In India it takes ABCD to gather a crowd!
May be E, F, and ...., Z can be added to it!!
A, for an Accident or Crisis.
B, for Bollywood (counter part of Hollywood).
C, for Cricket.
D, for Divine Discourses.
E, for Emotions. India
runs on Emotions or rather ru
ins on Emotionalism.
F, for Fraudulent Politics that juices the country.
While I take these contexts one-by-one in separate blogposts, the context of this post is the misuse of accidents or
crises to derive political mileage.
Whenever there is an accident or a crisis like say fire, suddenly you will see crowd appearing from nowhere. Even police can't control them.
If the crisis has political implications, then in addition to the public, suddenly you will find political (mega-mini) leaders of all (mega-mini) parties appearing from thin air! Along with their bhaldaar and chopdaars, they crowd the site surrounding the diseased or aggrieved fighting for survival, making job of rescue and medical teams more than difficult.
Be it a Terror-attack, a major 'Drought', a 'December-2012' kind rape-case or a '
4-year old Seoni rape-victim dying in Nagpur', sometimes you will find well-protected mega-mini political-leaders ('mega' surrounded by commandos, 'mini' by police)
crowding newspapers with
pictures or
news of being 'in-touch' with the sites on phone
or remotely (from a helicopter).
Crisis or otherwise, being 'in-touch' from 'ivory towers'; through self-portraits in advertisements at the cost of Govt or Semi-Govt arms or through sponsored birthday hoardings, is what most smart Indian political leaders rarely ignore doing.
Other day a cartoon aptly conveyed how a politician certified that Mumbai roads were free-of-
potholes. "Citizens seem to take authorities for a ride by unwanted hue-n-cry. I have myself assessed roads from a helicopter-ride across the city", he assured.
What is the objective of being 'in-touch'?
Commonsensically it is to exhibit sympathy to the aggreived!
But actually it's the vested interests of being 'seen-shining' as its side-benefits (rather main-benefits)! The objective is to 'shine' in front of the vote bank and create opportunities to juice the country in future!!
History shows that rarely the political 'shining' has helped the aggreived in past.
What is desired?
Time and again it is proved that a
crisis is a result of a small abnormality ignored as being trivial one. A big
fire begins at a small ignored spark.
'Kargil' happened because of ignorance of many such so-called 'small' intrusions as 'signals' over the years!
In other words or in language of 'Safety-Maintenance-Pyramid' of
Kaizen (the Japanese improvement) philosophy, every big fire (or a crisis before it's arrival) gives out over-300 number off small-signals in various
forms or shapes over a period of time. The signals could be in terms of abnormal practices such as say an ignored spark-prone loose electrical connection, a smoke from a littered cigarette-butt or from a hot-iron left 'ON' inadvertently while pressing clothes, etc.
The small signals in rape-cases such as Mumbai-rape or Delhi-rape actually existed there in the form of
complaints about abnormal behaviors or non-cognizable-offence/s (N/C/Os) involving some of the accused. The signals were also there in the form of ill-reputation concerning the involved place such as Shakti-mills-
compound in case of Mumbai-rape. Most such signals might have gone unregistered or got ignored by corresponding agencies (be it Govt or Non-government).
My point in question is, isn't there a-way-or-will, political or otherwise, that can be re-directed to speedily remove bottlenecks that hinder fast-track action on seed-stage-signals to crimes rather more forcefully than fast-track postmortems of crimes themselves?
The objective being to consistently coordinate and follow-up with them and enable them for appropriate and speedy actions so that such so-called
'small' offences are prevented from
recurring or rather from occurring. Thereby up-rooting a probable-potential crisis at seed-stage itself is actually a sign of being proactive.
I know it is as difficult as convincing one's spouse to take that extra care at so-called 'trivial-spark' stage itself. Very few in millions do believe in importance of being proactive or preventive. May be it's beyond the capacity & capability of some to visualize a 'probable-fire' until it's actually seen with their own eyes.
