Customs is terrible only because people don't want to pay the actual customs duties as set by the government and will try anything possible to avoid paying including indulging in corruption.
Maybe Indian Customs has gotten better and is not acting petty but try importing USD $500k worth of equipment/machinery from Germany and then see how many ways Customs figures out to hold the goods and cause unnecessary delays and somehow everything magically works when you fly to their office in Kochi and do what's necessary to please them :)
If that's a genuine incident you're talking about, you could try contacting Shashi Tharoor (the local MP, who's on Twitter and seems very accessible) to see what can be done for the future.
Nothing's going to change if you don't atleast try to fix them.
