1980. I had just joined the Anandabazar Group and one fine afternoon as I walked the proverbial corridors from South to North, South being the Management and North,the Editorial; I saw a man walking to my direction. He asked me the direction of the Accounts Office and we got acquainted. He introduced himself as Alapan Bandyopadhyay, a Reporter with Anandabazar Patrika. Thus began our lifelong friendship.
I had heard about him as there was talk in the corridors that a young reporter has joined, who in his interview at the last formal round up: Do you have any questions for us, asked Aveek Sarkar if he could justify his salary. Sarkar was unfazed and nonchalantly defined the work he did. Later Sarkar himself told me that he liked the question.
We did not have the opportunity to meet often. There was a steep divide between the North and South. But as my work took me to the office of Aveek Sarkar, then the person looking after Anandabazar Patrika, bumped into him and sometimes in the department where Aveek Sarkar had a knack of sitting at the desk. I also met him sometimes in the library at other times at the canteen.
Soon thereafter in 1983 he got transferred to Assam. The Nellie massacre took place in central Assam in the morning of 18 February 1983. The massacre claimed the lives of 2,191 people, unofficial figures run at more than 10,000 from 14 villages: Alisingha, Khulapathar, Basundhari, Bugduba Beel, Bugduba Habi, Borjola, Butuni, Dongabori, Indurmari, Mati Parbat, Muladhari, Mati Parbat, Silbheta, Borburi and Nellie. The victims were Muslim peasants of East Bengal origin. Alapan was transferred to Assam as the state became important.
Two things happened, while in Assam, Alapan honed his skill on ground reporting. Every other day there was an anchor story in Anandabazar Patrika on Assam. He traversed the length and breadth of the state and came to grips with the politics of Assam. The other, he made up his mind to sit for the UPSC Civil Services Examination and started preparing himself.
In 1986 he returned to Calcutta and cracked the UPSC Civil Services Examination. On 1st September he put in his papers to join the IAS becoming an officer of IAS batch-1987 from West Bengal. Everyone at the office was surprised. By then Alapan was the 'Blue eyed boy' of Aveek Sarkar and he had great plans for him. But for Sarkar himself, he did not even blink his extraordinary long eyelashes. He encouraged him and he joined the ranks on 8th. September.
Once he joined the ranks the North-South divide broke. I started to meet Alapan often as he took charge as the District Magistrate of Howrah then North and South 24 Parganas Districts. He also served as Kolkata Municipal Commissioner. He has also headed several departments in the state government— Public Works, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Commerce and Industry, Information and Culture, Transport and Home — as Principal Secretary or Additional Chief Secretary before becoming the Chief Secretary in 2020. Alapan also served as interim State Election Commissioner in 2015. Always modest, Alapan improved departments wherever he went. His ambition in the office was to establish a humane system and he worked towards that.
In 1994 as I left the Anandabazar Patrika Group to join Ambuja Cements as the Chief Executive Officer to build a Heritage Park at Narkeldanga in collaboration with the Government of West Bengal, I came closer as Alapan advised me on several issues which the partnership entailed. Responsibility, Collaboration, Joint Partnership et all.
We met often at official functions and I remember when the Italian Film Maker Sergio Scapagnini was bestowed with the Honorary Citizenship of Calcutta at a function in Calcutta Municipal Corporation Alapan mentioned me by name and our relation going back to ABP days quipping, how he envied me getting a higher salary being a part of the management when the reporters slogged to publish the paper.
During his days in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation he took a programme to plant more trees in Kolkata and vicinity and I handed over the rare book: Trees of Calcutta by Paul and Mary Benthall from the collection of my father, Nirmal Chandra Kumar. This became his handbook and the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wanted the corporation to reprint the book. But alas it did not mature because by then Alapan was promoted out of the post. However he did take the initiative to publish other books among them being a series on Kolkata Ghats.
We met often and exchanged notes and Alapan being busy has this habit of saying: let us exchange notes in quick Power Points. We would cover a lot of grounds. From Politics to Polyphony. From Literature to Litany. From Books to Beauracracy. In one such conversation it came out that we were both working on books on Bureaucracy. I was working with my friend Dilip Cherian on a tomb on the Beauracracy and Alapan was working on the Mind of a Beauracrat. Alapan’s book Amlar Mon was published in 2017, but our book has not yet seen the light of day.
Alapan is a voracious reader and requested books from my father’s library which he delicately handled, read and returned with great feelings and devotion. Alapan is a scholar of public administration. Arguably his most original unpublished work is a theory of control over bureaucracy, for which no adequate account had previously been given. Alapan argues that the only effective way to control a bureaucracy is to expose it to contradictory objectives that are kept in tension.
When Alapan started working as the Chief Secretary, 2020 one of his primary concern was for the women of the state and the delivery system of different programmes to reach them, particularly centred on healthcare and support for children. He recommended a one-window delivery programme to change that perception. The Government went on to launch a development programme for women which became affectionately known as ‘ Duare Sarkar’ (Government at the Doorstep). The programme supports women in their roles as farmers, entrepreneurs and family breadwinners.
He retired on 31 May 2021 and has been appointed as Chief Advisor to Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1 June 2021 for 3 years, a role in which he is currently functioning and primarily looking after policy matters and planning.
Alapan believes in Public Service, and uses his huge intellect with extraordinary compassion, integrity and wisdom to enrich and strengthen many debates, institutions and particularly, people. He has a spectacular ability to coax out and connect the profound and interesting.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay was born 17 May 1961 in Asansol. His father worked in Coal India; Eastern Coalfields Limited, and he himself has best described his mofussil upbringing in a eulogy which he wrote and published in a leading Bengali Daily after the sudden death of his brother, Anjan Bandyopadhyay. In the article he describes himself coming from a mofussil background, making his way to Calcutta. Alapan was a brilliant student and studied in Ramkrishna Mission, Narendrapur from where he appeared for Higher Secondary Examination. But unlike the others of his time, he did not pursue a study in science. He studied Political Science from Presidency College and then did his Masters from the University of Calcutta. He is married to the current Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta and academician Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee.
In my last meeting with Alapan I found him very nostalgic on the loss of his dear brother. He reminisced that their lives are influenced by Chinnamasta Kali having its roots and significance to the Tantric spiritual practices in the Hindu culture. Overlooking the flowing Damodar River, the Chinnamasta temple in Asansol district is in Dishergarh,eighteen km from Asansol town. He has written an article, where he introduces his younger brother Anjan to his ancestors. Being young he is not conversant and Alapan takes him through a journey. The article is scheduled to be published in Bartaman, Puja Sankha, slated for release on 6th. October, on Mahalaya.