Common fallacies while serving the nation

Look around within the working environment and one shall find many who never really started or have given up at the slightest pretext. It is such attitude that is indeed the biggest drag in the forward march of organizations and also the nation.

The staff is bad : How common and how unfortunate is the oft heard rant of the senior blokes that if they had better men with them, they would have delivered. I am good and they are bad, I am honest and the rest are not, I am committed and others are not and more often than not – no one else is bothered about the organization. Sadly these are words uttered by the mediocres who aspire for positions, get them and yet never become worthy of them. Over thirty five years of service has convinced me that the root cause behind non deliverance is inadequate bureaucratic leadership.

There is no support : If I had enough support I would have done it. Unfortunately this penchant of relying heavily on support from the superiors has been carried to a ridiculous extent by almost all and sundry. The guy who seeks support from those above him actually rarely supports those who look upto him. It is almost akin to the hostel experience – I was ragged so I will rag, I was not looked after so why should I and so on and so forth. The go-getters however go ahead and do it nevertheless.

People are corrupt – Very often we paint with one black brush those who we work for and also work with. The widespread extent of corruption is indeed undenied yet the only way one can help clean this rut is neither by complaining nor castigating others but by being a crusader for the cause and at the same time carrying an unwavering focus on the objective to be achieved.

Inadequate funds – The failure to realize that money is the least of the issues unfortunately never dawns on most of us who start their careers with and also end up with almost a regular banter about inadequacy of funds, for want of which they believe they have been failing to deliver. Look around and witness the creation of empires literally from scratch by budding entrepreneurs of the yesteryears and even today. They never cribbed and in the process created wealth. That initiative is the first step to generate wealth rarely gets appreciated.

The boss is bad : This is rarely true and but not as often as it is made out to be. The presence of a few rotten apples cannot be wished away yet the realization that if one is a good boss, he also gets one, rarely gets appreciated.

Life is not fair : Having been treated in an unfair manner remains the biggest grouse of almost all blokes thronging the environment. It however rarely matters to them whether they have been fair or not in their dealing with all those who fall within their sphere of influence. And fairness after all is a matter of perception, often perceived wrongly.  

The eternal pessimist : And one often bumps into many of them. That being fiercely optimist is often the only way to turnaround a really bad situation is often never believed and therefore rarely practiced. Like optimism builds itself many times over and in the process converts an impossible scenario into a possible one, pessimism attracts negativity at a much faster rate and often converts an already won battle into a lost one.

And lastly the misplaced notion that a position is merely for self-perpetuation and not a means to achieve an objective, a noble one at that, is so widespread that it is not at all funny. Almost everyone aspires for top slots, but unfortunately only for the power and pelf that goes with it, and the transient nature of these gains is appreciated only when they end, as all good times do but by then it is too late. Performing what the position expects from the incumbent is the only thing that has the power to give a lasting experience.

Amen!

Battling the machinery

The uphill battle continues. What really foxes me is the mess and the amount of indecision at all levels that must have gone into almost on a continuous basis to achieve the grand mess that we are saddled with today at the national carrier.

Yes it is true that the typical staid way of functioning must have helped a lot, as that alone guarantees maintenance of status quo and hefty premium on non-deliverance. Strange it may sound but in the PSU jungles, it is not the tiger who is the most feared but the cunning fox that surreptitiously appears out of nowhere to claim its prey.

Addressing the young budding management students at the legendary IIT Delhi recently, I was literally at pains to explain to them the unlimited bundle of power that a human being is, yet that power and the potential remains untapped almost forever, with rare exceptions of course. The system that everyone criticizes and mourns for, yet accepts and perpetuates has a tremendous crippling effect. Endless debates and deliberations and yet remaining indecisive over even petty matters is the hallmark of the system.

