Darpan letter · No. 143 October 2026

Seventy empty chairs

On seventy doctors dismissed for absence and two health centres with no doctor, the Gītā’s steady worker who does the duty that must be done without attachment, the devotee who hates no being and is also firm of resolve, and the Arthaśāstra’s king whose happiness lies in his people’s

प्रिय साथी,

Today I want to put you in the chair of a Director of Health Services, and I want to begin with a number that is easy to read past: seventy. The Hindu reports that Andhra Pradesh has dismissed 70 Civil Assistant Surgeons who stayed away without authorisation for more than a year. Doctors who come forward may rejoin, with measures such as withheld increments, and 78 have already done so. An assessment found 493 doctors and other employees absent. The Health Minister has asked for “zero leniency”, disciplinary proceedings completed within three months, and a “zero vacancy policy” to fill the posts. Read the first case card after this letter. It gives you a district network in which two primary health centres already have no doctor, an absent doctor who writes that a family illness and a posting far from home kept the doctor away, and an influential local leader who asks you, quietly, to “go slow” on a relative’s file.

Notice how many people are pulling at you at once, and how each of them has a point. The government is right that a doctor who is paid and absent wrongs the village that waits. The doctor who writes may be telling the truth, and a rule that cannot hear the truth is only a machine. The leader is asking for a favour that looks small. And in the background, unseen in the room, is the patient in a village whose health centre has no doctor today, and who will have none tomorrow if the dismissal empties the post and nothing fills it. When many voices pull at once, the officer’s first mistake is to listen only to the loudest. The second is to freeze, and let the file sit.

Our oldest answer to that freeze is in the third chapter of the Gītā, where Kṛṣṇa speaks to Arjuna, who has stopped acting because every course of action hurts someone: तस्मादसक्तः सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर। असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुषः॥ — tasmād asaktaḥ satataṃ kāryaṃ karma samācara, asakto hy ācaran karma param āpnoti pūruṣaḥ — therefore, without attachment, always do the work that has to be done; for the person who does work without attachment reaches the highest (Bhagavad Gītā 3.19). Read the first line slowly. It says kāryaṃ karma, the work that has to be done, not the work that is pleasant, nor the work that pleases the powerful. And it says asaktaḥ, not attached. In the case before you, there are three things an officer can be attached to: the Minister’s praise for being harsh, the leader’s goodwill for being soft, and his own comfort in leaving the file alone. The verse asks you to let go of all three and ask only what the work, in front of you, requires.

What does the work require? The case card’s answer is practical, and it is faithful to the verse. Each doctor is given notice, a chance to explain and a reasoned order, because absence is a charge, not a verdict, and natural justice does not stop because a clock is running. The rejoining route, with increments withheld, is applied as a graded penalty and applied equally. Two things happen at the same time: the discipline is firm, and the empty posts are filled before the dismissals land, through locum or contract doctors, staff rotated from better-staffed centres, and mobile clinics for the two empty ones. Do you see what this is? It is the same duty seen from two sides. The patient is owed a doctor who comes, and a doctor who comes only if the patient is not forgotten in the process of punishing the absent one.

Now to the temper in which you do it, which matters as much as the act. Two chapters on, the Gītā describes the one dearest to Kṛṣṇa: अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च। निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी॥ — adveṣṭā sarvabhūtānāṃ maitraḥ karuṇa eva ca, nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ samaduḥkhasukhaḥ kṣamī — one who hates no being, who is friendly and compassionate, free from the sense of “mine” and from ego, the same in pain and pleasure, patient (Bhagavad Gītā 12.13). And the next verse adds a quality that surprises people who think compassion is soft: सन्तुष्टः सततं योगी यतात्मा दृढनिश्चयः — santuṣṭaḥ satataṃ yogī yatātmā dṛḍhaniścayaḥ — ever content, disciplined in self, firm in resolve (Bhagavad Gītā 12.14, first half). Put the two verses together and you have the officer the case needs. He bears no hatred towards the absent doctor, whose letter he reads with an open mind, and he is dṛḍhaniścayaḥ, firm in resolve, so that the leader’s request does not bend him. Firmness and friendliness are not opposites in our tradition. They are meant to live in one person.

