States of obfuscation: citizens’ experiences of bureaucracy and uncertainty in contemporary India

Arguing that obfuscation is central to how contemporary state bureaucracies operate in India, this paper explores how bureaucratic interactions around social protection schemes are experienced through uncertainty by poor, low-caste welfare recipients in India. Based on ethnographic research in rural Tamil Nadu, it builds on scholarship on bureaucracy, demonstrating firstly how bureaucratic processes produce highly arbitrary and unpredictable outcomes for citizens. Secondly, it shows how uncertainty is produced though temporal, material, procedural and classificatory modalities. Repeated delays, unclear paperwork, opaque procedures, and inscrutable classifications generate endless uncertainty for citizens who rely heavily on state support. And, thirdly, the paper conceptualises such bureaucratic processes as a tactic of obfuscation, constituting a specific mode of governing. While the state, assisted by digital technologies, increasingly produces transparency for itself, bureaucratic obfuscation keeps the state illegible to its citizens, reproduces caste, class and gender inequalities, and undermines citizens’ capacity to claim rights and entitlements.