Monday Musings319: Conscription - Indian Isstyle!!

Monday Musings: Conscription - Indian Isstyle!!


Conscription- is the mandatory enlistment in a country's armed forces, and is sometimes referred to as “the draft.”
I read that Sweden is introducing compulsory conscription. I hear so is France toying with the idea under its new president Marcon. I am caught in a general mode of ‘I feel like doing nothing’ (which some might argue is a default setting) so I decide to board the flight – the flight of fancy that is.
(Only for those who love their tongues when it is in their cheek)
How the subject of conscription would be dealt with in here in our country.
#1. We don’t need a formalised version of conscription- we are already fighting most of the time.
Everyone is fighting everyone – particularly on the social media and on the TV debates. If these two are anything to go by, then we already seem to be at war.
Politically speaking Left is fighting the Right. Extreme left is fighting with the nominal left. Extreme right is fighting the nominal right. The Centre is fighting a losing battle for survival. The business folks are fighting in the court rooms if they are not fighting the battle on the streets. Men and women are fighting for either being men and women or wanting to be more of the other. LGBT et al are fighting for being just themselves. Borders are fighting because they are at the front end and hinterlands are fighting because they are the backend. Cities are fighting for wanting to be idyllic and villages are fighting to be city like. The deprived are fighting to have more and the well endowed are fighting to have more meaning. The jobless are fighting for jobs and those with jobs are fighting for better/different ones. The majorities (of all kinds) are fighting for the privileges of the minorities and the minorities are fighting for the heft that comes from being the majority. We are fighting for air, water and land all around us. Some have rivers but no water – others have water but don’t own the rivers. I shall not venture to offer an insight about the incidence and frequency of fight in holy matrimony for the risk of inviting another bout of fighting – but suffice it to say that peace is an aberration and peace of mind is a myth. With all of this and more, who really needs conscription? Aren’t we already conscripted enough?
#2. Conscription will need fitness – now that is just too much to ask for.
One of the basic demands of conscriptions is physical fitness. It is no one’s guess as you look around we are perhaps the most well endowed gene pool. Most are horizontal in the garb of being vertical. The middle of all shapes that move around is well protruded, well rounded and in a manner of speaking, the middle announces their arrival in a room before they themselves. Walking a short distance is an effort, running is a lofty goal. Long distance running is from bedroom to bathroom and lifting weights often means lifting ourselves up from the couch. Such high standards of physical activity and fitness do not lend themselves very well with the spirit of conscription. Now before many would lunge at my throat let me also add, fighting on a video game is not a boot camp for conscription in this context – you cannot mention the hundreds of hours on the terminal as relevant work experience on your CV for being enlisted. 😂
#3. Conscription – it might actually work here.
There are a few preconditions to conscription to work as I see it. Two come to my mind – one, we must be passionate about something and two, that things need to be defended – against enemies real or imaginary. It is no one’s guess that both conditions are in great supply with us. Some would say an oversupply – but that is just a matter of detail. I think we would be a great bunch to be conscripted. Now the only question left to be decided is – conscripted for what? I am sure we shall figure it out in due time. 😀
Guru
www.gurucharangandhi.com
@musingsbyguru

monday musings 281 - Politics & Management: different worlds or not exactly !!

Politics & Management: different worlds or not exactly !!

Does the world of political ideologies touch, impact and shape management thoughts of its times?

May be it does – in fathomable and unfathomable ways. Post the two world wars, management got impacted with the flirtations of global political systems with the two poles of political formations – Communism and Capitalism. The fortunes of these two swung with times, with the general opinion in favour or capitalism, beginning the second half of the twentieth century and certainly gaining momentum towards the last two decades.

One can argue that the intellectual and philosophical basis in favour of globalisation emerged from these ideological beliefs. The notions of rationality of capital, freedom of consumer choice, laissez fare and a general bias towards the primacy of individual rights to hold thoughts, respect for his belief, tolerance to dissent, accommodation for alternative narratives etc got further strength with the concurrent rise of democratic and liberal political systems. A lot of what is known as management or leadership literature today was also generated during those momentous 5-7 decades and one finds some patterns in most of them as basic bedrock – around respect for individuals, allowing space for minority thought, co-creation, bottoms up, so on and so forth. Since the world of leadership literature borrows liberally from the research in humanities, we know that organisations are microcosms of what is the society.

