“Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most
fools do’, said Dale Carnegie in his classic ‘How to Win Friends and Influence
People’. “but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and
forgiving.” We Indians have mastered the art of criticism. We have the ability to
criticize anyone and everyone for one reason or other. Just switch on any channel
on electronic media randomly at any time of the day and you can rest assure
that on the channel the so called experts are busy in their business of criticizing
and condemning someone important as if everything is so bad with everything in
India that we must be in perennial state of shame to be born as Indian.
Condemnation is addictive and once you get used to it, it
becomes almost imposiible to live without condemning others. It is more
intoxicating that even the most powerful drug which gives you a high so quickly.
It reminds me a story of a jawan who was used to be drunk quite often
An army jawan was in the habit of
getting drunk too often. He faced suspensions and other punishments but did not
improve and his drinking habit got worsened. Everyone gave up.
One day a kind hearted senior army
officer tried to reform him and he called him to his office and said very
kindly, "Dear Friend, you have suffered so much in your life due to your
habit of drinking. If you give up drinking, you can one day become a
Colonel."
The jawan saluted the officer
smartly and said, "I know that Sir. But when I am drunk, I do not consider
myself less than a General."
Emmet Fox, a New Thought spiritual leader of the early 20th
century said so wisely, ‘Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting’. When
we are criticizing others, we are on the top of the world as we feel that we
are better than the person whom we are criticizing. So you can imagine the high
of the critic who has chosen to criticize the Prime Minister of India or even
better, the President of United States of America?
The Futility of
Criticism
It is very difficult, even impossible, to appreciate or accept
appreciation, once you have been addicted to criticism. I have myself
discovered it recently, when I published an article “Why Should Indians Be Proud of Their Track-record of Corruption?”
In my article, I provided empirical evidence to prove that the corruption
in a country is positively related to the per-capita-GDP of a nation and it is
a matter of fact that all the top countries are those who are richest. Hence,
no country can become free from corruption, unless its economy develops and the
government has enough resources to pay well their public servants. I have said
in my article that Indian government officials display remarkable character and
integrity (as compared to officials of other country of similar economies) because
though India is poorer than 88% of the countries but it is more honest than
51.72% countries of the world.
However, most people found such praise of Indians and that too the
government officials, too shocking to
believe, as they are addicted to criticize government for everything. Since
Indian officials are first Indians, hence there must be integrity and character
in Indians too. Yet the information is not well received since if Indians are
really so good, it threatens the very existence of most media which thrives of on
the business of criticism. So, promptly
another article appeared on the same column, “India as Corrupt Country -Perception of Common Man”, authored by Advocate B N Gururaj to rebut my claim
and reestablish that India is highly corrupt.
I never denied that there is corruption in India. I have only challenged the
notion that we can remove the corruption quickly by suddenly reforming the bureaucracy
or passing tough laws. Even if you make law to hang all corrupt people, still
the things can’t improve. All taxpayers know from their experience that today, most
tax officers prefer to decide all cases in favour of revenue, merely to avoid a
vigilance case against them. If there is a fear of more severe punishment (like
death), they are more likely to stop working altogether due to fear rather than
work honestly and proactively to solve people’s problem. This is how human
beings are. China already has death punishment for corrupt and yet it figures
much below India on the index of honesty.
It is my firm belief that unless that reward for good-work goes hand in
hand with the punishment for bad-work, government efficiencies can’t improve. Unfortunately,
there is no reward to perform in government, as all salaries and promotions are
time-bound based on seniority alone and merit plays no role whatsoever. However,
if you keep criticizing the public servants without understanding the issue,
their performance can only go down, instead of becoming better.
It would be extremely interesting to note that while many learned people advocate
sever laws for punishing the corrupt officers, they are totally opposed to any
attempt to make tougher laws for tax-evasion.
