I was watching a television show
running stories on ‘VVIP racism’ – one case where a lawmaker was instructing a
railway official to stop all trains and allow the one his boss was traveling
on. The other story covered another lawmaker forcing his entry, with a bunch of
his supporters, into a cricketing venue, albeit without a ticket. There is no
dearth of such stories in the national polity. The sense of entitlement is
quite deep rooted in this society.
When you think about a sensitive
political scenario, where the leaders would not want any bad publicity, the cadre
of lawmakers could still get away with such adventurism. But why can’t the boss
show them the door? Because, in a democratic political canvas, the cadre lawmakers
hold the key to success. The grass-root level support is critical as that forms
the bottom of the political pyramid. And, therefore, the boss may not want to
risk his support base by taking a harsh view, howsoever upright he might be.
The unscrupulous, rogue lawmaker, most often, will get away with any such delinquency.
The corporate world too has its
own version of such ‘VVIP racism’. An ex-colleague of mine summed it up well
when he told my boss during his farewell drink – the Line Managers in your team
work like a mafia. If and when they wish, they can inflict failure on you and if
and only if they wish, you succeed. Those
were the golden words that my boss reminisced on multiple occasions, all through
her tenure.
Sometimes we wonder, as to why a
certain loudmouth, or a certain lawmaker with dubious records is given a long
enough rope to tarnish and destroy the positive image of an authority. To an
extent that such a tolerance often alienates many a straight thinking follower.
Unfortunately, in the business of politics, the strength of mass appeal,
enjoyed by an individual, dwarfs any other shortcomings accompanying his
association. And unfortunately, such a mass followership often admires the
power wielded on a railway employee or on the gatekeeper of a stadium.
In the corporate setup as
described above, the boss is overly dependent on a few high performing
Managers. The Managers are well aware of this and hence they set their own
rules of governance. This assertion of
one’s own viewpoint in contravention of the boss’s operational plan, starting
on the sideline activities and then veering into the mainline events,
establishes the egoistical independence of such Managers. The boss’s dependence
on the Manager, for the mainline, forces him to ignore the fringes. But when,
where and how the sidelines merge with the mainline of governance is completely
lost on the boss. And from then on, the governance runs on crutches.
Be it politics or the corporate
world, if the leader does not identify and check the subtle recalcitrance in
time, it leads up to a sense of entitlement and to the VVIP racism. Imagine a
scenario where a certain top police official shows the audacity of behaving
with another top bureaucrat colleague in a manner that would have put a common
man behind the bars. And yet, this policeman, who was credited with efficient
tackling of terrorism, was not only allowed to get away with his acts of
eroticism, he was also awarded the highest civilian honors.
This hero-worshipping country
needs to learn to be more professional in handling individuals. When we place
an individual on a high pedestal, be it polity or the corporate world, we must
also not hesitate to put a check on any unacceptable behavior. Whatever be the
achievements of an individual, the respect for rulebooks and the basics of behavioral
decency should not be allowed to be compromised. The behavioral span of an
individual is not a zero-sum game.
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