Recently, a picture of an Indian woman won the prize for portraits in the World Press Photo Contest for 2003. The woman, obviously a bureaucrat, was photographed amid piles of files and papers filling almost every corner of her office, extending as far as the ceiling, leaving barely enough space for her to work.
The photographer and the judges, presumably all Westerners, must have been shocked at the volume of crippling red tape in developing countries. They must have decided that such a unique picture, the likes of perhaps they had never seen, must not go unnoticed or unrewarded. Consequently, they decided to award it first prize.
Let us be clear of what we are talking about: An Indian civil servant sitting amid piles of papers, not knowing what to do with the files that have taken over her office. In fact, her own chair and desk are scarcely visible. So much for the problem in her country.
What about our own civil servants?
If people here knew that a picture of a bureaucrat in his office would win a prestigious prize, everyone would grab a camera and rush to either a government or a private sector office. It would be easy to find employees almost buried in piles of green, blue, red, yellow and other colored files with the remains of food and empty plastic bottles littering offices. The pictures would surely have easily won a prize or two.
We could send the prize-awarding committee not only pictures but complete video clips of how our civil service functions and this would earn us not just one but numerous prizes. Or maybe the committee would refuse to give us a prize when it discovered that the scenes of people carrying that famous “hanging file” — as the green folder is known here — and moving from one office to another is not only a prerequisite for processing any paperwork but has become part and parcel of our life to the extent we cannot imagine doing without it.
I don’t know how long it will take us to realize that the rest of the world is changing fast and moving forward while we stand still, changing nothing and making no progress.
