In Pursuit of Probity

“Honesty is your biggest strength and Dignity your strongest defence.” 

Those are the simple yet profound words of an IAS officer who, from a humble background, rose to the highest echelons of the Government of India with a relentless focus on establishing the highest standards of ethical governance and moral rectitude. 

Devinder Singh Bagga was a man who believed that the administrative service is a tapasya—a self-effacing occupation to serve the masses. In his memoirs spanning thirty-seven years, he endeavours to narrate an administrator’s struggle to exercise administrative rectitude and probity while he navigated choppy waters with no patronage or protection. He held coveted positions in the Indian bureaucracy, including that of the Deputy Election Commissioner of India under the iconic T. N. Seshan, an era that transformed the Election Commission of India into a no-nonsense autonomous constitutional body. He eventually retired after becoming the Chief Secretary of India’s most challenging state—Uttar Pradesh. 

The author brings to life his experience of the “steel frame of India” and helps us get a deeper understanding of the various subjects that may yet be shrouded in conjecture and not fully understood by the layperson. Through this light-hearted, yet thoroughly insightful, account of his remarkable journey, the author conveys his views on what it takes to deliver exceptional administrative governance with objectivity and integrity while refusing to be drawn into contentious distractions

“A very informative and interesting read from a man who fondly imagined in his ambitious moments that probity and determination are measuring instruments whose Zero Error is Zero.”

–  Kavita Bagga (a daughter’s fond remembrance)