When Harsh Mander Singh joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1980, he decided to shed the “Singh” from his name. That’s because he didn’t want a surname that would immediately bracket him in a particular caste or community. He’d rather be just Harsh Mander — a man who could be from anywhere. It was his quiet repudiation of all forms of social stratification and the inequities they breed.

Three decades later, Mander, 56, continues to live by his idealism. Last fortnight he appeared to have paid the price for it one more time when he was eased out of the government’s National Advisory Council (NAC).

He wasn’t the only one to be jettisoned, of course. The Sonia Gandhi-led NAC, which is mandated with the task of advising the government on policies and legislation related to social justice for the disadvantaged, shook off two other members — agriculture expert M.S. Swaminathan and environmental activist Madhav Gadgil. The former’s view that food security would not be possible without farmers’ security of income didn’t find favour with the government. And Gadgil’s report on the ecological necessity of limiting construction and mining in the Western Ghats seems to have undergone a silent burial in some dusty corner of the environment ministry.

As for Mander, he has been vociferous in his criticism of the way the government has handled the Food Security Bill — often trumpeted as a historic piece of legislation to come out of the UPA’s second innings in power. According to him, the draft bill prepared by the NAC was strong and inclusive. The one the government sent to the parliamentary standing committee, however, has done away with many of its provisions.

“The NAC wanted the public distribution system to cover much larger numbers of people. But the government is worried about the costs and has been trying to minimise that,” says Mander, sitting in his office at the Centre for Equity Studies in Delhi, an NGO he set up after he quit the IAS in the wake of the Gujarat riots in 2002.

He speaks softly, his voice barely audible amidst the thrum of the air conditioner and the rather violent whir of the fan. A large filing cabinet dominates the room and even a casual glance at it is enough to give you an idea about the kind of work Mander does — there are rows of files labelled “Minorities”, “Dalits”, “Beggary”, “Gender”, “Street children” and so on.

“The number of people the Food Security Bill is to cover, the amount of grain they will be entitled to, the price at which they will get it and the mode by which they will be selected — on all these, there are fundamental differences between the government’s position and the NAC’s,” he says.

Mander is also irked by the fact that the government has dropped several other provisions in the bill, including those meant to ensure that no child goes hungry and that the destitute get at least one meal a day at the expense of the State.

And it’s not just the dilution of the Food Security Bill that he has been critical of. The other big-ticket legislation that the NAC worked on, the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, has been languishing in the home ministry for over a year. “The government has just been sitting on it,” says Mander, who was one of the convenors of the committee that drafted the bill.

Despite that, he refrains from commenting on whether or not his removal — and that of two other members — from the NAC is part of the government’s attempt to silence the voices of dissent and make the council more pliant. “It is the prerogative of the government to decide whose advice it wants. They sought my advice for two years. Then they let me go,” is all that he says with a slight smile.

As you talk to him you realise, however, that Mander’s difference of opinion with the government runs much deeper than that over particular pieces of legislation. At its heart lies his belief that the principal duty of government is to serve the poor and the underprivileged. “When I joined the IAS, there was no doubt about the theory of governance, that is, government exists to serve everyone, but particularly the disadvantaged. But from the 1990s onwards, this has changed. The principal duty of government now seems to be to promote an environment which attracts investment,” he says.

He hastens to add that he isn’t against economic growth. “But what is the point of growth if it leaves so many people behind, if it impoverishes millions, leads to the casualisation of labour, etc.,” he asks.

It’s a contentious argument, and one that economists and policymakers could debate endlessly. But clearly, Mander’s worldview is rooted in that conviction.

Mander’s preoccupation with the disadvantaged and their right to dignity and social justice began early. “I have believed in these issues ever since I can remember,” he says. Perhaps that is why, after graduating in economics from St Stephen’s College, he spent four years working with the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

His father, who was also in the IAS (his parents are originally from Rawalpindi), wanted him to join the service. Mander was reluctant to do so at first. But while working for the Gandhian organisation he saw the face of real India up close and that made him realise that the IAS could afford him the opportunity to implement his beliefs.

As an officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, Mander was posted in many remote tribal areas of the state. And he wouldn’t change that experience for the world, he says. “I am not sure if one should be given so much power and authority over the destinies of so many people,” he says. “But given that, if you use it for the good, a lot can be done. You are responsible for implementing land reforms, controlling corruption, implementing development programmes, reaching out to the disabled, the homeless and so on. I did a lot of work with leprosy patients too.”

One belief that Mander held dear while he was in the IAS was his right to dissent. “You are told that obedience is your highest duty. But I believe that for a public servant, disobedience, in the sense of acting according to one’s conscience, is equally important,” he says.

It was this conviction that led him to defy his political masters again and again. Whether it was being quick to control the riots in Indore in 1984, even though the larger political climate didn’t quite insist on it, or his refusal to suppress the peaceful agitation of Medha Patkar and Baba Amte during the Narmada Bachao Andolan in 1989, or going ahead and distributing 2,000 acres of ceiling surplus land belonging to a powerful BJP leader in Raigarh in Madhya Pradesh in 1990, Mander often listened more to the dictates of his conscience than to the diktats of his superiors.

Weren’t there reprisals and didn’t his career suffer as a result? “Well, it did and it didn’t,” he replies, smiling. “I got posted 22 times in 17-18 years. But each time I would be back because they need people.”

The Gujarat riots were a watershed moment in Mander’s life. “When I went there afterwards, I immediately realised that this was no riot. It was a state-engineered massacre. I was devastated,” he says.

That’s when he decided to resign from the IAS. “I believe that most battles can be fought from within the system,” he says. “But I felt that the fight to preserve the idea of India as a secular democracy needed to be fought standing free of government.”

Since then, one of the core areas of his work has been to focus on obtaining justice and rehabilitation for riot victims — not just of Gujarat but those who survived older massacres such as Nellie in 1983, Delhi in 1984, Bhagalpur in 1989 and so on.

If there is to be closure for riot victims, four things must take place, he says: acknowledgement, remorse, reparation and justice. “Gujarat is an extreme case, where the exact opposite has happened,” he says. “Instead of acknowledgement there is denial, instead of remorse there is triumph, instead of reparation you see the social and economic boycott of Muslims, and justice has been subverted.”

Mander has obviously researched and pondered the subject at length. Which is why the Communal Violence Bill is so close to his heart. “Having served in the government and handled many riots, I know that any communal riot can be stopped in a few hours. If you see it continuing for more than that, you can be sure that it is being allowed to happen.” The bill tries to counter this by holding public officials accountable for their sins of commission and omission, apart from setting out mandatory national standards of reparation.

But irrespective of whether or not the law sees the light of day, Mander carries on with his mission. Apart from his work with riot victims, he spearheads the Centre for Equity Studies, which looks at public policy and law from the perspective of the poor, runs an organisation called Aman Biradari that promotes the idea of a just and caring society, and also three shelters for homeless children in Delhi. His daughter, Suroor, a human rights lawyer, helps him in some aspects of his work.

Mander is a fairly prolific writer as well and talks about the issues he feels deeply about in newspaper columns and his books such as Unheard Voices: Stories of Forgotten Lives and Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre — both drawn from his personal experiences.

How does he manage to pack all this into his days, I ask him. He smiles quietly and replies, “Well, I lead a fairly intense life.”

He describes himself as a Gandhian and a democratic socialist. “I tell my students at IIM Ahmedabad (where he teaches a course), ‘You and I are here not because we are the best. But because we are privileged. If a billion people had the same privilege, at least I wouldn’t be here.’”

For Mander, that statement is central to his system of beliefs.