Service, servility or humility?

Some time back I was travelling from Delhi to Hyderabad. And my two experiences during the flight and at the airports of how we Indians react to foreigners, especially foreigners with fairer complexions, continues to amaze me. Add to that a third experience of old fashioned Indian Govt boss and subordinate interaction made me ponder why our country has not reached where South Korea reached in similar time.

Lets move to the 1st experience..  While waiting for the boarding announcement, there was an Indian with two of his white foreign colleagues who seem to have come from abroad. One seemed his senior and the other his junior. Before boarding the flight he was asking the senior one of the previous day’s Townhall who explained the details. So far so good.

These 3 gentlemen turned out to have seats in the same row as I was seated.   And once they were near the seats, our nice Indian gentleman volunteered to the junior foreigner that he could sit in the middle seat and his aisle seat could be taken by the foreigner. Now I am sure if these 3 gentlemen were all Indians, no such conversation may have taken place.

Cut to my second experience. The flight landed at Hyderabad and was waiting for my colleagues as we were to drive straight down to Warangal. Since they were running late, I started observing the other passengers coming out. Again one Indian who happened to be receiving another white foreigner, was forcefully taking his bag and holding, in spite of the foreigner telling him that he will hold his bag. And mind you he was not his driver but a colleague.

Now to the 3rd experience. One ministry of home affairs babu seemed to have been coming from the same Delhi flight and 3 people had come to receive him. One offered bouquets, the other held his bags and the 3rd guy was welcoming him with small talk. And this seemingly senior babu with a pot belly was walking with a swagger in the centre. Again all these 3 gentlemen seemed to be his colleagues with similar Ministry of Home Affairs ID tags.

The point to illustrate here is that while you should respect your seniors and also welcome foreign guests or colleagues with open arms, however there should a line drawn between service and servility. I know a lot of us have been taught since childhood to hold our elder’s luggage and touch their feet. But shouldn’t at a professional level, we be aware of how our actions will be perceived, and indirectly how our country will be perceived.   

Just like expats who come to India and are trained to understand the cultural nuances, similarly Indians based here should be taught on social ettiquette of managing expats without comprising on their self respect.

Having worked in different MNCs, my observation is that we need to create the environment in the way we expect to be treated. And if our expectation is similar to how my above 3 examples are, we would be comprising on work ethics and performance and focusing on sycophancy instead.

Managing of seniors instead of sycophancy and becoming a performance oriented society, needs to translate to govt servants also, wherein they do their work as a service and not as masters of the people which has been the norm in our country so far. Apart from ISRO no other Indian Govt organisation seems to be delivering world class results. (Point to ponder: Is ISRO good because there are no IAS officers at the helm?)

Govt servants are supposed to be service providers to the people not vice versa. And the moment we focus on such small habits and expect the same from others is when change can be seen in an incremental basis. We will also become less tolerant to the inefficiency of govt services and be less servile to them and the politicians we elect.