Reward, don't punish

By Ranjan Yumnam *

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. - Voltaire

Life is unfair. Some people slog day and night, fight for their convictions surmounting great resistance from Ayatollahs of conventional wisdom. They speak out the unpalatable truth, point out the antiquated practices and customs that are there simply because were there. And in the end, they are laughed at; they are ridiculed; they are criticized—all because they happen to harbour ideas that are far ahead of their times, or simply because they dare to be different.

Sometimes, they win. And in the rare times when they do triumph, do we give them our thumbs-up and a standing ovation—which we ought to?

The problem is we don't.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in my previous pieces, we are the best critics of others and have forgotten to encourage, praise and shower adulation that is due to deserving people. Our sharp tongues sting anyone within an arm length; our sweet words do not come forth anymore through our mouth nor from our pen. The newspaper is filled with armchair analyst's biting indictment of any new idea or an underdog reformer trying to bring in change. Doomsday prediction has become our national pastime. Status quo is our sanctum sanctorum, our God.

I consider myself a part of this insidious preoccupation with negativity. Even the name of this column is called Whistleblower, a not so comforting term with lots of fear value attached to it. My humble attempts at writings, it turns out, are all about bringing to light, amplifying or regurgitating the worms of our society.

I focused on the dark sides. Running my fingers through the articles I have written in the past here and elsewhere, I realize I have never penned glowing tributes for the heroes amongst us. Do I have kind words for that crusader of human rights? Have I ever highlighted the good works of those sundry upright officers in the government? The answer to all these is NO.

I am not alone.

Look at our civil society. It has become more or less a synonym of hate-machine whose sole aim of existence is to organize bandhs, strikes and other usual hindrances to our routine life. Look at the UG groups whose so-called social reforms are based entirely on the notion of fear and punishment. Look at the state machinery; its another name could well be police raj.

Here's the truth: From individuals to the government, everybody worth his salt is relying on the raw power of force to push his own pet programs. Forget collective consensus; each of us is a republic unto himself, pitted against the nearest breathing human being.

The cult of unilateral force and agenda has engulfed us through the core.

All this, even after we know that the worst form of enforcing compliance is by using force. Grudging willingness never lasts—it is like forcing a woman to strip on the pain of death. The moment the fear is eased or the cause of the terror is overwhelmed, she is going to take a greater revenge on the perpetrators of the atrocity. That fact is lost. It's now free for all—go in for the kill and extract the most out of it while the party lasts.

The fear of fear will fade anyway for it is against the nature of human beings to be shackled by it for long. We can work far more wondrous magic than inflicting grief against one another. Instead of abuse, instead of a bullet pumped into the knee cap, instead of bandhs and strikes, we can look for positive solutions that are less bloody and far more civilized. The beauty of this approach is that it is all within our capacity and it involves no heartburns and risks.

To begin with, let's institute awards for every commendable achievement in any possible range of endeavour. My belief is that there are good people in every walk of life; only that they are not given recognition. Create heroes out of them. Let there be a role model industry in every district, town and leikai.

For example, why not honour a good doctor by naming him the Doctor of the Year, instead of vandalizing the house of an errant gynecological doctor.

In your local club, give a roaring reception to the most sincere bureaucrat in the area; let his counterparts go green with envy and aspire to be the next 'icon'.

The underlying logic is to create a social incentive as well as pressure to make people perform in as nearly an ideal fashion as they can.

We do not need huge amount of money to launch this Movement of Affirmation of the inherent goodness of men. Most of the times, all that a person requires is a bit of appreciation and recognition for whatever he is good at doing. Believe me, it can move mountains and bring faster results than any form of punishment ever could.

On the contrary, our present approach is to hunt down the worst specimens of the society and eliminate them (in the extreme case), or to shame them by parading them before the media—eyes down, hands folded, face bruised with all his/her dignity stripped—in familiar photographs in the newspapers, in grainy video clips of TV news bulletin.

Imagine what that sort of public spectacle would do to their self-esteem. Will a person subjected to such gladiatorial humiliation be ever able to be himself again? My guess is, we are simply destroying his spirit, instead of helping him to pull up his socks by offering him role models to emulate.

A tooth-for-a-tooth is a medieval formula at best and a bestial basic instinct at worst. Call it pop-sociology, if you will—one of the reasons why we are addicted to punitive acts could be: when we lash out a punishment, we derive a false ego-boost and a sense of power, if not sadistic pleasure. Congratulating someone, on the other hand, is to belittle ourselves, or so we think.

Our fixation on punishment routine is counter-productive. We are beginning to perceive the world as a place filled with criminals and perverts where there is no scope of self-improvement. In the process, we are becoming more cynical of life itself, trying to find darkness even in sunshine.

It's time to be more cheerful and forsake the morbid taste for hurt and revenge.

Environmentalists tell us to plant two trees every time we cut a tree. We should take a leaf out of that catch phrase. And here's what we can do: Every time we mete out a not-so-private punishment to a delinquent, we should make it a point to reward two exceptional people in public platform.

Let's create incentives to be a good human being. Because bullets cannot be forever; they do not discriminate between truth and falsehood and can swing any either way.

Choose life