Do you talk the land you walk? In case of Uttar Pradesh, it seems so. The ancient place has always cast — history is witness — its soothing effect on its inhabitants, rendering them tolerant in face of oppression and helping them inculcate a philosophical outlook to life’s most complex problems. The insensitive remark of the state’s sacked home secretary (intelligence) RK Upadhyay may seem out of place but is certainly not out of question. The answer, I insist my friend, is blowin’ in the wind (that sweeps the state).    

Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav ordered Upadhyay’s transfer late on Wednesday, a day after his “insensitive” remarks were broadcast by some regional news channels in the aftermath of a mass suicide (a family of three had killed themselves) in Sonbhadra district. During a press briefing, while IG (crime) RK Vishwakarma told reporters that he was in contact with the Sonbhadra superintendent of police to get to the cause, Upadhya, when asked about the suicides, said everyone born has to die.

Stunned, the reporters asked him to elaborate. Upadhyay then related a story of Buddha in whose teachings, he said, he strongly believes.

“After renouncing his kingdom, the Buddha was trying to find the reasons of death. First, he reached the conclusion that a person died due to disease. Later, the Buddha said old age was the reason. Finally, the Buddha reached conclusion that birth was the reason of death. If you are born then one day you have to die,” Upadhyay concluded before a flummoxed press gathering.

While the TV news channels lunged at Upadhyay with paroxysms of gall and acerbity, forcing the CM to take note and prompt action against him, no one thought of giving him the benefit of a nonchalant analysis. To gauge how much of the land he dwells in dwells in his mind.

The state — home to Krishna (Mathura-Vrindavan) and Rama (Ayodhya), with places where both Mahavir Jain (Pava near Kashi) and Gautam Buddha (Deer Park, Sarnath) got enlightenment — has been known to give philosophical strength to its people in the form of listless tolerance in the face of decadence coupled with tyranny. Power outages during peak summers and politics of caste and vendetta are a few forms of modern-day tyrannies. Callousness of officials like Upadhyay is another.

But he is certainly not the first among spiritual bureaucrats of the state. Debendra Kishore Panda, a 1971-batch IPS officer who served as IG (rules and manuals) in Lucknow, blazed into public consciousness in 2005 for turning up in office wearing bangles, a nose pin, vermilion, and claiming to have been married to Lord Krishna. Self-styled ‘Doosri Radha’, Panda instantly became a darling of TV news media. This was much to the chagrin of his earthly wife Veena, and two adult sons.

Panda’s wife subsequently divorced him.  His department, too, found him guilty of breaching the police dress code. But before things could reach a boil, Panda, due to retire in 2007, resigned on his own. Panda, who addresses himself in the feminine gender, now leads a quiet devotional life in Allahabad.

These cases are not aberrations. On several occasions, serving bureaucrats have been spotted wearing robes of a hermit while disposing of their official duties. To their defence, I am guessing, they would always have the unfailing argument: ‘It is the land of Buddha.’