Cutting the nose to spite the face

If there is one word for the phrase "Cutting the nose to spite the face" it is "Bandh".  Who loses the most - the weakest in the society - daily wage earners. They just won't earn anything on this day. They have to depend on their savings, if any, to scrape through. Common man is the next, as the factories shutdown, they produce less and the produce gets costlier, we don't feel it immediately, but that is the net effect. However, Bandhs do not just mean stopping activity, it is in fact a license to destroy what we have. Bandhs are not considered successful until, a few buses and trains are burned, few shops are looted,  pitched battles are fought with the police, a few firing incidents happen. Band is historic when a few die! Netajis on their part court arrest. They are very respectfully taken in special police vehicles and put behind bars. They are fed and then given a drop to their residences before their favorite prime time serial starts in the evening.

Government registers a case of sedition against the cartoonists for disrespecting the national symbols. What about the netas and political establishment that disrespects the humans and takes away from them their lively hood.

Estimated loss to the economy because of today's Bandh - Rs2000 crore. If we add up all the losses that the country has suffered because of negative political activism till date, it will put to shame all the losses from all the scams put together. 

Stemming the Rot in Government

These days inefficiency of government officials is also being called out as scam.  That a government official did not negotiate well enough and hence caused loss to the nation exchequer, or some babu bought some substandard equipment when a better and cheaper alternative was available, may not necessarily have "lining of pockets" as the only motive, it could actually be the incompetency of the official. I am not defending babus, but it is important to understand the difference between corruption and incompetence. If we do not understand the true problem, we won't get to the right solution.

Today, everything gets bucketed under corruption. That is not the whole truth.

In lot of  cases, it is the incompetency of the officials that is the reasons for delays, wrong decisions, wasteful expenditure and in general government paralysis.

The reasons why the government is generally perceived to be / or it actually is incompetent are not difficult to find or comprehend. In fact three things that any organization needs to do to keep a vibrant and healthy culture are missing in government  - First  - Induction - The way people get hired in government is messed up.  Selection is based on quotas, cast and creed vs merit. Selections are heavily influenced, money changes hands. Selection techniques are outdated and out of sync with the reality. For example, induction process in police lays more emphasis on the physique of the candidate vs ways to figure out the psychological makeup of the candidate. Do we expect and want policemen to go and beat up mafia dons in their dens, a la "Zanjeer" or do we expect policemen to be able to resist temptation to take part of the loot and let the culprit go scot-free?
Second - The  rise in government is not linked to performance and good work. The process does not reward good performers. Worse still, there is no disincentive not to work. People have figured it out. Now it has degenerated to an extent where, forget about government folks going beyond the call of duty, to get something done, it is a pleasant surprise if they do what is their primary job! Even for doing that they want favors!
Weeding out - You get in you stay in. Incompetent people are happy to have more incompetent people around them. Makes it a very cozy bunch.
In short, government gets incompetent people in, it disincentivizes the competent, till they also become like majority, and it keeps the incompetent people for life!

To make the situation worse, as the government is expected to focus more on policies, procedures, governance and less on operations,  the incompetency of the government apparatus is becoming painfully visible and excruciatingly difficult to deal with.

To draw a parallel, imagine a corporate where top decision makers and executives are a bunch of incompetent people. Irrespective of how hardworking or capable the employees may be, the corporate is doomed.  No organization survives when the next person it higher is worse then the previous. It is a downward death spiral.

While we must work to stem the rot of corruption, we must not lose sight of the fact that we need to fix the basics, the basics of building an organization, in this case a very important organization - our government.