Frustrating borrowed Bureaucracy
“Main nahi deti data,mere pass tame nah hai is kaam ke liye” (I will not provide this information, I do not have time for such work)
A freezing Monday morning of January 7, 2013 will be imprinted in my internship experience. The day started with locating Partwari (village accountant) for Budheda and Sadhrana villages and ended with a reprimand from the sarkari Babu (government clerk) at the mini secretariat in Gurgaon. I decided to collect
Panchayat land use pattern data from Patwari to understand the decline in the common property and what are the various institutions in the village periphery who have been allocated Panchayat land for development purposes. The data set can also help me to actually interpret what is the amount of land left with the
Panchayat and how much have been acquired by state or markets.Few of my village informants told me that the Patwari for both the villages have their office in Old Gurgaon at Krishna Palace. However, some of the other informants told me all the Patwaris of Gurgaon block are placed in Patwar Bhawan. I tried to trace-out the phone number of the offive, but could not, therefore decided to visit Patwar Bhawan. After reaching, Patwar Bhawan, I could see a group of people sitting around the bonfire in the porch of the office building.
The office does not even has a name board of Patwar Bhawan. I went into two rooms of the office, and these rooms had no staff. I could now make out that all the staff was hanging outside, trying to warm up themselves from the nippy cold day.I approached the group after visiting the empty rooms of the Patwar
Bhawan. I further disclosed my reason to visit the office. One of the group member sarcastically asked me the use of the data. He told me to go back to the village to collect this data. He said “are gaon walon ko sab pata, yahan kyon aaye ho, kya karoge data ka” (villagers know everything, why have you come here,
what will you do with this data). He further suggested me to go to the PHED for data I was looking for. On my further request about whereabouts of Patwari's for both the villages, one of the other group member asked me to visit Krishna Palace near Sohna Chowk. Me and Aman took their leave and left for Sohna Road.Our imagination of a typical bureaucratic“sarkari daftar” (government office) was visible in Patwar Bhawan. A very lame question came to my mind after this experience, that why people behave the same way in all the government offices. I could also relate myself to my experience of working with Dairy board. At the Dairy Board we always use to question the bureaucratic procedures at various meetings and among colleagues, however I found these discussion were not about finding answers for the concern but to accept and imbibe bureaucracy within us. This system of bureaucracy is been given to us by English, but the
bigger mistake was that we accepted it as a good system to rule the country. Mahatma Gandhi once said “Our tyranny, if we impose on others, will be infinitely worse than that of the Englishmen who form the bureaucracy. Theirs is a terrorism imposed by the minority struggling to exist in the myths of opposition. Ours will be the terrorism imposed by a majority and therefore worse and really more godless than the first”.Every individual in our country now breaths bureaucracy and feels proud about the system which is slowly eating our roots of envisaged democracy based on equality and decentralized decision making. The days journey moved ahead with the search of Krishna Palace, a commercial building in which few of the shops are rented as Patwari's office. Most of the village Patwari's of Gurgaon Block are located in the building in different
shops. After few queries we could reach shop no. 112, where Patwari of Budheda and Sadhrana is situated. It was the most crowded spot at this time of the day in the whole complex. There was no furniture in the office, except a carpet where everybody was sitting surrounded by piled old records. Although it was 12' o
'clock the Patwari has not arrived yet. We decided to meet the clerk sitting and introduce ourselves. He asked us to wait as he is not authorized to share any information without seeking permission from the Patwari. We took empty chairs outside the office and decided to wait for him. An elderly person next to me,
asked about my whereabouts and in that conversation, disclosed that Patwari would only come by 2'o clock. He further mentioned that he has been trying to meet him since last Thursday, but he could not. There was a continuous movement of the people and most of the work was taken care by the Munshis (junior clerk) under Patwaris. At 2 pm, the Patwari arrives and clerk said something to him regarding us and the information we are seeking for. Patwari came to us, and asked about the information we are looking for.
After listening he mentioned that we can get that information either from the village or else we can visit the record room in the mini secretariat. He said mini secretariat would be a good place to visit as there are some retired Patwaris who can also explain the records and information we are seeking for. He was not keen
on sharing the information with us and therefore suggested us other ways to retrieve information.
After the conversation, we decided to visit the mini secretariat near Rajiv Chowk, Gurgaon. Moving around the huge government building we inquired about the record room. With some help on directions we reached the record room which was all surrounded by file pedestals and discarded furniture in one of the
corners. The center of the room had a table and a chair. A middle-aged woman was having lunch with her subordinates. Diagonally to her table, there was a carpet and few villagers were seated and confabbing. We thought interrupting the government clerks in the middle of their lunch would not be a good idea, and
thus we waited outside the room. After a while, as the lunch was over, the women started snacking the guavas. Now, we decided to talk to her. On our introduction, she just nodded and asked us what we want from her. On explaining our data requirement, she brusquely replied “main nahi deti, mere pass tame nah hai is kaam ke liye” (I will not provide this information, I do not have time for such work).Listening to this I had no clue on how to respond. We decided to just move out and think further on how to get the data. A friend came to rescue. A youth I met during my visit to village Sadhrana was also looking for some records. He
said he is been coming here since last month and she does not give me access to my own land records. She is corrupt and would not provide any data without bribe. He further asked us to visit village next time and he would help us retrievedata from village Sarpanch.
This experience sharing is just to picturize how difficult it can be to retrieve data for a research student in this bureaucratic democracy. Moreover, this situation also depicts how difficult it could be for a rural inhabitant seeking someinformation for his own land. I can easily make out that he/she has to at least dedicate a day or may be more to just meet these Sarkari Babu's. Furthermore, if they wish to get some assistance from these government paper-pushers, may be the time frame gets converted into weeks or months.
