“Punishment is now unfashionable… because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.” Thomas S. Szasz
We are hugely in love with laziness, ‘saab chalta hai’, ‘Jane Bhi do yaron’ ‘mujhe kya lena’ and freedom to do what we like, where we like and when we like. That starts from ‘Shauch’ that is- Loo ! Freedom to poop, anywhere anytime. Seventy years after freedom we are still educating each other- spending millions – regarding advantages of not going out in the open to do our morning crap. Some good Samaritans have even made a movie for this cause. Are others far ahead of us, as they need to carry a paper bag for the doggy’s poop too?
Indians couldn’t care less for punctuality and deadlines. ‘What deadlines? I am working no? Isn’t that enough?’ is the answer you are likely to get when you talk about deadlines. We think we are God’s own creation and we in a way are. ‘God’s unique creation’. A Paanwala or a kirana store owner on every nukkad of the town thinks to be the greatest political pundit . How do you mend guys who already think that they are the greatest and hail from five thousand year old civilization, probably the oldest and hence the eldest in the world?
As far as work ethics is concerned, private sector which can hire and fire according to performance of an individual has been able to keep some sanity. This is because they can impose punitive punishment for those who default on punctuality, performance or attitude. Out there also there are similar issues where the management sometimes has to struggle hard to get the job done from people with such an attitude.
Public sector and government employees are the toughest nut to crack – if at all you can crack. Where ever there is job security – in this case almost life time permanency is guaranteed – there is going to be little accountability and very little motivation to work. A government job was viewed as and still is, as a lifetime achievement award. ‘Aab to ladke ki sarkari naukri lag gayi hai, kya chinta hai aab’. Pension is an added bonus. You become a Sarkari son in-law and with very little chances of a divorce. Government can’t give you talaq and you will never want one. A happy stalemate exists. ‘Chal raha hai- chalne do’.
No one is in any tearing hurry to do the job. It is difficult to imagine that a government employee goes on leave and for several days his desk becomes non operational. It happens only in India. You give a call – and you are lucky if it is attended- you are told ‘Mishra ji Chuttee paar chal rahe hain. Aap agley haftey dubara call karke pooch lena’. Mishraji mistakenly carries home the keys of his cupboard with him and no one can access any files.
A blunder is punished by a transfer and in case you are at a junior position all that can be done is that you are moved from one floor to the other in the same department. It is very rare that anyone has been kicked out of a job. For serious goof ups, inquiries take years to get somewhere and then there are courts with appeals and re-appeals which help you manage to keep your job till you probably superannuate.
This is probably the only country where we don’t care for our own nuts (heads) and refuse to wear a helmet. If someone orders this; you can go for an appeal in the court or may be a PIL to get a relief! If we have a Pan India driving license, then how wearing a helmet can be any different? We refuse to wear a seatbelt and hell bent on speaking on the phone while driving and texting while crossing the road. Very recently it has been observed that the cops have been beaten up by the guys who are checked for flouting the rules! There was a time when people were afraid of confronting a policeman today in modern India the trend has been reversed- ’Toon janata hai mera baap kon Hai?’
Colleges and universities are our breeding ground for indiscipline. Backed by media and politics this is a potent loose cannon which can be pointed towards any one- and fire. TV Channels are there to break the news (mostly bad) every time. Even if there is no news, they still break it! The intellectual brigade – is the icing on this rotting cake. They are the self appointed solicitors of common man and feel the pain of the poor more than the poor themselves.
They go from studio to studio to give gyan to 1.4 billion gyanis of India. The topic of the day on TV debates is so frivolous and so stupid that one wonders what the real news is. This happens every day. “There nothing to debate today but lets debate”
Latest fad in fashion is freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It works well in every situation. Clubbed with secularism and ‘according to my constitutional guarantees’ this combination is ‘one size fits all’. You try disciplining us we will call you a police state or a fascist without even knowing what it really means!
God ; can someone change us? Government adverts don’t affect us, regulations don’t work on us, impossible to motivate us, policing fails and no one even cares for requests and pleas. We understand only one thing; rap on the knuckles. We need to be governed with a firm hand otherwise ‘hum nahin sudharengey’.
When Prime Minister Modi said ‘Our biggest challenge is our mindset and attitude’ he was bang on the target. I don’t know if he has found a way out of this situation yet. A ministry of correctional attitude , may do us better than a ministry of skill development. But the brigade will find this unconstitutional too. We need a solid rod for a while till we start behaving – hit us hard where it hurts the most. It is a long struggling rod ahead for the proverbial road ahead.
“What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do”
– Aristotle