The 'chalta hai' religion

If you watched Arnab Goswami on the AXN TV yesterday evening, the sense of national shame, outrage, anger and agony of India on the shame of finding two of the accused on the list of 50 terrorists given to Pakistan breaking bread at home or Jail, in Mumbai, should be obvious to all.  “Utterly unacceptable”, “utterly disgusting”, “Utterly irresponsible”, “utterly embarrassing”, “utterly incompetent”, and “utterly shameful” were some of the sentiments heard again and again. And we aren’t yet counting the CBI team landing in Copenhagen with an expired arrest warrant.

The ace villain of the moment is of course CBI.  Right now, I am sure every Indian is happy not being in the home minister’s slippers or not being a member of the CBI.  All of us are being one in referring to the government and its agents like the CBI, home ministry, et al, as “they” as if “we” are different. It is ironic that we, each one of us, who abide by the faith of ‘Chalta hai’ in whatever we do, should be so thoroughly indignant at what the CBI blokes – whose work ethics are no better and no worse than the country’s average – have gone and done. 

No matter how many heads roll, and whose – and roll they must – the situation is hardly retrievable. Our credibility as a country, as a people, and as a nation stands severely compromised, not to speak of the credibility of the government. More than anything else, this is a time for all of us to collectively hang our heads in shame, observe a four minute silence (we observe two minutes for the more routine tragedies) and introspect on our work culture.  It is our chalta hai religion that wrecks havoc in all aspects of our lives, never mind the 9% growth. It is this culture that makes us a country of mediocrity. It is this culture which is the reason our products are shoddy; why our services are second rate; why our flyovers crumble; why we are among the most corrupt countries; and why we live only by jugaad – after all, that’s what the CBI chaps did, didn’t they – slapped together some papers to be sent to Pakistan to get by the day?  And that’s what the home minister said, didn’t he, that all right, it was a human error, but no big deal…

When corruption and ji hujoori is the culture of a nation, ethics, pride, excellence and patriotism must all become casualties. And that’s all that has happened. The government cannot use the CBI as its hand-maiden when it suits it and then distance itself from the same CBI when it embarrasses it. To use the cliché, you can’t eat the cake and have it too. If as a people we wish to emerge stronger from this debilitating embarrassment, we may need to change our fundamental attitude. 

First, let us resolve not to accept chalta hai attitude.  If chalta hai is good enough for our teachers, reporters, politicians, policemen, clerks, bankers, bureaucrats, doctors, surgeons, lawyers, judges, sports-people, pilots, drivers and everybody else, well, there is no reason why it is not good enough for our CBI officers. When some of us say chalta hai, the damage done to us collectively may not be so obvious; but when a doctor, a railway signal man, an engineer or a pilot says chalta hai, lives may be lost; and when politicians and CBI say chalta hai, the country’s security and honour may be lost. But as a people, we all come from the same stock. We may be getting no more than what we collectively deserve.

Imagine our living in a city of severe water crunch, where water comes in thin trickles. I get the bright idea of installing a pump for Rs. 10,000 to ensure a better pressure on my tap (slight cheating, but what the heck, thoda chalta hai… ).  But soon, my neighbor hears the whirring noise of my pump, even as his water is running a wee bit thinner thanks to my pump, and gets the same idea and installs a pump for Rs. 10,000. And then his neighbor gets the same idea and then, and before you know it the entire city installs a pump for Rs. 10,000 each and the water is back to a trickle! We all try to be a wee bit smarter than the other by free riding (chalta hai) and we collectively pay a heavy price for it and don’t make collective progress.

Perhaps it is time for the Government and the opposition to come together to ensure the independence of CBI. While it may appear that the present debacle has nothing to do with the independence of CBI, it may not be true.  The loss in pride, accountability and morale of the CBI, which probably underlies in its desultory officers clocking time in their offices pushing papers and making blunders, cannot be delinked from the low self-esteem they must suffer from when they are not allowed to play the role they are supposed to play in the society.

Unless we rapidly put systems in place to become a more functioning nation, the smirk that international community normally seems to carry every time they refer to governance in India (just listen to the international broadcast of BBC to understand what I mean by that smirk) is only likely to widen.

The country has gained some traction on the corruption front. We need to consolidate those gains and improve all our systems towards greater accountability. Lack of accountability is the seed, fertilizer, sun and water – all rolled in one – to our chalta hai culture.  Let us contribute to bringing about wide ranging reforms in our public systems for greater accountability. The onus of exerting this pressure must lie as much on the service seekers (the public) as on the service provider.

Anger and indignation at what has happened is fine; but without channeling that anger towards something constructive and just getting back to business as usual is unlikely to remove the stain of this blot we have brought upon ourselves collectively.