Late colonial juridical practice in India was prone to bureaucratic errors and shared with the police a basic disinterest in the liberty of ordinary persons. This chapter tells the politically marginal but highly revealing story of a series of errors during the arrest and subsequent detention of an elderly man called Peter Budge – an innocent bystander in a situation of heightened communal tensions – that led to a momentary scandal in the United Provinces (UP) administration in the year 1947–1948. Budge's case disappeared between the cracks of bad record-keeping, leading to his lengthy and unlawful detention. The chapter raises questions about the complementary relationship between law and violence and about the fictitious nature of public-order laws. In contrast to a growing segment of historical literature that has discussed the spectacular violence of the colonial state by studying the revolt of 1857, the Ghadar movement, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and so on, this chapter looks at the ‘other’ acts of violence of the state and argues that the everyday reality of public-order enforcement is key to understanding the nature and operations of the late colonial state (and the postcolonial state). While doing this, it will delineate the gap between procedure and substance in bureaucratic practice.

Contrary to some claims that bureaucracy has taken a backseat, we notice that the discussions about bureaucracy have not withered in India. Bureaucracy remains the most common point of interaction between the citizens and the state. Max Weber's assertion on the nature of ideal types of bureaucracy remains the key interlocuter in discussions of coherence and purpose of bureaucracy. Studies of bureaucracy are increasingly focusing on the nature of the everyday state and have stressed the significance of studying everyday bureaucratic practice to comprehend state authority and its legitimation. Such studies have mostly studied either the ordinary citizen's narrative of the state5 or the ones produced by the state. Across the literature, two poles of investigative framework exist. At one extreme, the works of Franz Kafka dominate the discourse that emphasises the facade of rationality and reveals the monstrosity of bureaucracy7 and, on the other, Hannah Arendt leads the discussions that stress its role in depoliticising processes.