Corruption is a plague on nations. In rooting out corruption, the work of government in strengthening systems of transparency and accountability is crucial. But ultimately, success still depends on ethical public servants and a vigilant public. In India, forty-year-old government officer SANJIV CHATURVEDI is an inspirational example. Coming from a family of civil servants, CHATURVEDI joined the Indian Forest Service (IFS) because he loves interacting with people in the field and working in government. Posted as a divisional forest officer in Haryana state, Northern India, he quickly came face to face with the corruption infesting government. A young, idealistic officer, he did not turn away from the irregularities that he saw but resolutely worked to correct them.
Boldly, he investigated and exposed cases of malfeasance even when these involved powerful officials in the state. In his six years in the state cadre, he exposed anomalies which included the illegal construction of a canal that threatened the critical Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary; the use of public funds to develop an herbal park on private land owned by a high official; the underpayment of license fees; and the rigging of government auctions. In a foreign-funded afforestation program, CHATURVEDI discovered that 90 percent of the plantations existed only on paper, and that funds had been embezzled through the faked signatures of allegedly participating self-help groups and nonexistent workers. Forty forest officers were suspended as a result of his investigation.
Under intense pressure from high state officials affected by his campaign, he was deputed to New Delhi as deputy secretary and chief vigilance officer at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, where he continued his anti-corruption campaign, exposing and filing cases involving irregularities in government procurement; contracts awarded to favored service providers; kickbacks in building construction; a scam in which government employees collected the pensions of dead pensioners; and the collusion between government officers and suppliers of fake medicines. Relentless, he did not waver even when cases involved high officials in state and central governments, well-connected businessmen, or members of his own staff. At great personal cost, he was harassed, suspended, demoted, hounded and humiliated with false charges, and put “in the freezer.” All these did not stop him.
CHATURVEDI is not a circumstantial whistleblower, but one genuinely seeking to reform the system from within. He meticulously investigates cases, submits documented reports, and pursues criminal and administrative action to punish the guilty. Actions he has taken have bolstered government revenues, and resulted in the recovery of stolen public funds and the suspension or removal of erring officials. Still, CHATURVEDI is not simply adversarial. He zealously performs his regular duties, carries out meaningful projects, and supports and protects honest employees. Within the sphere of his authority, he has initiated changes in operational systems to ensure transparency and accountability—whether these be better procedures in tracking public complaints or ensuring that wages and benefits of contractual employees actually go to them.
As a junior officer, CHATURVEDI’s reach and powers are limited but his integrity and courage have received wide media attention, though he does not himself seek it. On several occasions India’s president and prime minister have intervened to support and protect him from unjust persecution. While his story remains unfinished, he has already become a role model in the bureaucracy and for a public often overwhelmed by inertia and powerlessness. Amazingly, despite what he has gone through, CHATURVEDI has not yielded to disillusion. “Despite all the challenges, I have great optimism in the country, in our people,” he quietly asserts. “I have never entertained the thought of leaving the service. Never.”
In electing SANJIV CHATURVEDI to receive the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his exemplary integrity, courage and tenacity in uncompromisingly exposing and painstakingly investigating corruption in public office, and his resolute crafting of program and system improvements to ensure that government honorably serves the people of India.
