From North to North East After leaving Goa, Kiran Bedi had done quite many assignments in Delhi.

She had had enough of soft postings and opted for a hard posting. She wrote to the joint secretary (union territories) that she would be grateful if she were sent to Arunachal Pradesh, Assam or Mizoram. There was no response to her letter and so she went to his office. She was assured that the matter was under active consideration and she would be informed soon. For quite a while though, nothing happened. She visited his office again and was told that the schools in Aizawal were bad and she should reconsider her request. Her daughter had completed her tenth standard from Delhi and so she consulted officers who had served in Mizoram about the real situations regarding schools there. They told her that the situation was manageable. So she went right back to the joint secretarys office and told the officials that she had reconsidered her request and stood by it. There was still no response from the joint secretarys office for another long period and then they finally communicated to her that they could offer her the post of vigilance officer of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). She found this a dead end and so wrote a letter to home secretary about her request. The occupant of this post, Naresh Kumar, informed the joint secretary that if she was volunteering for the hard area posting, then he should rightly accept her offer and send her there. Meanwhile feelers were sent to her that, if she had no objections, she could be sent to Jammu & Kashmir because they needed women officers there to handle the women agitators. But Kiran Bedi conveyed a polite no. Finally, a batchmate ,Parminder Singh, and a common friend of Kiran and the joint secretary, persuaded the latter to let her go, pointing out that whereas officers who were given Mizoram posting refused to accept it , here was one who was volunteering for it and the official was not acceding to her request. After that she received orders to report to Mizoram Government. She wanted a change and she most certainly did get. When she was posted to Mizoram, she was new to the region, did not know the local culture, and could not speak Mizo. However, she did not let these obstacles stand in her way. She lost no time in reaching out to staff and local people. With her staff officer acting as an interpreter, she quickly identified the priorities and put a system in place for the Mizoram police. She quickly realized that drug trafficking, drug abuse and alcoholism were areas of real concern. She addressed these issues by correcting the basic policing through the police Beat System and by opening Beat Houses in far-flung areas. She organized police public coordinating forums within the towns as well as the borders, awareness programs, education, and inter-agency joint training programs. Kiran Bedi also involved community and church groups in this process, thereby emphasizing rehabilitation and treatment over punishment and helping to draw local citizens into the process. During this phase, she addressed the ongoing problem of terrorist acts committed by the Hmars People Convention (an extremist group). She enacted and enforced tough anti-terrorism laws, which eventually forced the group to surrender and sign a peace agreement. During her posting in Mizoram her daughter had topped the Class XII CBSE exams from that state. As per the rules which still prevail she was entitled to admission in professional colleges from the Mizoram quota as her parent was a government official posted there. The child was given admission in a Delhi medical college based on this rule. There was an agitation in Mizoram because many people there did not like the fact that a non-Mizo was being given admission through the Mizoram quota. Since it was Kiran Bedi a lot of heat was built up in the national media. The chief minister said that he did not want Non Mizos to get the seats from Mizoram because they are not going to return to the state. She was asked in writing to meet the chief minister and discuss the issue with him. She was categorically told: Your daughter is the only one who is coming in the way of normalcy in the state. Withdraw your daughter or bear the consequences..She was made to feel that she was an outsider. With this she felt that it was best to leave the scene. People there say that she ran away from the situation. But the circumstances had gone beyond control .She had asked for a leave earlier but that was not accepted. So, she left without asking. She left a letter saying that she was leaving under compelling situations and that she would be away for as long as the situation warrants, so she may please be granted a leave. She regretted leaving a place like this .Her term was over four months ago, and she wanted to leave leaving goodwill behind. It was unfortunate that all her struggle and hardwork had to get lost in one Mizo moment. Once the students of Mizoram realized that she had actually left, they called off their agitation immediately. The state promptly issued orders for cancellation of seat allotted to her daughter. The authorities of the college, Delhi, refused to take cognizance of such orders on the ground that they had no lawful reason to decline a student registered on the colleges roll. The state of Mizoram tried to file a petition in the Higher Courts. But the Supreme Court was not even willing to consider it. The matter rested at the contention that seats allocated by the Government of India are not for Mizos but for Mizoram, which is a state of India. Since then, non-

