The Hindu Business Line : Driving people mad

Until not too long ago, people had a fatalistic attitude towards being pushed around. They took callousness and apathy by service providers and public functionaries for granted, and also assumed that there was no way they could be made to mend their ways.

For instance, if someone in a government or corporate hierarchy was rude, did not reply to letters nor answer or return phone calls, or extorted bribes, people’s reaction most of the time was to accept such misfortunes as part of life. In short, the common man and the customer had got accustomed to being treated as a worm by the privileged and well-paid denizens of public offices.

There are signs that the worm is turning. Alarm bells are ringing. There are increasing number of instances of agitations in the form of blocking the roads, besieging functionaries and protest demonstrations and processions by the long-suffering citizens who can take it no more. Whether they are customers, passengers or beneficiaries, people are no longer willing to put up with brashness and brutality.

No doubt, in the process, they take the law into their hands and go on a rampage, but this is because they find, in their utter frustration and helplessness, this is the only way to force providers of whatever service they are entitled to — drinking water, electric supply, health care facilities, safety of goods, adequacy and regularity of transport, maintenance of roads — to come out of the rooms in which they are safely and comfortably ensconced and answer for their commissions and omissions. In other words, disorder and violence are becoming the only means of enforcing accountability and responsiveness.

There are also straws in the wind showing that people are slipping into vigilantism. Recently, incensed at the failure of the police to nab crooks, mobs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh resorted to beating or stoning to death of suspected thieves.

Persons mentally tortured by demands of bribes cut off the hand of a Tahsildar in Andhra Pradesh when he extended it to take the amount.

Flying off the handle

Hitherto, such occurrences used to involve mostly the poorer, less educated or unsophisticated sections of the society prone to be more volatile and excitable.

Of late, even the better off and better bred persons, assumed to be capable of keeping their emotions under check, are flying off the handle when face to face with egregious failure of minimum expected performance.

For instance, airports have begun to witness unruly behaviour on the part of passengers having the means to travel by air by virtue of their belonging to a reasonably well-educated and well-provided section of the society.

The pity of it all is that it is so very easy to assuage feelings. A soft answer turneth away wrath, all scriptures say. All it means is display of a little sympathy, human approach, consideration, imagination and understanding. Just being approachable and willing to listen to grievances, and saying sorry, very often does wonders to human relations.

Take the case of irate passengers at the airport: They are intelligent enough to know that with the best will, things can go wrong and flights can be delayed.

What infuriates them is the total insensitivity of the higher-ups of the airlines: They could have been won over by airlines officials at responsible levels promptly rushing to the spot and explaining patiently and persuasively the nature and cause of the problem, the time it will take to solve it and the alternative arrangements being made for avoiding further inconvenience to passengers.

Unfortunately, for all the talk of service before self, customer delight, citizens charters and the like, civilised dealings by public functionaries continue to be in short supply.

B.S.RAGHAVAN