It is a fact that the new government is trying its level best to pull the nation out of the accumulated mess of almost seventy odd years. No new scam hitting the nation since the present dispensation took over is at stark contrast with the legacy that they inherited. There is stress on integrity and value systems and interference is almost absent. Honest intentions are also conspicuous by their shining presence. While we are indeed witness to good strides in governance and development, yet the fact remains that a quantum growth and improvement would be possible only if the machinery radically changes the way it has been working. If it keeps working in the way it has been all along in the past, we would keep on getting the results we had been getting in the past. A total overhaul is required. Simplification is the name of the game. Things have to be made simple to happen and they shall.

The role of the check-posts, namely the vigilance and audit setups has to be reviewed and drastically curtailed. Malafide has to be handled with an iron hand, mistakes need to be merely glossed over. Trust in human beings has to be brought back and also the realization that if mere punishments could reform, crime would have hit a new low in India by now.

The recent facebook post of the coal secretary in which he has laid the blame for the lack of initiative at the feet of the five C’s is like hitting the nail bang on the head. That the 5C’s including the CVC and the CAG have succeeded in curbing initiative is a statement of fact that I have been living almost all my life. Initiative for an officer working within the governmental machinery is a personal risk for which he may end up bearing the cross all his life. And many therefore ask - why risk it, when a life devoid of initiative provides the same personal comforts sans pressures and also keeps the door open for elevation to the highest levels. Premium is there, but only for doing nothing.

Process reform is the key. Almost everyone appreciates it but hardly understands the same. It is indeed all about simplification of the decision making and contractual processes that swamp the governmental machinery. Unfortunately over the decades, in the garb of transparency and curbing corruption, almost all processes have been complicated to ridiculous levels. And therefore most of us who are not satisfied with merely twiddling our thumbs, are often at a loss for how to proceed forward and do things. And having worked in almost all sectors of the machinery, I can say with the courage of conviction that this maze is omnipresent.

The maze has to lift for the jewel of the east to rapidly emerge from the shadows. 

The travails of a public sector chief

My stints with three public sector organizations, spanning almost a decade have made me experienced enough if not exactly wiser. Reinforced I am definitely with the thought that PSU’s have an inherent strength that other commercial organizations devoid of governmental backing apparently lack, yet the thought that if left free and with an absolute clarity of goal and purpose, conquering the skies would indeed be a child’s play always lurks at the back of the mind.

Very early forties is a fairly young age to be a public sector chief but that is what I was when asked to take over the reins of the mammoth tourism conglomerate, the Indian Tourism Development Corporation. Faced with a loss making entity on one hand and a system hell bent on getting rid of commercial entities from its fold, the job on hand was definitely not an easy one. Yet gaping mouths is what we encountered when the entire team rose as a goliath to rid the entity of its loss making traits. The spectacular growth, almost impossible to achieve even in the best of the private sectors left almost everyone speechless. And then I paid the price.

Then came the three stints with the tourism major of the wonderful state of Madhya Pradesh. While the state rose over all others in its successful quest for being the numero uno, the rapid turnaround of the commercial properties, and there were many, surprised almost everyone including myself. The ferocity with which the men (and women) of the state tourism development corporation shrugged off the cloak of ignominy and inefficiency made even the private sector speechless. Ofcourse the proactive support of the entire state machinery made the job easier, yet the fact remains that what really happened was our dipping into the inner strengths of the public sector that was almost given up as an also ran.

And now the third and the most challenging, the national carrier that also appears keen to shrug away its cloak of years of rot and neglect. It is now also certain that this entity would soon surge ahead of all its competitors in the not so distant future.

Towards the end of all my postings, I am often asked to put in place systems that would last forever and in the process enable the organization to keep its head above water perpetually and one always remains at pains to explain that such a system is not yet born, nor it shall ever for leadership is a role that can never be substituted by systems or inanimate objects. Yet the expectation of utopia remains.

Yet some stability can be brought about in the functioning of the public sector undertakings only if the dragnet of vigilance, audit and complex processes in the garb of transparency are loosened. The fear of committing a mistake and then getting mauled by the machinery is what keeps most of the public sector mandarins away from the path of decision making and even bringing clarity in their desires. And if decisions are not made in a commercial organization, or if safe play is always resorted to, the outcome can be easily fathomed by even a grocery shop owner.

