Bureaucracy's 'Subramaniam Swamy'

The book details the nightmares of a bureaucrat who dares to reform a rotten system and innovate in a rigid bureaucracy

Journalists Bhavdeep Kang and Namita Kala note in their book Just Transferred The Untold Story of Ashok Khemka  that India’s bureaucrats fall into three broad categories. There are the dishonest and incompetent ones, the dishonest and competent ones and the honest and incompetent ones. Ashok Khemka, a Haryana cadre Indian Administrative Officer (IAS) fell into the rare fourth category. That of an honest and competent bureaucrat “often treated as an oddball and viewed with suspicion by peers.” But was that really the case? 
 

Though patronisingly written and shoddily edited, Ms Kang and Ms Kala’s book provides a detailed account of