A classic example of insensitive bureaucracy
Here is a classic example of
bureaucratic insensitiveness that murders the spirit of creativity, as if all
wisdom of the world rests only in the hands of the governing class, in the
babus of the sanctioning departments. Here is a curious letter supposed to be
from a government office; what it reveals are the repulsive layers that have
got formed around us, our soul wrapped in them. The letter has come as an
e-mail which is in wide circulation. Without going into its authenticity, it is
reproduced here exactly as it came. Even if we assume for a moment that it is a
made-up letter, we could still pick it for a certain discussion in the context
of the theme with which we are engaged; it does bring out the state of the
affairs pretty tellingly. Here it is:
Government of
Ministry of Human Resources
Development
Department of Culture
Films Division
New Films Subdivision
No. B1452/234/2003 Dt. 23.12.07
To:
Shri. B. R. Chopra,
Film Director,
Mumbai
Ref: Film story submitted by you,
regarding financing of films by Govt of India; Your letter dt. 2.12.90
The undersigned is directed to refer the aforementioned letter and state that
the Government (GOI) has examined your proposal for financing a film called
‘Mahabharat’. The VHLC (Very High Level Committee) constituted for this purpose
has been in consultation with the Human Rights Commission, National Commission
for Women and Labour Commission, in addition to various Ministries and State
Governments, and have formed definitive opinions about the script. Their
observations are as below:
1. In the script submitted by you it is shown that there were two sets of
cousins, namely, the 'Kauravas', numbering one hundred, and the 'Pandavas',
numbering five or six. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has pointed
out that these numbers are high, well above the norm prescribed for families by
them. It is brought to your kind attention that when the Government is spending
massive amounts for promoting Family Planning in due earnest, this indiscretion
will send erroneous signals to the general public. Therefore, it is strongly
recommended that there may be only three 'Kauravas' and one 'Pandava'.
2. The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs has raised an issue whether it is
suitable to depict kings and emperors in this democratic age. Therefore, it is
suggested that the 'Kauravas' may please be depicted as Honourable Members of
Parliament (Lok Sabha) and the 'Pandava' may please be depicted as Honourable
Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). The ending of the film shows the victory of
the said 'Pandavas' over the said 'Kauravas'. The ending may be suitably
modified so none of the Honourable Members of Parliament is shown as being
inferior to other Honourable Members of Parliament.
3. The Ministry of Science and Technology has observed that the manner of birth
of 'Kauravas' is suggestive of human cloning, a technology banned in
4. The National Commission for Women has objected that the father of 'Pandavas',
one Sri 'Pandu', is depicted as bigamous, and also there is only one wife for
the 'Pandavas' in common. Therefore suitable changes may be made in the said
script so that the said Sri 'Pandu' is not depicted as bigamous. However, with
the reduction in number of 'Pandavas' as suggested above, the issue of
polyandry can be addressed without further trouble.
5. The Commission for the Physically Challenged has observed that the portrayal
of the visually impaired character 'Dhritarashtra' is derogatory. Therefore the
said character may not be shown as visually impaired.
6. The Department of Women and Child Development have highlighted that the
public disrobing of one female character called 'Draupadi' is objectionable and
derogatory to women in general. Further the Home Ministry anticipates that
depiction of such scenes may create law and order problem and at the same time
invite strong protests from the different women forums. Such scenes may also
invite penal action under SITA (Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act), therefore
they may be avoided and deleted from the film.
7. It is felt that showing the 'Pandava' and the 'Kauravas' as gamblers will be
anti-social and counter-productive as it might encourage gambling. Therefore,
the said 'Pandavas' and 'Kauravas' may be shown to have engaged in horse racing
or cricket. (Hon. Supreme Court has held horse racing and cricket not to be
gambling).
8. The 'Pandavas' are shown as working in the King 'Virat's employment without
receiving any salary. According to the Human Rights Commission, this amounts to
bonded labour and may attract provisions of The Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act, 1976. This may be corrected at once.
9. In the ensuing war, one character by name Sri 'Abhimanyu' has been shown as
fighting. The National Labour Commission has observed that, war being a
hazardous industry, and the said character being 16 years old, this depiction
will be construed as a case of child labour. Also there is no record of his
being paid any compensation. This may also be deemed to be violatory of the
provisions of The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 and
Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Such references in the film may be removed.
10. The character Sri '
11. Smt. Maneka Gandhi has raised very serious objection against using any
elephants or horses in war scenes, since there is every scope for mistreatment
and injury to the said animals. The provisions of the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals Act, 1890 and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Amendment) Act, 1960
would be applicable in the instant case. Suitable changes may be made in the
script to address the objections raised.
