Chandigarh, Feb. 19 -- 'Raag Darbari', a literary masterpiece of satire on Indian politics and bureaucracy, by Shrilal Shukla, is more relevant than Western administrative theories, said Prof Satyajit Singh of University of California, Santa Barbara, in his keynote address at the annual JC Anand Memorial Lecture at Panjab University here on Tuesday.

Organised by the department of political science where Prof Anand taught generations of students, Singh offered a compelling re-evaluation of India's administrative landscape through the lens of Shukla's 1968 classic novel, in his lecture titled 'Polity as Fiction, Fiction as Reality'.

Singh said that although the novel is celebrated as a landmark of Hindi literature, it remains a significan...