Throwing Up!

If everything is in a mess, then who takes the blame?

Roads are in a mess, so are the sewer lines, water supply and electricity supply cutting across the nation. The entire nation is covered by the haze of scams and more scams are awaiting to be unearthed every day. Uneducated and un-housed indians and there are many of them even after over sixty three years of survival as a free nation, make our heads hang in shame. The rajas and the britishers have left but we have created a ruling class that is far worse. Atleast the kings and the britishers were fair and also looked after the populace, the new dispensation in place in the self rule era appropriately looks after only the self and rules over others. Dealing with the sarkari tantra, any section of it is a nightmare, especially if one is a "aam aadmi".

Let none be in doubt that the rot is absolute and total. And unless we accept this reality, the change for the better would always elude us.

The funniest part of the scenario is that almost all indians accept the ground reality and have solutions, that they expect "OTHERS" to implement. Even sarkari mulazims have solutions that they expect "OTHER" sarkari mulazims to implement. Instead of a team working, a "WE" versus "THEY" scenario also pervades the entire sarkari machinery. With few exceptions, the top guys fail to provide the leadership that is expected of them and engross themselves in the "WE-THEY" game.

The thoroughness of the rot convinces me that setting right the sarkari tantra would require almost a revolution. And unless we have revolutionaries, people with revolutionary thought processes who also have the guts to implement what they feel or say, occupying the top slots, nothing much can be expected.

The moot issue therefore is whether a deeply rotten system has the capability to throw up people other than rank mediocres?

Advice not Support

I wonder why people are hell bent on giving advices? Perhaps it is the easiest thing to do, besides conferring on the advisor a mistaken sense of superiority.

And that is why the bureaucratic world to which I belong, is smitten by the advise bug. Unsolicited advice, normally bordering on the "I told you so" syndrome is generally freely available, especially from the quarters from which one tends to expect support, least of all advice.

Giving support is generally difficult, for one has to stick his neck out while dispensing it. And neck is the most precious thing for bureaucrats like me. And so our subordinates who come to us looking for support are generally turned away with an advice, that generally tends to convey that the subordinate has not been doing his job well. The subordinate who with passage of time becomes the superior continues the tradition forward.

We bureaucrats, especially those who belong to services have to start respecting the clan to which they belong, not just themselves. After all it is only the D.O.B that differentiates us and just being born a couple of years earlier should not give one any credit.

Railways especially is the flag-bearer of this tradition of "giving advices". The higher the person is in the hierarchy, the more smitten he is by the "advice bug". In an earlier blog I had written about the reign of the mediocrity. Perhaps therein lies the answer. Answer Yes, Solution No.