Delay & denial
Perhaps except the Konkan Railway and the Delhi Metro, no project ever undertaken by an Indian babu ever finishes on time. There are some irrigation projects that are in the process of completion for the last 30 years! Delays are always deliberate because they throw open more opportunities for ‘money on the side’. And
of course, whenever the media or the judiciary highlights the delay,
the Pavlovian reflex of the Indian bureaucrat is to deny, and then deny
some more.
Enquiry & extension
If
corruption and sordid acts are the dirt, the omnipresent ‘Enquiry
Committee’ is the proverbial carpet under which the dirt has been
carefully hidden.The principal purpose of the Enquiry committee is to delay, and then deny in
the hope that the media and the public will eventually forget about the
case. In English, enquiry rhymes with another interesting word called
bury! Bureaucrats never ever retire; they just keep getting those ‘extensions’!
Failure
That
one word can neatly sum up the history of the Indian bureaucracy after
independence in 1947. Worse, babus find it difficult to digest the fact
that entrepreneurs can usually do a better job. So you will see
bureaucrats banning ‘private’ bus operators and forcing citizens to take
state run buses that don’t run. So you will see envious bureaucrats
‘de-recognising’ or not recognising world class centres of higher
education. Perhaps their biggest failure till date has been their total inability to kill the great Indian spirit!
Gutless
There
is a saying about the Emergency: they crawled when they were asked to
bend. That can neatly sum up the behaviour and attitude of most
bureaucrats in independent India. It
is virtually impossible for a minister to get a babu sacked; and yet
bureaucrats crawl before netas and justify their behaviour by whining
that they are otherwise harassed.
Hustling
You would associate this term usually with dealers in a casino. But Indian babus have become masters of the game. Just
look at how Sudhir Goswami hustled his way into the cover of Time
Magazine as one of the Indian heroes. It is only much later that dumb
struck Indians found out that Goswami was lining his pockets and bank
accounts with money meant for flood relief! And does any one remember
Ashok Agarwal, the Enforcement Directorate official who turned black
mailing into a fine art!
Impose inefficiently
When
corruption, delays, denials and hustling don’t work, the Indian babu
resorts to ‘imposing’ rules and regulations. It is a different matter
that the bureaucrat performs even this destructive act very
inefficiently!Impose price controls if inflation hurts people so that they are hurt even more. Impose quotas at the behest of political masters. Impose rules which entrepreneurs have to break if they want to run a successful business.
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Justify
The
Indian bureaucrat has acquired and mastered the legendary act of
justifying anything and everything. File a request under the Right to
Information Act and the babu will deny access to it. He will then
justify his cussed behaviour because it involves something termed as
‘national security’. Ask a
bureaucrat about delays in construction of national highways and you
will get simply no response, He will justify his stonewalling in the
name of ‘public interest’!
Kafkaesque
If Franz Kafka had encountered Indian babus, his novels would have been even more depressing and disturbing. Analysts
are sadly mistaken when they call Kafka’s writings surreal; they
perhaps meant the Indian bureaucracy. A Kafkaesque bureaucracy is
“marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity”. B&E
challenges entrepreneurs and citizens to say confidently that they
understand the frighteningly complex jargon that is used by babus.
Lies
Arguably the third most favourite sport of the bureaucrats after corruption and delays. When denials and stone walling don’t work, just resort to outright lies. The
Indian babu will lie about files, projects, public interest, national
security, corruption, delays, hustling and any other act that might
embarrass the bureaucrat individually or the bureaucracy collectively.
Thanks to judicial activism and some bureaucrats being sent behind bars
for contempt of court, babus are now wary of using this weapon!
Mismanagement
If
Jack Welch would watch an Indian babu ‘manage’ something, he might just
end up committing suicide.With extremely rare and honourable
exceptions, almost every thing that a bureaucrat touches turns into
dust. When babus announce a
grand new plan to increase electricity and water supply to citizens, the
taps dry up and the lights go out. When they announce a plan to tackle
monsoon in Bombay, even Dalal Street virtually shuts down because no one can reach office! And of course, they then justify it in public interest!
Nepotism
Like
the courtiers of the Mughal era, Indian babus-thanks to their access to
the new kings and queens ofIndia (Ministers, MPs and MLAs)-are
perpetually trying to curry a favour or two for themselves and their
family members. The best overseas scholarships are thus ‘reserved’
for children of bureaucrats. Some of the best jobs in the private sector
are thus ‘reserved’ for the children of bureaucrats. And some of the
best college seats in India are thus ‘reserved’ for the blessed progeny
of these new age courtiers!
Oblivious
Quite
mysteriously, the ‘If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake’ persona
of the French Revolution has been transplanted into Indian bureaucracy. Cocooned
in their bungalows and VIP areas, the Indian babu is utterly oblivious
to what is happening in the rest of the country. The babu is oblivious
of the fact that 300 million Indians are starving; that roads don’t
exist in much of India, that water and electricity are mirages for the
aam aadmi, that…The only thing they are not oblivious to is their ‘status’.
