Phoenix...(6)

...Continued...

On a suggestion made by me to the top management of State Bank, they agreed to appoint a small committee to make necessary survey on computerization selecting New Delhi as a sample centre with State Bank’s New Delhi Main Branch as the venue. Survey started and instantly flopped as several important leaders from the then ruling party itself turned up as customers and opposed any kind of computerization tooth and nail. State Bank’s management was at a fix to find that their commitment to the Government on implementing computerization was collapsing.
Convened by the then Finance Minister of India V.P.Singh at the behest of the Prime Minister, a meeting took place at his North Block conference hall. Besides Finance Minister and top executive of Finance Ministry, this meeting was attended by all the heads of different banks in the country including the Chairman of Indian Banks Association. C.Rangrajan, then Dy Governor of Reserve Bank who was quite a talk of the banking industry on account of his report on computerization prepared and submitted to the Government earlier also attended representing Reserve Bank. Leaders from different Trade Unions in Banking Industry were equally the participants.Tarkeshwar Chakraborty from All India Bank Employees Association and myself from All India State Bank of India Staff Federation/National Confederation of Bank Employees took part in deliberations. Some thing like exchange of hot words occurred between me and C.Rangrajan when I was reacting to the paper on computerization he read out in the meeting emphasizing the need to take computers to the villages with a quantity target of bigger in number than post offices in the country.He got restive on my pointed question that whatever he said was just utopian and that talking from an ivory tower he was closing his eyes to reality –reality that there was a large scale discontentment against computerization throughout the country and that proper supply of electricity was nearly out of question in rural areas on the face of the fact that even in bigger towns the system failed to meet its shortage. There was some heated exchange of words between him and me when the Finance Minister, who knew me well from the days he was Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, intervened.My suggestion that computerization in a country like India is possible only when it is taken up stage by stage as a matter of phases was fully endorsed by him. He also okayed my suggestion that on a vulnerable subject like computerization both the employees and the public must be taken into confidence before adhering to different stages of implementation without unilaterally forcing it on them. It was agreed and declared in the meeting itself that computerization be taken up and persued in phases by taking both the staff and the public into confidence.In a way it was a positive outcome and I was greeted by many who attended the conference.
Securing an edge against till then obtaining rigid approach on the part of the administration both in Banks and the Government who opted to get dead set on forcing computerization into system was certainly a big event in itself but I was fully conscious of the fact that lot many problems were yet to surface when implementation stage takes off. I shared my concern with my colleagues and also the management of State Bank....Continued

Phoenix... [5]

Contd....
Crucial areas of conflict:
Computerisation –Unfettered right to Banks?
Computerisation in Banking Industry, more so in State Bank, is a big story in itself.Computers made an entry in Banking Industry through State Bank in mid sixties before which they were merely a topic of academic talks without any thing substantial in practice. By mid seventies it started gaining momentum and by eighties they were in operation in full swing. During Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure as Prime Minister of India, computer was a priority subject. He himself was well conversant on computers having a keen interest and a great aptitude for their operation. There were two reasons for this –one that he appeared on political scene as a champion representing the youth of the country and to attract them more votes wise he was hankering to go for some thing dynamic on technological front keeping in mind in the meantime that it was a most powerful tool to herald a new era of progress and development distinguishing him enormously as against an old and outmoded leadership then obtaining at the national level in the country –the other reason had its roots in nationalization of Banks in 1969 by his great mother Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister. Catching up on the popular slogan that Banks in majority were in the hands of Rajas and Maharajas or big bullies in business who failed to serve the common people in the country, Indira Gandhi took a drastic measure nationalizing 14 major banks which act on her part was capable enough to bring her laurels and more of popularity in public. Rajiv Gandhi too was for a popular footage on the similar pattern picking up the Banks again as an easily available choice for the purpose identifying them as the base for it. Management in different banks in general and that of State Bank in particular has the tradition of jumping to joining as the first one in the que to appease the Government on all counts and there could hardly ever be a ‘some body’ to raise any voice of protest howsoever illogical, untimely and problematic was the direction so issued. Masters directions from Delhi were over hurriedly adhered to by the bankers placing computerization as their priority number one task on their agenda. It was ofcourse a different matter that the priority task failed to elicit a required response at the implementation level for the reason that bankers refused to take a notice of the fact that projects like this warranted a large scale mobilization and awareness generation amongst staff and public in general to make the scheme acceptable to them. ...Contd...