Mizos who were/are similarly placed continue to get the benefit of joining professional courses and the government of India order still remains valid. Kiran Bedi has been accused of not informing her seniors when she did this. If she had done so the news could well have been leaked out. And that would have been dangerous to say the least. Kiran's daughter wasn't the first to take benefit of this rule and she won't be the last. Since getting admission through a common entrance examination to a professional college is a Herculean task which gets tougher every year many officials take a hardship posting so that their children can avail of this facility. Besides this there are many officials who are sent on punishment postings and their children get cut off from the mainstream in these far flung areas and their kids deserve some protection. Being the first IPS woman officer she must have been at the receiving end of many an allegation which in the case of male officer wouldn't even have been thought to be worthy of notice. But for her this was yet another fight for justice in a long series. If she won in one way, she paid the price in another. She remained without work for more than nine months after returning to Delhi, till such a state of affairs was questioned by the accountant general of India. After months of endless waiting, without any posting and without any work, she was dumped at Tihar Jai, New Delhi. In one of the B-school's annual event Confluence 2010, Kiran Bedi disclosed that a government official holding an important position at that time asked for Rs 6 lakh if she wanted a posting in Delhi as her tenure in Mizoram had ended in 1992. "I refused to pay the amount and asked them to print the money themselves and take it. Because of this, they kept me waiting for nine months and did not assign me any duty after which they finally posted me in Tihar Jail," she said. She shared these experiences related to corruption while speaking at the valedictory function of IIM-A's business school summit. However, she refrained from sharing the name or identity of the official who demanded the bribe. She said the biggest corruption scams in the country are handiworks of corporates. "Corporates are corrupting the government" she said, adding, "It is my sincere request that the institute undertakes research to find out why these young talented and educated officers are getting into corruption." According to her, another research must be conducted to find out why these talented bureaucrats corrode and why don't they speak up about corruption before their retirement. Referring to other issues, which need to be researched she said, "So many engineers are getting into administrative services. Is not it waste of all the skills they learnt as engineers? We need to find out who are better managers; people from arts background or people from the science background." Life at Tihar Jail: One journey can change a life. One life can change the world. In Indian Police Service a prison assignment for an IPS officer is considered to be a dump posting. For Kiran Bedi, it was a double dump as she was denied a return to her own Delhi Police despite a more than two year stint in Mizoram, considered a hard area posting. After a hard stint an officer is entitled to select a posting of his or her choice. Apparently, there was, once again, no place for her. She was kept waiting compulsorily for nine months without work. Kiran Bedi became the Inspector General of Prisons in 1993. The success of historical reforms she introduced in Tihar jail, are nothing short of miracle. Here she was able to reach out in a short period of time the imprisoned and the outcasts of the society at their deepest levels. As that time Tihar jail was the largest and most corrupt prison in India spanning about 200 acres of land. With over 11000 inmates, Tihar was the largest in terms of human dimension as well in India and Asia-Pacific. Tihar is among the largest prisons in the world as well. Quoted from Kiran Bedis book, Its Always Possible-Institutions such as Tihar which are inhabited by thousands of people behind huge blind gates can be seen either by the inhabitants sent in by court orders or the few privileged persons in charge. I happened to be one such eyewitness from May 1993 to May 1995..I was there to correct not accuse. The magnitude of the problem was enormous. It took me months. Institutions take their time to reveal despite individual impatience. Kiran Bedis appointment as IG (Prisons) was meant to be a punishment by the establishment. To those who despised Kiran Bedis unquestionable and unshakable ethics, it was a mission to crucify her. Kiran considered herself a soldier, duty-bound to take charge of a hell-hole where rampant corruption, ongoing violence, gang wars and extortion continued unexposed for years. In her early days as a police officer, Kiran Bedi developed a core belief that prisons should play a supportive role in reforming repeat offenders. Her experiments on vipassana meditation at Tihar brought her into the international limelight. She wanted a jail to be a correction centre which made a better human being out of an inmate. The traditional image of a jail in India is of a place which brutalizes and hardens even a petty criminal. This was the initiative which led to her Magsaysay award. It gave many prisoners the opportunity to reform themselves. In that sense she has been a catalyst in the growth of many an individual who had been condemned by society.

