D Roopa Moudgil is first woman Home Secretary of Karnataka
D Roopa Moudgil, a Batch 2000 IPS officer, has been transferred over 41 times in her two-decade career. Fearless, forthright and feisty, she is now the first woman Home Secretary of Karnataka.
At HerStory’s Women On A Mission Summit in 2019, D Roopa Moudgil, the first woman IPS officer of Karnataka, told the audience to thundering applause, “If you want to create history, don’t be that good girl. Girls have been told that it is feminine to act shy, coy, and to bend down. Speak up for yourself! Women have been told to be like Mother Earth, who must tolerate everything and never speak against injustice meted out at them. This has to change.”
Transferred over 41 times in 20 years, Roopa has always believed that one has to do whatever their job demands, and not give in to the societal expectation of what a woman should do.
Roopa has now been posted as Home Secretary to Government of Karnataka, the first woman officer to hold this post.
A Batch 2000 officer, Roopa, currently in the role of inspector general of police (IGP), Railways, Bengaluru, has been transferred as IGP and PCAS, Home Department, replacing Umesh Kumar.
Born to a family of IAS officers, Roopa also wrote the UPSC exams, securing an all-India rank of 43. She however, chose to be an IPS officer because of her love for the force and what being an officer meant to her.
At the event, she had said, “If we have a dream, we have to pursue it relentlessly. And this courage to work towards the dream starts at home. We need to do away with the societal assigned roles of men and women — that young girls help the mother in the kitchen while boys help the father in the market.”
Even though her career has been marked by many events – like arresting the Madhya Pradesh CM in 2004 to reporting irregularities and corruption in Bengaluru prisons, Roopa has set out to always do what she believes in, even if it meant ruffling many feathers and receiving many transfers over a two-decade career.
She told HerStory in an interview in 2018, “The ability to speak your mind comes from two aspects – one is competence and the other is moral courage. Competence is knowing your job well, knowing what rules permit and what they don’t, and following them. Moral courage comes from the fact that you have got nothing to cover up, nothing to be embarrassed about because you're right. When you are not bothered about the past or the future and are living in the present, it makes you fearless.”
Never surprised by any transfer, Roopa says she's “always ready to move”. Here’s wishing her the very best in all her endeavours as she marches along – to right many wrongs, to ensure justice, and help during these very trying times.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)