Daily Post 1509
INDISCIPLINE & MEDIOCRITY
India as a country has been in the midst of this drama for a long long time. Try broaching this topic with anybody from a parent to an academician to bureaucrat to a member of the political executive, everyone would give you a different spin to termite which is killing this nation. We have perfected the art of camouflaging this issue to an extent that is has become a non-issue, though the problems remains where it was, may be its downslide is happening at an exponential pace. In the land of the blind, the one eyed jack in the king. Have we already landed in such a situation or is there a way out?
The simple answer to this question is the mindset of biding your time while holding a particular responsible position and then quietly pushing off. But how then would the complex things, which happen out of organic growth stretching over a few decades, get created and managed. If that does not happen, we would not be reaching anywhere. ISRO has a 50 year track record of lack of indiscipline and mediocrity and it is on public display as to what they have achieved and what their future trajectory is. The actual story has been of creating an organisational culture which propels the mission of the organisation. Creation it at the core of human existence and it cannot be negated.
We have to keep on creating things to exist and to move ahead. This whirlpool is pulling us down. Whether indiscipline fuels mediocrity or mediocrity fuels indiscipline is a million dollar question waiting for an answer. Accepting these means that behavioural traits cannot be created at the fall a hat and nor can it be destroyed in a jiffy. Accepting the malaise is the first step toward its full fledged audit or investigation, only then the nexts steps can be taken. Who takes this challenge; the same ecosystem which is primarily responsible of creating this situation.
Universal acceptability of indiscipline and mediocrity has to go. The wise, intelligent and the hardworking work double hard to prove that mediocrity and indiscipline does not exist. It might impact them too, albeit indirectly. So, it way beyond acceptability, the whole system works in their favour. All what them to grow and prosper. COVID-19 is an ongoing saga. The first basic; masks – nearly all don’t wear properly, the less said the better of contextual social distancing and use of sanitisers. The indisciplined don’t wear it and equally indisciplined don’t implement it. Merit is what we have seen commendably the creation and running of war rooms. The hospital bed management story across the country is what the nightmares are made of.
DISCIPLINE AND MERIT ARE THE CORE VALUES OF ANY DEMOCRACY.