12. In pursuance of the Memorandum of Ministry of Finance regarding austerity
measures, it is informed that in the battlefield sequences, only ten soldiers
may be allowed for each side. Also, all the characters may be shown to have
obtained a valid licence under the Arms Act, 1959 as well as the Indian Arms
Act, 1878.
You may have observed already that none of these observations attempt to curb
artistic freedom or ingenuity in conformity with avowed GOI policy. You are
therefore requested to modify your otherwise meritorious script along the
aforementioned lines and resubmit it (notarised triplicate) to the undersigned
at the earliest for the Government's consideration in due course.
Sd/-
Under Secretary
The Macaulay stamp of mental slavery is distinct and complete on it; he wanted
to give English education to Indians to produce clerks, not to educate them, and
he succeeded well in his enterprise. Not too long ago we had another absurdity,
why laptops should not be given to the students in the schools, showing
continuance of the colonial mind-set in the central school seated in
The remedy lies in awakened souls
who are willing to make sacrifices for the cause. Those who have some perception
and the sense of spiritual responsibility are perhaps the ones who can bring
about a change. A harmonious collective organization is the necessary condition
if higher powers have to enter into the scheme of things. Our earnest optimism
can only be for the birth of another Vivekananda, a Vivekananda who combines
the best of the past and the future, who gives us the best of the east and the
west, whose heart in the Adwaitic oneness integrates all that is charged with
the spiritual, of the spaceless and the timeless in operative space-time
dimensionality. That is the silent prayer we must offer to the Giver of all
Gifts and in it alone is the certitude of our hopes materialising. Vivekananda
gave the call to
Apropos of the kind of bureaucratic
responses that normally one experiences in the Indian system, as exemplified by
the letter just quoted, we could have a comment as follows: “This letter must
be a joke, correct? If this is a real letter, I can only hope that it's seen
now, several years later, for the absurdity that it was. It sounds to me like a
relic from the worst excesses of a supposedly democratic bureaucracy that
succeeds only in inspiring visions for it being replaced as soon as possible by
an enlightened autocracy.” This is a remark an American friend passed when I
had forwarded the e-mail to him. I had replied: “I’ll be greatly relieved if it
is a joke, although on checking I found it coming from a seemingly reliable
source. It will be good if someone can pick it up under the
Right-to-Information Act. I’m interested to know who the members of the ‘Very
High Level Committee’ were. That will be a much wider reflection on the way the
élite think and do things. Yet, the joke has an element of truth in it,
depicting how bureaucracy can be insensitive and headless. I always tell a
perceptive management friend of mine, an expert and author, that his tools of
management become blunt, in fact dysfunctional, when it comes to dealing with a
government set-up, that he might not be able to motivate people working, for
instance, in Human Resources or Revenue Departments. I don’t think there is any
aspect of ‘democratic’ in it; it is just the thoughtless tamas or inertia of
the society which comes out most prominently in a protected environment. In it
also breeds demeaning corruption.”
Do we expect such an
1500 Farmers commit suicide in
Here is a news item dated 16 April
2009, and there can be nothing painful than that in free
More than 1,500 farmers in central
The suicides took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, where people
mainly depend on seasonal crops, Earth Magazine reported.
Local residents told the magazine that many of the farmers felt that death was
the only option in the face of their insurmountable debt.
The state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels and droughts.
"Most of farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do
not have a bore well," residents said.
Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, said the
farmers fell victim to money lenders who impose their own conditions for
lending.
"Farmers' suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money
lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left
with no option other than death," Prakash said.
At least 10,000 debt-ridden farmers in different parts of the country have
committed suicide over the last decade.
A November survey revealed that 125,000 farmers have also taken their own lives
as a result of a ruthless drive to use
The government recently announced a $15 billion waiver of farmer loans;
however, the waiver may not help a large number of farmers who have taken loans
from private lenders.
The suicide issue was among those that dominated campaigning for the recent
general election.
But who cares for the poor and the helpless? There is no doubt that suicide by
farmers is a complex issue and many socio-economic factors come into play. Also
attention can be drawn by journalistic investigations, but it does not really
go very far. There are factors national and international which need to be
noted, particularly in the context of the Capitalist push towards
globalization. Multinationals hire film stars to persuade farmers to buy seed
at a much higher rate than they normally pay. And then they must buy pesticides
of their specific brand, and the chain gets formed, ultimately enchaining the
helpless farmers. Lack of education and understanding is the cause behind all
this. “In the end, many choose to take their own lives in a way that is
shocking, sad, and ultimately fitting: by drinking Monsanto pesticides.”
