The great Indian novel - Reflections on the Lentin Report

More than the novel or the pamphlet, it is the bureaucratic document, as ex pert's report or as a commission of enquiry, that has captured many of the great dramas of the 20th century. It is these reports that will survive as the archives of democracy in India. The Lentin Report on the deaths due to contaminated glycerine at the state run J J Hospital in Mumbai is such a do cument, a contender for the Great Indian Novel. The report examines four in stitutions, the hospital, the industry, the Food and Drug Administration an d the politician, in painstaking detail showing how individual acts of corr uption, each insulated in itself, together led to the tragedy. And, typical ly, its findings lie unattended till today.