Indian Bureaucracy

India is a land of contradictions.

In many respects, most noticeably in regard to traffic, Indians are extremely laid back about rules and regulations, and yet they seem to have a love of red tape and procedures which would put most British bureaucrats to shame!

The first time I used the internet in the YMCA, I wandered straight in, the person in charge noted the time on the clock, noted it again when I had finished, I paid my money and that was that. The second visit was the same. On the third visit I was asked to fill in a row in a little book giving my name and room number, time started and my passport number! I protested that I didn't have my passport with me and hadn't needed it the last 2 times and was let off. Another user was made to return to her room for hers though! On the way out I was asked again for my passport. On my next visit I was prepared, went through the same procedure and this time was given a receipt as well for my efforts!

At mealtimes we had to go to the reception desk and specify our room number, in return for which we were given a little ticket with the room number hand-written on it. We then entered the dining room, which was a few metres away, and presented the ticket to the doorman before being allowed to eat. Why this needed to be a 2 stage process is anyone's guess! The YMCA also had a security officer on the entrance gate and another one on the exit gate, who wrote in little booklets every time a person or a vehicle went in or out. It seems doubtful they could've accurately identified every single person going through the gates, so what the purpose of all this was is a little unclear.

My most frustrating experience of Indian bureaucracy occurred when visiting one of the government shopping emporiums. This was basically a large crafts and souvenirs shop on 4 levels selling everything from knick knacks to large expensive artwork, textiles and furniture. To make a purchase it was necessary to take your item to a desk on the floor on which you found it, in return for which you were given a ticket printed out by a computer. You then had to take this ticket to the cash desk on the ground floor but you weren't allowed to take the item - this had to stay on the floor where you'd found it! At the cash desk you were given a receipt which you then had to take to another desk and wait for your item to be sent down to you! Unfortunately, my item got lost in the system somewhere. After waiting fruitlessly for half an hour, I left the shop to continue shopping elsewhere and came back and retrieved my purchase later!

It's difficult to fully understand why all this bureaucracy exists. A couple of theories we came up with were:

1. Perhaps it harks back to the days of colonialism. We Brits are famous for our bureaucracy so perhaps Indians felt that if we were doing it and being successful then they ought to do so as well, but never fully understood the motivations and reasons behind it so ended up doing it (even more than we do) just for the sake of it!
   
   
2. Maybe it's an employment thing. Delhi - in fact everywhere went in India - is crawling with people - 1.2 billion of them altogether! All of these people need jobs. In the UK we're very influenced by the bottom line, but in India labour is cheap and perhaps they are more friends and family motivated than we are. Perhaps finding jobs for people so they don't starve is actually more important than finding the most efficient ways to do things. All this bureaucracy (much of which seems needless), at least gives people a job and the illusion (unfortunately) that they are being paid to do something useful.

At Delhi airport on the way home, Emma worked out that we had to stand in 8 queues - although to be fair, some of these were very short to the point that they hardly really count as queues at all!

We queued for 15 minutes to get into the airport, 45 minutes to get our baggage security checked and another 45 minutes to check in our baggage (why this couldn't have been amalgamated with the security check...). The airport itself was chaos with queues criss-crossing the floor in all directions so that it was pretty difficult to work out which queue you were actually supposed to be in! People constantly had to make way for those who needed to get across the queues to get to where they were supposed to be going. After checking in our baggage we had to queue for another hour to get through passport control. There was then another short queue to get ourselves and our hand luggage security checked before we made it to the departure lounge. We then queued again to get our boarding cards checked, and twice more (briefly) to get a final security check on ourselves and our hand luggage before entering the plane. I was allowed to take a litre of water with me onto the plane though - at Heathrow there was a 100ml limit on all liquids. The guard cannily asked me to drink out of the bottle - which I probably could have faked if I'd been prepared for it but I quite liked this practical approach!