Behind the tough and stern looks on their faces, she could see the vulnerability of inmates. She felt that the confinement of inmates in Tihar jail was in itself sufficient to render the punishment of their crime. They did not need to be punished further than that. In the first few weeks the sordid reality of a derailed prison system became apparent to her where humans were stuffed in barrack as animals. When media visited with VIPs, they got to see the artificially created neat and clean places that were en route to the VIPs tours. On the outside of Tihar jail lofty claims of prison reforms and rehabilitation were made by these VIPs. In addition to severe lack of basic amenities and medical care for all, women prisoners were particularly vulnerable to molestation and sexual favors demanded by the prison guards. There were infants staying with their mothers in the female ward. She knew that something had to be done. She wanted to put a long term system in place for not only while she was Inspector General but also for after she was gone. Someone had to carry forward the reformation process while saving the next victim. Within days of joining her duties at Tihar, she made observations and started engaging her staff through instruction concerning various aspects of Prison Administration to introduce cleaner living conditions, plan for literacy and education programs, better medical care, de-addiction drive and a sense of community in the prison. In addition to her professional qualifications and capabilities, she always listened and learnt from her staff. Here in Tihar also, listening to her staff, she was able to bring to fruition a concept that is simply unheard of anywhere in the world. A secular, non-sectarian ancient Indian meditation technique, at one time Vipasana was taught to a group of more than 1000 volunteer prison inmates of various religious beliefs (Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims) and more than a dozen nationalities. The successful completion of this program resulted in the establishment of a permanent center within Tihar complex, which metamorphosed from Tihar jail to Tihar Ashram. Vipasana meditational technique became an integral part of the Tihar Ashram. According to her, it reinforced her personal conviction that certain duties are not mere jobs, but a whole mission by themselves, for they shape the future. By this, the government of United States was impressed enough for the Congressional Committee of the US Senate to invite her for a prayer breakfast with President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton. The United Nations was impressed enough with her achievements to invite her to Copenhegan, Denmark, to attend the United Nations World Summit for Social Development. The British Foreign Officer was impressed enough to have the British High Commission invite her to visit the prisons in UK. But, Kiran Bedis superiors were not impressed. While the world was watching the dramatic way in which Tihar was metamorphosing from a hellhole of a prison into an ashram, her superiors were watching the increased wattage of the spotlight that was focusing on her. All the effort that were being put into overhauling of the rusted Tihar machinery and in making directional changes in the focus of such effort were perfunctorily summed up as being so much effort to merely hog publicity. The Lt .Governor P. K. Dave had asked the Union Home Ministry to transfer the high profile Tihar Jail Inspector General, Ms Kiran Bedi, on ground of manipulating foreign tours and populist measures. The letter stated that in her desire to get publicity, Ms Bedi was taking measures that could compromise the security requirements of the prison. He had cited instances when people were allowed inside the prison without screening. One was on occasion of Rakshabandhan. The other was the visit of United States Embassy officials to the prison. Kiran Bedi reported back to the Delhi Police. The transfer order put her in charge of training and policy implementation. Overnight, even training was withdrawn and she was left with only policy implementation. Nobody explained why the order was changed. In the area of policy implementation, there was nothing spelt out. It was now for her to decide what she wanted to do; sit around and do nothing. Or she could do her own thing. She decided to do the latter part. She had secured the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship while she was working at Tihar. That time she had decided not to take it up as Tihar Jail reforms were on the peak and it would have had been derailed if not looked upon. So she had decided to postpone writing in order to complete tasks in hands. Back in Delhi Police she saw nothing really waiting for her. Thus, she decided to go in for writing and applied for a study leave and got into author mode. She got in writing and published the book Its Always Possible. After completing her book, she reported back to Delhi Police but again was kept waiting. Meanwhile she got an offer from the Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Tejendra Khanna to join him as advisors for redressing peoples grievances. She initially waited for sometime as she thought she would get some place in Delhi Police sooner or later. But with nothing left for her, she finally decided to join the Lieutenant Governor and deal with the complaints of public. This turned out to be a great success. With the change of government at the Centre in March 1998, as the Lieutenant Governor is Central Government appointee, Mr. Khanna was relieved of his charge. The change made Kiran feel unwanted. With her request, she was moved back to Delhi Police. This time she was appointed as the joint commissioner (training).

