ARE WIVES HEADLESS CHICKEN?

 

By Dr.V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS Retd.

 

 

 

I do not know Mr.Ronen Sen.I joined the I.A.S. in 1962 four or five years before he joined the I.F.S.(Indian Foreign Service).Though also selected for the I.F.S., and much as I wanted to see the world, I could not take it up.As a wholly conventional Tambrahm, I decided  I was totally unfit for the IFS.You needed to be able to smoke, drink, eat chicken and do good ball-room dancing to be a successful diplomat, as they said, but none of these eminent qualifications did I possess. As a person, I was a good diplomat and that was all. Actually,Mr.K.Raghunath who was my classmate in the MCC (Madras Christian College) for 5 years got the first rank in the IAS list for 1962  but a lesser position in suitability for the IFS! Probably, he told the UPSC members interviewing him that he did not smoke or drink or dance. He made a great mark in the IFS.I do not know whether he started smoking, drinking and dancing after he entered the IFS, but even without these, for his sheer brilliance and modesty, there was no option for him but to become Foreign Secretary.

 

Ronen I am sure is a gentleman.And a very successful diplomat. He was Ambassador to many countries such as Mexico,USSR and Germany, and also our H.C. to the UK. He has been adorning the position of Ambassador to the USA over the last three years. He has unquestionably worked very hard over the Indo-US Nuclear deal.

 

What inspired this article was what he said about his poor wife before the Lok Sabha Privileges Committee on 29, Oct 2007. He said that he usually called his wife "a headless chicken". What an abominable confession in public of an abominable conduct before the wife! This address to his wife was not when they were alone. It was reserved for her when the guests came home for a diplomat's lunch/dinner!

Draupadhi vastraharanam- like, in public! Worse, our Ambassador said that she got this special reproach when she was "wandering aimlessly" before the guests! No wonder the M.P.s were reported to have had a hearty chuckle at the explanation.

 

The Ambassador clarified to the MPs that his "headless chicken" was really meant for his "media friends". Would he have any friends now left in the media? If you read the reportage by Mr.Aziz Haniffa, Managing Editor of Rediff India Abroad, who had a telephone interview with the Ambassador on 19 Oct, it seems to be clear from the whole context that Ronen was upset with the BJP and the Communists.Where does the media come in? He never mentioned the media in the very long interview that has been reported.

 

I have heard of a case of a very senior government officer who told his boss to give him a posting in Ernakulam because his wife liked the place! I understand he got a remote place in the north! You don't bring in your wife in governmental matters. Every bureaucrat is told in the Mussorie Academy that he/she should work in total anonymity. In that event, the spouse is worse off, totally out, an unmentionable and invisible ghost!

 

It is sad that Ronen seems to have compounded many lies to hide one truth. He said that it was an off-the-record interview, which Mr.Aziz Haniffa has denied. He said that the "headless chicken" remark was reserved for his "media friends". He confessed to colloquially using the golden phrase constantly out of sheer habit! He gloatingly said that he was in the habit of calling his wife "headless chicken", and under the exclusive circumstances when she would be wandering in the house "aimlessly" when guests had been invited! 

 

Ronen should have been man enough to admit that what he meant was what he had said, and then should have apologised unconditionally. That is if he wanted to keep his seat. Otherwise he should have resigned from IFS after duly expressing regrets. Moral standards in governance have sunk so low that politicians also would not hesitate to back up seriously erring civil servants.Each needs the other to survive!

 

In the end, it was Ronen who had dishonourably chickened out while his unnecessarily scandalised wife perhaps prepared the chappals for welcoming him.

 

 

Dr.V.S.Gopalakrishnan Ph.D., IAS Retd.