On Bureaucracy

Indian Bureaucracy is infamously laborious and deserves a capital B. Important matters can be tabled for years while the appropriate formalities are followed. When I conducted research in the Tamil Nadu Leather Belt (no pun intended) in March, I caught a few glimpses of how difficult offices here can be to maneuver. This summer, I came prepared to wade through marshes, if not lakes of frustrating appointments and sycophants before accomplishing anything.

Instead, Bureaucracy has handed me almost everything I needed immediately and cleared a broad path to the door of every single person I need to speak with. Just when we started to run into trouble today with securing further interviews and I began to wonder if our luck was over, we dropped into the Pollution Control Board in Mysore and watched Bureaucracy work in our favor. Environmental officials may not have large amounts of power here, but they wield what they do have with a heavy hand: they can shut off the power grid connections to any industry that is not compliant. The local environmental officer simply called up the industries we needed to speak with and got us interviews on the spot. Problems solved, and we have all the interviews that we want from now until when we fall over from exhaustion.

Careful what you wish for.