Bureaucrat Fights Back

Power. Reform. Scams.
The 2G spectrum allocation scam struck a blow to the UPA-II government and was perhaps India’s biggest political scandal. The notional loss to the exchequer was a whopping Rs 1.76 trillion. Yet, it was no aberration. The 2G story is rooted in the very fabric of economic reforms in India—reforms that are essential for the growing economy.

When Pradip Baijal took over as the third chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2003, the telecom sector was in serious crisis. But there was also resistance to the reforms he sought to implement. They were seen as both anti-establishment and pro-private business. Baijal fought for the reforms at great personal cost and years later, the accused in the 2G scam blamed him for creating conditions conducive to malpractices. A Bureaucrat Fights Back: The Complete Story of Indian Reforms uses the 2G story—Indian telecom’s rise from 3.1 million mobile users in 2000 to a billion in 2015—to analyse the roadblocks to change in India. It also captures the dilemma of India’s civil servants, an especially pressing concern given the necessity of reforms. You are not doing your job if you shy away from reforms and if you pursue them, you are likely to get mired in inquiries. How does a bureaucrat walk that tightrope? And at what cost? Intensely personal and deeply political, A Bureaucrat Fights Back is an examination of the best and worst of India’s economic coming of age.