The war within

Remaining forever busy in the war within has always enabled us to lose the external war.

The "Output does not matter" style of functioning of the country’s bureaucrats keeps them perpetually busy in the mundane pushing of files and proposals, while at the same time giving them a false feeling of having delivered. The system exists for its own sake and its effect on the nation is minimal and generally damaging in nature. The bureaucrats are forever busy in pushing their own petty interests and that invariably includes post retirement sinecures.

This is the essence of the Indian bureaucracy. A system that exists for its own sake and keeps its every component busy without actually delivering. A “corrupt to the core”system that is meant only to be milched by its constituents, serving the populace can go to hell.

How the hell would we ever win the external war against poverty, illiteracy and the infrastructural gap, when the system keeps us totally occupied in mundane stuff.

We shall make it

I have a hunch that India shall present a spectacular show during the forthcoming commonwealth games. Things now seem to be moving fast and am sure that the speed would continuously accelerate in the coming months.

Connaught Place seems set to revive its old glory. The stadiums and other facilities are fast attaining completion and even the railways is now fast putting its act togethor to present the stations and services in a remarkably improved shape.

A system that is not very conducive for deliverance can also deliver provided the will is there and this time certainly, the will does not seem lacking.

The show will be spectacular, and if India also manages a decent haul of medals, it would be the icing on the cake, a cake that would be savored by the entire population.

I am now keenly awaiting the games, with pride of course.

Touch the softer side

The routine keeps all of us busy, or we expand the routine so as to keep us perfectly occupied most of the time, I am not sure. Still I am of the opinion and opinions may be wrong that the latter is true. After all indulging in the routine is the easiest thing to do. The routine happens on its own, has its own set mechanisms and consumes a lot of time. These are its USP's, though not exactly its strong points.

We all have to get out of the routine, though not totally. On the other hand, the routine also has to be disposed off, as otherwise it has a tendency to pile up. The solution lies in enhancing the efficiency of operations.

And what does one do after getting out of the routine. Touch the softer side, touch the human side, sides that have not been touched ever. It is strange that though all of us desire that the system, organization and the boss should care for us, we do not ever reciprocate this sentiment when it comes to our juniors.

Rank injustice, rampant corruption, filthy environment, sexual harassment at its peak and cases of drinking in official territory is what one finds on touching the softer side. Rather than diseases, these are symptoms of a management that does not manage, that is more concerned with the routine rather than going deeper into the system. And one would find this situation everywhere, cutting across ministries, state boundaries, sectors and hierarchies. The only commonality is that this all happens in the sarkari sector profusely.

Can it be set right? Yes only if one is prepared to walk the extra mile and also ask for it.

Do we bureaucrats have the desire, will, capability or the inclination to do it? Capability yes, but all others No.

It makes me sad. Yet I have decided not to lose hope.

Mistrust is the key

I am now convinced that mistrust, of the system and the individuals making up the system is the key to the total mess up and chaos we witness in organizations in India, cutting across sectors. And we are using that key rather more too often.
It is unfortunate that even the class one officers of the country are gripped by this malaise. The senior one becomes, the more he is likely to mistrust his subordinates, conveniently forgetting that once he was also a junior and that the only thing that seniority in service begets is neither knowledge nor experience, but vision. The higher one climbs a pole, the farther he can see and the same holds good even for sarkari services.
Why the hell dont people accept that only complete trust in the system and more importantly the individuals making it up is the best way to make a beginning in this otherwise hopeless situation. And therefore everyone pads up figures and even situations knowing fully well that as he will not be trusted, he will atleast get what he wants, even if the untrusting superior imposes a hefty cut. A chicken and egg situation results.
All my successes, and there have been many, have been the result of this trust in individuals that I fiercely posess and also cherish.