Phoenix ...[4]

They took advantage of my weak moments: .....Continued...

My wife Shashi was seriously sick after she had to undergo three operations successively for Glycoma at Kanpur, Lucknow and New Delhi with treatment at Shankar Netralaya at Chennai. Last she was at AIIMS where too the operation could not be a success and her condition continued to deteriorate. This was the time I was under a tremendous tension but didn’t abandon sticking to my otherwise hectic schedules often leaving the hospital early in the morning attending talks at different stations and returning by midnight.In one instance I remember having left the hospital around 4.30am to catch flight for Bombay at 6am, attend a meeting at Central Office, leaving for Bhubaneshwar to deal with certain crucial matters locally after which there was no flight for Delhi. As an only alternative, I could get a delayed flight for Kolkata wherefrom I flew to Delhi by a late night International flight and by the time I reached the hospital it was past midnight -2.30 am to find that my wife was in too serious a condition due to post surgery complications.I had actually no dearth of sympathizers and well wishers to look after my wife but my presence by her side did count most which I couldn’t make despite best possible efforts on my part obviously due to my hectic schedules and this is some thing for which I can never pardon myself the whole life. My wife is no more. I do suffer from the pangs of seclusion, I do feel like languishing in her absence and much more I suffer from the guilt that I did default in giving her the amount of my presence she needed most when she was struggling for life. Besides V.K.Gupta and his wife alongwith Bhojraj Sharma who were all the time just a call away for any help and nursing taking care of my wife in most committed a manner, there were others too who felt much concerned with the turmoil I was undergoing. The one person who unfailingly called on her daily was Janki Ballabh, the then GMO, Delhi Circle and later the Chairman of State Bank of India. He meticulously monitored personally to ensure that all required facilities and attendance were all the time available to her without an iota of any lapse any where. I did make a note of it that whatever service he rendered or whatever care he took was not just because I was a top man in All India State Bank of India Staff Federation nor as I was a Director in Central Board of State Bank –it was because he was a close friend of mine –a friend indeed, a friend in need.

As against this there was a coterie too that was hell bent on using my plight to suit their connivance of ousting me from the scene at the apex altogether. The major tool used while hatching the plan being that I was to fall due for retirement from Bank’s service and that no retired person should be allowed to continue in the Union/Federation after he ceases to be in active service. A large scale lobbying on that count was done at a major scale throughout the country simultaneously applying pressure on the Bank’s management and equally the Government. Obviously my otherwise unblemished image was the target and it was hit hard with the coined publicity that I was too lusty a chap and that I was greedy enough to continue in the Organisation even after my retirement. Most conveniently they forgot that on numerous occasions in course of fighting with the management and on the face of the fact that there was always a potential danger of the management/Government taking stern action against me including dismissal from service, I kept my letter of resignation handy in my pocket for submission to Bank before they could remove me from service to demoralize the rank and file in the organization. Such a resignation letter was more particularly all the time in my pocket during Emergency when I had to release a circular to the membership in general that in the event of any drastic action against me they should not at all feel demoralized and take the action in a fighting spirit instead.

Fighting with the management/Government and several set backs caused to me in course of it never diminished my spirits the least, I rather felt more emboldened every time there was an attack on me, every time I was victimized, every time I was dragged into situations alarmingly full of graver consequences. Nothing dismayed me nor any thing could ever compel me to return to a normal life, a normal family life –the common normal choice of every body, compromising the cause I was fighting for my people. At times mainly during Emergency I was on loss of pay for several months as credit balance in my leave account was out of question due to organizational activities and the management was not prepared to give me leave for a day even. My convictions gave me confidence. But a Juleus Caeser in me fell down when attacked by my own friends –a Brutus, an Othello, a coterie.

