British Bureaucracy and Hierarchical Inefficiency

British colonial rule in India introduced a bureaucratic model epitomized by the Indian Civil Service (ICS) and allied institutions, which were often elitist and hierarchical. All senior administrative posts were monopolized by British officers well into the late 19th century, with initial recruitment based on nomination and patronage rather than merit. Even after competitive exams were introduced, the ICS remained a tightly knit elite known as the “steel frame” of British rule, largely insulated from Indian society. This bureaucracy was described by contemporaries as “all-pervasive, overpaid, obtusely process-ridden, remarkably inefficient and largely indifferent” to the welfare of Indian citizens. Rigid protocols and excessive paperwork dominated administrative work, creating a culture of red tape and procedural formality. Young ICS officers, often fresh from England, wielded authority over vast districts but operated within a strict hierarchy of precedence and protocol, reinforcing an environment of top-down decision making. This hierarchical and rule-bound system fostered inefficiency and stasis — officials became more focused on “following precedent” than on outcomes. It also bred favoritism: high salaries and privileges kept the colonial officials loyal to their own class interests, while qualified Indians were largely kept out of influential positions until the very end of colonial rule. The net effect was an administrative culture of aloofness and entitlement, laying groundwork for post-colonial civil services that often inherited similar inefficiencies and insular attitudes.

Centralization, Patronage Networks, and Rent-Seeking Behavior

Colonial governance in India was extremely centralized and heavily dependent on patronage networks. The British Raj divided India into provinces and districts ruled by a small number of Europeans, excluding Indians from real power. Local governance was minimal; instead, district commissioners and collectors answered to provincial governors and ultimately to London, with few accountability mechanisms to the Indian public.

This top-down structure encouraged officials to serve the colonial hierarchy rather than local needs, embedding a tendency to defer upwards and ignore horizontal accountability. The British administration also openly cultivated patronage relationships with traditional elites. After the 1857 rebellion, the Raj forged close partnerships with select princes, landlords (zamindars), and loyal local notables to bolster imperial authority. In return for their loyalty, these elites enjoyed land grants, titles, and influence – a classic patron-client network that maintained British control.

This culture of favoritism spilled into bureaucracy as well: access to jobs, permits, and resources often depended on loyalty to colonial officials. For example, membership in legislative councils (introduced in the late 19th century) was by appointment, with the British carefully selecting members of different communities to prevent any united opposition. Such practices normalized the idea that who one knows in power is more important than merit or rule of law.

They also entrenched rent-seeking behavior – both British and their proteges extracted economic rents through monopolies and concessions. Indeed, the colonial state was fundamentally designed to extract wealth, not foster development. Heavy taxes, monopolistic trade controls, and strict licensing of economic activities under colonial rule created ample opportunities for bribery and kickbacks.

Over time, these habits carried into independent India’s governance. The new Indian government inherited an administrative apparatus geared toward control and extraction, which proved conducive to red-tapism and rent-seeking in the absence of colonial oversight. Excessive centralization meant that even routine decisions required clearance from higher-ups, encouraging bribery at multiple tiers to expedite files. Moreover, the Official Secrets Act of 1923, a colonial law that criminalized sharing government information, nurtured a culture of secrecy and unaccountability that persisted after independence.

Together, these colonial governance practices set a precedent for bureaucratic unresponsiveness, patron-client networks in politics, and a proliferation of petty corruption in independent India’s administrative culture.

Land Revenue Systems and Rural Administrative Corruption

The British-era land revenue systems – notably Zamindari, Ryotwari, and Mahalwari – left a conflicted legacy that continues to fuel corruption in land administration and rural governance.

Under the Zamindari system, implemented in large parts of northern and eastern India, the British delegated tax collection to zamindars (landlords) who were made de facto owners of vast estates. This created a class of powerful intermediaries and severed direct contact between the state and the cultivators. Documentation of peasants’ land rights was very poor in zamindari regions. As a result, when independent India attempted land reform (like abolishing zamindari in the 1950s), it faced huge challenges in identifying genuine land titles and tenancy rights. Many landlords took advantage of ambiguities, using bribes and influence to retain lands or evict tenants before laws could take effect.

The persisting patchiness of land records from the colonial era is a direct contributor to today’s rampant property disputes in rural India. Even decades later, land titles remain unclear in many areas “due to legacy issues of the zamindari system, gaps in the legal framework, and poor administration of land records.” Such ambiguity provides fertile ground for corrupt officials to exploit farmers and landowners.

Lower-level revenue officials (like the patwari or village accountant, and the tehsildar at the sub-district level) wield enormous power over land records – a structure dating back to British administration. These officials long enjoyed monopoly over record-keeping and could demand bribes for issuing land deeds, updating records, or settling boundary disputes. In Punjab (historically under a variant of Mahalwari system), the traditional patwari system became notorious as “a symbol of corruption and oppression.” Until recent computerization reforms, anyone needing a copy of land records or a title change often had to grease the palms of the patwari.

