Selective efficiency in bureaucratic functioning and corruption as longing in Indian-administered Kashmir

While the public bureaucracies across South Asia, including in Indian-administered Kashmir, are generally- and rightfully- represented as glacial in their functioning, in the context of India’s military rule of Kashmir, these same bureaucracies can assume a periodic efficiency. In the aftermath of the abrogation of Kashmir’s nominal legal autonomy in 2019, this periodic efficiency has been demonstrated by civil bureaucracies in a much starker way to massively accelerate what has been described as India’s settler-colonial goals in the region. In the paper, I describe the modalities of these periods of efficiency- which I call selective efficiency, the aims of this efficiency in Kashmir and, more importantly, how people at the receiving end of this efficiency perceive it. In this context of sustained conflict and military occupation, I will question the otherwise desired efficiency of public/state bureaucracies while proposing that, in certain situations/places such as Indian-administered Kashmir, the glacial- even corrupt- nature of public bureaucracies may in fact produce positive results for the local population. This paper uses ethnography and discourse analysis to demonstrate the selective efficiency of bureaucracies and explain how the otherwise negative categories such as corruption acquire opposite social meanings in Indian-administered Kashmir.