Analysis: A Distrusting Society

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p><div align="justify"><span class='dropthecap'>I</span>n the legal framework, the questions will be: what does the law say, what happened, and who is more likely to win the legal argument. I am not a lawyer but even to a lay person like me it is clear that Kabir has not fulfiled the terms of the tenancy contract and, therefore, he is liable to lose the house deposit at the very least and get mired in prolonged litigation as a result of the omissions he made. <br /><br />I do not think his organisation, Gyrett India, has any legal responsibility unless it is seen as Kabir's guarantor in this transaction. <br /><br />Everyone is unnecessarily getting hot under the collar as far as the organisation's role in the matter is concerned. I will not dwell on the legal framework further as I do not know much about the law.<br /><br />The second framework is the humanistic framework. The questions there would be regarding what should determine our actions. The contract or empathy with the human distress of a single mother who has been wronged by her husband? The answer to these questions will be determined by further questions that need to be asked. "Whose agent am I? Am I the agent of my values which require me to be gender sensitive? Am I the agent of the woman in question? Or, above all, am I the agent of my organisation?" <br /><br />Based on these answers, one could debate whether the CEO was right in taking a stand in favour of a woman who is presumably distressed and has presumably trespassed on a property, whom he has never met and who has no sympathy for the cause of his organisation. However, in the end, he is in this situation precisely because he is the CEO of an organisation and therefore, its agent. In the ultimate analysis, he will be required to do what is right for the organisation. <br /><br />The common sense approach to the matter would show that the CEO's willingness to get the company involved in an situation that is obviously messy without completely assessing it, is a management style that is difficult to support. <br /><br />The third framework is the sociological framework. When I look at this situation as a window into the society of which I am a part, I realise this is a story about how we all have been forced to become paranoid and distrusting. <br /><br />This is a story of mistrust prevalent in our society. We do not trust people we love or used to love; we don't trust people we work with or have contractual relationships with; we do not trust institutions in our society, especially those that enforce the law. <br /><br />And when someone like Kabir trusts, we are shocked and appalled at his naivety. I can almost hear the sniggers in the corridors — "An MBA and capable of trusting! What did they teach you at the management school, Kabir? You think you can get away with trusting. Let this be a lesson for you — trust, and people will exploit you." <br /><br />Moreover, I am worried that I would have said the same things to Kabir. I am worried that I would not have been able to say to him, "It is all right, it is not your fault. You trusted, and so what if someone betrayed your trust? Do not worry, we live in a civil society and we have ways of addressing this." I would not have been able to say, "Kabir, it is all right that you trusted. It is good to trust. Do not stop trusting just because of this incident. We need people to trust each other if we have to live in a society that works and looks after everyone." I would not have been able to say any of these things to him because, unfortunately, we live in a society that transacts on the basis of mistrust and each transaction provides us further evidence of the need to protect ourselves. <br /><br />Can we continue to breathe in such a paranoid society? To me, trust is the very essence of being human. I cannot let the fear of lawlessness terrorise me into becoming a mistrusting person. I trust, therefore, I am. I know there is lawlessness. I know people will test my need and will to trust. I know I will get hurt. But I prefer to be hurt a few times than not trust for a lifetime. I will survive by saying to myself that most people are worth trusting, some people are imperfect. <br /><br />I cannot live my life by the rules that some people make. I will live by my own rules. Trust is an important human rule. I trust people I love, those I work with, those who look after me, those who make the laws and those who protect them. Sometimes their greed gets the better of them. But, I can live with that. I cannot live within a trust-less vacuum.<br /><br />Kabir, you will lose the Rs 5 lakh and have many a sleepless nights. But please do not stop trusting people. It may seem Gandhian or foolish to most, but a society that stops trusting is a jungle. I fear jungles, don't you?<br /><em><br />Dr Achal Bhagat is a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Apollo Hospital, Delhi. He is also the founder director of Saarthak, a mental health NGO</em></div> <script type="text/javascript"> var intro = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#commenth4').text()) var page = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#storyPage').text()) if (page.indexOf(intro) < 0) { jQuery('#commenth4').attr('style', 'display:block;') } </script> (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 28-12-2009)