India is not a police state. India is a dysfunctional state only made functional through continuous petty bribery.
Historically police states like Nazi Germany or Mao's China operated by being well organized at all levels of society. India is absolutely not well organized at all levels of society. Instead India seems optimized for the petty bribe seeking bureaucrat. It's not the all knowing police state. It's the disorganized mafia state.
I had an easier time getting a work permit in Russia last year than India. The sheer amount of paperwork and rubber stamps required for my Indian work permit was the worst I have ever had to deal with and I've worked all over the world. All of this paperwork and stamping allows perfect opportunities for small time bureaucrats to extract bribes and favors from people who just need to get something done. So when I look at something like requiring ID to use wifi I don't see Total Information Awareness. I see Tammany Hall and a genius system that's operating exactly as it was designed, to extract graft from normal people at every possible opportunity.
Disclaimer:
I lived in India for 0.5 years in '99 and recently worked there again in 2011 for a month. My answers are based on these experiences and of knowing lots of Indians frustrated with their government.
I've been working in India for over 7 years. Getting an employment visa issued (and subsequently renewed) is a kafka-eque nightmare. However, it wasn't because of having to pay bribes to every officer up the chain.
Immigration is just a genuinely dysfunctional entity.
(Believe me, if I thought I could at any point have paid petty bribes to get the damn thing over with instead of wasting weeks of my time, I think I may have actually done so out of frustration).
Why didn't your employer get it done for you? If it was a big firm then they'd have someone who knows their way around the system to get things like this done efficiently.
Hmm, I don't think I was trying to attack his position as much as posing a question. Any company that wants to hire a foreigner thinks about the ease with which they can be brought on board. Companies that are used to doing so in India tend to have people that can navigate the system so the employees-to-be don't have to.
Historically police states like Nazi Germany or Mao's China operated by being well organized at all levels of society. India is absolutely not well organized at all levels of society. Instead India seems optimized for the petty bribe seeking bureaucrat. It's not the all knowing police state. It's the disorganized mafia state.
I had an easier time getting a work permit in Russia last year than India. The sheer amount of paperwork and rubber stamps required for my Indian work permit was the worst I have ever had to deal with and I've worked all over the world. All of this paperwork and stamping allows perfect opportunities for small time bureaucrats to extract bribes and favors from people who just need to get something done. So when I look at something like requiring ID to use wifi I don't see Total Information Awareness. I see Tammany Hall and a genius system that's operating exactly as it was designed, to extract graft from normal people at every possible opportunity.
Disclaimer: I lived in India for 0.5 years in '99 and recently worked there again in 2011 for a month. My answers are based on these experiences and of knowing lots of Indians frustrated with their government.