India’s democratic set up, touted as the world’s largest, meaning most populous, has often been bestowed adoration by many heads of State across the world while addressing functionaries in high posts in their respective countries from different platforms and the media has been promptly publishing their complimentary accolades for public consumption. The galaxy of speakers have unabashedly displayed grace and magnanimity in their pristine praises while one among them, highly rated for his scholarly views on the working of Governments of different countries has gone on record saying that Indian Democracy is a functioning anarchy, may be by reckoning the many blunders committed by the powers that be in discharging their duty of governing the land and its citizens, marked by malfunctioning, irresponsibility and carelessness. The point to be noted is that he chose to express his perception of the country’s journey as a Democracy even before completing one-third of its short history. What he, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 98, would have remarked on observing the goings on in the country, which doesn’t need elaboration.
Historians, on whose narratives about events in different periods of the past we have to draw in order to know how well or otherwise the country as well as its different regions, such as Mysore Province, were governed, seem to have bestowed all praise or discredit to the respective rulers and their counterparts, side-lining the functionaries in the administration, such as the ICS Officers of the past and IAS Officers who are in charge now.
