The once poster-boy of anti-corruption, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Vinod Rai talks to DW on matters close to his heart
Once there was an academic young man from a landed, gentried family of Ghazipur studying philosophy at Allahabad University. During his DPhil, the Second World War started. Overwhelmed by the war and moved by patriotism, the student abandoned his degree to enroll into the army. A few days later, a letter arrived at his ancestral home in... ...Ghazipur addressed to his father. Apart from the usual salutations, the letter stated that young man had accepted a position of a sepoy, and a salary of `18, in the army. His main chore was to rub down horses in the army stables. While an exasperated mother wept and wrote a long essay of a letter, his father wondered if the son, who had perhaps never entered the stable at his own home, would last long scrubbing horses. He did, and even managed to catch the attention of his Commanding Officer, a Colonel Ayub Khan. In fact, we should say, the Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Ayub Khan. Colonel Khan was amused to notice that the young sepoy, a humble and diligent personnel, was a man of letters (he held a degree in law). As the war ended, Colonel Khan asked the young man to decide upon a “career”. As contemplated a return to university to take up the abandoned DPhil course, Colonel Khan saw it as a mistake and spoke instead to his young bride.
Albeit not formally educated, the woman knew that the army was to be her husband’s “right path” and she pursued him to stay on. And he stayed on, even enrolling in the army engineering college. Thus, the student of philosophy became an army officer and an engineer.
It is no wonder when Former Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Rai begins to talk about his life—its ethos and ethics—the mention of his father makes an appearance. His father is the young sepoy of our story. It is no surprise that ex-CAG, Vinod Rai, is an exceptional man, after all he is the son of a unique father. His parents raised him and his siblings with abundant love and discipline, add to that the formative years he spent at Birla Public School, Pilani, where “horse riding, trekking, swimming and tennis were equally a part of the syllabus and you see why I am the way I am”; a well-rounded education for an all-rounded personality that Rai is. He credits his unusual, adventurous father and pragmatic mother, as well as a holistic education, for driving him forward. But there is always that niggling point; despite the army legacy, why didn’t he enroll? Well, he did and was nearly in after passing the usual tests. However, with a father and a brother already a part of the army, it was time to do something else. “In those days, let’s just say that the options were limited and I joined in the civil services.”
After school, Rai attended Hindu College, University of Delhi, and the Delhi School of Economics where he was one of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s students. He was among the unusually successful 1972 batch of the IAS, alongside former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India D. Subbarao, Central Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar, former Agriculture Secretary T. Nanda Kumar, former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, former Secretary of the Planning Commission Sudha Pillai, and current Electricity Regulator Pramod Deo.
PRE-CAG DAYS
Rai’s first posting was in Kohima, Nagaland. But a “small state” did not need five officers. So three were sent back after a year, Rai being one. He was re-allocated to Kerala, where he truly began a stint as an IAS officer. He enjoyed district postings for many years in Kerala and Rai’s stint in the state never saw him come into conflict with the political class—a near regular phenomenon in those days. On the contrary, it is said that high praise from the contingent of Malayali politicians in Delhi helped swing opinion in his favour for appointment as CAG officer.
The Hindu Business Line cited his recollections of his time there when he paid a visit to the town in 2010: “I landed at the Thrissur railway station burdened by a steel trunk, a bedroll and a tennis racquet, over 30 years ago,” the article quoted. “When I departed after my stint as district collector, I had acquired a wife...three children (and) household articles to fill more than a truck.” There is also a newspaper report on his stint in Nagaland given by an IAS officer.
“Once, when he (Rai) was still a trainee... he singlehandedly retrieved the body of his district collector who had been killed by militants. The body had been left in an isolated part of the area and no one was willing to go and collect it for fear of their lives. So he just called over a government driver and asked him to drive without giving him any destination. It was only midway, where the road forked, that he told the driver to turn in the direction of the place where the body had been dumped. It was an act of extreme courage, considering the risk involved.”
Rai praises the two Chief Ministers he worked closely with, K Karunakaran (INC) and Achutha Menon (CPM) as making his seven years at Thrissur quite a learning. “All I needed to do was to pick up the language. In those years Malayalam became the closest thing to a mother tongue I had. And working along with the administration of two diametrically opposite CMs taught me a lot.” And it seems that Rai was well-liked across the political class in Kerala, though he was considered close to former Congress Chief Minister Karunakaran, when the Left came to power, he was equally regarded by them as well. Post Thrissur he served a stint in the Ministry of Commerce in New Delhi, going back to Kerala as an agricultural officer, then back to Delhi as the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence (Air Force), then back to Kerala in 1997 as the Finance Ministry, and then returning as the Finance Secretary in 2001, till he became the CAG in 2008.
