It is in the nature of the human condition that one boldly promises to swear off legal analysis (writing a post titled #MoreLifeLessLaw to focus on SFF reviewing and comics) and the next moment you realise that the planned book to review is a novel titled: The Competent Authority.
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| Shovon Chowdhury The Competent Authority: A novel (as opposed to a unicorn in book form) Aleph 2013 |
Sorry, did I say India? I meant the Bengalis.
Many drunken aspiring author in Calcutta's Olypub has slurred the commencement of such a project after one too many bottle of Kalyani Black Label beer. Where they have failed, Chowdhury nearly succeeded.
He succeeded, first of all, by living in Delhi rather than Calcutta. This gave him the work ethic and killer instinct required to finish a novel.
Then, he had his novel edited and published by no less august a publisher than David Davidar at Aleph.
It is true that as I began to read this novel, I thought, "My God, this guy is Rushdie. Why hasn't he won the Booker Prize already?"
If there is one infuriating and really scary thing about India then it is the obscurity of what goes in her corridors of powers. No one knows this better than the residents of New Delhi.
For instance, B.R. Ambedkar was entrusted with the job of drafting the Constitution of India, not just because he was the Dalit who has to do all the manual labour that the Brahmins are too lazy and incompetent to do, but also because (as someone who needed to make an actual living) he had worked as a principal secretary and bureaucrat.
Better than any of the founding fathers, Ambedkar knew the ins-and-outs of legalese that needed to successfully negotiated in the transition from the Government of India Act, 1935 to the Constitution of India, 1950. Ambedkar was the guy who knew the processes of legislation and how that intent could be frustrated or modified by signature and noting in a government office almirah file. Think, "Yes Minister".
"Competent authority", thus, is a bull-shit term lifted straight from one of the biggest exercises in joke writing in the English language: Government laws.
It is an omnibus term. It denotes respectability while avoiding the principal boast of written legislation: specificity.
Sample this:
OR THIS,
Section 8(1)(e) in The Right To Information Act, 2005
(e) information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information;
OR THIS,
Section 2 in the Central Excise Act, 1944
2. Definitions.—In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context,— 1[
(a) “adjudicating authority” means any authority competent to pass any order or decision under this Act, but does not include the Central Board of Excise and Customs constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963 (54 of 1963), 2[Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals)] or Appellate Tribunal;] 3[(aa) “Appellate Tribunal” means the Customs, Excise and 4[Service Tax] Appellate Tribunal constituted under section 129 of the Customs Act, 1962 (52 of 1962);] 5[(aaa)] “broker” or “commission agent” means a person who in the ordinary course of business makes contracts for the sale or purchase of excisable goods for others; 6[(b)] “Central Excise Officer” means the Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Commissioner of Central Excise, Commissioner of Central Excise (Appeals), Additional Commissioner of Central Excise, 7[Joint Commissioner of Central Excise,] Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise, Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise or any other officer of the Central Excise Department, or any person (including an officer of the State Government) invested by the Central Board of Excise and Customs constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963 (54 of 1963) with any of the powers of a Central Excise Officer under this Act;
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988
19. Previous sanction necessary for prosecution.—
(1) No court shall take cognizance of an offence punishable under sections 7, 10, 11, 13 and 15 alleged to have been committed by a public servant, except with the previous sanction,—Does this language make your head swim? Please remember that the purpose of statutes is to make the law clear, not to confuse things.
(a) in the case of a person who is employed in connection with the affairs of the Union and is not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the Central Government, of that Government;
(b) in the case of a person who is employed in connection with the affairs of a State and is not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the State Government, of that Government;
(c) in the case of any other person, of the authority competent to remove him from his office.
Exactly.
One of the things to be super careful about when living in Delhi is dealing with neighbours.
Chances are that they had to survive Partition by killing their own relatives. Worse, they may have relatives who have survived, and these characters have connections in the administrative service.
And that person may be a Competent Authority.
All that guy needs to do, to "fix" things (he may not have the legal authority but that's not important) is write a letter. That could set the wheels of government in motion. He could even write four letters.
The next thing you're hanging, dead, in a hostel in Hyderabad.
The premise of this novel is that China has nuked India. Bengal has ceded and joined China as protectorate. A man has a wife named Banani and is moved to dance, with his elbows before baths with a towel around his neck, singing "Banana, Banani".
The rich car part vendor-supplier-industrialist "jaanta nahi mere baap kaun hai" Manu Sharma type characters are protected by South African guards with vuvuzelas. A Bank of Bodies raids the chawls of the surviving poor for fresh organs and human parts. The Competent Authority orders the head of the CBI to self-administer severe nipple pinches while running on a treadmill (it sounds painful).
So, not everything in this novel is out of the realms of fiction. There is also a magical boy and time travel.
This brings me to why Shovon Chowdhury is and is not Salman Rushdie.
Both worked in advertising. They have a similar ear for language and a pulse on group discussion topics. Only after a bit, as every line in this book is a zinger, it started to feel that you're being punched non-stop. I had to put the book down and read it very slowly. Rushdie's prose is not that clean, but he paces himself better and dates models.
Second, Rushdie is actually an SFF writer passing himself off as a literary one. Chowdhury has pulled off the same trick. More prestige, yes. More hoo ha at JLF, maybe. Connecting with desired audience and doing the work you actually want to ---> the competent authority may have to decide.
[^See what I did there?]
Despite the initial promise, what ruined the novel for me, was the sentimentalisation of Mohandas Gandhi. It struck a jarring false note in what had otherwise been brutal satire and didn't sit with the general mood of the novel. I also felt that the villainous Constable Pande met his fate quite abruptly. As a good Bengali, Chowdhury needs to brush up on his Agatha Christie and be more creative about murder.
I generally recommend Shovon Chowdhury to anyone who asks me what's good lately in Indian writing, and look forward to reading his next novel: Murder with Bengali Characteristics.
P.S. Check out this actual website of a Competent Authority: http://www.cachennai.gov.in/index.php
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