Studies note that under the old setup, high transaction costs and rent-seeking in land services favored the rich, as wealthy landowners could pay for preferential access to officials while poorer farmers were often ignored. Likewise, the Ryotwari system (direct settlement with cultivators in much of southern India) placed heavy revenue burdens on farmers and empowered revenue inspectors to assess and collect taxes. This often led to coercion and collusion – farmers had to bribe inspectors to reduce tax assessments or delay collection in bad harvest years.

Over time, the same dynamics persist in rural taxation and irrigation offices, where petty corruption is common for favorable assessments or speedy paperwork. In sum, the colonial land revenue systems either entrenched powerful landed interests (as in Zamindari areas) or over-centralized revenue bureaucracy (as in Ryotwari areas), both of which translated into weak land rights and corrupt practices surrounding land to this day.

The frequent land and property disputes clogging India’s courts and the bribery in land registries are a direct outcome of these historical systems.

Colonial Justice System: Loopholes, Delays and Bribery

India’s judicial and legal framework also bears deep colonial imprints that have contributed to persistent inefficiencies and avenues for graft.

The British introduced comprehensive legal codes – notably the Indian Penal Code of 1860 and the Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure – which, while modern for their time, were designed to serve a colonial regime. These laws prioritized order and authority over access to justice, and they left a mixed legacy.

For example, the Indian Police Act of 1861, enacted after the 1857 revolt, explicitly aimed to create a force to “crush dissent” rather than serve citizens. This law (astonishingly still in effect in many states) set up a police structure oriented towards control by rulers, not accountability to the public. Post-independence, the police and lower judiciary largely retained this colonial character, now answering to new political masters but operating with similar methods. The continuation of such colonial-era laws and attitudes has meant that due process and transparency often took a backseat, enabling bribery and abuse.

Furthermore, the procedural rigidity of colonial courts carried into independent India. The judicial system remains shackled by “archaic rules inherited from the British colonial era, perpetuating a slow and cumbersome legal process.” Courts still follow elaborate procedures for evidence and documentation originally laid out in the 19th century (for instance, the Indian Evidence Act of 1872). While intended to ensure thoroughness, these procedures frequently result in endless adjournments, voluminous paperwork, and painfully slow trials.

Such delays create opportunities for corruption: litigants may pay bribes to clerks to move their case up the list or to police to properly investigate and file charge-sheets. A vast backlog – over 50 million cases pending – means justice delayed is the norm. In this environment, bribery becomes a de facto tool to cut through the red tape of the courts.

The colonial legal system also left behind loopholes and draconian laws that independent India struggled to reform. For instance, the colonial-era Sedition law (Section 124A of IPC) and broad emergency powers allowed authorities to harass citizens – and these provisions were misused in free India as well, sometimes to extract bribes or favors to drop charges. Likewise, myriad petty regulations from the Raj (ranging from excise rules to municipal codes) remained on the books, often poorly understood by the public but aggressively enforced by officials for rent-seeking.

The overall result is a justice system where procedural complexity and outdated statutes provide “a disturbing connection” between historical institutional constraints and modern dysfunction. The common man’s experience with courts and police – delays, pending files, and expectation of pay-offs – owes much to this colonial institutional inertia.

Recent attempts to overhaul century-old criminal laws underscore how long the colonial legal shadow has lasted.

Economic Policies: From Colonial Extraction to Crony Capitalism

The British colonial economic policies in India – characterized by preferential treatment for a privileged few and monopolistic practices – set the stage for patterns of crony capitalism and bureaucratic inefficiency in the post-colonial era.

Under British rule, economic policy blatantly served imperial interests. The colonial state granted monopolies and concessions to British companies (e.g. railways, opium trade, salt production), while systematically de-industrializing India to protect British manufacturers. They also fostered an Indian collaborator class: select business families, landlords, and princes benefited through licenses and contracts as junior partners to the Raj.

This led to a highly skewed development of the Indian economy – an elite landed and mercantile class prospered under British patronage, whereas indigenous enterprise at large was stifled. By independence, these inequalities translated into a few concentrated business houses and landowning families holding disproportionate economic power.

Independent India initially sought to break from this exploitative colonial economy through socialist-inspired planning, but ironically ended up perpetuating some of its worst features. The state assumed an expanded role in the economy (controlling industries, imports, banking, etc.), but the bureaucracy that managed this transition was the same colonial “steel frame” now known as the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Lacking experience in development but well-versed in control, this bureaucracy often acted as a new overlord in business and markets.