See also the word nirmamaḥ, free from “mine”. The leader’s relative is, in the leader’s mind, mine. The post is the Minister’s, the dismissal is the Department’s, the clinic is the Director’s. Every “mine” in this story weakens the file. The Gītā asks the officer to hold only one thing as his own, the work, and to hold it on behalf of the village. So the answer to the leader needs no anger and no speech. Tell him that every file will move on its merits, and write the request in the file, so that it is known that it was made. A relative should receive treatment neither slower nor faster than a stranger.

Our tradition also gave the administrator a sentence that reads like a summary of the whole case. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, in the chapter on the king’s daily conduct, says: प्रजासुखे सुखं राज्ञः प्रजानां च हिते हितम्। नात्मप्रियं हितं राज्ञः प्रजानां तु प्रियं हितम्॥ — prajāsukhe sukhaṃ rājñaḥ prajānāṃ ca hite hitam, nātmapriyaṃ hitaṃ rājñaḥ prajānāṃ tu priyaṃ hitam — in the happiness of his subjects lies the king’s happiness, and in their welfare his welfare; what is dear to himself is not the king’s good, but what is dear to his subjects is (Arthaśāstra 1.19.34). Hold this against the dismissal order. A discipline that satisfies the Minister’s wish to look strict is ātmapriya, dear to the ruler. A discipline that leaves a village with a doctor who actually comes is prajānāṃ priya, dear to the people. The test of a firm order is not how it sounds on the evening news but whether a mother in a remote hamlet finds the doctor’s chair occupied next month.

Be fair to the other side, as the case is. The officer who hears every sad letter and forgives them all fails the patient just as surely as the one who dismisses everyone, because the patient’s clinic is empty in both cases. The case’s closing line is the wisest: make attendance easier than absence. A fair transfer rule, housing at remote centres, a posting that does not separate a doctor from a sick parent for years, these reduce the reasons for absence. Firm action is credible only when the policy behind it is also fair. And that is the moment to remember the constitutional frame: Article 21 has been read to include the right to health, and Article 47 asks the State to raise the level of public health as a primary duty. The duty runs to the patient first.

Let this make you proud. Think about what you have just read. A verse composed so long ago that no one can fix its date told an officer-to-be that the right action is to be done without clinging to praise or to comfort. Another told him that the person closest to the divine is the one who hates nobody and is also firm. A treatise on statecraft told rulers that their happiness is inside their people’s. These are not museum pieces. They are the vocabulary in which a Director of Health Services can think on a Saturday morning in an Andhra district, with seventy empty chairs in front of him. India did not need to import a theory of public service. It had written one, and then lived inside it, for thousands of years.

For your preparation, three things. In GS4, Gītā 3.19 and 12.13–14 together give you a strong frame for a case on discipline against compassion: do the work that must be done (kāryaṃ karma), without attachment (asakta), without hatred (adveṣṭā) and with firm resolve (dṛḍhaniścaya). Arthaśāstra 1.19.34 is an elegant line for any answer on the purpose of administration. In GS2, the case gives you natural justice in disciplinary proceedings, the idea of graded penalty, and the link between governance of public health and Article 21 and Article 47. In your answer-writing, notice the order the model approach follows: name the conflict, protect the weakest stakeholder, give a practical step for each pressure, and close with the structural fix.

And now something about you, because I know what this Saturday may feel like. You are an examinee with a long list, and somewhere in that list are a few chairs that are empty: a subject you meant to finish and did not, a test you did not take, a week you lost to illness or to worry. The voices pulling at you are the same as the Director’s. One says, be harsh on yourself, zero leniency. Another says, go slow, it will be fine. A third says nothing, and simply lets the file sit. Listen to the Gītā instead. Find the kāryaṃ karma, the one piece of work that must be done today, and do it without clinging to the fear of what others have finished or to the comfort of putting it off. Then be the friend to yourself that the verse describes: no hatred towards the one who fell behind, and a firm resolve to begin again.

A day may come when you hold a file about seventy people and the voices in the room are all raised. Nobody will ask you to quote the verse. Let it be in you before then, so that your hand does what must be done, your heart hates no one, and your mind is thinking of the village that has no doctor. Then you will be the kind of officer the Republic hopes will walk through the gate you are knocking on, and the village will be glad of you.

— आपका साथी, दर्पण

Sources: Bhagavad Gītā 3.19 · Bhagavad Gītā 12.13–12.14 · Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra 1.19.34