CAG DAYS
In November 2010, CAG released the first of a series of audit reports that would make headlines, looking into the allocation of 2G telecom spectrum. CAG estimated the “presumptive revenue loss” to the government incurred by the telecom ministry at `1.76 trillion, a sum that became the subject of controversy. Critics in the government, and especially in the telecom ministry, challenged the notion of a presumptive loss in an audit report, as well as the accuracy of the amount and the methods of calculation. But CAG had succeeded in gaining the attention of the national media.
An air of crusade became inextricable from Rai’s public image since he assumed his job as the financial watchdog of the government in 2008. Though the role of a public auditor was still confined to placing reports in Parliament, however, people were sitting up and noticing the reports. “The primary thought was to ensure that the institution of CAG helps the government spend its resources wisely. For every `100 spend the purpose of the spending should be achieved and every government activity should have transparency so that it is clear to the public what was happening. So the thought was to bring transparency and thereby accountability.”
He contests the idea that the office of the CAG was ever less important than what it became under his tenure and talks of the TTK jeep scandal, Bofors, Coffingate and fodder scam cases as cases in point. “The CAG was never a non-entity. However, today there is a 24X7 media which made the reports public. And we have seen a growing trend of citizen journalism. Then there are all sorts of civic bodies and non-government bodies that are keeping a close watch on the government. These combined factors made the CAG reports more prominent than before. However, the office has been performing its tasks commendably all this while.” Perhaps, it is not just that. During his tenure reports became easier to access as far as understanding them is concerned. Rai’s office created series of 20-page “Noddy Books”—a tongue-in-cheek reference to the financial booklets being as easy as the popular Enid Blyton beginner’s books for children. Sentences marked with bullet points, easy comprehension, clear annexes and footnotes. If one wished to delve into details, they all came with an attached CD of the whole report. As mandated by CAG guidelines, Rai also held press conferences at 5pm on the day he released any reports to Parliament. Though he stayed media savvy, another version of him was routinely called media, rather interview shy. Even commentators within and outside the government vouched for Rai’s personal integrity and his ability to not quell under pressure was also considered to be his merit. “I wanted the reports to be convenient.” However, there must be a reason as to why Rai has acquired multiple reputations: as an effective manager, a ruthless investigator, an activist zealot and a patriot. But, for such a figure, the comptroller and auditor general is not openly aggressive. He has an soft-spoken and understated bearing, armed with a self-deprecating sense of humour.
All that reputation stems from the fact that despite being a career bureaucrat, he was honest to his audience. When he did criticise, he was also a part of the system which made him all the more authentic to the people who were hearing him.
Until recently the central government debunked CAG’s reports and accused it of exceeding its mandate in the Coalgate cases. In CAG’s defence, Rai believes that the Indian democracy is maturing and the urban middle class is getting more involved in citizen affairs. “We continue to tread the new path in the belief that the final stakeholder is the public at large.” The CAG’s audits ensure judicious use of public money and uncovers crony capitalism. “We may not be able to wipe out corruption but the endeavour is to uncover instances of crony capitalism. The government should be seen to support enterprise per se and not particular entrepreneurs.”
Rai remains unfazed by attacks especially from some in the government. “I don’t call them attacks. To every issue there was a counter issue and every argument had a counter argument. These are debated in Parliament and outside Parliament. So we have never taken it as any controversy or attack upon us because all our reports are debated in the PAC,” he added. Today media being so alert and predominant, some of these issues come into public domain and get debated. “If you give your views, somebody will counter those views. There are two sides to a coin. I have always had great regards for my colleagues in my former department who despite reading all the reactionary statements in the media, never swayed from the path of objective auditing,” he says. “Audit has an adversarial function. In any situation whether it is private or public or government it has an adversarial function. We are not going to praise government policies in an adversarial function. What is the purpose of audit—to look into actions taken and try to ensure that the actions that have been taken are as per the rules and procedures.”
AT THE END...
Remember how we began with high praise? If we weren’t at the start, at the end of our interview we were convinced that Rai was indeed worthy of high praise. He is soft-spoken, a gentleman and active for his age—fit enough to make yearly (trekking) pilgrimages to the mountains with his better half who he does refer to her as “my old woman” twice. On the third count he corrects himself. “My wife would not like to hear me call her this,” Rai says with a chuckle.
Are the mountains an addiction? Yes, they are. “Born in the foothills of the Garhwal seems to have had an effect.” The man who still has “fan boys” on Facebook (an idea which leaves him mortified), is himself a fan of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, two mountaineers he had the pleasure of meeting at the Himalayan Mountaineering Academy. Rai also plays cricket and tennis and closely follows polo.
I ask him his favourite gadgets and tools, and pat comes the reply. “Oh, I love carpentry. I wish to turn the shelf on the terrace into something more.” I do not have the heart to correct him, to let him know that I meant “smartphone apps” and electronic gizmos. On the contrary, I feel sheepish that I asked a wrong question. Gizmos are clearly not his “thing”. He would rather throw a ball with his canine companion or play on court than sit before a computer. That’s just the way he is.