Infact this was the stage when I really felt caught unawares paying heavily for the convictions I always held uppermost in my life and scheme of things. One of such convictions to which I always stuck was that only those be in the fray to manage a movement who possess necessary skill and capacity to work and not the invalids and that merely because some one ceases to be in active employment he should not be off organizationally. This was awefully twisted calling me names deliberately forgetting the fact that since several years back I was for it. The membership was heavily brainwashed to ignore a big number of senior office bearers who continued in the organization for quite a time after they were no more in active employment. I was hurt, felt shattered and took a decision to quit immediately which ofcourse I failed to do succumbing to stiff resistance from my supporters. (tobe continued)

Phoenix [3] ...contd

Third in sequence, this one is a running narrative with reference to activities of SBISA/ AISBISF, the operating trade union organisations in State Bank of India.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING -SBISA:

----------------------------------------------
Central Committe, a top forum of SBISA, in its meeting held at Brindaban on the 19th November’94, took several important decisions on crucial matters including supercession of Circle Committee in Delhi Circle replacing it by an Ad-hoc Committee and my election as an Honorary member with effect from 1st February’95 (my date of retirement from active service of the Bank being 31st January’95). The Ad-hoc Committee so appointed consisted of 78 members with S/s. PP Trikha and VK Gupta as Convenor and Joint Convenor respectively. Not happy with the definite decisions so taken, a splinter group within SBISA itself operating at Calcutta chose to go to Calcutta High Court against the Central Committee -so strange and peculiar an instance of a Circle Unit of SBISA working against its apex, the Central Committee. It was Shyamal Kumar Sen Vs State Bank of India Staff Association. Shyamal Kumar Sen being the Circle President of SBISA,Calcutta Circle. After prolonged hearings, their case was rejected outright by the Hon’ble High Court fully upholding not only the decisions of the Central Committee but also the relative areas emerging out of the decisions taken by the General Council of SBISA in their Conference held at Kanpur on the 16th October’94. To recall with a view to cursorily have a glance over the proceedings, an extract from the Chief Secretary’s Circular dated 14th August’95 is reproduced:

“........Meeting of 19th November’94 at Brindaban was a well attended Central Committee despite a campaign launched against it by some of the office bearers in certain circles. Suffer as they did from a severe disgust on failure of their ill designed move to torpedo the legitimate functioning of this Organisation, some of these very office bearers, a limited few so far as the overall strength of the Central Committee is concerned, unduly aspired to see that ultimately their “say” is to materialise as against the will of the representatives in general who took conscious decisions after threadbare deliberations on different items on agenda at the level of the Central/Central Working Committee. One way to satisfy the element of hostility was to compromise the decisions of full Central Committee against the whims and fancies of certain individuals which could have just shattered the very fabric of democratic system in the Organisation. These very elements are the same who did not hesitate to bargain the autonomy of a giant organisation like SBISA in pursuit of their selfish goal going to the extent of inviting intruders to pollute its sanctity..........”

The Conference of SBISA held at Kanpur on the 16th October’1994 was a land mark in itself and it took several crucial decisions.When disputed by an individual or two with an adverse agenda in their mind, the Hon’ble High Court at Kolkata upheld all the decisions of the Central Committee in toto and this in itself was a historical factor. Deliberations during trial of the case in the Court and off the scene make an interesting reading in many ways. The petitioners who filed the writ against the Central Committee of SBISA quite succeeded in prejudicing the Court against me through their leading advocates to the extent that the Judge openly used to talk ill of me when addressing my advocates with a definite message to ridicule me. One such remark was “Look, your client is a big bully and too powerful a person, has got guts to disregard this Court. Your client had the audacity to tear the order of this Court to pieces. Infact this is how the lawyers from the opposite side repeatedly projected my image in the Court with cock and bull stories to manage necessary bias against me. On one such occasion I felt like giving an immediate reaction to such remarks arguing the position myself knowing fully well that it was to incur the wrath of the Court resulting into contempt proceedings against me but I saw a feeling of fear writ large on the faces of my lawyers who virtually corckedup my mouth with their palms in full view of the Justice himself. My lawers assured me to apprise the Court of the correct picture in the matter as against a most distorted version of it given by the opposite side. Reconciling, I stopped continuing after a few words.Next hearing onwards it was altogether a reversed scenario….. (to be continued)