Last few years have seen interesting twists and turns in what were considered as truisms for a very long time. The ideological basis for globalisation for instance is shaken. Country after country is flirting with a different shade of political ideology. The left of the centre, liberal, open border-open window space is no longer sacrosanct. The right of all hues – from a moderate right to a more virulent form of it is gaining traction. Barriers to free movement of capital, people are either being erected or at least being talked about like no other time in the recent past.

The question to consider is this – can a mass shift in political ideology spill over to corporations? Does it have the potential to generate a new kind of beliefs around leadership? If the ethos of the liberal left of yore indeed leave an impression on management philosophies and hence played a role in deciding the policies governing workforce management and Leadership practices, then will the movement towards a political right have an equal probability of impacting management thought and leadership behaviour?

Systems thinking believe that everything is related to everything else and a small change in one has the power to create a large impact somewhere else. Political ideologies are just too impactful to ignore – and any tectonic and decisive shift in them can be ignored only to our peril. There are models around behaviours, change, leadership etc that we use, sometimes a tad too literally – forgetting that those may have been influenced by the spirit of the times that they were created. No wonder that too much of echoing and supporting of the mainstream view is called ‘political correctness’.

So here are the bit for reflection – if the mood of the world is gauged through its polity – then what does these shifts indicate about the next few decades about that one question that all organisations continue to ask – ‘’What do our people want?’’

 Guru

First Published in ''Peoples Matter'' April 2017 issue

monday musings 280 - the retelling of the heretics

Monday Musings: The retelling of the Heretics!

I am told the original meaning of the word ‘Heretic’ is the one gives an alternative opinion. The current usage of the word implies someone who indulges in sacrilege; the black sheep who is foolish and insensitive enough to question the holy cows (is this phrase still allowed or has it been banned; I guess I will soon find out!)

Words change meaning over a period of time and I am sure there are many such words that current usage is way different from what it was. My all time favourite although is the word ‘cute’ which according to the oxford English dictionary has its origins in the 18^th century for the short form of thw word acute and in its earliest meanings indicated a sense of shrewed or clever; which is clearly not what I have meant, however scarce such opportunities have been for me to use it for another person and hopefully which is not what the person(s) who have used it on me meant. (my self esteem depends upon this assumption)

However the fluidity of the word heretic is of particular significance because the word is in vogue these days. What we eat can make us heretics. In fact every time the waiter rattles off the dishes in a restaurant these days, I am besieged by the nightmare of choosing something utterly delicious but potentially heretic. My only saving grace is that my all time favourite potato is on no one’s list – not yet at least. I think potato is the most secular of food items. It goes with everything else – with all kinds of cuisine. Irrespective of the class, caste, religion or community or even nationality, potato has been revered by all. Is there an honorary title called the national vegetable yet? .

But I am digressing and that too on a very slippery wicket (the subject of food can make me a fodder for a few these days). I began by wondering that the original meaning of the word heretic is one who offers an alternative opinion. There are two place where becoming a heretic is downright NOT recommended – in front of the spouse after you have returned very late on a weekday without information(read that as permission) and two in front of the boss after you have received your annual performance report. You better not be a heretic here i.e. offer an alternative opinion. I reckon it is better to remain pious and be alive than be a heretic and be roasted!!

In the not so old days, heretics were burned – now days they are trolled! Trolling a politer version of burning because burning heretics is still not legal. Lynching them is perfectly acceptable as a few have discovered at the cost of their lives. The speed with which trolling is acquiring the status of a mass art form, we will need to pass laws to regulate it. Imagine a law which says –Not more than 10 people a day can troll any one person with a unique Aadhar number. The 11^th person will have to take permission from ‘Anti – trolling squads’; Or imagine another statue which reads like this – you cannot troll a person with the surname Gandhi more than 180 days a year in the interest of human rights (this particular writer will surely support this statue – my surname which was a matter of pride during schooldays has suddenly become so out of fashion. Sigh!)