Why performance or the end result alone should not be a criterion to judge an organization or its mandarins is what amazes me. Why even petty decisions or acts are microscopically examined without a speck of a concern for the overall performance is beyond comprehension especially for those whose primary concern remains overall growth and results. And finally why should one’s actions be subject to examination by someone who may be less competent, less honest and less committed really foxes me.

While beginning my career, the professor of finance at the staff college professed the canons of financial propriety, the foremost of which was – spend government money as if it is your own. And since then I have been wondering why a tender process has to be initiated for purchasing a sofa for the office whereas one simply makes the best buy off the shelf for a requirement at home.

As long as our focus remains on the process coupled with a thought process that everyone is dishonest unless proven otherwise, we shall remain where we are and shall keep on cursing all public organizations. The focus has to firmly shift to delivery if we do not desire to perish. Mere utterance of words “Perform or Perish” will never be enough.

Random musings

The chasm between field and head offices is an ever widening one. Those in the field always have a grouse against those comfortably settled in apex offices and wonder why the field realities remain invisible to these guys who really matter. And the very same guy on being kicked upwards to apex offices conveniently avoids the ground realities in favour of his warped perceptions and continues to be regarded in the same league as he regarded those above him, earlier. The relay continues with a lot of unhappy people emerging all around.

I have always wondered why field postings are meant for relatively junior and the headquarter postings for those born much earlier. Perhaps it is the general perception that wiser people should inhabit the superior offices and the not so wise, the lowly ones. This, despite the fact that it is predominantly the work at the field level that decides the fate of organizations whether they move forward or stay where they are.

On the other hand, the work of the superior offices is to provide vision and direction besides facilitating the working of their subordinate units, activities that they rarely indulge into. Unfortunately they end up attempting to monitor what the field units are doing, without generally providing any value addition whatsoever and therefore are regarded more as an evil that one has to live with than an office one usually looks up to.

Why shouldn’t then field offices have a status much higher than the head offices? And postings then should also follow this logic with sheer competence, not rank in the hierarchical set up deciding where exactly the bureaucratic bloke should park his backside upon.  Seniority then should not really matter and even the seniormost bloke, if competent should be parked in an assignment where his capabilities and talent can be best utilized. On the other hand even a junior official if perceived to have vision can be positioned in assignments in head offices where providing vision and direction is the major concern.

After all positions within bureaucratic setups should be positions of authority and responsibility, not merely positions of power and the aim has to be delivery, not merely positioning of men in hierarchical assignments.

Railways is a classic example of an organization where the field formations are generally treated with contempt by superior offices that themselves repeatedly on many occasions prove their irrelevance. Yet there is a race for superior yet irrelevant positions for the field is regarded as inferior to setups ensconced in ivory towers.

When shall we wake up to the reality that positions that impart power and authority are merely roles that one plays and each role has its own relevance? Regarding one role as superior to the other is a folly that most of us commit. After all real progress can only be achieved by a confluence of roles, all working in tandem with each other.   

The anatomy of corruption

The recent case of harassment of a director level officer by an officer of secretary level simply because the junior played the role of a custodian of government property to the hilt, indicates the level to which ethics in public life have nose-dived. Yet the essential difference that I have witnessed in this case as compared to scenarios two or maybe three decades earlier is in the highly elevated level of brazenness of the corrupt. “Chori and Seenajori” has indeed become the order of the day. It is also true that there has been a sharp decline in the morals and ethics of the society at large leading to a scenario where the service of the government has degenerated to service of the self. Any young entrant to services would easily testify to this ground reality.

The last ten years have set new milestones in the national race for amassing ill-gotten wealth and the servants of the governments have been generally leading the race. The veracity of this statement can be checked by interacting with any sector of the sarkar, strictly as a common citizen. Invariably every single of such interactions is laced with graft.

Yet the new dispensation at the centre gives hope. But it warrants critical appreciation that raising ethical levels of over a billion citizens would be far more complex and difficult than merely injecting a stiff dose of integrity amongst the few million of those who misgovern, often for personal gains. Beginning with the tantra therefore seems the most sensible and logical course to follow.

