Bureaucracy - the Great Wall of India

Indignant Indian’s letter (“Bizarre bureaucracy at the Indian embassy”) of June 30 must have ruffled a few feathers somewhere, because this is the second time you’ve printed the embassy’s rebuttal.  The imperious – nay, lordly – tone alone is evidence that the rebuttal comes from an Indian bureaucratic brain.

My husband and I applied for Indian tourist visas at the outsourced agency some time ago, and if this is the Indian embassy’s idea of “convenience”, they must be using a different dictionary from mine.

Our subsequent visit to India confirmed an initial impression that bureaucratic inefficiency and obstructionism have come to permeate every level of Indian officialdom. At the Kolkata Khadi Bhavan, an outlet for cottage industries, we had to pay homage at the desks of three different clerks to purchase a simple towel.  

Bureaucracy aside, the Indian embassy’s rebuttal fails to address other issues raised in Indignant Indian’s letter. Do the embassy clerks indeed reside in five-star apartments? Did one ambassador indeed do nothing but improve his golf handicap during his tenure here? Did his successor indeed impose undue stress on her legs by hopping from one party to another?

If so, the ghosts of Gandhi and Nehru must be really proud.

Constance Beasley

Bangkok