Does bureaucracy improve governance?

Modern Indian bureaucracy completes 160 years soon yet it is unclear if it has served its purpose over the decades

The modern Indian bureaucracy turns 160 in a few weeks. Hurray. Of course, nobody actually plans on celebrating it because the bureaucracy, especially the lower one that citizens interface with, is a terrifying thing in our parts and has always been. 

One hundred and sixty years ago, and a year after the Mutiny, the Government of India Act of 1858 transferred rule from a private corporation’s board of directors to Queen Victoria’s government and its civil servants, the Indian Civil Service (or ICS) (later renamed as Indian Administrative Service or IAS). 

But much before that, the Mughal higher bureaucracy had