Total absence of a nationalistic fervour has been the hallmark of the indian society, except for the period when independence from the british was being actively sought. This has led to a scenario where personal good has assumed overriding priority over the general good without realizing the pitfalls of such a thought process.

And within the Sarkar, the inability of individuals at large to be able to make a meaningful difference leads to scant self-respect and therefore the spate of efforts at other means of self-gratification that merely give material comfort. And the failure to realize that a material high is far lower than a spiritual high is not exactly a direct fault of such individuals. Perhaps over the years our efforts at nation building have fallen far short of the requirements and therefore the distortions in the social mind set.

The complexity of the tantra that acts as a convenient shroud for the corrupt enabling him to almost never getting caught is also at fault. Yet the recent indictment and jail of senior politicians for abetment of corrupt practices gives hope that perhaps we are moving in the right direction.

Our inability to differentiate between what is ours and what is not is indeed sad and this is at the root cause of incidences akin to what resulted in the recent harassment. Our rank inability whether mistaken or on purpose to play the role of custodians and also our penchant to regard the service of the self, much above that of the nation provides the foundation for such actions.

Yet one single individual can change the direction or the fortunes of the nation and all its citizens. That is what leadership is all about and perhaps we are witnessing that rare moment in the history of the nation when that single individual has arrived on the national scene.

In god and providence we trust and in our hearts a burning desire to see a really clean nation.

2 Down – More to go?

The arrest of two senior railway officers recently – Rakesh Kumar CEO of CBFC and K.M.Tripathi former CGM of IRCTC for accepting bribes made headlines. That both these officers are young and from the services is indicative of the depths to which some of us have fallen.

Yet these incidents are not a bigger surprise than the Railgate of 2013 that placed railways as the epitome of corruption in the country. Never before in the history of independent India was a secretary level officer arrested and charged for manipulating with hard cash, his own posting at an apex level in the organization. Yet he was the person who was caught and crucified while others of his elk got away. We all were witness to juicy details of wrongdoings on the part of the powers to be during those days, the shocking cell phone conversations covered by dailies, yet the incident that was expected to mark the beginning of many more heads rolling, actually became the end of such investigations with the result that corruption flourished and achieved new heights.

Recent report of the CVC also placed the railways at the numero uno position in so far as corrupt practices and the number of officials charged with graft are concerned. Not a matter to be proud of, especially for those who like to walk with their heads held high.

It is really a “low” for this great organization. Being regarded as the epitome of corruption is definitely not something one can write home about, yet the very fact that the wheels of this great organization keep rolling magnificently speaks volumes about the cutting edge employees of this organization. 

Is this – the recent arrests – marks the beginning of the end of corruption in this great organization? Many wish so yet the majority having tasted the consequences of not toeing the line would continue to remain skeptical. And that leads me to wonder – why officials from the services despite reaching fairly senior and well-paying positions go astray and secondly why do officers who consider themselves honest miserably fail to stand up to misdeeds of superiors. Prime Ministers clarion call from the red fort this independence day to rise above the "Mera Kya, Mujhe Kya" syndrome needs to be inculcated. Perhaps there is something wrong with our grooming of youngsters who have come to regard their jobs, not as service as Modi exhorted the nation to, but as opportunities at loot and self-aggrandizement. Sad it is, yet one has to accept the ground realities as emerged during Railgate and reinforced by the recent arrests and CVC’s damning revelations.  

That the new government looks upon railways as the prime mover of economic activity in the nation is indeed heartening. The immense potential that railways possess in triggering and giving a push to economic activity in the nation is waiting to be tapped. But for that the organization shall have to first eradicate corruption and unethical conduct cutting across levels, an exercise that would indeed unlock the tremendous potential of this monolith.

There is absolutely no doubt that the time has arrived for this great organization to move in the direction of a genuine fulfillment of national aspirations. In God we trust.......

Caught in a time warp!

