Five reasons why C’garh should not punish IAS officer Tayal for his FB post

The Chhattisgarh government on Saturday transferred Shiv Anant Tayal, a 2012 batch IAS officer, for writing a social media post on the founder-member of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (the BJP is the successor party of the Sangh), Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.

I don’t find the Facebook post critical at all, but for those who want to judge themselves, here’s what Tayal wrote: “[I] can’t find a single work of his [Pt Upadhyaya] authorship or scholarship to gauge his ideological stance and that there is not a single election where he won by a popular vote”.

Read: Chhattisgarh govt transfers IAS officer over FB post on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya

Tayal should not have been punished for this innocuous post for five reasons:

First, the post is not critical or offensive by any stretch of imagination. It is at best an inquiry about a leader, whose birth centenary is being celebrated with fanfare by the Union government.

Second, Tayal, along with being a central government servant, is also a citizen of the country. He, like any one of us, has every right to question leaders or debate their contribution to national life. No leader is above reproach and every generation has the right to re-evaluate their legacy.

Third, Tayal did not break any rules. The All India (conduct) Rules, 1968, says no member of the Service shall in any radio broadcast or communication over any public media or in public media or in any document published anonymously, pseudonymously or in his own name or in the name of any other person or in any communication to the press or any public utterance make any statement of fact or opinion which, one, have an adverse criticism of any current or recent policy or action of the central government or a state government.

Asking/crowd sourcing information about Upadhyaya shouldn’t have been seen as criticism of the government’s stand on Upadhyaya

Read: The All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968

Fourth, Tayal was also not flouting any central rule on posting on social media. A 2014 notification from the ministry of communications and IT are free to post response in their personal capacity but they must identify themselves, should not divulge confidential information and for transmission public records, they must use an email identity connected to a server located in India.

Fifth, by punishing Tayal, the government has sent out a very wrong message that its officers will be judged not on their merit/abilities but their willingness to toe the line of their political masters. In a country where the bureaucracy and police are highly already highly politicised, the people did not need another reminder of the sorry state of affairs.

@kumkumdasgupta