The process of dismantling of the regime of controls, licences, permits and quotas, initiated in India in 1991 as part of deregulation and liberalisation, has brought about an awareness among the top corporate echelons of the benchmarks and the best practices that had been routine in industrially and technologically advanced countries but rarely applied in this country.
A spirit of competition now marks the business and services sectors, although it is still largely confined to disembodied voices telling customers that their calls are important but making them wait for inordinately long periods. The hype about customers' delight is yet to be matched by any substantive follow-up on their complaints. However, the décor of offices and outlets of corporates have taken on a splendour that makes them irresistibly inviting.
lousy upkeep
The least impact of globalisation, in the sense of integration with the best in the world, has been on government offices and personnel, whether they work for Central or State Governments. Government offices, including those in metropolitan cities, are a byword for their repulsive ambience.
Signs of lousy upkeep, dust, filth, squalor and stains, stinking toilets, out-of-order accessories and a general air of neglect and decay stare you in the face wherever you look. There are hardly any amenities — such as provision for drinking water or seating arrangements — that make a person visiting the offices feel welcome.
As regards personnel, including supposedly educated and trained officers of higher services, any notion that they are imbued with the spirit of service (its first letters standing for sensitivity, empathy, responsiveness, values, initiative, commitment and efficiency) goes overboard the moment one comes into contact, or has to deal, with any of them in any department.
Leave aside public-spiritedness, quality of performance, helpfulness or prompt delivery of services: The behaviour of government officials with those whom they are paid to serve is also found to be humiliating in the experience of the people. In fact, an author collected from the members of the public he interviewed the following abusive invectives down to the last letter of the alphabet lambasting government functionaries: Abrasive, arrogant, bloated, callous, cold, cruel, dilatory, heartless, high-handed, indifferent, inefficient, insensitive, lethargic, mindless, negative, obstructive, opaque, oppressive, predatory, rude, wasteful, wooden, zany!
Hauteur
Even prominent public figures and senior officers who had retired after putting in years of distinguished service feel bitter about the ill-treatment they receive from government officials. Their e-mail messages and letters are seldom acknowledged or replied to, their phone calls are not returned, and they find themselves rebuffed even when pursuing a public purpose or cause.
For all the talk of accountability and approachability, the aam aadmi finds it akin to labours of Hercules to get an official to listen to his grievances and requests in a considerate and patient manner.
There have been any number of reforms commissions since Independence to make government officials shed the hauteur of the colonial rulers and sensitise them to their role as the servants of the people, but to no avail. That is what is driving people in their despair to take law into their own hands by resorting to holding up of traffic, besieging of government offices and violent forms of protest against excesses or negligence on the part of local officials. Maoism too, to a great extent, is an offshoot of vengefulness against the heartlessness of public officials.
What is the remedy? Is it possible to instil decency and humanity in government personnel who have become hardened self-seekers devoid of finer feelings?
If not, should the civil society periodically make public announcement of titles such as Jan shatru (enemy of the people), jan himsak (oppressor of the people) and jan drohi (traitor to the people) to public officials, graded as per the degree of their contempt for the norms of civilised behaviour and democratic polity?
Whether even this will put them to shame is open to doubt on present showing.