Modi’s focus on the five T’s has led to a desirable scenario, that of introspection by all those who regard themselves as the constituents of the T’s. It is however obvious that of the five, the common man of this nation is affected more by two, T for Transport ie Railways and T for Tourism making it evident that sorting out the “travel and hospitality” sectors would indeed be high on the agenda of the next dispensation that rules the centre. Indeed a highly promising prospect.

And rightly so, it is the avowed responsibility of the government to set on track those sectors that have a high social impact and utility, yet have gone wayward due to their own inner contradictions.

Often referred as the lifeline of the nation, the railway system of this nation has since independence emerged as the most glaring example of corruption, inefficiency and sloth in a corporate; more at the managerial, decision making and policy formulation levels than at the functional. Otherwise how is it indeed possible for a commercial enterprise operating in a sellers market in a monopolistic scenario that too in a nation of our size and population to consistently underperform, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively in what it produces for sale. In this scenario that any corporate worth its salt dreams of, the growing chasm between the demand and the supply and the rapid deterioration in the quality of its services is indicative of an absolute lack of leadership and managerial abilities especially at the bureaucratic level.   

The decision making and contractual processes that were made by the british masters to keep the locals in a tight leash have long since lost their relevance, yet their continuance for no other reason other than a strong internal resistance to change of any kind is not an attitude that would keep an organization especially a commercial one from a string of failures. Unfortunately railways has been moving in that direction with the routine dressing up of figures keeping the reality under wraps. The extreme complexity of procedures that the railways has arrived at out of a penchant for total mistrust and absolute disempowerment is at a total variance with what commercial setups are supposed to practice. And therefore the feeling of utter helplessness that one witnesses even at the apex levels in all the three tiers of management.

Yet despite rank inability and an absolute lack of inclination to make a positive contribution, travel by its senior officials in luxurious saloons fit for Maharajah’s is a sign of the time warp that has engulfed the entire Indian railways. Is it not a sign of a feudal mindset that while the rest of the country is unable to get even one berth on the train with ease, a small section of the senior railway officials travel in one full compartment fit for eighty in reserved or one eighty for unreserved.

The feudal mindset is also reflected in the scenario where kow towing to bosses wife has emerged more important than pampering the boss himself and definitely many times more important than work itself. A scenario where positioning of reception and dispatch parties at stations for senior officials proceeding on and returning from train travel has overtaken the need for deliverance is as expected definitely pampering ego’s but at the cost of good governance that in any case has been missing from the railways since a considerable period of time indeed. 

The time warp is absolute and total. A lavish cocoon with tremendous perks in the form of saloons, bungalows, bungalow peons, parties, gifts, free travel, ample opportunities for loot and a fleet of pliant and over caring subordinates is what the upper crust of this commercial organization finds itself engulfed in. And the almost complete disempowerment ensures that the focus does not waver from the perks – authorized and mostly unauthorized ones.

The shroud of the time warp has to end for the railways to truly move forward, not merely in a cosmetic sense. Hopefully the new government will initiate the much needed reforms in this giant monolith and make it indeed what it always should be - the economic lifeline of the nation.

Need to look beyond!

NEED TO LOOK BEYOND CLICHÉD APPROACH

Monday, 07 April 2014 | Ashwani Lohani | in Oped

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Tourism, which has been handled in a slip-shod fashion, needs to emerge as one of the focal sectors of the new dispensation at the Centre

The national perspective on tourism should not remain confined merely to figures of foreign tourist arrivals and the home population moving within the country. Unfortunately the mindset of the sector has been unable to rise above the jugglery of statistics, and therein lies the malaise. Even while remaining confined to statistics, the essential difference between the tourist, who is basically an explorer, and the traveller, who may be moving for many reasons, is not being appreciated, though both form part of the tourism statistics that are regularly being churned out and touted by those who matter in the matter of tourism in the country.

Another fallacy is related to promotional advertising. Our sheer inability to appreciate that the bottleneck in so far as foreign tourist arrivals is concerned, is not the inability to showcase but the excessive load factors on the flights plying between our country and the rest of the world. Advertising has to be primarily driven by Indian ethos, culture and achievements and not merely the number game.