-Sumit Vij
A freezing Monday morning of January 7, 2013 will be imprinted in my internship experience. The day started with locating Partwari (village accountant) for Budheda and Sadhrana villages and ended with a reprimand from the sarkari Babu (government clerk) at the mini secretariat in Gurgaon. I decided to collect
Panchayat land use pattern data from Patwari to understand the decline in the common property and what are the various institutions in the village periphery who have been allocated Panchayat land for development purposes. The data set can also help me to actually interpret what is the amount of land left with the
Panchayat and how much have been acquired by state or markets.Few of my village informants told me that the Patwari for both the villages have their office in Old Gurgaon at Krishna Palace. However, some of the other informants told me all the Patwaris of Gurgaon block are placed in Patwar Bhawan. I tried to trace-out the phone number of the offive, but could not, therefore decided to visit Patwar Bhawan. After reaching, Patwar Bhawan, I could see a group of people sitting around the bonfire in the porch of the office building.
The office does not even has a name board of Patwar Bhawan. I went into two rooms of the office, and these rooms had no staff. I could now make out that all the staff was hanging outside, trying to warm up themselves from the nippy cold day.I approached the group after visiting the empty rooms of the Patwar
Bhawan. I further disclosed my reason to visit the office. One of the group member sarcastically asked me the use of the data. He told me to go back to the village to collect this data. He said “are gaon walon ko sab pata, yahan kyon aaye ho, kya karoge data ka” (villagers know everything, why have you come here,
what will you do with this data). He further suggested me to go to the PHED for data I was looking for. On my further request about whereabouts of Patwari's for both the villages, one of the other group member asked me to visit Krishna Palace near Sohna Chowk. Me and Aman took their leave and left for Sohna Road.Our imagination of a typical bureaucratic“sarkari daftar” (government office) was visible in Patwar Bhawan. A very lame question came to my mind after this experience, that why people behave the same way in all the government offices. I could also relate myself to my experience of working with Dairy board. At the Dairy Board we always use to question the bureaucratic procedures at various meetings and among colleagues, however I found these discussion were not about finding answers for the concern but to accept and imbibe bureaucracy within us. This system of bureaucracy is been given to us by English, but the
bigger mistake was that we accepted it as a good system to rule the country. Mahatma Gandhi once said “Our tyranny, if we impose on others, will be infinitely worse than that of the Englishmen who form the bureaucracy. Theirs is a terrorism imposed by the minority struggling to exist in the myths of opposition. Ours will be the terrorism imposed by a majority and therefore worse and really more godless than the first”.Every individual in our country now breaths bureaucracy and feels proud about the system which is slowly eating our roots of envisaged democracy based on equality and decentralized decision making. The days journey moved ahead with the search of Krishna Palace, a commercial building in which few of the shops are rented as Patwari's office. Most of the village Patwari's of Gurgaon Block are located in the building in different
shops. After few queries we could reach shop no. 112, where Patwari of Budheda and Sadhrana is situated. It was the most crowded spot at this time of the day in the whole complex. There was no furniture in the office, except a carpet where everybody was sitting surrounded by piled old records. Although it was 12' o
'clock the Patwari has not arrived yet. We decided to meet the clerk sitting and introduce ourselves. He asked us to wait as he is not authorized to share any information without seeking permission from the Patwari. We took empty chairs outside the office and decided to wait for him. An elderly person next to me,
asked about my whereabouts and in that conversation, disclosed that Patwari would only come by 2'o clock. He further mentioned that he has been trying to meet him since last Thursday, but he could not. There was a continuous movement of the people and most of the work was taken care by the Munshis (junior clerk) under Patwaris. At 2 pm, the Patwari arrives and clerk said something to him regarding us and the information we are seeking for. Patwari came to us, and asked about the information we are looking for.
After listening he mentioned that we can get that information either from the village or else we can visit the record room in the mini secretariat. He said mini secretariat would be a good place to visit as there are some retired Patwaris who can also explain the records and information we are seeking for. He was not keen
on sharing the information with us and therefore suggested us other ways to retrieve information.
After the conversation, we decided to visit the mini secretariat near Rajiv Chowk, Gurgaon. Moving around the huge government building we inquired about the record room. With some help on directions we reached the record room which was all surrounded by file pedestals and discarded furniture in one of the
corners. The center of the room had a table and a chair. A middle-aged woman was having lunch with her subordinates. Diagonally to her table, there was a carpet and few villagers were seated and confabbing. We thought interrupting the government clerks in the middle of their lunch would not be a good idea, and
thus we waited outside the room. After a while, as the lunch was over, the women started snacking the guavas. Now, we decided to talk to her. On our introduction, she just nodded and asked us what we want from her. On explaining our data requirement, she brusquely replied “main nahi deti, mere pass tame nah hai is kaam ke liye” (I will not provide this information, I do not have time for such work).Listening to this I had no clue on how to respond. We decided to just move out and think further on how to get the data. A friend came to rescue. A youth I met during my visit to village Sadhrana was also looking for some records. He
said he is been coming here since last month and she does not give me access to my own land records. She is corrupt and would not provide any data without bribe. He further asked us to visit village next time and he would help us retrievedata from village Sarpanch.
This experience sharing is just to picturize how difficult it can be to retrieve data for a research student in this bureaucratic democracy. Moreover, this situation also depicts how difficult it could be for a rural inhabitant seeking someinformation for his own land. I can easily make out that he/she has to at least dedicate a day or may be more to just meet these Sarkari Babu's. Furthermore, if they wish to get some assistance from these government paper-pushers, may be the time frame gets converted into weeks or months.
-Sumit Vij
No comments:
Post a Comment