In India, Officials Who Simply Do Their Jobs Can Become Viral Heroes
Among the thousands of civil servants who keep India’s vast government machinery running, a handful become unlikely public figures every few years.
Tukaram Mundhe, 51, is one of them. As commissioner of Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration, he has led a series of enforcement drives since taking charge in May. His teams have inspected restaurants and other food businesses, uncovering pest infestations, poor hygiene and expired food. He has also highlighted wide gaps between what hospitals pay for common medical supplies and what patients are charged.
Those actions have turned Mundhe into a social-media celebrity. Videos and images from his inspections are widely shared online, and hundreds of people have commented that they wish officers like him could be sent to fix food-safety concerns in their own states.
Mundhe is not alone. In Gurugram, a suburb of Delhi, district town planner RS Batth has won praise for acting against illegal construction and encroachments.
But why are officials treated like heroes for doing their jobs?
In India, civil servants are responsible for many services people rely on every day, from issuing documents to policing, food safety and healthcare. Yet many are also accused of delays, bribe demands and sending citizens from one office to another. So when an official appears to cut through red tape, the public response can be surprisingly enthusiastic.
“What should have been normal has become exceptional,” says retired civil servant Kamal Kant Jaswal. For many citizens, he adds, delays, bureaucratic hurdles and indifferent treatment have become so familiar that efficient governance now stands out as the exception.
Many Indians associate government offices with lengthy procedures, repeated visits and an often-unresponsive bureaucracy. [The Washington Post via Getty Images]
Mundhe is not the first official to gain recognition for doing exactly that. One of the most prominent examples is TN Seshan, who became a household name as India’s chief election commissioner in the 1990s for fearlessly enforcing rules.
Kiran Bedi, the first woman to join the officer ranks of the Indian Police Service, was nicknamed “Crane Bedi” in the early 1980s after it was widely reported that she got an illegally parked car belonging to then prime minister Indira Gandhi towed away. The car was removed by a sub-inspector who reported to her, and he said years later that she supported his decision.
Ashok Khemka became nationally known after intervening in a controversial land transaction in 2012, while police officer Neeraj Jadaun was praised for confronting a mob during deadly religious violence in Delhi in 2020.
These stories have made the idea of the “honest” or “no-nonsense” bureaucrat both familiar and rare. Jaswal, however, points out that thousands of officials in India do their jobs without attracting public attention. “Their work may not involve much direct contact with citizens, or may simply be less visible,” he says.
For ordinary people, however, a visit to a government office is often seen as an exhausting process. Rajesh Singh, 43, who works at a finance company in Delhi, says he has experienced long waits to get his work done and even longer processes to solve complaints. “What is supposed to take 24 hours, I have personally experienced being stretched to six months with no guarantee of a positive outcome even then,” he says.
But an officer praised for enforcing rules can also face criticism for applying them too rigidly without taking ground realities into account.
Kiran Bedi, India’s first woman IPS officer, became known for her strict approach to law enforcement. [The India Today Group via Getty Images]
Mundhe has been criticized by sections of the food and hospitality industry over his enforcement drives. He has rejected allegations of selective or unlawful action, saying inspections are evidence-driven and licenses are suspended only in serious cases. Batth, too, has faced flak for acting against illegal encroachments, with critics alleging his enforcement is selective and disproportionately affects vulnerable people. In several viral videos, he has said his actions are carried out strictly under town-planning rules.
Jaswal explains that a street vendor’s stall may be an unauthorized structure in the eyes of the law, but it could also be a family’s only source of income. And in a country where millions migrate to cities in search of work, unsanctioned living spaces may be the only way to find a place to stay. This tension between the law and economics helps explain why the same enforcement action can be viewed as both lawful and harsh.
Bureaucrats also face challenges of their own while carrying out their duties. Pushpa Sundar, who briefly served as a civil servant and has written extensively on development issues, says officers can face political pressure and transfers when they refuse to comply with demands. “They too have families, careers and financial responsibilities, and it needs extraordinary courage to risk those things in order to act independently,” she says. She argues that officers need stronger institutional support when they refuse to do something illegal or improper.
Jaswal remembers facing such pressure himself. In 1974, when he was district magistrate of Uttarkashi in what was then undivided Uttar Pradesh, a senior minister was contesting the state legislature election. He says he had to turn down a number of demands from the minister because they were against the rules. The minister won the election, and Jaswal says he got his “marching orders soon after.” But when he left for his next assignment, people stood in the summer heat for several kilometers on his way to say goodbye. The relationship between politicians and civil servants, he says, is rarely straightforward. Many civil servants who seek desirable postings or rely on political support choose the path of least resistance, while standing up to political pressure entails certain costs, he says.
Kamal Kant Jaswal (right) with former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his tenure as Uttar Pradesh’s secretary for rural development. [Kamal Kant Jaswal]
Social media has also changed how quickly an officer can become a public sensation. An action once limited to a district can now be filmed, shared and viewed by millions within hours. “Social media can turn an official into a national talking point almost overnight,” Sundar says. That is partly what happened with Mundhe, whose inspection videos have turned routine enforcement into a widely watched spectacle.
Mundhe, however, sees it differently. Speaking to the BBC last month, he said his actions were driven by public-health concerns and that businesses complying with rules had nothing to fear. For Mundhe, the attention is beside the point. The rules already exist, and his job is simply to enforce them.
But the public fascination is about more than just one officer. When basic government functions are carried out visibly and consistently, they can seem extraordinary—particularly because so many people have come to expect otherwise.
The pattern points to a deeper paradox in Indian governance. Viral praise for officials who follow the rules reflects widespread frustration with a system that too often fails to deliver on time, fairly and transparently. It also shows how social media can create new forms of accountability, pressuring agencies to act and giving citizens a sense that enforcement is possible. Yet individual heroics are not a substitute for institutional reform. The same viral attention that celebrates a strict officer can also encourage performative crackdowns, deepen concerns about selective enforcement and leave the most vulnerable bearing the cost. A more durable fix would be to make competent, impartial public service ordinary—so that following the rules no longer has to go viral to be noticed.