What Tukaram Munde’s crackdown in Mumbai reveals about privilege, political will, and the quiet strength of the rule of law.
“Be you ever so high, the law is above you.”
For years, Mumbai has lived with an unspoken assumption: the more influential the establishment, the gentler the enforcement. Small eateries learnt to fear inspectors. Prestigious clubs and celebrated restaurants often inspired a little more hesitation.
That assumption is now under challenge.
IAS officer Tukaram Munde’s recent enforcement drive has unsettled restaurants and eateries across Mumbai. Some of them are among the city’s most iconic. The latest to come under official scrutiny are prestigious clubs whose names have long carried social and political influence.
No one who has followed Munde’s career would be surprised.
He has built a reputation for being honest, energetic and uncompromising in the enforcement of rules. Admirers see him as fearless. Critics consider him excessively rigid. An officer who insists that the law be followed rarely enjoys universal popularity.
Over the years, several of his transfers have popularly been attributed to the discomfort he caused influential political and commercial interests. I do not know enough about the circumstances surrounding those transfers to pronounce judgment. Bureaucratic folklore often simplifies complex decisions.
What is different this time is that he appears to have been given the space to carry on.
If that impression is correct, it speaks well of Maharashtra’s present political leadership. Honest administration requires more than honest officers. It also requires political executives willing to withstand the inevitable pressure that accompanies impartial enforcement.
Every civil servant also confronts another, more subtle, dilemma.
Sometimes even the finest officers choose to defer to the wishes of the political leadership—to go slow in a particular case, to allow more time for compliance, or simply to temper the harshness of enforcement. Such decisions do not necessarily compromise their integrity. Governance is rarely a mechanical exercise; it often requires judgment, context and a sense of proportion. Ultimately, every officer must decide where to draw the line, and why.
Having spent 26 years in the Indian Administrative Service before opting for voluntary retirement, I learnt that integrity is not tested only when one refuses an illegal order. It is tested just as much when one is entrusted with discretion. The law often leaves room for judgment. How that room is used is ultimately a matter of conscience.
The real litmus test lies elsewhere. Is a softer approach dictated by an objective assessment of the facts and the larger public interest? Or is it born of an anxiety to avoid displeasing the boss or the powers that be? The answer to that question is often invisible to the public, but it is known to the officer’s own conscience.
There is another aspect that deserves attention.
With experience, Munde also appears to have understood that authority need not be theatrical. The most effective officers are not those who shout the loudest. They are the ones who let the law do the talking.
In government, transfers are often sought not only because an officer has acted firmly, but because he has acted offensively. A raised voice or a bruised ego can become a bigger story than the violation it seeks to correct. Once the debate shifts from the legality of the action to the temperament of the officer, the original issue is quickly forgotten.
Firmness and courtesy are not contradictory virtues. In fact, they reinforce each other.
An officer who is polite, procedurally impeccable and absolutely relentless leaves very little room for anyone to claim victimhood. The law appears less like personal vengeance and more like institutional duty.
That is perhaps the real lesson of this moment.
Whether the establishment is a roadside stall, a celebrated restaurant or an elite club, the law should neither bend before privilege nor become harsher because of poverty. Equality before the law is not tested when it visits the powerless. It is tested when it knocks on the doors of the powerful.
An honest officer often discovers that the greater the financial or political stakes, the greater the resistance. Criticism, lobbying and even litigation may be be orchestrated by vested interests, particularly when the issues are more complex than clear-cut violations of law. That, however, is a larger conversation for another day.
For the moment, it is enough that Mumbai is witnessing something refreshingly simple: the law is knocking on doors that many had assumed it would politely pass by.
Perhaps that is what good governance really is—not making the law harsher, but making it blind to privilege.
Subrat Ratho
IAS (Retd.)
After 26 years in the Indian Administrative Service and a subsequent corporate career, I write sometimes about governance, institutions, public policy and the people who shape them.
