We have been a free country for seven years. Far from improving governance, we see its continuous decline before our eyes. There is shoddiness everywhere. Government workers are punctual only by error. However, they are punctilious in their observation of the unwritten rule that they must leave office before working hours are over. The citizen who visits a government office for urgent work must waste valuable time attempting to divert the staff's attention towards himself from the vitally important things they are engaged in gossiping about. There are those who hold that the indifference of the government employee towards his work is the result of the growing power of unions. It has taken away the fear of punishment from the workers’ minds. This might even be true to some extent. But in the opinion of top-ranking officials, the real reason for the lethargic uninterestedness of clerical staff stems from the irrational disparity between the living standards in cities and the salaries they draw.

More than the lack of interest of clerical staff, however, good governance is damaged by the string-pulling, nepotism and gifting away of government posts and contracts to the undeserving that happens at every level. By the grace of a chief minister some deputy magistrate suddenly becomes the additional district magistrate, superseding a hundred men his senior. The moment a middle-school teacher's husband becomes a minister, she becomes a professor in a college. A man who marries a government official's daughter finds himself happily raised from clerkdom to officerdom. Hundreds of people pull strings to get into small jobs without being qualified for them. Higher-ranked officials do not restrict their largesse to their kith and kin. It is enough to belong to their caste to receive jobs that far exceed one's worth. If this is the case with appointments, the case with promotions is no different. If you desire a promotion, the sure-fire way to get it is to say yes when your boss says yes. As against this, if you inconvenience your boss by your honesty, if you refuse to bend the rules that govern your work, you can be sure you will be dislodged from your seat and transferred forthwith to a punishment post.