See I digressed again – and even more slippery wicket. Let’s stick to Heretics. Why do these so called ‘second opinion givers’ have an opinion to begin with. Isn’t mainstream supposed to have all the answers because they have the collective wisdom of the majority mainstream? I mean if sufficiently large number of people endorse an idea does it not automatically become a breathtakingly brilliant idea? It is like statistics – when sufficiently large data points are collected, errors are normalised. The way to understand this is this – if 1 lakhs idiots propose and support an idea, there is great statistical probability that the idea will get rid of it idioticity (is there such a word?). An even better explanation would be – if a million bulls come together to think, their thinking might ape the levels of humans. I am also recommending that the word ‘’bullshit’’ be treated as compliment hereafter because it has the word bull in it, which is bovine – and in the mood of the times, I think all things bovine are clearly sacred.   

This was the last time I digressed. I think I don’t like the word ‘heretic’. If I keep thinking about what it meant then and what it meant now, and continue to bemoan what has the world come to be, then I may end up searching the meaning of the word ‘lunatic’ – unfortunately which means exactly the same now as it meant then.

Guru

 

Monday Musings 271 – The Orwellian dystopia

Monday Musings – The Orwellian dystopia

Good writing does not only inform and educate – it also indicates what do the winds augur. In a very uncanny way great literature is like crystal gazing – only far more complex. Sci fi writers also do the same thing but they occupy a different realm – of how science and technology will dramatically alter the processes of life and living. Rarely, if at all, do they talk about how will these inventions and advancements fundamentally alter the behaviour of people, the quality of relationships of individuals and groups, both within and across, and finally how will the polity at large change.  

Hence the other literature that tries to describe the ‘what can happen’ if the present fault lines continue to be under duress, becomes priceless and only too rare. Anyone who has an eye and stomach for such a literature must read the masterpiece ‘1984’ by George Orwell.

1984 was published in the late 1940’s and describes a polity which is excessively centralised, diabolically power hungry, and as it poignantly describes, power uncorrupted by the burden of having a higher purpose, but for power sake. Most critically it also describes the ones who want to exercise control over its people by controlling two fundamental things – ‘thoughts’ and ‘the past’.

One cannot help but notice how prescient the book was more than half a century ago – suffice it to say that one could have changed the title to ‘2016’ and it would be an accurate description of our times. I am sharing hereafter two critical themes from the book and leave it for you to admire the parallels – and should it tempt you to pick it up, do not resist it.  

The first is - He who controls the past controls the future. So an attempt is made by the powers to be, to obliterate all evidences of the past, particularly the alternative narrative. The past is continuously edited; newer versions of history is discovered and pedalled – which serves not only as a rationale for the current actions but also a source of its moral basis.  

The second is the concept of ‘thought-police’ – a system which keeps a tab on not only what you are doing but more importantly on what you are thinking. Even a mere thought which is independent of the popular/official narrative (or the narrative that the powers to be want you to believe) is treason. Thinking is no longer an independent act but a wayward force that must be controlled and an attempt to do so considered as defiance.

1984 is a frightening book as we read it today – I suspect if the world would have welcomed this great work as only a fantastic literature of its times or really a warning of the times we might inherit one day.

As a reader generally – and after reading this Orwellian masterpiece particularly, I have grown wary of all ‘history’ – whether of faiths, communities or nations. I am no longer sure if the ‘version’ I know is really how it was – or is just another version of truth. As Meryl Streep's character in the fantastic movie ‘Doubt, where she plays a nun in the church – a place where the currency of faith overrules all thought, says to the Bishop with anguish only a person of faith shaken to her core can experience – ‘Father, I have  Doubt’. 

I only have doubts now – or so it seems.  What makes my position so precarious is everyone around me is so absolutely sure.

Monday Musings 261: The Menace of trolls

Monday Musings 261: The Menace of trolls

The flipside of open access social media is the evolution of a new creature called the troll. A troll as the Wikipedia defines is a ‘’...is a person who sows discord on the internet by starting arguments or upsetting people by posting inflammatory, extraneous messages....attacks people....”

Following are the defining features of a troll.

