India Post News Service

NEW DELHI: Kiran Bedi has been a fighter. She has faced injustices at every step in her profession, but she took them on and surmounted them, not considering them injustices. "But this incident, is the ultimate, the end of it," she told India Post in an exclusive interview.

The seniormost and internationally honored Delhi police officer was known for her honesty, integrity and ingenious ways to get the work done. Bedi was superseded this week by YS Dadwal who is two years her junior.

Her name was sent to the Prime Minister’s office along with that of Dadwal. But denial of the position due to her by the Central Government has left her furious. Bedi, currently posted as the Director General of the Bureau for Police Research and Development, said, "It is not that the decision is not fair to an individual. It is not fair to the system."

The country’s first woman IPS officer came down heavily on the "system of executive patronage." She told India Post, "This is the big systematic cancer. It is a big expose of the failure of the system, hollowness of the system. This wall is impenetrable.

This is one kind of wall where one’s head will break." Asked if such discrimination, gender and otherwise, was the norm, Bedi declared, "Hundreds have fallen by the wayside; reconciled and changed or adapted themselves to the system.

It is a system of patronage, of lobbies. Community lobby, caste lobby, political lobby. All a matter of likes and dislikes. This is a system which ignored seniority and merit. It is dominated by personal likes and dislikes, fears and insecurities." Asked about her next course of action, Kiran Bedi said it will unfold over the next few days.

She was proceeding to Shirdi for some peace and quiet. Apparently, the 1972 batch IPS officer will contest the decision to appoint a 1974 officer as the Delhi Police chief. Her supersession order was signed by Delhi’s Lt Governor Tejinder Khanna after YS Dadwal’s name was cleared by the Union home ministry to succeed KK Paul, who is set to join the UPSC as a member.

In the wake of allegations by women’s groups that the Magsaysay Award winner was a victim of gender bias, she said "I have never worked on gender basis" as "I am a police officer who has to work for all." Her being overlooked also comes as a shock to many since her professional and social contributions are unrivaled.

Since her joining the police force, Kiran Bedi has been an idol for women all across India as well as one of the most celebrated police officers. Holding the rank of Inspector General, Tihar Jail she dealt with the innate notoriety and corruption by instituting bold reforms to improve the living conditions of the inmates.

Tihar Prison held approximately 8,500 prisoners, mostly male. Preceding this she had also proved her mettle as a traffic cop, making her popular as ‘crane Bedi’. Kiran Bedi, who has served with the United Nations made her displeasure clear saying that it was too much of a coincidence that two women bureaucrats had earlier lost out to men for the posts of Cabinet Secretary and Foreign Secretary. "But the fact is that this is a little too much of a coincidence.

This is the third of the series. The senior-most woman lost out as the Cabinet Secretary, and then we had Veena Sikri’s case lost out in the IFS," she told NDTV. Bedi was referring to Women and Child Development Secretary, Reva Nayyar’s case wherein she lost out on a chance to become the Cabinet Secretary despite being the senior-most IAS officer.

Dr. Kiran Bedi’s achievements and hard work brought her the Police Medal for Gallantry as well as the Ramon Magsaysay Award which was awarded to her in 1994, also known as the Asian Nobel Prize.

In May 2005, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law in recognition of her "humanitarian approach to prison reforms and policing". Besides her professional contributions, two voluntary organizations founded by her - Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation are reaching out to thousands of poor children and women.

She and her organizations today stand nationally and internationally recognized, with the latest award being given by the United Nations - the Serge Sotiroff Memorial Award for drug abuse prevention. Critics version Critics however give a different version of Kiran Bedi’s career.

Her elevation to the rank of DGP, many in the police force felt was not justified given her poor track record. In fact her stint in the United Nations and her winning the Magsaysay award were instrumental in her promotion. As a police officer, it was pointed out that Bedi is one of the very few IPS officers in the country who has not been awarded the two medals - the Police Medal of Meritorious Service (after 15 years service) and the Police Medal for Distinguished Service (after 21 years), which everyone gets as a matter of routine.

It is alleged that she has left all her postings abruptly under circumstances which would have attracted severe disciplinary action had Bedi not been a woman and media’s favorite. Her behavior this time also has attracted flak, as her incessant trysts with controversy are reasons for her being denied the post. They say that she needs to understand that being outspoken is not the same thing as being competent and a good leader.

Her opponents highlight the fact that since she had chosen to join IPS, it was incumbent on her to follow the system and not go overboard with her comments against it. About her citing the paradigms of Ved Marwah and Gautam Kaul, it is underscored that these officers never went public with their disappointments unlike Bedi.

The issue of supersession in the administrative and police services is larger than the instance of a single officer. Any other officer defying code of conduct by going to the media would have been suspended from service. (Deepika Bayala contributed to this report)