Ex-IAS officer’s book chronicles corruption at high places

V. Balasubramanian worked under different CMs in a career spanning 36 years

A book by former civil servant V. Balasubramanian, who served during the tenure of different Chief Ministers of Karnataka, seeks to expose corruption in different governments and chronicles the fall in credibility in all branches of the government and the media.

The author of Fall From Grace: Memoir of a Rebel IAS Officer, retired as an additional chief secretary after spending over 35 years of service in Karnataka and at the Centre.

Mr Balasubramanian, who joined service in 1965, narrates how corruption at high places - both in politics and in judiciary - has become the accepted norm which does not attract social ostracism. He records instances of “fall from grace” of political leadership and bureaucracy in the last five decades.

In the 407-page book, he narrates his experience of working under different CMs such as Veerendra Patil, Devaraj Urs, Gundu Rao and Ramakrishna Heggade.

"While all the CMs in Karnataka had been dependent upon Excise and PWD contractors in varying degrees to fund elections, including Devaraj Urs, Veerendra Patil, and Ramakrishna Heggade, they had nevertheless given comparatively clean administration," he notes.

The author terms ex-Chief Minister S. Bangarappa’s period as the “the golden age of corruption in Karnataka” and states that his “innovation was democratic decentralization of corruption in which every department was given a target” and that some IAS officers “treated it as an honour to be chosen to strengthen the hands of the CM.”

The author calls himself a ‘Rebel IAS Officer’ and in the work brings out a ring-side view of many administrative decisions taken during different CMs and chief secretaries of the State. The author says Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda was “quite affectionate towards officers” and more “humane than even Supreme Court judges” while dealing with the officers when he was CM.