The result was the infamous “License-Permit-Quota Raj”, a regime of permits and quotas required for virtually any economic activity. While conceived to allocate scarce resources and protect local industry, in practice it recreated a monopoly of power in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. As early as the 1950s, observers noted that bribery had become “part and parcel of doing business” in India due to onerous regulations.

Every license or quota was a potential choke-point where an official’s approval could be “greased” for a price. This preferential treatment for those with connections harkened back to colonial times when favors determined success. Indeed, Jagdish Bhagwati famously remarked that the profusion of licenses was historically the root of much of India’s corruption.

Through the 1960s–80s, a few industrialists adept at navigating (and influencing) the bureaucracy thrived, resulting in a form of crony capitalism where “business profitability hinges on maintaining strong relationships with bureaucrats and politicians.” This dynamic mirrors the colonial pattern of favoritism, albeit with Indian politicians replacing British viceroys as the power to curry favor with.

Colonial economic extraction also left the Indian state fiscally strained and focused on revenue-generating controls. Many public institutions (like port trusts, irrigation departments, railways) were oriented more towards generating surpluses for the government than delivering quality service – a mindset that outlived the Raj.

Consequently, even in independent India, numerous public-sector monopolies (in banking, insurance, transport, etc.) became breeding grounds for complacency and internal corruption, similar to the monopolistic practices under colonial rule. Additionally, the preferential access to resources that colonial elites enjoyed was echoed post-1947 in how certain regions or groups received disproportionate investment due to political patronage, not efficiency.

Over time, this has solidified into what some economists call “bureaucratic inefficiencies with private benefits”: red tape that hampers ordinary entrepreneurs but can be navigated by big players through influence or illicit payments.

From the preferential allotment of industrial licenses in the 1950s to the allocation of spectrum and mining licenses in more recent decades, one can trace a continuous thread of favoritism and rent-seeking rooted in institutional practices dating back to the British era.

In short, the colonial economic policies oriented around extractive institutions and elite privileges cast a long shadow – shaping a post-colonial political economy where state power often translates into private gain and systemic inefficiency.

Enduring Legacy: Examples of Petty Corruption Rooted in Colonial Structures

The legacy of colonial institutions in fostering petty corruption in India’s governance is visible through many historical and contemporary examples.

One striking continuity is the role of the district collector (a position created by the British in the 18th century) in local administration. To this day, the District Collector or District Magistrate remains the fulcrum of district governance, overseeing revenue collection and law and order. This concentration of power, inherited from colonial practice, often means citizens must navigate a maze of subordinate officials (tehsildars, inspectors, clerks) – each a potential tollgate – to get basic services.

For instance, land mutation or property registration in many states long required approaching the patwari, then the revenue inspector, then the tehsildar’s office, each step historically infamous for petty bribes. As noted, the patwari culture in North India became so synonymous with bribery that reforms had to be launched to digitize land records. Even today, cases abound of patwaris caught accepting a few thousand rupees for providing copies of land deeds or for not delaying a file – a direct descendent of the colonial land record system.

Another example is the pervasive “Inspector Raj” in various public services. Whether it is a health inspector, factory inspector, or police sub-inspector, these roles were originally created under British regulations to enforce standards and collect fees/fines. In independent India, they evolved into opportunities for extortion.

A small shopkeeper might pay off an inspector to avoid a hefty fine for a minor infraction of an outdated rule (many such rules originate in colonial municipal laws and factory acts). The necessity to pay bribes for getting a driving license, for instance, can be traced to the bureaucratic procedures introduced for vehicle registration and licensing by the British, which independent India expanded but did not simplify.

Red-tapism in offices like the Regional Transport Office (RTO) or the municipal corporation often echoes the colonial office-box culture satirized by the British themselves – multiple forms, stamps, and approvals for trivial matters. These procedural hurdles routinely drive citizens to seek “agents” or pay-offs to expedite matters.

Historically, independent India’s first large corruption scandals also had colonial institutional linkages. The Jeep Scandal of 1948, for example, involved improper procurement of military jeeps and exposed how the colonial-era defense procurement system (with its secrecy and discretionary powers) could be abused by new Indian officials for personal gain.

In subsequent decades, political patronage in awarding licenses or government contracts simply replaced British patronage with party-based patronage, but the mode of operation remained familiar. The 1980s Bofors scandal, where kickbacks were taken in an arms deal, had roots in the opaque arms procurement processes that dated back to British wartime administration.

On a more day-to-day level, the License Raj created legions of everyday corrupt practices. An illustrative case comes from the 1970s: an entrepreneur seeking to start a factory had to obtain dozens of permits – clearance from industry department, power connection, import license for machinery, etc. – moving file by file through a labyrinthine bureaucracy. This often meant “running from pillar to post and groveling before bureaucrats if not bribe them” to get anything done. Such experiences were so common that they entered popular culture and cynical jokes, highlighting how deeply entrenched petty corruption became in the governance system.

