Women, the elderly, privilege and responsibility

They seem willing to wear the cap of ignominy – many Indian women at work, I mean. Men roll their eyes when asked about these colleagues not without reason. If the personal preferences of these representatives in the workplace are the traditional gender roles, how can the women’s group as a whole even hope to have a viable organizational presence?

 

 

They project vibes of martyrdom, as if as good women, they wouldn’t step outside the home, except for the economics. They tend to take no pride in their work, and to treat the workplace as an extension of the home, oblivious to the fact that the organizational position is not meant to confer privilege or power, but responsibility first and foremost. By avoiding job responsibilities, these women hold the total group up to ridicule. 

The public comes to the organization with issues that need redressal, and organizational employees are designated to address them – this is the job they are paid for. No, it is not their fault that work-related issues arise. But surely they must be faulted when, although they can help resolve the issues, they do not. An incident report illustrates the point: 

My mother is in her eighties, and she receives a family pension through a national Bank. They have a rule, which she has quite diligently followed for the last two decades. It is to present herself at the local branch before the end of the calendar year to furnish life certificates to keep alive her pension accounts. Despite this, the pension payments have been withheld on occasion and her accounts sealed, for no reason other than that the life certificates submitted to them have been lost or misplaced.  Now she has been told to furnish her pension pay order (PPO) book to verify her authenticity. There should be at least two copies of the book – one at the Bank that collects pension on her behalf and one with the pensioner. These are created when the order is first received from the disbursing government authority. Now, although so directed to do so by the disbursing authority at the start of the family pension nearly twenty years ago, the Bank is yet to forward her copy of the PPO book. So how is the octogenarian pensioner to produce something she has not received in the first place? Whilst attempting to resurrect her pension, we found a new omission. According to the latest government circular about pension revisions, she is being underpaid - receiving each month several thousand rupees less than is her due.

With the hope of settling the issues at local level, we make our way to the pension cell at the local head office of this prominent national Bank. The women there, both the young and the middle-aged, are grim and unsmiling. I presume their presence is intended to reassure the pensioners, and help them over the sticky points, but they neither greet people, nor respond to greetings. Rather, they seem resentful to be called upon to do their jobs. We are directed to a particular desk. The incumbent’s chair is empty, and we are told we can get ourselves cups of tea whilst we wait. Eventually, the lady appears. She walks into the room with a mobile phone clasped to her ear, in earnest conversation with somebody about exchanging gift calendars for the New Year. Her joviality ends with the call, and she settles herself on the chair, and fiddles with some papers on the desk. Finally, ‘What?’ she asks abruptly without looking up. We begin our story, but her interest disengages. It is clear that she is not about to help in any way. She declares the government circulars of no consequence, and says the Bank will not change what they were already paying unless the pensioner brings a fresh order in her name from the original disbursing authority. And by the way, she is not there to receive letters/complaints from the public. 

Imagine for a moment the Government having to send out millions of individual letters every time there is a revision of pay and pension income scales at any level!  National Banks were given mandates for the convenience of reaching the monies to retirees and pensioners through their networks. Theirs is no charity; they are paid for the service. Pension cells, somebody said, are punishment assignments. It seems the people transferred there are those the organization would rather not have handle more important tasks!

However, it is disheartening to think that as a result, hundreds upon hundreds of hapless pensioners may be thus harassed. In a blogpost sometime ago, I pointed out that an important factor in the rise of multinational organizations in investment banking was the failure of national organizations to value their retirees and family pension holders. National Banks are still playing catch up in this industry, and the lack of customer-relationship skills within the system is evident. 

 

  

Some women in organizations strive for equality, but many others actually retard the group progress. Perhaps because job security tends to be high in Indian organizations, to many employees, the job means only what they can take home for themselves. Plagued by low self-esteem, they yearn for the privilege and power of the chair, and then actively avoid the associated responsibility.  Managements and unions should come together to ensure that those in service actually serve.  Quality of work should be the criterion in organizations, not reservations, even of gender. Especially in the pension cells, the incompetence foist upon elderly pensioners delays, even deprives them of their just rewards. They certainly deserve better for their years of dedicated service.

