The word hero here doesn’t refer to someone who acts to be a saviour but it refers to someone who in real sense works for the betterment of his people and country on a whole. If a census is conducted, it is for sure that most of the youngsters would choose to be reel hero’s rather than real life hero’s. Most of the students opt for engineering, medical sciences and activities related to private firms as a career option but how many of us want to serve our country by joining civil services? The answer is obviously a very few. And if someone, very talented and perhaps very honest wants to take up this challenge, law makers or rather the supreme powers of the country, ‘the politicians’ , crush him to death. This is the story of rising and falling of a hero whose honesty priced him his life.
Gautam Goswami a 1991 batch IAS officer, an MBBS and MD from BHU was appointed as the DM of Bihar in 2004. The problems which Bihar faced and that time and perhaps even now comprised of poverty, lack of education among the masses, unemployment but to top the list was the uncontrolled crime and the state’s inability to cope with any kind of disaster.
When flash floods hit the Indian state of Bihar in July, millions of people were displaced from their homes, many without access to food or drinking water. A catastrophe was looming, and Gautam Goswami did more than anyone to avert it. As the district magistrate—the top bureaucrat—in Patna, Bihar's capital, Goswami coordinated a massive relief effort that involved the Indian government, army and international aid agencies. At 4:30 each morning, Goswami was at Patna's airport hangar, seeing off helicopters loaded with food, drinking water, tents and medical supplies; then he made sure truck convoys headed off to areas that could be reached by land. Goswami, 38, and his team toiled for a month, until the floods receded and the displaced returned home.
Many Indians view this territory—which is infested with gangsters and Marxist guerrillas—as a basket case beyond redemption. But Goswami helped to save it. For example, after three successive parliamentary elections in Patna had to be both partially or entirely countermanded because of violence and electoral fraud, Goswami was put in charge of the ballot in 1999. He barricaded Patna, so that gunmen in cars couldn't enter the city, and set up telephone lines for citizens to call in with complaints. In 1999 and 2004, with Goswami as the overseer, Patna had the two fairest elections it had seen in years. During an election rally in 2004, he stopped the then home minister Lal Krishna Advani from continuing his speech referring to the election commission’s model code of conduct which prohibited the use of public address system after 10pm. For his works, he was selected one of the 20 Asian Heroes by TIME magazine.
Goswami later quit the IAS and joined a private firm much before his resignation was accepted. In the meantime his name figured in an FIR lodged in connection with the bungling of Rs 18crore meant for providing relief to flood affected people in 2004. The state government suspended and he finally surrendered in a Patna court.
"God provided me this opportunity to serve the people," said Goswami, who, after being released from jail on bail is serving with the headquarters under department of personnel and administrative reforms. "Since I am yet to get a posting, I have plenty of time and I want to utilise it in the service of humanity," Goswami told adding this would also satisfy him. "If Dr B C Roy being chief minister of West Bengal and Dr C P Thakur being Union health minister could see patients, I also want to follow their footsteps," he said. Stressing on qualitative treatment, Goswami said in private there are very few physicians exclusively treating HIV/AIDS patients. Like its treatment, the counselling is also expensive. Counselling, he said, is a big part of the treatment and "I’m here to provide free of cost." At Vaccine House in Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayn Bhavan, he gave two-hour time four days a week. On Saturdays and Sundays, he was available from 10 to 12 noon and on Wednesdays and Thursday between 6 to 8 pm.
Goswami was diagnosed to be suffering from pancreatic cancer in early 2008. Last month the state government revoked his suspension on humanitarian grounds. He breathed his last on Tuesday 6th January 2009 after prolonged illness.
An educated person or rather I should say a scholar died and our country lost a gem that would have surely helped our country flourish. This is not the first time a talented person was involved in a scam and his entire career and most of all his life was ruined but every time when someone tries to work for the betterment of Bihar, he is crushed. The people who were really involved in the flood scam are still free, free to live but the blame was put on the shoulders of an innocent who had worked the most to make Bihar a better place to live in. Welcome to a country where most wanted criminals are given seats in elections, criminals like Moinder Singh Pandheer are given a clean chit and able IAS officers like Goswami are accused of scams and put behind bars.