Since 1993 Kiran Bedis three Cs model of prison management which incorporates collective, corrective and community based approach continues to emerge into a proposed New Prison Act which if approved by the President of India will replace 115 year old Prison Act of 1894. In the year 1994, Kiran Bedi received Ramon Magsaysay Award and India Vision Foundation (IVF) was founded to work in the field of prison reforms, women advancement, education, vocational training, sports promotion and rural development. The foundation began with providing education and rehabilitation to children of prisoners in its Crime Home Children project. The IVF organization appears to be aligned with Kiran Bedis philosophy of transparency. The Gali School project of the foundation reaches out to children of the slums in the streets to educate them by organizing a class in the street itself.

Bedi Bids Adieu to Khakhi In the year 2007, being at the post of Director General of Police Research & Development , Kiran Bedi received her relieving letter from Union Home Ministry, bringing end to her long association with the police force. Kiran Bedi has opted for voluntary retirement from her job as she felt that she was overlooked for the post of Delhi Police Commissioner. She had put in 35 long years in the service, marked by constant opposition. She had dared to persistently challenge the old order against all odds, despite of facing envy and sabotage of repeatedly at virtually every step of her career. She had enough of repeated hearing that, If you cannot be a part of the system, why dont you get out? It was time for her to finally reject the envious and suffocating glass ceiling; it was not possible for her to break through, in given set of circumstances. After getting the Centres formal letter, she was now completely free to work for people without any interference and confrontation. She said that she had enough of a government job. She would certainly now not work for government but with the Government through her different projects. She is taking care of two NGOs Navjyoti & India Vision Foundation. Women empowerment programmes in rural areas and creating leadership among them at Panchayat level were the tasks of these NGOs. She was been moved to the Bureau of Police Research and Development when she was preparing Delhi for citizen policing. She spoke to the Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil and tried to convince him that she was eligible and deserving candidate for the post. She even conveyed the changes that she would bring about if she was selected for that post. But the minister replied that he was not the one to decide who would be the next Police Commissioner of Delhi. Kiran Bedi at that point in time decided that if she was overlooked she would move on. And the same happened. Not Kiran Bedi, but her junior in Union territory IPS Cadre, Y.S.Dadwal was appointed as Police Commissioner of Delhi. She had set up a model of Policing which she would have had implemented if she would be appointed as Police Commissioner of Delhi. But she did not get a chance to implement her Policing Model. The true leaders have a mindset that spans the entire enterprise around them and seek creating shared value for the enterprise and its members and it is this mindset what makes them most effective. Personal success for them is not their primary goal. Instead of personal success they passionately and personally seek success of the enterprise. Their personal success is merely an outcome of their commitment and their work toward goals that benefit communities, institutions, organizations, societies and enterprises around them. This is what Kiran Bedi perused throughout her career in Police Department. Her bold actions came at a cost to her career and her family. Despite that she would treat all equal and not spare a wrong doer just because of he or she held a VIP status or was affiliated with a VIP family. If she had become the Police Commissioner of Delhi she would have hogged the headlines.