And the third is about infrastructure. The much-needed basic tourist infrastructure is a physical necessity and merely dumping loads of money on hapless State Governments who permit only a trickle to reach the ground, is not going to help. The release of funds needs to be followed by proportionate conversion into hard reality, and without that happening, patting the back is not really in order. Perhaps the emergence of a good monitoring and executing machinery is the need of the hour.

The story of the (in)famous India Tourism Development Corporation says it all. An inherentlyprofitable business brought to seed by inept management is indeed the sad story of India’s tourism. Tourism development is the mandate, yet the corporation finds it difficult even to stand on its own feet and has emerged as perhaps the glaring national example of sloth, inefficiency and corruption. Now, matters seem to have improved. But almost a decade and a half ago, whenever I visited the Ministry of Environment and Forests, I wondered how a ministry that fails to maintain the environment within its headquarters can be expected to do justice to the environment of the country.

There is absolutely no doubt that tourism as an activity almost always happens on its own, without prodding from the Governments, and that it helps local economies to grow at a pace much higher than in other sectors. The employment potential as well as the multiplier effect of tourism have already received adequate hype. Tourism definitely needs to emerge as one of the focal sectors of the new dispensation at the Centre.

Emerge it shall, provided the new Government looks beyond the established clichés and takes necessary steps to enable tourism drive local economies, besides giving a thrust to the re-emergence and positioning of ancient Indian heritage, art, culture and thought.  It would indeed be a futile exercise to look at tourism without looking at all that the country stands for. The sectors encompassing tourism and culture are complimentary and a much higher natural synergy can be achieved by merging, once and for all the two separate ministries.

Tourist offices that earlier formed the backbone of the national effort to give a thrust to tourism need to be revitalised by suitable empowerment and injection of fundamentals of administration and management. The unfortunate state of affairs in which these offices and the men who man them stand castigated only because of the envious environment that foreign postings tend to create, should not be allowed to continue.

The focus on numbers has to go and the emphasis must be on setting the ground in order. Tourism can happen on its own, with timely facilitation by the Centre and State Governments.

We need to radically improve!

I am now slowly getting convinced that the sarkari tantra in the country has firmly resolved to maintain status quo and vowed not to improve itself. 

The flood of scams has indeed swept us off our feet and almost everyone has lost the count. 2G when it happened indeed hit the nation hard but the flood witnessed thereafter has brought major scams as close to the common man as minor acts of extortion indulged in by petty government functionaries in each and every single sarkari office in the nation. Scams have indeed lost their sheen unless they are in a few lakh of crores bracket.

The indignity heaped on the nation in the night of the 16^th of December 2012 when Nirbhaya was raped and murdered is again a reminder of the our passion for mere rhetoric and not decisive action. Nirbhaya stands forgotten and the case lingers on the lower courts. The leaders who then made tall statements about fast track justice in this case and deterrent steps have almost vanished. The laws remain the same and so is the slowly grinding machinery of the judicial system.

An organization, state or a nation moves forward by decisive action. A resolve unless translated into action is at best a rhetoric and therein lies the tragedy of this great nation. The bureaucratic tantra is so complex that it is unable to go beyond self sustenance, an act that keeps it fully occupied. The political machinery remains confined to exploiting the harvest to recover many times over the major investment it made in getting elected. The poor citizen is left to fend for itself.

Closer home, the great railways continues to remain the paradise of the mediocre and the corrupt. The system that has evolved with the contribution of nine services of the union places on a high pedestal the non–performer and the bechara. The complexity of the tantra ensures that delivery happens only rarely and corruption does not get eradicated. The complex tantra is indeed a perfect shroud for covert practices.

The bureaucrat has stakes only in non deliverance and self gratification. The recent scams have only taught him to be more careful, yet continue with things as they are.

Hum nahi sudharenge kabhi bhi, seems to be the national slogan.   