Here is a farmer’s predicament
whose roots belong to the 50 per cent cattle subsidy scheme for small and
marginal farmers. “The government had fixed the price of a pair of bullocks at
Rs 20,000. But the market price of a single bullock in Karnataka was around Rs
14,000-16,000. That meant Bheemrao was straight away in debt for the uncovered
deficit under the programme that was meant to effect a fundamental
transformation in his life. And two crop seasons saw him owe the official
financial system Rs 30,000.” This year, Bheemrao has sown green gram and black
gram in his fields. “Rains have been good and I will be happy if I recover the
cost of cultivation,” he says. His wish had better come true, because he has a
bigger loan to repay now.
And there is another human
indignity tied to the whole episode. A young girl or an old man is put to the
yoke to plough field because the farmer has sold his cattle to have some money
in hand for his daily living.
Can there be anything more
degrading than this? It is only the enlightened social thinker transcending
political considerations who can perhaps to some extent alleviate the
situation. Whence shall come he?
Distress sale of cattle is an index of organisational
machinery’s failure in the village agricultural operations. “Truckloads of
cattle have left this village,” says Maruti Yadavrao Panghate in Devdhari
“Water, too, is a huge problem,”
says Amol Srirami whose family owns a well-known lassi shop in Panderkauda
town. He and his brother Prashant have sold three of their five buffaloes in
just the past eight days.
There is also the problem that over
years, as in much of the country, the district’s agriculture extension
machinery is crippled. At some levels non-existent. “One-third of extension
officers’ posts are lying vacant,” says an official. “Then there are so many
vacancies in clerical posts as well. So many of those meant to do extension
work are pressed into clerical duties. That means even fewer people in the
field.”
Alcoholism one of the common causes of suicide
If rain-failure drives farmers to
suicide, there is the concern of other kind also, family-distress and
alcoholism leading to self-killing. A small place like
KFC outlets in India
In contrast to this situation
plight of the poor and the depressed, what do we have in
Here is a Wikipedia note about the
secret recipe of the KFC signed by its founder Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952:
The Colonel's secret flavor recipe
of 11 herbs and spices that creates the famous "finger lickin' good"
chicken remains a trade secret. Portions of the secret spice mix are made at
different locations in the
· The recipe, which includes exact
amounts of each component, is written in pencil on a single sheet of notebook paper
and signed by Sanders.
· The recipe was locked in a filing
cabinet with two separate combination locks. The cabinet also included vials of
each of the 11 herbs and spices used.
· Only two executives had access to
the recipe at any one time. KFC refuses to disclose the names and titles of
either executive.
· One of the two executives said that
no one had come close to guessing the contents of the secret recipe, and added
that the actual recipe would include some surprises.
But there are ethical issues and there
are issues also related to the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act with high
level of monosodium glutamate present in the product. KFC got embroiled in
various controversies even before it started full-fledged business in
A shameful paradox
Despite decades of intervention, child
malnutrition remains a shameful paradox in an
Action is required on two fronts.
At a broader level, a nation’s nutritional well-being is directly linked to
local food security. The frequent recurrence of the blight of malnutrition,
despite an improvement in the food inadequacy status of households — the figure
dropped from 4.2 per cent in 1993-94 to 1.9 per cent in 2004-05 — proves the
continued validity of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s proposition that food
deprivation is the result more of distribution inequalities than the lack of
food. Correcting this systemic inadequacy is the larger challenge; but
improving the working of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is
something the State governments can do if they had the political will and
vision. The World Bank’s 2005 study on the working of the ICDS highlighted
three important mismatches: the gap between design and implementation, the neglect
of the poorest and the most vulnerable, and the poor quality of services. The
National Family Health Survey-3 showed the States that had well-designed health
intervention schemes such as immunisation programmes and maternal care fared
better. There is much the State governments can do to prevent such shocking
relapses into deprivation. Making local administrations accountable is a
much-required first step to mainstream development issues into the political
agenda.
But the question is, can such an
assignment be handled by government machinery as if every solution regarding
social matters should come from it? Perhaps the fallacy lies in it and we are
cherishing it and nurturing it because of our upbringing in a still-persistent
colonial set-up. Our minds have not really become free in spite of several
decades of freedom. The real freedom has yet to come to us the one sign of
which is, that government is the best which governs the least. There has to
take place social transformation, transformation not of this brand or that
brand, belonging to this ideology or that ideology, but an integral
transformation in the healthy harmonious working of the various limbs or
characters or aspects of society, in the mould of the manifesting powers of the
spirit, of the enduring swabhāva of
the individual and the nation. That demands first a certain self-awakening and
the perception of values which give greatness and nobility to life. Perhaps
this is the only way and there is no other.