It is funny how the greatest stories out of the author’s India
trip have come out of flying in and out of the country itself. After getting racially profiled on the way in as described in the previous post, now it is time to reflect on the exit…So the
incident occurs at the immigration check at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International
Airport, where the 6am line was the author, a white woman in front of him, and
one operational immigration counter with an Indian family of three.
The author arrived to find the white woman frustrated,
complaining about how the family has been at the counter for “a lifetime.” Another ten minutes pass when the woman gets
her turn, and a further ten minutes before the author reaches the counter. Frankly, in the author’s experience, he has
never seen such slow successive checks GETTING OUT of a country as he has seen
just now at the counter. He was about to
find out for himself exactly why this is the case.
Approaching the mustached, middle-aged officer and handing
over the passport and boarding pass, the author expects the officer to start
typing away at the computer to initiate the checks. Instead, the officer opens up the passport to
the India visa
page and proceeds to stare at the page.
No typing, no double-checking with info on the computer, but just
stroking his mustache and staring. Five
minutes pass. The officer motions the
author to lean forward, point to the India
entry stamp next to the visa.
He blankly asks, “Which airport?” The author blankly replies, “Mumbai.” The officer, seemingly enlightened, blurts,
“Ahh, Mumbai.” So, as far as the author
can see it, either the officer is testing the author to see if he can recall
his memory or read the English word “Mumbai” on the stamp itself, or worse, he
has not seen any entry stamp from Mumbai (or Indian visa, for that matter) and
needed some help from the passenger to get his facts on the ground straight.
Either way, what is obvious is that this lone immigration
officer managed to process five passports in about half an hour. The author is very glad he showed up for an
early morning flight, otherwise, he wouldn't know if he can make it for his
flight on massive immigration check lines.
A beautiful conclusion on introduction to Indian bureaucracy, an
institution that defines almost every part of Indian public life, and how the
country seem to function, and more often, not function.
It is for better and worse.
If well-organized, it does manage to bring big projects forward. The superb main roads and metro system at Delhi ,
in comparison to Mumbai, is a good example.
Despite much more capital in the hands of the Mumbai municipal council,
the capital’s government has shown that effective planning and utilization can
bring massive bang for the buck while minimizing the corruption amid
bureaucratic chaos that is endemic to cities across the country, including
Mumbai.
But for most, the bureaucracy, at least on the surface, is
precisely what is wrong with the country.
The airport immigration experience, an equally slow reception at a
government guesthouse where the author stayed in Delhi ,
and same at the foreign exchange counter at a state-owned bank clearly
illustrate that it is not too exaggerating to equate Indian bureaucracy with
inefficiency. The delay associated with
running the normal procedures undoubtedly causes massive opportunity costs at
both the personal and collective level.
Still, though, back on the “better” side, the bureaucracy is
a source of consistency for the country that has (and continues to see)
frequent political upheavals in the hands of elected politicians. Compared to the incessant political intrigues
and deadlocks of parliamentary elections and their aftermath, the bureaucracy
is a sea of calm and stability. Ironic
as it is, people do claim that it is the bureaucracy, much of the elite civil
service established by the British, which keeps the country together. It is an interesting notion, to say the
least.
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