Governance in India

In India, the land of netas and babus, reality seems almost surreal, like the dream that took Alice through Wonderland. The book is anecdotal, combining wit with irony. It incisively pieces together the gradual decay in public administration in post-British India. The entire administration, its infrastructure and its development programmes become the terrain for serving the personal and political interests of the neta and the babu.

Journeys through Babudom and Netaland
Governance in India
TSR Subramanian
Rupa
2004
Administration, Current Affairs
Pages: 258
Price: Rs 395
ISBN: 81-291-0390-7
Hardcover

In India, the land of netas and babus, reality seems almost surreal, like the dream that took Alice through Wonderland.

The book is anecdotal, combining wit with irony. It incisively pieces together the gradual decay in public administration in post-British India. The growing subservience of the bureaucracy to the political system unravels step by step. The entire administration, its infrastructure and its development programmes become the terrain for serving the personal and political interests of the neta and the babu.

The book is based on the author's rich repertoire of experience and prodigious memory for detail. The book documents, through a personal narrative, forty years of politics and bureaucracy.

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