productive nations

A visit to the developed world always leaves me depressed in the end. The excitement at the beginning of the journey is always in deep contrast to the sense of despondancy at the end of the visit when I land in the motherland.
The despondancy is primarly due to reinforcement of the realization that while on a one to one basis we are better, as a society we are far inferior to them. Their roads, footpaths, houses, lampposts, parks, parking slots, railway stations, airports all go to prove their superiority as a system. It pains me to see that we are incapable of even keeping our cities clean, what to talk about building infrastructure.
And I am pained further when the leaders talk about building world class infrastructure. TALK is all they can do, and that is all they do.
Are we not aware of what is plaguing the system. Why evey Bharatvasi who leaves our shores is able to deliver while miserably failing in his home country. Do we not apreciate that corruption and a miserable decision making mechanism in the sarkari setup is the cause of our ills. Corruption, rampant corruption so deeply ingrained that even the corrupt has started believing that the system is responsible for his coruption and the persecuted suffers, but waits for his turn.
I feel sick and angry.

Rampant organised extortion

Are only well established gangsters, settled in Karachi, Dubai and metropolises the real dons? Do only the “hafta seekers” in metropolises like Mumbai and Delhi, qualify to be called as the real extortionists? Yes it is true that they are extortionists and criminals whom the people fear and who deserve to be eliminated for the benefit of the society. But is it not true that many Governemnt offices, cutting across state boundaries, with exceptions off course, also act like extortionists? It is a nightmare for an ordinary citizen of this country to approach any governmental agency for getting an approval, registration, license etc. We are all aware of the harassment a simple citizen faces in getting a house registered, getting a driving license, getting a ration card, getting an electrical connection or even a life/death certificate from a government agency. Getting anything done from the Government system is a nightmare. Yet no senior government functionary, a politician or a bureaucrat would take sincere action to set things right as he remains thoroughly insulated from the malaise of the system and therefore has no stake. A common man, not a powerful government servant cannot get any job done within a government system without bribing a government functionary as well as massaging his ego. If you are an entrepreneur, be prepared to adequately take care of a battalion of extortionists under the garb of a variety of government functionaries who shall visit you or make you visit them with amazing regularity. It is as fact that every restaurant owner in the nation’s capital has to keep specified amounts in envelopes every month for the local police, the sales tax guy, collectors from the food department, the municipal authorities and many other leeches of various kinds. And Delhi is one city in India. Just imagine the extortion money only from restaurants. Try getting a gun or a bar license, without giving bribes. Try getting and then executing a big civil contract without being robbed of the fixed percentage. The list is endless. A corrupt breed of men in the garb of government functionaries on a perpetual extortion spree!

Yes there are exceptions. But one has to be either really lucky or really powerful or really rich to bump into one.

Come to think of it. While real extortionists, the official and licensed extortionists, the sarkari functionaries function under the safety of the law, under the garb of officialdom from their official chambers situated in official buildings. The masses look upon these extortionists with awe and pray that their children are able to occupy such seats of power when they grow up. This organized extortion is now an accepted practice with eyebrows being raised only if the extortion becomes unbearable. And the pack of jokers, the corrupt politicians and the officialdom alike who form the bulk of the system have the cheek to talk about development, values, integrity and the nation. Bullshit.

Is corruption a dirty word

Even after fifty years of existence of which twenty-nine have been spent in the governmental sector in the country in various capacities, I am still not able to decide whether corruption is a ‘dirty’ word. I often find that majority of people I interact with, are apparently living beyond their known sources of income, have no convictions or morals, lack basic commitment to the organization and the nation and even then are considered not corrupt unless proved otherwise. My brain then long conditioned by the prevalent norms of the society says, “No, it is not” while my heart tempered more by ethics and moral values and a spiritual upbringing shouts, “Yes, it is”. The dilemma continues!