In modern times, despite economic liberalization, many public-facing services still bear the colonial stamp and associated petty corruption. The court system, for instance, requires affidavit attestations by oath commissioners – a practice inherited from colonial courts – and it’s common to pay a small “fee” unofficially to get it done quickly.

Police FIRs (First Information Reports) are another example: lodging an FIR, a process instituted under colonial criminal procedure, is notoriously difficult without influence or bribes, reflecting the enduring daroga (police station) culture of the Raj.

Even the mindset of public officials can sometimes reflect the old colonial ethos; bureaucrats are colloquially called “babus” (a term from the British era) and are stereotyped as aloof rule-sticklers who expect supplication.

While India has made strides in reform, the shadow of colonial administrative structures – centralized power, complex rules, privileged elites – persists in many pockets, nurturing conditions for petty corruption. Every time a citizen must pay speed money to expedite a file or use personal connections to bypass red tape, it is in part a reflection of systems of governance put in place under colonial rule and not fully dismantled.

As one analysis succinctly put it, “corruption in India can be traced back to the country’s colonial past”, where an alien, unaccountable administration normalized practices that independent India has found hard to uproot.

Conclusion

The institutional frameworks established during British colonial rule in India indelibly shaped the nature of the Indian state after 1947. The colonial bureaucratic model fostered hierarchy, formality, and distance from the populace – traits that carried over into the post-colonial civil services and facilitated nepotism and inefficiency.

Governance practices of the Raj, including over-centralization of authority and reliance on loyalist networks, made it natural for independent India’s leaders and officials to continue exercising power through centralized controls, secretive administration, and favoritism, which in turn sustained rent-seeking behaviors like bribery and undue influence.

The land revenue systems instituted by the British left behind skewed land relations and chaotic records, directly contributing to endemic corruption in land transactions and rural governance decades later. Likewise, the colonial justice system and legal codes, many of which remained in force, bequeathed a procedural maze and authoritarian legal provisions that allowed delays and graft to flourish in courts and police stations.

The long-term economic patterns set by colonial policies – preferential treatment for a few, suppression of competition, and state monopolies – evolved into India’s own version of crony capitalism and bureaucratic throttling of enterprise.

Through concrete examples, from the petty bribes in a village tehsil office to the high-level license scandals of the pre-1991 era, one can observe the through-line of colonial institutional legacy.

India’s battle with systemic corruption is thus not merely a contemporary governance issue but also a historical inheritance. Understanding this legacy is crucial to reforming the bureaucratic ethos and legal-institutional structures.

Over time, India has taken steps to “shake off the yoke of the colonial legacy” – for instance, abolishing zamindari, attempting police reforms, and most recently, proposing to replace British-era criminal laws. Yet, progress has been uneven, and many colonial-era features linger in everyday administration.

The case of India demonstrates how deeply colonial rule can implant institutional habits that outlast the empire itself. Breaking these patterns – dismantling undue hierarchy, simplifying procedures, increasing transparency and accountability – has been a slow process.

The persistence of petty corruption in India’s public sector underscores that colonial institutional culture, unless deliberately reformed, can remain “a huge obstacle” to good governance. Only by addressing these historical structural issues can India hope to significantly reduce the inefficiencies and corruption that impede its administration and fulfill the promise of a truly people-centric governance that colonial rulers never intended to build.

Sources:

• Tharoor, Shashi. “The Un-Indian Civil Service.” Open Magazine – describing the nature of the British ICS and its working culture.

• Fair Observer – Mudit Jain & Atul Singh interview, “An Indian Entrepreneur Talks Growth, Regulation and Corruption” – on the continuity of colonial extractive bureaucracy into independent India’s License Raj.

• Council on Foreign Relations – Alyssa Ayres, “Governance in India: Corruption” – tracing India’s corruption to colonial administrative practices and post-independence economic controls.

• Ideas for India – Roy & Swamy, “How colonial is Indian law?” – discussing colonial legacy in land, noting poor documentation in zamindari areas leading to persistent land disputes.

• PRS India – “Land Records and Titles in India” – highlighting unclear land titles due to zamindari legacy and the resulting legal disputes.

• The Diplomat – Prem Singh Gill, “India’s Judicial Crisis” – on archaic colonial-era rules slowing the judiciary and contributing to case backlogs.

• Fair Observer – Javeed Ahmad, “In India, the Police Is an Instrument of Injustice” – noting the colonial Police Act of 1861 and IPC of 1860 underpinning the post-colonial policing system.

• Wikipedia – “Political warfare in British colonial India” – describing British use of patronage with princes and landlords, and the creation of a loyal Indian elite in the civil service.

• New America Foundation – “The Punjab Example” report – on the colonial-era Patwari system in Punjab and its bias and corruption, prompting modern reforms.