Lamenting the Death of Babudom

Right to Information Act vs. Right to Not Act

I ask you what is the use of living in a democracy if the rights of the many are used as an excuse to trample over the rights of the few. Is it not the responsibility of a democracy that rights of individuals be protected?

The individuals that I speak of are that dying breed of bureaucrats like me, and the rights that I speak of are our unassailable Right To Not Act, which has been variously described to encompass the Right to Unjustified Self-Importance, the Right to 2 p.m. Afternoon Naps, and last but not least the Right to Chai Paani. And the cudgel that is being wielded to steal us of our rights is none other than the much touted Right to Information Act.

The death knell

I do not exaggerate that us babus are now an endangered lot. Now, the citizens of our country can demand to know why their application was rejected and then we have to wade through that same maze of files that we had so successfully built up over the decades. You can very well imagine the damage this has done to the physiques that we had so carefully cultivated through two hour long lunches followed by afternoon siestas on the nation's time.

And then there is the digitization of documents that has begun in right earnest. Soon all those mountains of files that we had to painstakingly built up will be reduced to a few terrabytes of data. I ask you, isn't that too much of a price to pay for having information conveniently at your fingertips?

If you answered no, then you clearly haven't seen the tearful expressions of gratitude on the faces of the poor war widows who have just been told that the petrol pump that the government decided to award them will finally be theirs after years spent filling all the appropriate forms, writing enquiry letters, enquiring about the status of enquiry letters and so forth. This trend of answers at the tips of their fingers and instant gratification is disturbing to say the least.

The future

So where does that leave me and my sorry lot, the ones who through our propensity to misplace applications (filled in triplicate) and other wiles of bureaucracy helped ensure that this nation's progress after our independence has been like that famous tortoise, slow and steady.

After we are gone, who will direct hapless citizens to the appropriate departments, which only the facetious would call making them run from pillar to post? Who will guard the secrets of how this nation works close to our chests?

With babudom in its final throes, and democracy clearly irrelevant, I will spend the rest of my days here, lamenting the death of officialdom, the demise of all things sacred, and occassional celebrating a few victories of the my kin.