Phoenix [2]

After I took over as acting Secretary followed subsequently by my election as President, AISBISF, I took it as a mission , inter-alia, to see that different representatives from different Circle Unions are given due patronage in times of need with a view to securing them the desired confidence as I never wanted them to suffer like I myself had to do on many an occasions.

An emergency meeting of the All India State Bank of India Staff Federation was held on the 15th August’1975 at Tourist Hotel, New Delhi. Grave situation alarmingly telling upon the very existence of trade union movement in the Country was elaborately discussed. My suggestion to valiantly counter the threats of the Government/ Bank by quitting the service to exclusively look after trade union work safeguarding the workers interest did not find favour with others in the meeting. Decisions taken however included that the directions of the Government of India to pin down the leaders of different Unions to desk be defied.

What followed was a painful amazement. The very stalwarts, who had tabled the proposal as a compromise to my proposal of quitting the service to serve the members , were the firsts to rush back to their place of work to join their duties as “obedient servants” of the Bank. Another instance of utter chagrin that followed was that a rival union from Andhra which was granted entry to the fold of the Federation only some time back hurriedly fell into the lap of INTUC as their “bonafide” affiliate unhesitatingly taking cudgels against All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF). Such a move against AISBISF/ employees through their Government was obviously to secure strength only to INTUC. This sabotage dragged Federation to a situation compelling it to have affiliation with the INTUC itself.

Sticking to whatever decision was taken in the said meeting at New Delhi, I had to suffer loss of wages for several months and also the wrath of my seniors then in the organisation who instead of extending due recognition to the service I was rendering involving sacrifice after sacrifice chose to remark as if my efforts were directed to appease the people. Appeasement was never my approach but certain amount of satisfaction I did draw when I saw beaming faces of the aggrieved members and their families on cases being decided in their favour bringing them back to service in the Bank. A mental setback that continued haunting me for several years thereafter was that possibly I was in an island where convenience based flexibilities and not a committed mission counted. Whether I was fluttering my wings in vain to flow the Ganges into Thames was the question hitting my mind very often. My mental faculties had a clash on the point as to how like a stupid I was trying to assume the role of a Hamlet trying to set right a world that was without joints. No, I was convinced within myself, it was not utopian on my part to go by the convictions and commitments if not as a matter of the Ten Commandments, atleast as a matter of routine ethics on earth -an ethics relating to good or bad, right or wrong. Maybe, it sounds like I am trying to talk good of myself on certain self acquired parameters but here again let facts and not the individual(s) be the basis.

Narrations like this are unending and there is no purpose also in giving them an exhaustive coverage. What is mentioned as a cursory reference is relevant just from the point of view of situational variance. Interested quarters opened a flood gate of rumour mongering against me even after I completely withdrew myself from the main stream in the context of the Supreme Court Judgement. Needless to mention that it was an alround pressure on me from the quarters that counted not to step down but to contest the judgement. Circle Committee had already given full authority to me to incur whatever amount was needed for the purpose and in the event of funds with SBISA falling short, authority was also given to me alongwith the Circle Treasurer to raise funds including borrowings. It is a different matter that some of the persons who most emphatically joined the above decision chose to talk astray later on with a remote control applied on them by certain individuals who all along wanted to see SBISA in shambles. (..tobe continued)

Phoenix [1]

