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 significantly underutilised resource in the fields of political science and public administration. Shukla's satirical portrayal of Shivpalganj reveals the complexities of rural governance more accurately than many traditional Western administrative models, he added. He argued that Shukla, writing two decades after Independence, was ahead of his time in presenting a non-Eurocentric understanding of Indian administration. By highlighting the agency of local actors - well before the academic concept of "street-level bureaucracy" became widely recognised - Shukla demonstrated how policies are shaped and reshaped at the grassroots level, he added.htc...