A troll hides behind a mob. He is like the faceless member of the herd of yesteryears who seeks strength in his anonymity and solace in his being unknown. He is the neighbourhood bully who lurks just around the corner often with a group of lumpen elements. I also suspect he is psychologically deeply disturbed and must have had a history of attention deficit. He is battling his insignificant past and most likely even more insignificant future (someone who is busy trolling is unlikely to achieve anything meaningful anytime soon) by attacking those are genuinely significant enough to have attracted trolls like the swarm of bees.

A troll expresses without processing. A troll rarely cross checks facts verifies truthfulness and authenticity. Actually he has nothing to do with truth – his draws fun in the attack. The grounds of the attack be damned. My hunch is that a troll enjoyed in his childhood such random games like plucking the feathers off butterflies, throw stones at stray dogs and kill lizards and rats. Since such opportunities do not arise much these days so trolling is a close substitute if only even more dumber.

A troll has an opinion in anything and everything. A successful troll has something to say even when he has no clue on the subject at hand. Actually my sense is that he actually knows nothing about anything at all because anyone who has any credible knowledge about anything would not do something as silly as offering unsolicited advice or comment. Restraint – as a word, ability and attitude is unknown to a troll.

A troll is touchy and hence aggressive. A troll has very poor threshold for disagreement. He is touchy about his views and his position in general. My sense is that he suffers from low self esteem and was most likely thrashed by his teachers and parents and always compared with his mates on counts of decency and obedience. As a troll this is payback time for him. He will criticise anyone for anything. Most of his hurt is imaginary but his digital anger is real.

A troll is does not know history. If the whatsapp and FB forward on themes like politics, religion, and culture and how can I forget, patriotism is anything to go by – it is abundantly clearly he flunked in history. Not only is history flawed, uneducated and deeply bigoted, the fact that he wears this as a badge of honour makes him actually dangerous.

Imagine a likert scale where on one end is a mischief monger and on the other hand is a nut case  and imagine someone with characteristics of both and then imagine such a creature as a digital organism. That my friend is a troll for you! He may be the person who is on his device next to you. Give him a slap and send him back to school.

 

Guru

 

Monday Musings 253 - The new 'I'

Monday Musings 253 - The new 'I'

The recent issue of The Economist says that most countries (read US and UK) are fast erecting stronger barriers to immigration in general and access to student visas in particular. The number of international students have actually fallen everywhere with notable exceptions in Australia and Canada. In yet another article in the same issue it also says that Europe is increasingly developing cold feet on the issue of accepting the waves of refugees that are washing up its shores as a result of the Syrian crises. It also says that many of the EU countries have openly stated aversion to accepting new immigrants. It strikes me as an unnerving coincidence.

Closer home we had the abuse of the Tanzanian student in Bangalore last week, much in the line of such abuse that black students have faced in universities across the country for the past many years. This is not restricted to foreigners and the crises assumes tragic hues when we remember what the North East students face day in and day out everywhere – an ugly reality that is much noted and documented for it to demand any further proof. It was not long ago when in many states there have been backlash against migrant labourers who have been portrayed as threat to local livelihood and been physically threatened. The events may have subsided but the animosity seems to be alive.

The trolls on the social media are becoming increasingly abusive in what they put up in favour of or against the ideologies that they defend or deny. In the last month or so my FB has had at least a dozen clips or messages shared by my circle which can safely be classified as vitriolic, distasteful, highly politicised and most dangerously extremely bigoted. I had always imagined my profile and hence most of those who are on my FB list quite educated, liberal and hence endowed with a sense of nuance and poise.  I am no longer sure.

When I put all of this together and pick up the threads of what is happening right in my FB account to what is happening in the big scene, I see a pattern. It seems that the same winds are blowing all across. The need to erect walls is assuming scary proportions. Everyone is trying to erect walls and close windows. Winds from another place and waves from other shores are being branded a threat and a risk. I find this counter- intuitive or is it two contradictory forces are playing out with each other, each undermining the other. Digitally boundaries are breaking and attempts are being made to hasten the collapse of these barriers – to connect faster and deeper on one hand; and yet on the other hand the groundswell of support to erect the barriers is equally present and perhaps getting stronger. All said and done Donald Trump and his ilk in the EU and very much in India do not exist in vacuum – they are pandering to a segment that really exists and who truly believe that erecting these walls is necessary. I wonder which of these forces will eventually win and while a clear winner is yet to emerge how much toll will the struggle for dominance amidst these competing forces take. Who will bear the brunt?

