Rahul Khullar, a man who stood tall for 'the little guy', passes away

Irascible but always ready to listen, Khullar's guiding credo was that a civil servant must never lose sight of his client

In a governance ecosphere inhabited increasingly by soft-voiced bureaucrats with flexi-spines, Rahul Khullar (1975 batch, UT cadre IAS) stood apart: He was always outspoken and he would not bend. This was evident till the last. Though grievously ill, he signed an open letter along with other colleagues counselling the government to listen to agitating farmers for, quite apart from violating the federal spirit of thae Constitution, the farm laws passed by Parliament simply did not consult those for whom they were meant: The farmers themselves.

Many of his colleagues despaired of him precisely for this trait. But Khullar made no