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 Last week I met a man who to me personified the ugly Indian bureaucrat. I met him at the India Today conclave. A nondescript little man whom I might have walked past, had he not reminded me that we had met before when he was head of the New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) and I came to his office in ‘attacking’ mode.

I remembered. I went to see him to try and prevent the NDMC from building illegal housing for its officials in the street in which I live. Jagmohan was minister of urban development at the time and I took with me a letter from him confirming that the proposed construction was a violation of Delhi’s master plan. When I reminded the retired official about this, he said, ‘Jagmohan is a fool. I have never done anything illegal in my life.’

‘Oh yes, you have, sir,’ said I, because I went to court against the NDMC’s construction activities and won my case. To this, the official, a belligerent little man, said, ‘Everyone knows the judges are all corrupt. I come from a judicial family and I know.’ In his eyes, everyone in government was corrupt, stupid and inefficient except he himself. Despite his boring self-importance, I continued the conversation, pointing out that the ugly buildings the NDMC has built for its officials sit on land that is worth more than Rs 100 crore an acre. Would it not have been better if the municipality had sold the land or built luxury apartments to sell for a profit. At this, the ex-bureaucrat got a nasty look on his face and snarled, ‘You know what your problem is? You don’t want the hoi polloi living next door to you.’ True. Who does?

The question to ask is: Should officials be living at taxpayers’ expense in a neighborhood inhabited by Lakshmi Mittal, K.P. Singh and Sunil Mittal? If I have a humble little flat in this very expensive part of town, it is only because of an inheritance from a grandfather who was one of the five contractors who helped Edwin Lutyens build New Delhi. Only very, very rich Indians can afford to live in this area now. And, of course, officials who live off your money and mine. My suggestion to the ex-bureaucrat was genuine. If municipal officials in cities like Delhi and Mumbai understood the worth of the real estate they occupy, they could make much better use of it.

Vast, expensive tracts of real estate in our metropolises are wasted on housing officials and politicians who should live with Gandhian austerity.

The trouble with Indian bureaucrats, even retired ones, is that they are so confident of their omniscience that they do not listen to those they think of as lesser beings. In long years of covering government, I have observed that the best and the worst of our bureaucrats have some traits that are common. Infallibility, self-importance, arrogance and omniscience being the ones that come immediately to mind. If you point out, as I like to, that the state of governance in India would not be as bad as it is if the bureaucracy was as good as it believes it is, they blame the political class. They tell you that the politicians who get elected these days are of inferior quality and this is why governance is a mess. But is it not the job of the permanent civil service to guide semi-literate, often inexperienced politicians in the right direction?

Not only do they fail to do this but they draw circles around ministers and chief ministers by devising systems so convoluted that only they know how to work them. I recently heard that a major infrastructure project was delayed because of a file that moved from the minister to the cabinet secretary, the finance secretary, the environment secretary, the PWD secretary then back up again and down again. Why? Vital projects remain in suspended animation because of this mysterious method of functioning. If bureaucrats wanted things to change they would change, but obfuscation and rotational processes suit them because it gives them a hold over the politicians they work for.

It’s time for things to change. The first urgent change that needs to be made is to make it possible to sack bureaucrats who squander taxpayers’ money by delaying major public projects. Officials caught causing needless delays must lose their jobs. The second change that needs to be made urgently is to order our brilliant IAS types to devise simpler, more modern methods of governance. It’s time for us to demand change. It’s time to remind our bureaucrats that the age of the burra sahib is gone and that they are in the end servants of the people of India.