I wonder if our threshold for indulging the proverbial other shrinking? In other words is there a risk we all run of becoming intolerant?

(Now that I have uttered the ‘I’ word, I am waiting someone to ban me and raise slogans against me. That is the only way I will become famous)

198 Monday Musings: The Catch

198 Monday Musings: The Catch

It is difficult to remain untouched by the feverish pitch of the coming parliamentary elections. This time like no time before, the method in the madness reveals itself from behind the cacophony of voices. The electoral madness and its actual outcome notwithstanding, the run up to the elections have become increasingly corporatized. The stamp of the 'marketing think-tank' behind the campaign is unmistakable - which brings me the point of today’s musing that all vision selling is less an intellectual act of creation but more the mundane act of selling. 

I see three distinct strands of electoral positioning so far - and each one of them will have equivalents in the corporate world to take note of and lessons from. 

First the 'Old wine in the old bottle' - the Congress's attempt to create a promise where none exists. It fails to trigger imagination because of the corpses of the unmet expectation lie everywhere. The die has been cast now and their promises of the future shall be judged by the images of their past performance. They had their chances and they must realize that they cannot manufacture the reputation of performance through imagery and propaganda. As Alyque Padmse said 'The fastest way of killing a bad product is good advertising'

The second is the BJP campaign of 'You gave them a chance - now give us'. This is more a TINA - There is no alternative pitch, the case of pitching for 'we are relatively lesser evil'. There is no imagination, no original proposition, no vision per se that might fire the aspirations that paints the picture of a new ideal, but an appeal for an anti-establishment wave ridden by an ‘angry young man’ tactics. This is the nature of the permanent protester whose only method is to talk of the disenchantment with the establishment, but not offering a coherent and powerful vision of the future. It is nothing but a 'better' version of the past.

The third, unfortunately the only one who offers this is the AAP (why is this unfortunate is something that deserves another musing) - a bold new vision of the future, something fundamentally and radically different from the past, that has a better chance of dealing with the challenges of the future. It may not be clear and definitive, but has the promise to shake things around. Even in partial success it is a better bet than trying to fix the old. 

Corporate leaders and I do not mean the CEOs here, but the middle management fall in precisely these three categories. Middle management is where the things rot more often than not. This is where vision meets execution, or rather where it does not meet!

The first kind are those who have played their cards, often miserably so, but who at the beginning of a new year want the teams below and around them to give yet another chance to their moribund plans. They want their teams to respond with passion, energy and commitment even though the corpses of poorly thought plans, half baked initiatives and horrendous follow through lie everywhere. 

The second kinds are those who are waiting in the ranks to usurp the throne, plotting and planning in the shadows, cynical and sarcastic with the current scheme of things, but who do not anything new or substantial to offer. They can at best offer how to 'tinker with the carburetor' to make it marginally better, but have no clue about the 'new engine' needed to drive into the future. Obviously most of them are blissfully unaware of this, but wishful thinking is still not a crime, is it?

The third kinds are needed but are rarely found. Middle management is also not the best of places to be in, for it is sandwiched between the thinkers and the doers. They do not have the power of the top or the insurance of the bottom. They are also most susceptible to existential angst and disillusionment that is rampant in the corridors of the corporate world. However this does not takes away the crying demand for them to not only have a vision, as different from the organizational vision that shall infuse a new lease of life in their functions. They are either caught in the web of only talking about the big picture, leaving the dirty job of execution to the lesser mortal, or they get too involved in the small tasks abdicating the need for a big picture thinking. The precarious balance between plumbing and philosophizing remains elusive.

The plumber must find time to have a philosophy or else he might die a plumber. The philosopher must find opportunities to plumb or else he might become unfit to even plumb. What a colossal waste both shall be!!

Guru