Women on guard

The research institute I visit on occasion is a massive structure. Its wings stretch out in long corridors to accommodate the rooms after rooms required for research, replete with state-of-the-art machinery each priced at lakhs, if not crores of rupees. At the entrance to the premises a bunch of uniformed sentinels are constantly present. They are the undifferentiated security buffer to the outside world, and few know them as individuals.

The institution was born decades ago, when a small group of doctors mooted the idea of ongoing research and development. The founders had to fund the projects themselves, initially. Today it has grown prestigious, and money is no longer an object. The institution is showered with scholarships, fellowships and grants. New sections are added or renovated at will. But rather like within a beehive, roles are preordained. The building buzzes with activity with hundreds of personnel. Scientists and research scholars scurry about in their lab coats and latex gloves, focused unwaveringly on making new discoveries. Each such member hardly has the time to look around at their surroundings, much less to interact with people unrelated to their technical universe.

The security staff is meant to facilitate the institutional preoccupations, to ensure the safety of the institutional members and their magic machines. A small security complex is built right beside the gates. It has a tiny office for the security supervisor, a chair or two to rest on by turns and little else in terms of facilities. The security cell is not air-conditioned, and one large standing fan is in operation at the height of summer. Ineffectual at keeping out the heat beating down on the low roof of the structure, it serves to merely move the hot air around.

I notice a woman there on guard duty. She is tall, of athletic build, attractive and still young. She looks smart in her uniform of shirt with epaulets and security insignia and starched white sari. Her employment is probably a result of the increasing percentage of women being employed. Yes, she nods; her duty is to interact with the women, so that they do not face handling by men. Since she is the only female in the cell, her services are invaluable. During conventions and other important meets she must be in attendance for all the lady visitors. That means, rain, hail, shine or personal illness, she cannot be absent.

We spend a few moments in girly conversation, about fashion accessories that I might wear but she is not allowed to by the regulations. There does not seem to be any separate facility either for her as a woman although she has been at work for a couple of years. I ask why she took this job. She has a ready smile and pleasant manner. Surely there are other avenues of front-office employment open? She gets many offers, pips up one of her colleagues, but she does not take them up. Everybody wants her and nobody here will let her go. I smile at the extravagant words. The woman blushes pink and shushes him.

She tells me she comes from a police family. Father, brother and sister, are all in the force. That was the life she had wanted too. Her application was being processed, but then marriage happened, and the regulations immediately rendered her ineligible. The touch of vermillion in her hair signals her marital status. I ask how she balances between her work and her home. She looks away momentarily, and shakes her head. Her child is being raised by the extended family, and she barely gets to see them. The job demands her time and all she can do for family is pay the costs. The emotional conflict is tangible.

Walking out from the institution, I spot a policewoman at work on the street. She is on traffic duty dressed in the khaki service shirt of the police force and sari, though, as she tells me later, they must wear trousers too. I stop by the side of the road. She motions me to stand near her as she waves her arms to regulate pedestrian crossings. I shake my head and say I stopped to see her. She looks a little perplexed. I suppose she too is used to being seen as a role rather than a person. She is middle-aged, looks drawn and seems to favour a limp. She is unsmiling, her tone strident as if used to encountering intransigence. And, true to “regulations”, she has never married. She tells me she has been ill for some days, but her leave application was not sanctioned.

It is her duty to serve. I watch her tackle jaywalkers. See, she says, as she points to offenders that can see the lights are green for traffic, yet run across dodging the oncoming vehicles. She stops several and gives them a stern talking to, but the habit is ingrained. It seems a thankless job to speak about public safety because the people she stops argue in return. Unfortunately, she is powerless to issue deterrents like spot fines. She threatens that should an accident occur, she will not book the driver, because it would be the victim’s own fault for getting in the way. 

