aka why your complaint matters only when it gets likes
There’s a breed of work that makes noise, and there’s a breed that makes progress. The problem is: we’ve confused the two.
In India, especially in the government sector, we’ve developed a strange and dangerous addiction — publicity-as-performance. Work isn’t work anymore unless it’s tweetable.
Let me tell you a little secret: the Railways doesn’t want your complaint — it wants your tweet. File something on the portal? Lost. Email someone? Ignored. But quote-tweet the Minister with a shaky video of a dirty train and boom — a swarm of action. Sometimes even a call. Once in a while, a staffer will sidle up to you and suggest you follow the Railway Minister on Twitter. “Sir, bas ek follow kar lo. Kaam ho jayega.”
We have replaced accountability with algorithms.
A Minister — elected by millions — is more bothered about engagement metrics on a US-based social media platform than metrics of trains arriving on time. Bureaucrats who once served in silence now position themselves like influencers, crafting threads about their “vision” while files gather dust. If your complaint doesn’t trend, it doesn’t matter. If your contribution doesn’t shine on stage, it didn’t happen.
This is not governance. This is governance theater.
Let’s talk incentives.
Why does this happen?
Because we’ve built a reward system that celebrates headlines over hard work. Awards over outcomes. PR over payment.
In project after project, private firms, small vendors, and on-ground workers do the heavy lifting — but when it’s time for credit, it flows uphill. The IAS officer takes the stage. The Minister gives a quote. The rest wait for months — sometimes years — to be paid. Some never are.
But God forbid they tweet about it — it’ll “harm the image” of the department.
The same image the department burns crores to preserve on hoardings and half-page ads that say “Your complaint was resolved!”
We’re watching an entire system become hollowed out by the idea that only visible work matters. That the goal of public service is not service, but likes.
You see this everywhere now.
- Roads that get laid right before a minister’s visit and break down weeks later.
- Swachh Bharat selfies with trash pushed just out of frame.
- Police solving crimes only after videos go viral.
- School inspections only when there’s a photo op.
It’s not that these people don’t know how to work. It’s that working quietly is no longer rewarded.
But here’s the rub.
The best work often looks boring. It shows up daily. It doesn’t tweet. It builds systems that work without needing to be seen working. And when those people — the ones who really make things move — are sidelined, mocked, or robbed of credit and compensation, the entire engine stalls.
We don’t need flashy saviors.
We need invisible systems that don’t break.
We need boring, consistent, under-the-radar work that delivers without fanfare.
And we need to stop worshipping the gong-bangers who show up only when the cameras do.
So next time you see a bureaucrat go viral, ask:
Who actually did the work?
Who got paid?
Who got forgotten?
And if the answer is: “The one who tweeted the loudest,”
You’ll know exactly what’s broken.