India has a huge bureaucracy, whose traditions were largely built up at a different time. The volume of public service that had to be delivered then was much smaller; the political involvement in the functioning of the bureaucracy was relatively small as well. A democratic system has largely altered the scene. However, the bureaucrats have not been systematically trained for the revised expectations. In the absence of a well-designed program of reorientation, new traditions have grown based on the compulsions of the altered political system. In other words, the babus have not been enabled to deal with the new circumstances without allowing the integrity of the institution to be affected. The politicians havent helped either. They have generally tried to force their influence on what are purely bureaucratic decisions.
My point is Indias curse is largely a failure of the system, which did not install adequate hurdles between the politicians and the bureaucrats to maintain a acceptable degree of separation.
