Challenger from within -V Vasanthi Devi

-The Indian Express

PS Krishnan was a rare bureaucrat who sought to reform government for marginalised

PS Krishnan, who left us on November 10, was an extraordinary combination of the bureaucrat-reformer-activist. His was a life driven by single-minded devotion to the cause of the deprived and exploited.

From his student days in his native Kerala and later, as a member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in the Andhra Pradesh cadre — and then in various positions including as secretary to the Government of India — he relentlessly worked for the empowerment of the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEdBC).

He sought to mould governance and public administration into a proactive instrument of reaching out to the deprived communities. He fleshed out the true spirit of constitutional provisions and social legislation, and implemented them with uncompromising zeal, brushing aside severe opposition from powerful sections inside and outside government. Challenging India’s inequities and inhumanities is not new. What is rare is the challenge emerging from within the system, from within the core of the “Steel Frame”. And Krishnan’s life and work are “the rarest of the rare” among Indian bureaucrats.

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