How can he be when the simplest dealings with the government remain so needlessly complicated that something that should take a few minutes takes weeks, even months if you run into a bunch of particularly obdurate bunch of officials. Government offices now have computers but our officials prefer to use medieval methods. So, they sit you down in their offices filled with dusty files and open yet another to write your name, your father's name and every other possible detail before you can begin to talk about what you need. In a recent interface with officialdom, I tried pointing out to the official, laboriously writing in his dusty register, that if he used the computer that sat like some technological totem on his desk, it would be easier for everyone. The official agreed but said that he was a stenographer and that there were no jobs left for people with his qualifications because computers were doing the job quicker.
Computers are all right in rich, developed countries.
In India people need jobs''. There was no point arguing with him since he was only reflecting the unchanged mindset you see everywhere in Indian officialdom. It is a mindset whose main features are procrastination, mediocrity, inefficiency and arrogance. We need a prime minister who has the courage to admit that he runs a government that does not work, has not worked for years, and that it does not work mainly because it is run by far too many inefficient, useless people. He needs to make a beginning by at least making it possible to sack officials for inefficiency and incompetence.