RTO thugs: Why the lower bureaucracy feels it can kill for bribes

When Regional Transport Office employees kill a truck driver for refusing to pay bribe, like they did on the UP-Bihar border on Monday, it does not qualify as big news. There’s a routineness to the incident which effectively kills the shock or surprise element.

We have accepted as a fact of life that RTO officials – and regular policemen on beats and traffic constables and whoever has some power to exercise over others – would thrash drivers and others if they don’t pay up. If someone died, well, it’s an accident.

Welcome to another India. It stays under the radar of all inspired calls for systemic change and thrives and flourishes with its powers undiminished and unchallenged. It’s the world of the lower bureaucracy, which interacts with the masses on a constant, everyday basis and influences their lives in significant ways. It is the world of clerks and petty officials in all government departments. The RTO officials represent a tiny fragment of it.

In the pantheon of the faceless bureaucracy, they occupy the lowest rung but not the lowest power. The ’lowly’ peon is the deity of the gateway. He controls your access to the officer. The clerk is the lord of the files. Nothing moves unless he is satisfied. Cheques don’t move unless the accountant is happy. The policeman at the station is the first to judge whether your complaint has merit. The ward boys at the hospital decide whether you could find a bed for your pregnant wife.

Money, of course, is a great mover of things here. Imagine the number of times you have handed over those chai pani expenses to the peon; paid the clerk to make a file jump a step higher; and greased the palms of the policeman to file an FIR. You have to be the regular at the block and tehsil offices to grasp the situation in full. Cities have their own variation.

The consequences of failing to satisfy the greed here could be severe. People die in police custody and of police harassment elsewhere, there could be false cases foisted on you and in other offices your work stalled indefinitely, and yes, RTO officials could kill you as they did in Naubatpur. Newspapers keep dishing up such news at disturbing intervals. Excesses – that’s how it’s put normally. But the reports gloss over the fact that the excess is the normal in this India.

This is a malaise that has gone under-noticed and unaddressed in the country so far. The big debates over systemic changes curiously focus solely on the ’top down’ approach, meaning changes at the top would automatically put things in order at the bottom rungs. Nothing could be more misdirected.

The country has been discussing for sometime the disconnect between the government and the people; the plethora of policies but lack of visible success; and the huge money being pumped into rural and underdeveloped areas but lack of change in the quality of life there. Surprisingly, the role of the lower bureaucracy, which is crucial for any success of government’s policies stays undermentioned.

The people’s distrust with the government begins here. The police are feared, the clerk is hated, the BDO is distrusted and all relations with the officials are loaded with negatives. Ever wondered why the Naxals target these officials so often? Well, they are popular hate figures, the most visible face of the perceived government power and arrogance.

This is an impression created over decades and there has been no effort to change it. Any initiative for people must aim at erasing it first before getting into any serious business of policy.

Corruption and power make a dangerous cocktail at the bottom rungs. That the RTO officials could kill someone for refusing to pay bribe reflects how deep the rot has travelled. They harass people regularly; it’s the way the police harass shop keepers for not paying hafta. The practice is almost institutionalised. The worrisome fact is we have come to accept it as normal.

This needs to change. Any move to change India must begin at the bottom. The top will take care of itself.

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