Recently a contractor who worked for me in one of my previous avatar of a CEO visited me, perhaps out of regard some people command irrespective of the seat they are sitting on. After initial small talk, I bluntly asked him whether he, while executing the contract had to grease the palms of the minions working under me. An embarrassing and also uncommon question! But I have been known to be rather blunt in matters involving integrity. After beating about the bush for some time, he finally summoned the courage to accept that he too, despite my direct involvement in the contract could not avoid paying the ten-percent. The only saving grace, he mentioned was that the system had agreed to provide him, as a very special case, a single window under the table service. I felt upset and also hurt. I wondered why he did not bring this to my attention, even when he and everyone else knew of my clean image and swift and also ruthless decision making ability. The answer he gave says it all

“There are so many people involved and the file keeps on shuffling between so many tables for perpetual checks and clearances. Everyone out there uses his negative powers and the bureaucracy is immense. If I had told you and you had taken up one person, the rest of the gang would have created enough hurdles to have stalled my contract or penalized me otherwise. I therefore chose the practical option of buying speed.”

The guy was dead right. It was the complexity of the stifling bureaucracy to blame not the poor individual in its grip. The bureaucracy out there was not stifling corruption by making things difficult to happen, but stifling deliverance and promoting corruption. In my view, it is very simple. If a hundred thumb impressions are required for every decision or action, then a lot of people will make money, pass the buck or delay matters as the system gives absolute immunity from being nailed directly, either for making money or for incompetence. If only one or two thumb impressions were involved, the owners of the thumbs would get easily identified and exposed and matters would be set right without delay. My failure in overhauling the system and making it simple and transparent then slowly dawned on me. But it would have required a major surgery with its attendant complications. Perhaps, then being under siege on so many fronts, I could not summon the courage required for the surgery. But I have always firmly believed that the answer to most of our ills lies in making things simple to happen. When are we as a society or as a system going to realize the benefits that will accrue by reducing the number of thumb impressions from hundred to one or two? Besides eliminating corruption, as the immunity provided by numbers would cease to exist, productivity would also shoot up and as a by-product generate clear accountability for deliverance or the lack of it. However, while making things simple to happen would be the correct thing to do, we perpetually continue to live in a fool’s paradise that making things difficult to happen will make it difficult to make money.

It is the same everywhere. There is not a single contract anywhere in the system where money is not changing hands, also under the table. Every checkpoint or a check-post has converted itself into a moneymaking business, and that is why we have lucrative, not so lucrative and dry postings, cutting across services and levels. If we think otherwise, we are living in a fool’s paradise. This is happening despite the presence of elaborate vigilance setups, which instead of curbing corruption are in fact making a significant contribution to the cause of escalating it. One more sentry to be taken care of at one more checkpoint. Perhaps I have become paranoid. Obsessed with the need for deliverance and the need to maintain high standards of probity in public life, I find myself compelled to take issue on tasks generally found pleasant by the majority. Perhaps being a Bharatvasi to the core, I feel hurt when the country is being bled by the corrupt and non-performers, both categories being Omni-present in our rotten system.

My younger daughter is thirteen years old. If someday I go senile and implement true democracy at home and in the process allow everyone including the thirteen year-old to take their own decisions, there is absolutely no doubt that she will end up ruining her life and in the process also cause a lot of discomfort to the other members of the family. This is exactly what happened to Bharatvarsh in 1947. An immature and non-visionary society, a society with a ridiculously low literacy rate was allowed to govern itself and that too democratically. And look where we have arrived, at the bottom of the list of nations with the exception of perhaps Bangladesh, Nepal and few other countries of no consequence. Is this the path we want to continue to follow in the 21st century? Do we want to be a country of glaring contrasts, a superpower that does not even raise an eyebrow when a large chunk of the residents of its capital city use railway tracks for morning ablutions? A country which wants to be a global preacher without even being able to provide basic education, water, electricity, sanitation and housing to most of its citizens?

I am of the firm opinion that corruption is more a symptom of a deep-rooted malaise within the decision making processes in the governmental system, than a disease by itself. I also strongly believe that corruption and productivity are linked directly not inversely. I do not see any merit in beating about the bush and living in a world, which does not believe in but still keeps on harping, that sincere efforts are being taken to eradicate corruption. I would rather just make things simple to happen and then see the last nail on the coffin of corruption. How I wish that we Indians who ape the west in so many superficial and cosmetic things, for once, starts aping their working systems, procedures and decision making processes for the good of the society.