Churchill said about the US that Americans try every other option before doing what is correct. I suggest that the Indian approach to obedience to rules is something similar — we will observe rules ONLY after exhausting all other possibilities.

Let me list some options before many Indians when confronted with a rule.

• Flout it brazenly, confident that ‘everyone flouts it any way’

• Bribe your way around it.

• Use ‘influence’ to waive/bend it.

• [mis]interpret it to suit you or someone whom you wish to favour.

• Get it changed –by using your influence - to suit you.

• Threaten the rule enforcer with dire consequences if the rule is enforced on you.

• Build exemptions to it to suit powerful people.

It is only when all these options fail that we obey the rule. I was forced to think along these lines when I read some disturbing news items.

Someone put in an application under the Right to Information Act and got the shocking information about how the Chairman of Air India had [mis]interpreted rules and given LIMITLESS FREE AIR TRAVEL TICKETS to the ‘family’ of the chairman that included - hold your breath the way you tighten your seatbelts — the man.

His wife and kids and their spouses, grand kids and their spouses to mention a few. I am sure he has not ‘flouted’ any rules – he has only liberally interpreted the rules. The rules permit the Chairman to issue free tickets to any ‘family’ member on compassionate grounds! No one can deny that the Chairman is a man if compassion.

If I know the Indian system well he will go scot free. That’s the rule. When confronted he said that all his predecessors had done the same. The trouble is he will be right in giving this argument because even his political bosses would also be using the same rule in a more brazen manner to include all his jaatwallas [caste fellows] and cronies!

The city of New York tried an experiment. They announced that diplomats – several of whom work in that city — would not be fined for parking rules violations. Over a one year period they found that the list of habitual violators was not very different from the list of corrupt nations published by Transparency International.

India figures somewhere in the sixth or seventh rank in both the lists. Given a chance we Indians will flout any rule anywhere in the world — we treat the whole world as our home - vasudhaiva kutumbakam! Diplomats from nations that are low on corruption tended to obey rules even if they are exempt!

A top cardiac surgeon in the US was convicted for what may not even be deemed an offence in India. He evaded US income taxes running to millions of dollars. This is a sensational case here but will not even be considered newsworthy in India – the media will rather devote space and TV time to speculate on how Bipasha and John Abraham are getting along. While the Indian origin doctor faces prison our tax violators face no such trauma.

An alumnus of IIT was caught in the US violating visa regulations – a matter that we Indians may suggest is no big deal. But here in the US it is a very big deal. The poor man is behind the bars and likely to stay there for years unless the efforts of the other IIT alumni to get Bill Clinton to talk to Obama bear fruit. In India a foreigner has been an MP for years representing a constituency in the North East.

Incidentally readers may be shocked to learn that the largest number of illegal immigrants to the US is from India. These Indians are fortunately not the types who climb over barbed wires and enter the US from the Mexican border. Nor are they the boat people type who come as stowaways in big ships or slip in at darkness in dingy boats. These Indians are the types who come with valid visas but stay on long after the visa expires — the argument may well be ‘everyone does it anyway’!

I met one such guy here. I asked him why he violated the visa rule. He said something that left me wondering whether to laugh or to cry. He asked why the US which is a rich country cannot be as generous as India which is poor. After all, he added ‘Do you know that Bangladeshis need no visas to enter India. All they have to do is to wear a torn lungi and banian, cross the border and walk into the arms of waiting Indian politicians who will arrange back - dated ration cards in return for votes in the next elections.’

There is a lesson that we can learn from the way we react when a bank employees union announces a WORK TO RULE. Why is it that working ‘according to rules’ — which is considered desirable elsewhere in the world—invokes in India images of tortuous waiting in endless queues, reams of paperwork and red tape, interminable wait for the most elementary of work to be done?

It is a comment on our outdated rules which are often relics of our colonial past when the idea behind rule formulation was not to trust the natives and make life as difficult as possible for them. That is the mindset of our rulers and rule makers to this day. When you add to this cauldron the lack of trust that Indians have for each other—labeled the trust deficit—we can expect nothing better. It may be justifiably argued , that given the slightest opportunity we can and will misuse anything at all. The Air India example cited above is just one instance.

Rules will be abused for the benefit of the powerful—a hallmark of a feudal society. Thus in which modern country will the son in law of a top politician be exempt from security checks a Indian airports? Robert Vadra cannot answer my question I am sure.
This brings me to the point I wish to make, If we are a third world nation there is a very good reason for it. To believe that once we build fine infrastructure, once a hundred more malls and McDonalds open, once we have smooth highways, once even lower middle class people drive a car, we will be considered a superpower.

I am afraid this is not true, Our recent experience with the mishaps and tragedies in the Delhi Metro, our fear of cutting a sorry figure in our preparations for the Commonwealth Games, the dire need to train Delhi citizens[and by extension the rest of the country] to ‘ behave’ like citizens of a modern city are all indicators of a deeper malaise. I call it the attitude or mindset crisis. It was sad to see that Brazil has bagged the right to host the Olympic games in 2016 even as we doubt if we can put up a good show at the Commonwealth Games, a much smaller event.

Having in place sensible rules and having all people irrespective of rank to follow these is the hallmark of a society governed by law and not by people and can lead to us being taken seriously as an emerging superpower.

Ask Bill Gates. This man has to undergo security checks at the Capitol Hill every time he goes there at the invitation of Senators to give testimony on issues of national importance. He does not say the American equivalent of JAANTE HO MAIN KAUN HOON?”

Coming back to the Commonwealth Games I fear we will bungle to the derisive laughter of the world. If that happens I suggest we rename our country BUNGLADESH. Someone says why wait till then?

K.R.RAVI
U.S.A