

To end in filmy style as Nana Patekar in a film says there is a ‘nuisance value’, similarly Tripura West DM actions had some nuisance value. It has made the politicians, people, police, not to mention the polite citizen so minuscule that Earth would look bigger from the Moon.

Mr. IAS, please behave and respect your responsibilities. I hope the IAS fraternity as a whole will introspect, what is going wrong and come out of their protective closet. It is a 100+ Crore people’s country and you are too small to rule all…

Let us just hope that we don’t need another Gandhi to fight our own British. Today I don’t know whether a Gandhi would be born, but many Subhas may wake up to fight the Indian British demon…