In India, evasion of income tax is still a civil offence and you can’t
be jailed for income tax evasion but can easily free yourself by paying penalty
and fine. Imagine the similar law for corruption? If a person is caught taking
bribe of X amount, he can be let off by paying X penalty or fine?
Are We Really So Bad?
Just like any amount of drinking can’t make a jawan a General, any amount of criticism
can’t improve the person. We all know that. We know that a child perform so
much better if we appreciate his achievements rather than criticize his failures.
The parents who develop the habit of criticizing the child all the time, before
everyone, often antagonize the child and lose all respect of the child. Let us therefore
focus on good rather than on evil to improve a person. If we only develop habit
of appreciation, we can improve not only individuals but also a nation much
faster .
Let me explain this by taking the issue of crime in India.
If we believe our media, India must be the most criminalized country of the
world. However the truth is just the opposite.
When we compare total crimes per 1000 people in different
countries, we find that all top crime infested countries are actually developed
countries. For example the Iceland has 209.52 crimes per 1000 people followed
by Sweden (138.35), Dominica (112.55), United Kingdom (109.96) and New Zealand (108.2). The crime rates of USA,
the most powerful nation of the world, is 41.29 per 1000 as compared to India,
which is just 1.64 per 1000.
Sounds Unbelievable??
I have not manufactured this data and you can yourself see yourself
these data by visiting http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Total-crimes-per-1000
Now this new information can work both ways. If you are a
sober man open to new thoughts, you are bound to feel thrilled by knowing that
we have less than 1% crime than the countries which are considered to be
advanced or even least corrupt. However, if you are already addicted to
criticism, you are likely to find fault in data itself rather than accepting
the reality.
Another popular myth about India is that India has highest
rapes in the world. If you believe Indian media, we are a country of rapists
and India is most unsafe country of the world for woman.
Now let us look at the
hard facts rather than individual opinions. The list of the top 10 countries,
based on the rape per 1000 population, are as following:-
1 Lesotho 0.844
2 New
Zealand 0.315
3 Belgium 0.299
4 Iceland 0.286
5 Norway 0.203
6 Israel 0.166
7 Finland 0.141
8 Chile 0.12
9 Mongolia
0.118
10 Ireland 0.102
Don’t be surprised, if these names appear familiar to you.
You have already seen these names on the top of CPI list of Transparency International
as the least corrupt country. So the bad news for critics of India is that Indian
are not on the top on rape list. We are not even the top 50 countries of the world. Kindly
visit the site http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rapes/Per-capita
and check the information yourself.
The fact is that the annual rape rate in India is just 0.02
per 1000 people in 2012 (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#India
). So, we have enough reasons to
celebrate Indian values and Indian males now, once we know the full fact of the
case. However, instead, we are busy criticizing India all the time.
Why Perceptions Are So
Deceptive?
We are too often fooled by our intuition which is full of biases
and prejudices. Psychologist called such error of judgment as "Availability Bias". When Media give
disproportionate coverage to negative events and ignore everything positive,
our perceptions tend to become much more negative than reality.
Psychologist defines ‘Availability Bias’ as a human
cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate the probability of events
associated with memorable or vivid occurrences. Because memorable events are
further magnified by coverage in the media, the bias is compounded on the
societal level. (Kindly visit http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-availability-bias.htm
to know more about ‘Availability Bias’).
Seek Only Truth
There is no doubt that criticism sometime plays an important
role in improving individuals and organizations. However, relying on criticism alone
without appreciation can starve the soul of individuals and cripple the nation.
We as Indians must learn to appreciate
what is good in us rather than always talking about what is bad in us. Charles
Michael Schwab, an American steel magnate, under whose leadership, Bethlehem
Steel became the second largest steel maker in the United States said, “I have yet to find the man, however exalted
his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a
spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism”.
Once we focus on appreciation, we may soon realize that we
are one of greatest nation of the world and that it is not without reason that
India is considered to be spiritual guru of the world. Let us learn to appreciate ourselves and others
using criticism only when it becomes absolutely necessary.
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