I wonder how long she has been a traffic cop. She says she is not. She has thirty-one years of police service but the assignment here is only for the day because of shortage of women personnel.  Their job is to follow the orders that come and she was told to report here only two hours before. Earlier, she was engaged in crowd control at the sports stadium. I ask her why she chose the force. What jobs are there for us, she counters, thousands are trying to get this one now. She looks around her, comments that the streetlights are inadequate for such a busy intersection and then limps away to stop a few more defaulters.

I am surprised that to this day and age in India, the archaic service conditions for women carry forward unquestioned. It seems the men in any organization may have family but women in uniform must sacrifice for service. Not all women though - I remember a high-profile female police commissioner portrayed in the media as the ideal, efficiently managing both work and family, so there must be regulations and regulations. Equality, it seems, is for men or else, for those at the top of the heap. Why so? The obvious issue is biological – the bearing and rearing of children. Those remain the woman’s personal works in this region, while elsewhere in the world, campaigns run for paternity benefits!

Under these regulations, the discrimination of gender and class in bureaucratic employment continue, leaving many of these women vulnerable, open to exploitation. It is hard for those ensconced in ivory towers to think beyond themselves. Their tunneled vision of the world makes social conversations with others difficult, or even to relate to them as people. I called on the institutional director some years ago, to suggest people development programmes with personnel across levels. In my perception, many could do with some training of social skills, understanding the reality of others through feedback, especially of those below them in the hierarchy. The man sitting in the plush chair, dwarfed by the massive desk and protective detail, was incensed by the implication. We are an HRD institution, he shouted, it is our job to teach! 

Women are comparatively new to employment and work conditions. Guard duty, for instance, is not a common choice of work for women brought up with marriage as their goal. They seek employment for economic needs. But when required to sacrifice home-life for work-life, they are being force to pay a price for being women. Social activism attacks poverty or corruption, but there seems none to fight for the rights of women putting life and limb on the line to keep others safe. Their work conditions are pathetic, and urgently require revision. It is more than time to address the pervading standard received wisdom of keeping them disadvantaged. The powers-that-be of institutions need to learn a little empathy, a little humility before they teach.

The bureaucratic inheritance

It often seems to me that, whether or not they are related by blood, people living together begin to resemble one another over time. Perhaps in eating the same foods and breathing the same air, sameness pervades. We might assume that people unconnected by blood or proximity, differ widely. And yet, in similar organizational structures, members begin to look alike, think alike and behave alike although separated geographically. Those that go before must leave behind something lasting in the structure to anchor time, because the sameness prevails over generations.

The bureaucratic structure, for instance, is our colonial legacy. In organizational shape, it is pyramidal, a hierarchy of levels. The flow of authority and information is top down, and bottom up, obedience is norm. The bureaucratic structure is meant to be impersonal, and the process theoretically, is to be rational, logical and impartial in governance. It was introduced into India by British colonizers. But the very nature of colonization superimposes the concept of the alpha male onto the organizational pyramid. In tune with the ascent of man on the evolutionary chart, the higher echelons of the hierarchical structure are considered superior to people on the rungs below.

The colonial bureaucracies overlaid superiority of race onto the caste hierarchy already prevalent in the region. The Indians realized that despite their knowledge and experience, their organizational aspirations were limited because even junior officers of the British civil service would lord it over the local populace.

The bureaucracies enabled imperialism keep a tight rein on their empire spreading overseas. Educated Indians were inducted to clerk for the colonizers, and to liaison between cultures in the sub-continent. They were called the ‘Baboos’ that looked and dressed Indian, but protected the Crown, furthering the imperialistic goals. Rather like the ‘trusties’ of the prison system, wherein certain prisoners elevated fractionally above others, serve to keep them in line. The Baboo culture was likewise despised by either side.

The colonizers used the Baboos to do their dirty work but hardly respected their racial differences, while the rest of the country hated them as stooges of the foreign establishments. The Baboos responded to the negativity by creating their own fiefdoms within the structure. They became the backbone of the system, indispensable to its functioning. On the one hand, they could interpret and translate communications as they wish, and on the other, withhold information and benefits to the public at large.

