Yojana Bhavan, a relic of the era when umbrellas were seen in New Delhi if it rained in Moscow, squats like an ugly toad on Sansad Marg which the posh refer to as Parliament Street. Like many other buildings housing Government of India offices — for example, Shastri Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan and Sanchar Bhavan, to name a few — the architecture of Yojana Bhavan stands out for singularly lacking in aesthetics. It is, and was meant to be, a grey concrete box where pompous and politically-connected gasbags who have arrogated to themselves the exalted title of ‘economist’ and are collectively known as the Planning Commission, sit and plot how best to keep India mired in poverty and Indians trapped in the vicious cycle of denial, deprivation and destitution, the three ‘D’s that define the virtuous goals of Socialism.

The dank corridors of Yojana Bhavan exude the musty smell of paper mouldering in dusty files that have not been opened in years if not decades. The unwashed masses and the perfumed classes may think that their Government’s motto is ‘Satyameva Jayate’, those who are in power believe it is ‘File and Forget’. That accounts for the millions of files stacked in government offices, each with a number. The Great Filing System is an awesome job generator: There are babus who create the files, there are babus who stuff the files with note sheets till they bulge obscenely, there are babus who maintain a record of these files, and there are babus who guard them with remarkable zealotry.