Organisation Multipliers : Whirlpool of anarchy

Amar Yumnam *

The State Government has been speaking all along of the issues plaguing the land as one of law and order. This has served some critical purposes.

First, this harping can blind the observers and the public from noticing the acute and chronic governance failures in the State.

Secondly, this has the easy option of putting the security forces at the receiving end whenever anything goes wrong; mark the frequent change of postings and roll of heads in the State police department.

But the fact is that law and order interventions cannot correct the lapses of governance, whereas improvements in governance can largely address the law and order failures as well.

Interventions in the law and order front are absolutely transitory and proximate whereas improvements in governance would have lasting impact.

The governance in the State has largely fallen prey to the dictum of "organizations", and this has had the unfortunate impact of making even law and order interventions largely ineffectual.

The Tragedy: The tragedy of the State is that the failures do not end with this collapse of governance of the state, but extends to the non-state or anti-state sector as well.

In fact, the helplessness of the people now goes beyond the government failures to deliver, but is now marked by fear, insecurity and death emanating from the non-state or rather anti-state agents.

This tragedy is all the more unfortunate because it was till about a decade back that the people were largely expecting good outcomes from the various interventions of the "organisations", but it is now the "organisations" and the multiples of them whom the people are dead insecure of.

It is this aspect which has really seized the mind of the populace as exemplified by the many recent editorials in the dailies of the State. Indeed this is what we all should be examining as to why such an impasse has come about.

Organisation Multipliers: In the beginning there were not many "organisations", but now the State seems to be characterised by a feature of organisation multipliers. Such a feature cannot be without causes.

I would rather feel that the fault should be placed at the doors of the "organisations" themselves. In other words, the present scenario can be the result of within functionings and the reflection of these within characteristics in the interactions with the outside.

First, there are fears, and probably rightly so, that "organisations" have for long been allowing their own members to indulge in self aggrandisement.

This has had two unfortunate outcomes – one, people have been observing many dubious characters becoming affluent overnight, and their behaviour reflecting no qualitative improvement towards social thinking; and two, over the years, there seems to have emerged a large disconnect between the top echelon of the "organisations" and the field functionaries.

The second feature has become necessary for the first feature to be operational, and feeds on sustained mis- and disinformation by the field functionaries to the top echelons.

Secondly, it is learnt from global development experience that civil society organisations have always been crucial in giving directions as well corrections to social discourse.

But unfortunately in the quest for greater space and resultant turf war, the purity, sanctity and moral force of most of the civil society organisations have been compromised. This seems to have extended to various student bodies as well.

Thirdly, the second result has had the third effect of giving a new kind of "power" to the various civil society organisations as frontal bodies of more powerful organisations. Now there might not be anything wrong in itself in this outcome.

But the trouble starts when these frontal bodies become mediums for scoundrels and scallywags for force-landing themselves into some positions in the various offices and institutions of the land. Even more unfortunately, these frontal bodies themselves seem to be rigorously pushing for these incompetent and insincere individuals and all in the name of the "powerful organisations".

The Multiplier: Now all these above features are getting manifested in an otherwise laggard economy with very little expansion of economic opportunities, if any.

Many people saw the above features, particularly the third one, as providing a scope for exploitation as the "original organisations" have manifestly reneged on the initial ideals and objectives. This is why we now see a multiplication of "organisations", with all having the power to kill.

We are now far removed from a promised land of patriotism and democracy, and the only game in town now is of killing. The deadliness of the situation is all the worse because the "original organisations" do not seem to have any control over the multiplier effect of their manifest functionings.

Suggested Escape: Now such a situation is never a sustainable one, and if sustained at all, the people would not remain on this earth. The earlier we get out of this impasse, the better would be for all of us. But the question is how we do this.

The initiative for the transformation should come from the "organisations" themselves. We must realise that the various institutions and offices in the State are not charity organisations.

If we try to dump insincere and incompetent people into these bodies just because they profess closeness to the various "frontal organisations", we are digging our own grave.

Finish the institutions by treating them as charity bodies by force-employing parasites sponsored by the "frontal organisations", nothing would remain for us even if the very state change hands.

For the society, quality should be the deciding factor, not closeness for quite often the enemy is within.