Conventionally evidence is necessary as the basis of conviction. Rightly so. Crime like a rape however is evident and hence is easier to prove than an intention to do so or than a typical harassment that over a period of time might grow into a rape.
Here comes the role of leaders to 'foresee' what others can't even 'see'. Not only they should enable law-enforcers to push corresponding powerful laws &/or regulations but also enable speeding up tough actions on offences
at their so-called
'small' (the spark) stage itself.
Unfortunately, political leaders seem to do exactly the reverse. They 'shine' on wrong count exhibiting 'sense-of-urgency' to save their own skin and that of their criminal political-kith-n-kins at times even by passing
ordinances in parliament as done in past to neutralize even supreme court judgements.
It's time now for good
people-in-power in particular to 'shine-brighter-n-faster'. They need to enable each other in their network in right direction that of preventing such 'sparks' from flaring into 'crime-fires' or full grown crimes.
Leaving no stones un-turned to appreciate its percentage-elimination at root-cause level rather than
appreciating in terms of reduction of the base i.e. the booked N/C/Os itself or in terms of '
conviction rates', etc. as metrics of performance will actually promote attitude of and actions towards prevention of crimes. Thereby the fire-fighting and hence routine workload will reduce as also the cry for extra manpower and other resources for the same.
Smaller countries like Japan, Singapore, Israel and even some Gulf countries have administered such proactivity successfully. We can do it too if selfish motives at individual level to begin with are out of the way.
Skin-saving metrics such as 'base-reduction' otherwise do discourage booking of an offence itself, be it cognizable or N/C/O. Such
under-counting is analogous to 'pushing problems under the carpet'. Not to forget, problems do have a nasty habit of surfacing exactly at wrong time making their administration very stressful and strained.
So being politician-like 'in-touch' after-the-crisis also is surely a welcome step but only after performing more important and apparently non-urgent act that of being seriously 'in-touch' to enable elimination of 'sparks' of 'potential crises'.
Earlier and faster such 'prevention-better-than-cure' wisdom dawns, faster will the nation be saved of potential costs/losses (in terms of
'Kargils in-the-making' such as 'Ladakh', 'Arunachal', etc.) on-the-border and (law-and-order issues such as rape, illegal and unauthorized activities growing beyond control) inside-the-border.
With such an approach, not only will it reduce reactive workload on all concerned but also help leaders in earning goodwill of citizens in the long-run. We all know that it's very difficult to forget good leaders as also it's almost impossible to forget bad leaders.
If it's so simple and obvious then why doesn't it happen the desired-way?
Because, either it is not as easy to practice as simplistic it sounds or I am too poor to understand level of the complexity the politicians have taken political economics to.
Recently I came across a couple of cartoons in DNA. One (Courtesy Urban Dictionary) showed our politicians acting as childish and stubborn; rejecting commonsense in favor of self-interest regardless of consequences.
The other showing a senior politician advising his colleagues (over a court's verdict on a scam): "Make stories, concoct confusion, create doubts... Haven't you seen the court has given benefit of doubt to
Sajjan Kumar?"
In corporate life I came across four kinds of workplaces.
1/ One, where some people 'create' crises and some others try to fight them out.
2/ Two, places where everybody fights crises with some wondering about it's source.
3/ In the third kind, both roles are played by same people.
4/ Fourth-one is very rare Proactive-one, where everybody is in a sense-of-urgency to fight crises although hardly any may exist.
Characteristics of fourth kind of workplace are scattered around in this post itself. A smart reader may find them easily.
In first two kinds of workplaces, the sources of crises can get controlled sometime or the other. Third type is most dangerous because detection itself is a big challenge.
In the first three types there is a drought of leadership, will-power and sense-of-urgency to be 'in-touch' with the reality until it bites the concerned themselves.
Before it eventually does, I hope all including (myself and) people-in-power in particular aim their acts at being the fourth-one for My-India to be really shining and shining faster!
Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.
Time to celebrate for Indian cricket team!
