Ashok Khemka is a troublemaker.A senior career bureaucrat, he simply cannot tolerate corruption, and so, in every job he takes, he does his best to put a stop to it.
Not surprisingly, that does not always go down very well with his bosses.
In 21 years as a government worker in the northern state of Haryana, Khemka’s determination to follow the rules has seen him transferred out of his job 43 times — or moved to another department every six months on average.
In his last job, he survived just 80 days. But this time, Khemka turned himself into a national celebrity by taking on the might of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which has dominated Indian politics since independence. With resentment against official graft running high and the media hungry for scams, Khemka was eagerly seized upon as a hero.
Khemka’s rise to fame began this month when anti-corruption activists accused Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of India’s most powerful politician, Sonia Gandhi, of amassing tens of millions of dollars through a series of shady land deals since Gandhi’s Congress party came to power in 2004. Vadra denies the charges.
Khemka, then director of land registration in Haryana, saw a newspaper report alleging that the deals occurred in four districts for which he was responsible. He immediately ordered an inquiry, asking for the relevant land records to be sent to his office.
“If the allegations being made are wild in nature, let it be exposed and we can show that we are fair,” he said. “If the allegations are correct, then action should follow. Robert Vadra is an ordinary citizen, and he is under the rule of law of this country.”
Khemka said that three days later, bureaucrats in two districts told him they could not comply with his request for the land records because of instructions “from the top.”
“I said, ‘Look, Robert Vadra is not above the law. If you don’t do it, I will address you a letter and it will become a media storm,’ ” Khemka said.
At 10 o’clock that night, a note arrived at Khemka’s apartment notifying him that he had once again been transferred, demoted to a more junior role running the state seed development corporation.
Khemka said that the government feared “a big exposure” but that he does not know whether his demotion was linked to the Vadra case or other investigations he had begun into a host of similar cases.
India’s anti-corruption activists embraced Khemka and vowed to stand with him.
“We are fully with Khemkaji,” India Against Corruption leader-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal told reporters, using a traditional Hindi honorific. “We salute his struggle and will offer any help he requires. I appeal to all honest Indians to show some courage in their districts like Khemka did and expose corruption.”
‘Nightmarish experience’
Khemka, who passed one of the most competitive examinations in the world to enter the Indian Administrative Service and has a PhD in computer science, is clearly a man who respects the rules — his conversation is dotted with references to sections of the administrative rule book, to land laws and to the constitution.
There's good people all over the world. Many pass by anonymously. But they are not seeking glory anyway,.
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