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THE COMPETENT AUTHORITY
Author: Shovon Chowdhury
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Pages: 454
Price: Rs 495
It is a common claim that some societies are so complex that non-fiction cannot describe them properly - only novels can. Today's India, as befits the most complex society of all, isn't even best explained by novels set in it. That honour remains with Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, which is at first glance about India in 1952. And now, perhaps, by Shovon Chowdhury's The Competent Authority, which is set in a dystopian future India that feels almost painfully contemporary.
The book's title could help explain that. In Chowdhury's future, a sinister phrase from IAS-speak - "approval/sanction of the competent authority" has taken on a new meaning; one deranged bureaucrat has taken over every function of the government and is now the Competent Authority. Naturally, he is quite hilariously incompetent.
However, the Competent Authority is, as befits a dictator from the IAS, rule-bound and fussy and shadowy. Revealing his identity, the book informs us solemnly, is a "cognisable offence" under a list of vaguely familiar sections from vaguely familiar laws that are, indeed, exactly that arbitrary. So most of this future India believes it is being run by a prime minister - an unnamed but attractive middle-aged lady from an unnamed but recognisable political family. The PM worries gloomily that she is even more useless in her post than was "Uncle Manny", who she said was eventually replaced by a robot made by Honda, which kept giving trouble and going on mute unexpectedly - though the Japanese manufacturers insisted that was because of "excessive remote-control usage".
The India she nominally rules has survived a war with China, in the aftermath of which the Bureau of Reconstruction, or BoR - led by the Competent Authority, with a neat little bulldozer symbol - basically decided to take over everything, since the paperwork already existed. Bengal has seceded, and is either independent, a rebellious state, or a Chinese protectorate depending on who you talk to. (This permits a large number of jokes about Bengalis, in itself worth the price of the book. Sample: "The Bengal Protectorate was just like the old American Confederacy, except with fish and film criticism instead of cotton and slaves.") The middle of Delhi lies devastated by nuclear bombs, which have led to odd mutations, which are dealt with by Indians in their usual style. Indeed, Government Registered Telepaths play a large role in the story.
"As he neared his office, the Competent Authority saw that India Gate had collapsed again. It collapsed about once every 18 months. It had been a mistake giving the rebuilding contract to the Agriculture Minister's nephew he realised.
His only previous experience had been in Low Income Housing.... But he had been the only local candidate to match the tender specifications, mainly because he had written them."
There are bits like this on every page. Twice on every page. Chowdhury's jokes aren't always the kind that pay off instantly, either. One character, a viciously violent policeman, keeps complaining to himself that the police is never better armed than law-breakers, such as terrorists, Naxalites and private security guards. Towards the end, we get the punchline: "It was almost, he thought, as if somebody wanted India's police to focus on beating up innocent and defenceless people."
There is also a plot, which you'd think is largely incidental to books like this; but Chowdhury fairly effortlessly manages to keep you turning pages. Various delightfully scheming types scheme; assorted everyman types bump up against the authorities; and the Competent Authority himself tries to provoke China into another war, for reasons that make eminent bureaucratic sense. This allows for my favourite bits of the book, increasingly incensed diplomatic notes from the People's Republic. Chowdhury absolutely nails the aggrieved, aggressive yet condescending tone of People's Daily editorials.
In the middle of it all, various people get sent to the past. (It is speculative fiction, after all.) This allows Chowdhury to give us his vicious take on Direct Action Day and Bengal's Netaji obsession; the inability of independent India to prevent Gandhiji from being shot; and the nuclear tests of 1998. These are the weaker sections of the book, with the exception of the bit about the Great Calcutta Killings, which - although depressing - allows for yet more jokes about Bengalis, fried fish, and trams, which are always welcome.
In the end, the real virtue of The Competent Authority is that it, better than the most painstaking reportage, illuminates for us how the ineptitude of the semi-divine Indian state borders on the ridiculous. As is said of the title character: "The CA can eradicate illiteracy with the flick of a pen. The CA can collect in advance, and refund at leisure. The CA giveth petrol-pump licences and cooking gas connections, and also taketh away. The CA commands the power of invisibility: he can build invisible hospitals, and staff them with invisible doctors. He can create miles and miles of irrigation that no one will ever see. The CA can prevent dengue by declaring Section 144."
Countries that are struggling with a bleak present and a possibly bleaker future have usually joked about it. The Soviet Bloc was full of jokes, for example. All discussion about India's problems, however, is always suffused with an enervating seriousness, or repetitive outrage. A bit of laughter about our problems would help clear the fog of angry gloom that renders our national discussion incoherent; but we have no Krokodil, no Canard Enchaine, not even a Jon Stewart. Into this breach steps The Competent Authority. I encourage you to read it.
