Jumping the Queue is our national habit which is nothing but plain & simple short-circuiting. Clearly, when it comes to our own interest, fair or foul, we short-circuit our conscience and act without thinking.
Dr. H. C . Pandey
The case of fire, in an office complex the other day, in Gurugram, is just another run on the scoreboard of an unending innings. The scoreboard continues to rattle with sixes and fours year after year. A year back there was the disastrous fire in a Delhi factory which claimed dozens of lives, and, years ago, so was the case in a major Kolkata hospital where the casualties were close to 100. All over the country one can watch the fire-dance somewhere or the other, major or minor, round the year. Prometheus unbound and the fires abound.
And year after year, just short-circuits are being held responsible for all the mishaps. Apparently short-circuits are having whale-of-a time, lighting bon-fires all over the country, as all the cases of fire for decades, have been blamed on them. Mr.Short-Circuit is creating a run-riot because the bowler is weak and the fielding more so.
Now, what is a short-circuit? In simple terms it means the two terminals of the power-line getting connected without any device, or sufficient insulation, in between them. The possibility of this situation mostly arises when the electrical installation is serviced by an incompetent or a careless or a lazy Electrician or maybe one having the expertise in all the three fields. But the poor fellow alone should not be blamed as his Supervisor and the Electrical Inspector are equally guilty. Firstly, for recruiting such a person, and, secondly for not properly inspecting the job done by him. Rejection of shoddy workmanship, of sub-standard materials, and, of components not meeting the design specifications, is all that one has to do to ensure that electrical mishaps do not occur. But then, here is the larger picture. Our DNA is accommodating to a fault. We accept imperfect and incomplete jobs, tolerate incompetent & inefficient persons and allow our approach towards our responsibilities to be, by and large, casual. To begin at the top, we elect people charged with serious criminal offenses as our representatives in the Parliament with the lame excuse that the legal proceedings are still going on in the relevant cases. Here, instead of waiting for the Court decision, we are, in fact, short-circuiting the legal proceedings and making that proviso of the EC irrelevant.
Then there is the bureaucracy, consisting of persons chosen through a strict process selecting only the cream. But the cream has gone sour. On one hand only a few officers follow the rules & procedures and take decisions or render advise accordingly. But on the other hand very many suggest, to the powers-that-be, the ways & means for short-circuiting the inconvenient process in order that inept & biased decisions can be taken and defended.
In the academics, the rules in force, for admission, examination, discipline, promotion & recruitment are short-circuited by new ordinances only to stave-off undue pressures from the vested interests, not withstanding the damage it does to the educational environment as a whole.
Jumping the Queue is our national habit which is nothing but plain & simple short-circuiting. Clearly, when it comes to our own interest, fair or foul, we short-circuit our conscience and act without thinking. Short-circuits across the board, in every field of activity, physical, mental or spiritual, are responsible for the present state of the nation.
One is tempted to add, in the style of Lao-tse ,that, thought without action is nought, but, action without thought is dangerous.
(Dr HC Pandey is Vice Chancellor Emeritus, BITS,Mesra)