Utopian Dream

Patience is a hallmark virtue of the hindu community. And therefore they wait indefinitely for things to improve. After all India is not Egypt where the populace does not tolerate the excesses of the government and walks out of the confines of their comfortable homes to throw out a government that they had voted in power. After all the definition of a democracy is a government of for and by the people, yet how many of us are able to appreciate it I wonder?

Watching the affairs of successive governments in the nation for a considerable time now, I am convinced that the nation is not conducive enough for the habitation of the aam Hindustani and has strangely emerged as a place where only the men in power and those rolling in cash can live in relative peace. For the aam aadmi however it is a land of non-stop turmoil and anguish and therein lies the tragedy of the journey of this great civilization.

In recent history, utopia was first presented to the populace in 1942 when the call to quit India was issued. The naïve populace then believed that everything would be fine once the britishers left, however that was not to be. The hopes that built up in the initial years post independence took a nosedive in the early sixties when famines and acute scarcity of food grain rocked the nation. Meanwhile the political class as well as the bureaucrats had turned wise and realized that being a self seeker is definitely the far better alternative. It was obvious that the nation had arrived and had started taking off in a skewed direction.

Fed up with successive governments, the populace turned towards the opposition parties in the mid seventies and formed the first non congress government that disappointed more than it enthused. Subsequent experiments with different shades of governments both at the federal and the state levels also proved that there is not much to choose between the devil and the deep sea, with each initially offering hope and then dashing it against the wall.

The series of scams that surfaced with amazing regularity in the recent past have however imparted a different dimension to the concept of governance in this nation. The people who govern, now firmly believe that their anointment on the seat of power gives them a right to loot and plunder for their personal gains. Yet they also like all others never fail to present a utopia whenever an opportunity arises, and the naïve populace continues to believe them perhaps for lack of options.

The utopian dream rocks and our slide downward continues unabated.

The mayhem continues!

Two recent news items disturbed me. The first was regarding the apathy of the passers by towards road accident victims in Noida and the second was Nirbhaya Part II, the brutal rape of a 5 year old in Delhi. Perhaps Kalyug has now fully descended on this great land of Rama, Krishna, Rahim and Gandhi?

Value systems have apparently gone for a six. Perhaps they were never there in our hindu society and we merely maintained a pretense of the same for centuries togethor. Else how can one justify the series of brutal rapes in a society the scriptures of which harp on maintaining the dignity of the fair sex. How else can one justify a total lack of concern towards fellow humans as displayed by the passers by on the highway in which an injured girl and his father along with their dead son and mother were merely shrugged of as an unpleasent scenery by others.

The father of the nation lived his life for others, yet his sone and daughters, we the people of India live only for self with absolutely no concern even for fellow citizens in extreme distress. 

And the leaders of this nation will continue to parrot their old line of defending the juvenile. As someone recently and rightly said that a guy fit enough to molest and rape is also fit enough to undergo punishment. Will the pseudo leaders of this nation ever understand? Perhaps they will, the day the daughter of one of the high and mighty ones goes through an ordeal Nirbhaya or the five year old went through. Till then they shall continue to parrot what in their opinion will get them votes. Yet they are wrong, any politician who comes forward and sets things right even by taking harsh and unpopular measures like hanging or castrating rapist juveniles is bound to emerge as the ladla of the nation at the next hustings. 

Expecting the bureaucracy to pilot measures for a value based society will however continue to remain a mirage. Yesterday's display of a rabid conduct by a senior police officer while handling aggrieved protestors at the hospital where the five year old lay is perhaps in tune with what the bureaucracy has on offer for the masses they are recruited to serve. 

I never found reasons to be proud of being a hindu, but today I am ashamed to be one. Even the much maligned islamic countries are far superior in so far as comprehensive handling of the masses by the rulers is concerned. They dont brutalize women like in our country nor do they allow one who brutalizes to get away without facing the same level of brutality that he inflicted on others. Our record at handling terror is also dismal. An american would indeed be proud of the bold manner in which his government has handled the boston incident. Our actions and reactions stand out in stark contrast with even responsible leaders clamouring to save the lives of those who butchered their own countrymen or defiled sacred institutions. Sadly our judicial machinery with all its inherent merits also never believed in the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied. 

