Society needs to examine its behaviour.
One of the most favourite interview questions is – can you narrate a mistake that you committed in the last 2-3 years and learnt something from it? Usually, most of the candidates sheepishly reply that they have not made any mistake or the mistakes made were very minor. Then the interviewer further enlarges the scope and asks the candidate whether they had made any mistakes in the last five years.
Even then most candidates give a blank look.
Another favourite question is – any achievements in last few years. And promptly like a parrot the candidates start off narrating petty achievements going back to their school days.
These are behavioral questions that tell the interviewer whether the candidate is open to learning or not, because a candidate who evaluates himself consistently can only learn. The answer to the second question indicates the definition that the candidate has for ‘accomplishment’. If one is not achievement oriented, he/she may not be of any use for the organization.
The same is applicable to the society. Does it evaluate itself and examines what mistakes have been committed in recent years and what have been its recent achievements? How many patents? How many Nobel awards? How many awards have our films won internationally? What is our ranking on various indices of development and growth? What is the conviction rate? And many more of such questions of self-assessment.
The Pandemic has exposed the fault lines of our governance system, right from the top to the bottom and right from the Center to the State governments, which we had been ignoring for many years. It is like we never realized that we were living in a dark house that was full of dust and suddenly someone switched on the lights and fans.
The way planning is being done, the way plans are executed, the corruption in the supply chain system, the inefficiencies of the health care system, the ineffective bureaucracy, the unresponsive hospitals and the undisciplined and unscientific temperament of people; everything lies bare now. If one goes by the media revelations and the death certificates issued by various Nagar Nigams and the registers maintained at the cremation grounds, the total figure of the dead is colossal and mind boggling.
It is now for the society, particularly those who have survived this ordeal, to ensure that they learn from all that has happened in last one year and work towards improving thing. But, if the majority like the ones quoted above, who do not evaluate themselves and are contended with small achievements/small targets, claim that it was a pandemic and so people were bound to die, and there was no mistake done, in that case we as a society are going to rot and continue to suffer more miseries. The future is likely to be concerning and worrying. If one wants to draw parallels, one has to just look at Bihar which is today at the same position, where the rest of India was more than a decade ago.
Accepting that We faulted , Carrying out the Root Cause Anaylsis and then Learning from those mistakes,by itself is a Challenge for the society. A scientific approach towards dealing with challenges facing the society is the need of the hour.
To Be Continued......