Indians are good with cultural traditions; we are loath to disturb the continuity with the past. Customs, practices, norms and habits handed down generation to generation are perceived sacrosanct. Despite the complete change in the social environment, bureaucracies in India meticulously preserve their 200-year old colonial traditions. They thus socialize into disrespect for subordinates, while the ordinary public is the common enemy to protect against.

Consequent to the colonial influence, the character of the pyramidal structure transforms to unfriendly, intimidating and prohibitive. Up and down the bureaucratic hierarchy, countenances are as grim and unbending today as they have been during the British Raj. Especially in the public interface, mistrust and impatience radiate. Communications base on anger management - that is, the lack of self-control characterize the hierarchy. Imagine a blend of parent-child behaviours, rigid and willful at the same time. Obviously, manners get lost in the upward mobility, and often also the work ethics.

Fact is technology thrives, but the traditional mindsets remain entrenched. The change with democracy and independence of the nation, is simply that nobody wants to be the low man on the totem pole anymore. As noted Indian entrepreneur Narayan Murti observes:

In India, we tend to look down on people who do jobs that require physical work or involve disciplined execution and accountability.

As a result, the first impression of any bureaucratic setup in India is poor. The ambience carries a general air of neglect. Governmental or government-related organizations in India may have expensive machinery or other goods strewn carelessly along the corridors. They may have the financial resources to fund other organizations. And yet, black cobwebs sway from the ceilings in the buildings, dust settles on every surface, and the stench of bathrooms hangs thick. Heaps of files, spill their contents onto desks, shelves and floor. Spatters of betel nut juice stain wall corners in the stairwell, while potted plants serve as ashtrays.

The dirty, unkempt look is likely also a façade to put off the public. The disorganization may be intentional, because almost hidden from view behind the mountains of paper files, the Baboos of today continue to protect their territory. Emotions otherwise denied, flow down and out in angry outbursts as individuals seek to assert themselves in the new India by demeaning others. The beat postmen express their angst by delaying or losing mail. The staffs in government offices pretend to be too busy to entertain queries or move files along. Railways employees mess with reservations, even on complimentary passes awarded to the elderly freedom fighters of India’s independence.

The lateral relationships within the pyramid are tight, however. These informal connections are assiduously cultivated to form the social buffer zones, safe to download in. Large numbers of employees unionize together. By themselves the unions may be weak, but they forge outside political affiliations, whose patronage strongly back their workplace confrontations. The attraction to employment in the bureaucracy is job permanence. Employees are confident they cannot be fired because of swift retaliatory union strikes; hence irrespective of actual work done, their wages shall be paid at fixed intervals. Further, the lack of conflict on the lateral plane ensures that the organizational boat remains on an even keel, with little competition between peers.

The Diva writes elsewhere:

For many organizations, conflict is bad - by definition - and they go out of their way to prevent it. The word ‘challenge’ itself becomes sensitive because it may question premises and upset comfort zones. However, the elimination of all discord has consequences. The organization may rarely or even never question its assumptions. It may turn off and lose its creative sparks … The ultimate danger is the rise of the mediocre, rewarded for lacking the ‘superstar quality’ to rock the boat.

The point is this carried forward in time existence tends to atrophy faculties of effective decision-making. The bureaucratic runaround is thus born as indecision is passed around, desk to desk. Members of the organization become champions at dithering. With sudden, unexpected changes in the global scenario, they are invariably caught on the wrong foot. Thus, the most recent downslide in the Indian markets has been attributed to faulty decisions and planning. India's much touted economic ascendancy is now falling behind.  

Bureaucratic structures in India need to wake up to the reality of their increasing incompetence with competition. Their people need to challenge outdated assumptions of leadership styles, philosophies and value systems that have become the unquestioned organizational traditions over the last couple of centuries. Unless the dependence on these outmoded systems and processes is changed, the colonial inheritance will ensure that bureaucracies in India remain locked in the mindsets of a different age.