No blaming a Scale
There could be vultures to prejudice the weight
Accuse not the weighmen
Wait instead Phoenix rising from the ashes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing like calling it a day it was when I retired from the service of State Bank of India on 31st January’1995. Much against my desire tobe at my base office at Kanpur on my last working day, I remained harnessed to the job representing various negotiational channels pertaining to Wage Revision settlements both at the level of State Bank and the Banking Industry unmindful of the conspiracies being hatched against me to ensure my ouster from trade union movement misusing my retirement from service of the Bank as a basis for the purpose -a basis unheard in the past, a basis devoid of precedents, a basis pasted on the transparent fact that majority of the major bargainers at the national level including Banking Industry were and are retired persons for decades besides a large group of persons being fully outsiders. Infact this was a joint action nefariously but calculatedly launched by certain individuals maliciously seeing some kind of a threat to their future if my representative character remained intact -there were some who took it as an irritant to their propensity of trespassing unbridled causing a sort of functional anarchy to their advantage and sadistic pleasure.

Ill designs so hatched did succeed -they rather got support from the fact that I myself withdrew from different important positions I was holding one after the other as a measure of my own inclination to sum up the odyssey and be off retiring to a peace oriented zone of activity longing as I did to be “..far from the madding crowd”. It was like what a soldier could have done to relax after fighting out many a battles for long 37 years. Such an inclination had its roots in the situation that obtained in the Organisation during National Emergency declared in June’1975 by the then Prime Minister of India.

It was flood of tortures let loose against the Bank employees particularly those belonging to State Bank in Lucknow Circle (then Kanpur Circle). The reason of more aggressive an attack against the said section of employees was that they were most powerful, well knit and solidly organised Trade Union with hardly any parallel and demolishing their strength, as political pandits of the then Prime Minister advised her, could have given life to the Trade Union wing of the then ruling party.

National Emergency having been declared in the night of 26th June, it was just the next day that several employees of Ballia Branch of State Bank were arrested under MISA besides District Magistrate, Kanpur, assisted by half a dozen officers from State Bank itself especially deputed for the job, working out the grounds to arrest me some way or the other with a view to demoralise the membership. Spree of suspensions in hundreds was let loose with first two being my real brothers. My entry as well as that of my team of office bearers in the Union office was banned with strict instructions from the Bank/Government to meticulously follow the same. Total atmosphere resulting out of victimisations, harassment and coercions was that of a sheer panic and fear. Management was at their worst with their new series of action for harassing the employees in the name of misusing DD facility and Leave Fare Concession.

I took up these cases with all the channels that could be tried. From an M.L.A to the Prime Minister, from a sepoy to the D.G.(Police)/ Chief Secretary and from anyone in the streets to the Cabinet Secretary in the Centre besides every functional tier within the Bank’s administrative system, there was hardly any door I didn’t knock for the purpose. Reply of the then Chairman of the Bank was “.....whatever be the merit in your argument, you can’t expect me to lose my job for your men”. This was followed by the remark of the then Prime Minister of India in one of the two meetings I had with her in this context “..... no leader with an image should take up the cases of dishonest persons....... My advice to you is not to persue bad cases”. I did assert my view point but it was all invain in the kind of an anti Bank employees atmosphere then prevailing. It was an atmosphere where Bank employees as a class were looked upon with a contemptuous wrath both by the Government and the public.
Worst kind of a setback I had to suffer in that nightmarish atmosphere was that the then top leadership in the SBISA/AISBISF virtually abandoned me in the lurch for the reason that I did not heed to their advice not to take up “bad cases” in Lucknow (then Kanpur) Circle. It’s a different matter that continued struggle ultimately brought results and hundreds of employees so sacked were re-instated restoring to them and their families the light of smiles to fill the lids that overflooded with tears.

This was the time when my functional boundaries were not vast enough to attract sabotage from within nor my immediate colleagues had any bargainable temptation falling prey to evil designs with reference to power and position in the organisation. For them, “Rome” was important -it was not a commodity tobe compromised for petty gains -their commitment to the Circle and leadership was chaste enough to drive away an aggressor -it was a Lilliput or a monster, a dwarf or a giant. (tobe continued)