The degree of fit in transferring guilt
T.M.S. Saldin was a medium pacer who never made it to the Sri Lankan
cricket team. He played in the late 70s and early 80s for the SSC. Few
would remember him today. I remember him mostly as the man who led Royal
College the year that Ranjan Madugalle saved Royal from what seemed
certain defeat at the Big Match with a fighting knock of 71, ably
supported by Ashok Jayawickrema, whose contribution to the match-saving
stand was 36 not out.
Cricket
Sulaiman Saldin was a scraggly boy when he first played for Royal, I
think in 1972. He was a medium pacer. In 1976, he captained the team, he
would stride out at the fall of the second wicket and was considered a
frontline batsman and one who had acquired quite a bit of warrior-weight
since his debut. That’s how it goes, and not just in school cricket.
Sanath Jayasuriya did not start his international cricket career as
an opener. Neither did Romesh Kaluwitharana or Roshan Mahanama. Daniel
Vettori, the New Zealand captain was not selected as a batsman when he
first made it to the team but has been so consistent with the bat that
it would be hard to decide whether he is a batting or bowling allrounder.
Two years ago if anyone floated the idea of playing Tillakeratne
Dilshan as opener (in any form of the game) it would have raised quite a
few eyebrows. He has now cemented his place as opener.
Selectors are not gods. They have to go by track record, requirements
of the team, composition of the opposition and nature of the task at
hand.
It takes time to figure out what position fits a player best at a
given moment.
In an ideal world ‘transfers’ and ‘promotions’ should be like that; a
matter of figuring who is best for which job and where at a given moment
in time, the last condition being very important because tasks and
approaches change with time as do the skill levels, work ethic and
enthusiasm of the particular employee. In an ideal world, then, a term
like ‘punishment transfer’ would have no meaning.
If there is skill, commitment and integrity, if there is a public
service where merit is rewarded and overall efficiency requirements are
of paramount concern and if there are no regional hierarchies or ‘more
attractive’ institutions, then transfer as punishment would not be an
option.
‘Revenge’ and transfers
‘Punishment’ is not consequent to wrongdoing but a sanitized term for
‘revenge’ and transfers (over and above this) but a matter to facilitate
the continuation of wrongdoing. I know that there are all kinds of
allegations about cricket team selections, but just imagine for a moment
what would happen if ‘requirements’ such as those described above in the
matter of transfers were referred to in picking the batting order.
My father, the last member of the Ceylon Civil Service at the time he
retired, was frequently ‘punishment-transferred’; each time governments
changed, the newly elected would remember that he was a Trotskyite while
an undergraduate.
He spent quite a lot of time in the ‘pool’ and was shunted from one
obscure department to another throughout his career.
To his credit, these movements did not cause any diminishing of
enthusiasm or work ethic, which meant of course that there was no
increase in father-time for us kids. He ought to have retired a bitter
man. He didn’t. Maybe he belonged to a different generation of
Mandarins.
My concern with transfers, transferability and the politics of
punishment was piqued this morning by a news story in an English daily
shoved under a section titled ‘Police Scene’. It was about a policeman,
yes, but it is an issue that spilled out of the Police Department.
A police officer who arrested a woman for possessing heroin was
reported to have been transferred because the said woman was a friend of
a powerful Provincial Councillor. The police officer, Sub Inspector
Amarasena, was duly transferred from Grandpass Police Station to the
Harbour Police.
Signing transfer papers
Is that a consequence of searching for ‘better fit’ as should be the
case in an ideal world? It can’t be ‘punishment’ for there can’t be any
wrongdoing in arresting a drug dealer, unless right and wrong have
exchanged places and we are all standing on our heads. Is an errant
Provincial Councellor more powerful than the IGP?
Just imagine if this was how things usually are across the board,
i.e. in schools, the Police, Security Forces and all government
departments and institutions.
If every person endowed with any kind of authority and power were to
engage in moving people around this way to ‘punish’ (far more
‘civilized’ than the word ‘revenge’ don’t you agree?), then we would not
have a society seeking better ‘fit’ but one that is in constant turmoil.
Just picture a society where buildings have their doors opened and
‘work’ is nothing more nothing less than a matter of signing transfer
papers and people moving out and moving in (as the case may be). Imagine
you are looking at it from above and it was all happening in high-speed.
We would see a revolving-door kind of operation, wouldn’t we?
Folks, that is where we are heading. Institutions are fast becoming
mere buildings housing fly-by-nights; not by choice but due to
transferability and transferring of the guilt(y). This is what happens
when every little rat with a tiny bit of power believes he/she has
executive sweep.
There are two unnamed things present in this discussion by their
conspicuous absence. President Mahinda Rajapaksa needs them or, if they
are not to his liking, he needs to find alternatives.
For now, let me just name them, because as a citizen I don’t want to
walk into any state institution and be mowed down by someone storming
out or crushed in the comings and goings of the transferred-in and the
transferred-out.
It is not a cricket team situation. We are talking about two
institutions: the Public Service Commission and the Police Commission.
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