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Proliferate
Like bacteria and termites, Indian babus have proliferated and invaded virtually every sphere of activity in the country. No
wonder businessmen and citizens say that our system is rotten to the
core. Indian babus run companies, they manage climate control, they run
the Railways, they operate fleets of buses and aircraft, they run duty
free shops, they run anti-poverty programs, they run schools and
colleges and hospitals… They might start running modelling agencies and spas too. In short, proliferating bureaucrats have run India to the ground!
Queue
When
the first bureaucrat in the history of mankind had a fantasy, he saw a
long and winding queue of forlorn, dejected and frustrated people. That
day, God was perhaps in a bad mood and condemned mankind to a life time
of queuing up. For Indian babus, the ultimate high is making citizens
stand in never ending queues-for money, for ration, for tickets, for
liquor, for passports and even for death certificates. Of course, queues are meant only for the public, not for ‘public servants’!
Red tape
The ubiquitous file tied up in red thread is the ultimate symbol of the corrosive and destructive powers of Indian bureaucracy. It
is as dangerous as the Swastika of Nazis; as devastating as the Red
Star of Stalin and Mao and as vainglorious as the Eagle of the United
States. The Indian babu starts getting withdrawal symptoms if he is not surrounded by musty files; many of which have perhaps not been opened for decades. Red Tape is the Bramhastra that is used by babus to systematically throttle India Inc.
Sycophancy
Many at B&E suggested socialism & sadistic as a better option than sycophancy. Eventually, the consensus was that arrogance coupled with sycophancy is the Yin & Yang of Indian bureaucracy. The
sycophancy is reserved only for the powers that be-for the criminal
turned neta who has become a minister, for superiors who can gift plum
postings and assignments and for very rich entrepreneurs who lavish
money on the bureaucrats.
Tragedy
Indian bureaucrats are always feverishly praying for natural and man made tragedies and disasters to strike India. A minor flood is welcome; a drought is even better and a disaster like an earthquake or a super cyclone is heaven sent. A tragedy means ‘relief’ money from government coffers and an opportunity to make enough to build another house or two. Now you know why sincere and dedicated babus fight to have their districts declared ‘drought prone’!
Utopian
Hare
brained ideas and schemes have become the monopoly of Indian
bureaucracy. One day, you will have the Lt. Governor of Delhi thinking
aloud that I-cards for people from U.P. and Bihar might be a good idea.
The other day, you will have another babu stipulate that a homeless
destitute must provide proof of residence before he gets free food.
Soon, expect a bunch of sycophantic babus kowtowing to a neta and
drawing up legislation for reservations in the private sector.
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Verbose
This term just about pipped the word vindictive to the post. Whether
it is the annual function of a school or college or a gathering
of India’s top businessmen, the Indian bureaucrat is in his element when
he gets a chance to deliver a ‘lecture’. Hypocritical words tumble out of his mouth like honey laced with arsenic. Children & businessmen have no choice but to suffer in silence for a vindictive bureaucrat is worse than a verbose one!
Wanton
Four
synonyms for the term wanton are-uncalled for, needless, meaningless
and reckless. But wait, the wanton behaviour of the Indian babu is on
display on selective occasions. Over cautious bureaucrats suddenly
turn decisively over zealous when it comes to squandering tax payers’
money on fancy schemes that only line up their pockets and that of
politicians.
Xenophobia
When all else – including corruption, delays, denials, hustling, nepotism, red tapism and sycophancy – fails, the
Indian babu resorts to the good old pass the buck game and starts
blaming ‘foreign powers’ for all the ills that bedevil India. The
foreign power could be the CIA, it could be terrorists from Pakistan, it
could be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, it could be the insidious
designs of China and it could be a conspiracy of developed countries to
deny prosperity to India.
Yes minister
Most
readers of B&E must be familiar with this hilarious and yet
poignant book and British TV series. Just in case you are not, it is a
series of episodes where bumbling but clubby bureaucrats make fools out
of vainglorious politicians in the U.K. In India, it is difficult to
say who is making a fool of whom. But one thing is for sure, both
bureaucrats and ministers are sure making fools of Indian citizens. Not just some of the people some of the time. But all the people, all the time!
Zero sum game
In
this game, one of the two participants has to necessarily lose. More
importantly, the quantum of gains that are made by the winner is exactly
the same as the quantum of losses. In India, the bureaucrat and the
citizen have been playing a zero sum game right since 1947; perhaps even
before that, when the British had ruled India through a civil service
stucture. No prizes for guessing who the decisive winner is when the
opponents are the citizen and the bureaucrat. Unlike those classic zero sum games, the politician is the joker in the pack in this case!
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