Just imagine a different India where beaming faces welcome you at the airport and brisk immigration officers stamp your passport, instead of what greets us these days?all those unkempt sullen babus who think their job starts with a denial of something or the other, who chat across counters while you wait, who pick their noses and scratch themselves, only to feel on top of it all, in their sarkari role, representing the state. They behave in this uncouth manner because it is their way of taking revenge on persons they have a deep-seated complex about, private individuals who they sense as better-off than them in office, class and position. This scene is a reminder of how officials of the Soviet bloc behaved in the year dot.
We are the last surviving repository of those restrictive governmental horrors. This first unsavoury symbol at the entry point, particularly in New Delhi and Mumbai, epitomises what is in store for a visitor hereafter. It defines the tragedy of a nation ridden with angst, deprivation and insecurity, a nation that has lost the strong sense of pride that it once had. The hassles at the baggage belts where there are never enough trolleys, at the customs counters manned by smug, greedy officers, and at the prepaid cab stands with smelly touts, these all signify a society that abides by no dignified norms. In the public space, ruled and administered by the many arms and authorities of government, India has lost her finest asset, her graciousness and her civility. The reason for the degradation is the failure of clean governance and the complete erosion of any form of accountability when it comes to those who are responsible for the enforcement of civilised behaviour.
The government and its babus must give up all fields of endeavour that demand good, clean and legitimate services. This is something that servants of the state do not and cannot comprehend. They were trained differently. To be arrogant know-alls, which is what makes them stand apart, insular and isolated.
As the Commonwealth Games approach, Delhi will be spruced up, and ?favourites? will be given contracts. Monies will be made and the same old predictable variety entertainment will happen?we have been there, seen it. Instead, if the government were to outsource the entertainment and the events that celebrate the occasion and the city, the cultural community would certainly do a much finer job, engaging the fraternity across the country to put on a great show. The babus, 90% of them, cannot compete with the creativity and energy of the cultural impresarios who live, breathe and communicate far away from government precincts.
Here is an opportunity to shift gears. The government needs to ensure the infrastructure works like a well-oiled machine, and leave the rest to professionals in all other areas. With minimal government interference, everyone will come together in the spirit of public pride. This would be a public-private partnership, and is the only way to have Indians do fellow Indians proud.
The diverse cultures and identities of India is what makes this nation state a treasure trove of what many countries of the world have lost, and what every country in the world nurtures, conserves and endorses |
Excellence and quality does not come through the lowest tender. Those frightful days are over, and we now need to exert our influence and take on the responsibility to nurture our great traditions, to support new experiments and innovations, to restore our public institutions such as our archives and museums, and do whatever it takes to conserve and energise the latent vitality of India?s skills. We cannot allow the degradation of everything around us. We cannot allow our legacy and our future to be diluted by uncaring and unthinking, inexperienced administrators who have been, till now, unwilling to embrace anyone deemed too much of an outsider.
If statutory changes are the way forward, so be it. The diverse cultures and identities of India is what makes this nation-state a treasure trove of what many countries of the world have lost, and what every country in the world nurtures, conserves and endorses. It is India that, regrettably, abuses and neglects its greatest strength that could give the world its greatest ever show!