DailyPost 2776
IS RIDING ROUGHSHOD OUR DNA?
If you have power, expertise, money or any combination of these three, or all the three, you would have the temperament to ride roughshod. This seems to have become the Indian DNA. If you don’t have these supposedly in abundance, then you would not mind dropping someone’s name, wherever required, of someone known to you who has these capabilities, at least one of them. The urge and practice of riding roughshod is gained and perfected after seeing others in the family or peer group performing it with elan. Somehow it is connected to the urge to look powerful.
If you ride roughshod and you meet an obstacle, basically you are stopped from flaunting this behavioural trait, then there is no fun. It would stop then and there. But in reality, they are able to get away with it. This is where the catch is, of getting infectious. Others also latch on to it and follow the same style of their role model. It gives you a kick, something which you don’t deserve and does make sense from any point of view. On large number of occasions, if not all, you are appreciated for that.
It adds to your stature. If you are able to perform this trick in the public domain, which is not very difficult to do, given the congenial environment all around, for a couple of times, you are declared a magician. He can get anything done. This is the wonder formula, the oxygen of this country. In India getting things done within the perimeter of legality, is a non-question. Legality is the antithesis of entitlement. Entitlement is the second skin of riding roughshod. Both go hand in hand. One cannot exist without the other. Within a very short time of successfully riding roughshod, you start feeling that you are entitled to it.
That solidifies their behaviour. The fan following is based on the illusion that he can get anything done and simultaneously, he can get away with anything. That is the image India’s ruling elite, more so the political class, following a few steps behind, the bureaucracy, have tried to create. They have been pretty successful in doing that. The person starts believing is above law and has the uncanny knack of tilting any situation in his favour. With this mindset they keep doing things non-compliant to laws, policy, SOPs, process, limitations etc and at times it is in contravention of the law of the land, inclusive of criminal law. More often than not they get away, but that one odd time when they get caught. it is a near nemesis experience, if not decimation.
RIDING ROUGHSHOD DEMOCRATIC ECOSYSTEM GIVES BIRTH TO A CONGENITALLY BROKEN SYSTEM.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.