Yet the common man on the street and the high and mighty in the comfort of their luxurious homes know what is wrong. Each and every one of us knows what is wrong with the nation and uniformly expects and also waits for someone else to set it right. This has forever remained the biggest tragedy of this great land known as Bharatvarsh.    

Crumbling Verticals!

The battle for supremacy amongst various services of the railways witnesses new lows with each passing day. That such battles have no relevance for the well being of the organization or otherwise is fairly evident, yet issues and projects are regularly conceived and launched for petty personal as well as departmental gains.  Often the gains though not for the organization are immense as appears to be the case with new found penchant for train sets to be procured at costs, considered exorbitant by even western standards. Now for some time there shall be territorial disputes between those who espouse the cause of train sets for personal as well as departmental gains and those whose territory appears to be shrinking. The saga of growth and development of the railway system in our nation is heavily interspersed with such internal battles regularly played on different turfs by different groups, generally for unethical causes or causes beyond comprehension.

The nine verticals of the railways are the bane of this organization that once had a great affixed to its name. Till the railways crossed the two hundred million mark in the early eighties, the departmental verticals suited the organization, perhaps because of the easily manageable load both in terms of freight as well as the passenger traffic. During the following three decades, the load went up by almost six times, without any substantial inputs in terms of infrastructure or the human resource. This led to the ongoing mad scramble for scarce resources with attendant ramifications. Simultaneously the rapid rise in the number of officers led to diminishing of powers, authority and territory with consequent reduction in self esteem and pride. Lack of self esteem and pride in oneself is the reason behind the undignified conduct of the officer class in general in dealing with their subordinates that one is witness to day in and day out. Another glaring symptom is the crumbling infrastructure and the pride that once was the hallmark of a railwaymen.  

A vicious bind is what we find ourselves in now. The archaic structure throws up mediocrity for whom even the thought of structural or systemic changes is beyond comprehension. The mediocrity at apex levels taking solace in the routine day to day operations is the culprit behind the mess we find ourselves in at present.

Abhimanyu broke the chakravyuh of the kauravas during Mahabharata. A modern day Abhimanyu will lead this organization out of the morass that it finds itself in despite being in monopoly in a sellers market.

With hope we live!

Amen!

Cultural degeneration

A visit to any of the establishments where I earlier worked has always been a nostalgic experience. My visit to mpt office in hotel janpath yesterday had me almost in tears. Blessed I am for the tremendous love and affection that I have always received from all those who ever worked for me, be it the ministry of tourism, the india tourism development corporation, my various postings in the railways including the last one at the delhi division and the iconic posting as the head domo of tourism in the heart of incredible india. Such has been the love and affection that often I wish it was possible to be in more places than one, all at the same time.

In the face of such an outpouring of love and affection, the rise up the ladder in the conventional sense seems to have lost all its charm and relevance. After all we are mere servants of the government and being a higher ranked servant therefore does not attract me the way it normally does the entire clan. What however is really of essence is our ability to deliver and delivery itself.

It is indeed sad that most of us from the bureaucratic clan regard a job as an instrument of self aggrandizement and perpetuation, not as a means to serve the organization or the nation by means of bringing about a positive change. And therefore one witnesses almost always, a hasty clamour for obtaining personal gains by the occupants of fancy chambers in sarkari buildings cutting across sectors and services in this nation of ours.

Sadder still is the state of affairs in the railways, a so called HR centric organization the managers of which display absolute indifference for all those who work for them while at the same time going to ridiculous extents to satiate the unhealthy desires of those above. Moreover the language and the demeanour of the top brasses is also increasingly become a matter of serious concern. The usage of intemperate language and the inability to accept a difference of opinion often leads me to wonder whether we are really railroaders or are slowly acquiring the cultural traits of road side truckers. Perhaps being in the business of transport, and the time having arrived we have sadly degenerated to the level of truckers.

Railroading with the cultural traits of truckers, what an irony indeed!

Amen!