Opinion Let them dance

Down the winding corridors of government offices, you may encounter the dozing babu, the gazetting babu, the triplicate demanding babu, the out to lunch babu, the tardy babu, the obstructionist babu, the tea slurping babu. Rarely, very rarely, will you see a dancing babu. Your average babu is set in his ways and most comfortable in his natural habitat of windowless offices and curtained Ambassadors, it would seem. Until now.

At a recording of Kaun Banega Crorepati in Raipur, two senior bureaucrats reportedly broke the mould. As Amitabh Bachchan started grooving to the strains of “Mere angane mein tumhara kya kaam hai”, the bureaucrats took to the stage with their wives to shake a leg. Since then, they have been at the receiving end of much institutional ire. Both officers were reportedly handed “reprimand notices” for “behaviour unbecoming of an officer” and warned against displaying such levity in public. But who can blame the dancing babus? If the presence of the Big B himself were not persuasive enough, consider the irresistible invitation of the foot-tapping number being played.

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Besides, what exactly is behaviour becoming of an officer? In the 19th century, the civil servants of the Raj held durbars and travelled in style. The British left, but the anxieties of a post-colonial state remained. The ideal senior bureaucrat now had to be pukka, sufficiently Anglicised and a stickler for etiquette. This has since ossified into a template for drab sarkari-dom, fussy and painfully tangled up in protocol. But a change could be slowly coming over the steel frame. Only last week, many officials took up the broom to sweep public places. If they are now lightening up as well, so much the better. Let the dancing babu dance.