Myriad hues of the bureaucracy
IT was fascinating for me to watch bureaucrats in action several decades ago. They borrowed most of their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies from the British. When the colonial rulers left the country, it was hoped that the Indian bureaucracy would serve the public with friendliness and kindness. Sadly, things did not turn out that way in the post-Independence era. Instead, we had babus who fretted and fumed while dealing with commoners.
In those days, a typical bureaucrat tried hard to converse in Oxford English, but he couldn’t help embellishing his language with a cocktail of local dialect and slang. The façade of a stiff upper lip crumbled whenever the officer found himself in a tight spot or had downed a few pegs.
Back in the late 1950s, I met a college-mate who had just entered the allied service. Like a ‘just married’ groom, he was on cloud nine. After all, it was no mean feat that he had made it to the hallowed portals of the Railways. It was understandable that he was holding on to his chair imposingly and firmly. I asked him about the timings and routes of trains from Calcutta to Santiniketan. He hurriedly and frantically turned over the pages of the timetable book, but failed to provide the information I had sought. Pushed to the brink, he blurted out an expletive in a vernacular language and sent for tea. He looked more like a grumpy freestyle wrestler than the quintessential ‘Burra Sahib’.
In another attempt at damage control, he sent for his weather-beaten, spectacled assistant, who stood like a mannequin with a timid yawn and helped me with the details of train routes and timings. Despite his obvious shortcomings, the officer rose to the plum post of general manager before he retired.
An incorrigible bureaucrat desperately needs sycophants who sing paeans to him, his family and his dog. An ego massage every now and then keeps him in a good humour. It is also important for him to maintain an equilibrium, or rather ‘equilickbrium’, in the pecking order. He has no qualms about licking the boots of his superiors or ministers so as to stay in their good books and win favours. The ‘hardly working’ public servant does a lot of hard work to please his bosses. He is capable of changing colours like a chameleon, depending on which way the political wind is blowing. In public service, it’s not principles that count, but wealth, power and influence. Principles are brushed aside with a simple ‘yes sir’, accompanied by a slavish grin.
After retirement, a bureaucrat longs for the praise of his former subordinates. He is gripped by nostalgia as he recalls the halcyon days when he had a coterie of yes-men. What he conveniently forgets is how he and his tribe have shackled this free country by their sheer selfishness and unscrupulousness.
