|
|
|
|
|
|
From ZeiTGeiST
ASIA: September 2011
Edition |
|
|
Khanduism 28 |
|
 |
|
Gaurav Lakhanpal |
|
|
|
|
The ‘whistle-blower’ |
|
|
|
There is no need to fear the
whistle-blower as long as you control the horn. The whistle can
always be drowned in the sound of the horn. |
|
|
|
The
Lok Pal Bill had been introduced in the Parliament on August 4.
Anna Hazare’s team and “The Civil Society” had dubbed it as the
Joke Pal Bill and were burning copies of the same. I happened to
be driving near one such burning ceremony on the streets of
Ghaziabad on the same day. As my car approached the venue I
noticed a few hundred people gathered in the middle of the road,
each one holding a few papers in hand purporting to be the
copies of Joke Pal Bill and shoving them into the bonfire.
Arvind Kejriwal later likened the ceremony to Gandhiji’s burning
of foreign goods and the Rowlatt Act of 1919. |
|
|
|
Since the traffic had been held up for quite
sometime, I was getting bored passively watching the ceremony. I
prodded Khandu to think out some creative way of managing to
move forward. |
|
|
|
Khandu always loves such challenges and he
was immediately ready with a response. He put on his cap again,
took out a whistle and started blowing it repeatedly, in an
almost unbroken chain of long and short spurts. And it worked.
The gathered crowd started parting itself into two, making room
for our car and the ones following us to enable us to pass
through. |
|
|
|
I was absolutely amazed. I could not help
conveying my appreciation to Khandu. |
|
|
|
“That was amazing. How did you think of it?”
|
|
|
|
Khandu sat smug in his driving seat,
relishing the compliment, without feeling any need to even
acknowledge it as if it was his birth right. I thought a little
bit of retraction might make him descend from the high cloud
back to reality. |
|
|
|
“But you should not try it too often, Khandu.
Blowing whistles like a policeman might make the crowds yield
way for your car but if some real policeman in the vicinity
notices it, he could take offence and lock you up,” I said. |
| |
 Khandu
felt hurt and angry, not at what I had said as I found out soon
enough, but at the fact of my being so much out of tune with the
changing jargon of national discourse.
“Whatever made you think that I was blowing
the whistle like a policeman? And in any case, did you think
these agitating crowds would really respond to the police
whistles? I was whistling like a true ‘whistle-blower’ and these
crowds gathered here know what a whistle blower is even if
educated, rich men like you don’t. But you, too, will begin to
know it soon enough.”
I am quite used to the under-current of
class antagonism between us, at least in Khandu’s mind. So I let
the bit about ‘educated, rich’ pass because, in a way, Khandu
was right. I had definitely heard of the new pedestals on which
whistle blowers are being placed these days. But I had never
subscribed to that idea. |
| |
|
In the bourgeois value system I have grown up
in, absolute loyalty of an employee towards his employer is a
virtue to be appreciated and blowing a whistle on one’s
bread-giver is considered nothing less than treason or namak
harami as if the entire edifice of social stability would
collapse if whistle blowers were to be rewarded. Therefore, on
seeing the agitating crowd and on hearing the whistle, my
bourgeois mind automatically interpreted it as the police
whistle aimed at dispersing the ‘unruly’ crowd. Khandu was,
therefore, right. But so was I. I thought of confronting the
issue then and there. |
|
|
|
“I have heard about this whistle blowing but
I did not connect it with that crowd situation.But, tell me
honestly, do you seriously believe that whistle blowers should
be rewarded instead of being chucked out of the job?” I asked.
|
|
|
|
I held my breath, waiting for a reply,
because on his reply would depend his continuation in his job
and, perhaps, also his prospects for finding a new job. What
would happen to thousands of readers of this column if Khandu’s
reply to my last question were in the affirmative? |
|
|
|
Discretion is the better part of valour and even Khandu got this
message that day. He chose to keep quiet and changed the
subject. I got my answer – the confrontation had been deferred
to another day – by mutual consent. This column continues
uninterrupted. |
|
|
|
|
Back to top ^^
|
|
ZeiTGeiST ASIA welcomes
your views. |
|
Want more? Subscribe to ZeiTGeiST ASIA and get deepest insights into the month's most important happenings around the globe. |
|
|
Zeitgeist Advisorate ,
zeitgeist Asia and S.G. Lakhanpal
Associates are SBUs of |
|
N.G.Lakhanpal
Strategic Management Services – An
ISO 9000:2001 company. |
|
|
|
Advertise Here
|
