Mind your manners. Sir!

Mind your manners, Sir!

(Published as lead article in the Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi on Friday, 8 October,2010)

The professed iron-frame of the British Indian administration was not dubbed the Indian Civil Service for nothing. The pun on ‘civil’ underscored its non-military character as much as ‘civility’ inbuilt in their persona. I often wondered how the initial inductees would have handled human interaction in course of their work, given the totally unfamiliar climate, culture and language. They did not have the benefit of Dale Carnegie’s famous How to Win Friends And Influence People which was some years away in the future. Call it serendipity but in course of one of my research forays into the archives I stumbled upon a Memorandum on the subject of Social and Official Intercourse between European Officers and Indians. It was printed in 1913 at the Government Press, Ranchi (yes, the provisional government of the newly-formed state of Bihar and Orissa functioned from Ranchi while the new capital was coming up at Patna.). It was meant for the benefit of the young British officers starting their career in India. It draws heavily upon a set of instructions issued in 1821 to his Assistants in Central India by Sir John Malcolm, Agent of the Governor General. Be it the subordinate staff or the public at large the emphasis is on easy accessibility while courtesy with compassion is to be the given norm of behaviour. The detailed do’s and don’ts give a rare insight into the Indian psyche and leaves one wondering if the British understood us better than we do ourselves.

True, times are not the same. We are today a free nation. There has been perceptible democratisation of our services. Has it translated into making our public servants more civil, sensitive and empathetic towards the aam aadmi? We can pick some tips from the century-old circulars, which remain as valid today, and leave our babus do some soul searching.

In dealing with the public, read native Indians, the British officers were to guard against being condescending and overbearing. For men may dread but can never love or respect those who are continually humiliating them by the parade of superiority. A greeting cannot be taken for granted and must be appropriately acknowledged, a word for word and gesture for gesture. It may be a perceptible nod of the head or a raised hand but never the left hand or just one finger. He had to be ever mindful of his conduct; he could be watching a thousand people with his two eyes but he was under constant scrutiny by two thousand eyes and more.

The young civilian was exhorted to be careful about his dress and deportment and about the kind of language he used. In order to communicate better he was encouraged to gain proficiency in local language and custom. The opening gambit was important so as to put the supplicant at ease. How you addressed a person was important and his age had to be respected. Extra care had to be observed while interacting with women; there was no scope for frivolity lest it was misconstrued as flirting, a point worth taking note of by our officialdom. With increasing presence of women at the work place today the male boss or colleague has to be gender sensitive. Showing Sir Walter Raleigh-like chivalry can be risky; so it is safest to be cordial but correct.

Accessibility tops the list of dos and don’ts. Telephones were still not for the common man and travel was time consuming and rigorous. Personally waiting on the ‘sahab’ was thus the preferred option. “On no account should peons or servants be permitted to refuse access to their master without his personal orders.” Demand for tips by minions was to be strongly discouraged on pain of severe penalty. We can compare this with the ground reality today. Some times the officer takes pride in keeping a visitor waiting while he may be doing nothing better inside the chamber than eating paan paraag or flipping the pages of a glossy magazine. You fare no better on phone. In the morning the sahib is either in the bathroom or doing pooja. During office hours you will be lucky to get past his PA or his Pa’s PA. A message is seldom taken and is replied to even more rarely. Mobile phones flash either no answer or switched off. What would have been the British masters’ take on that?

Once the visitor has been ushered in the officer should be all attention and hear him out patiently. ‘A refusal or an unpalatable order is accepted with much greater resignation when the officer, who has to give it, has listened to all that is to be said on the other side.’ Maintaining eye contact throughout is important. Fast forward this bit to the present day. The visitor may be pouring his heart out while the person across from him is busy talking into his Bluetooth or sending SMS on his Blackberry.

What is valid in dealing with the public becomes crucial in handling the large staff he presides (and not lords) over. “An officer should be freely accessible to all his subordinates, and should make a point of knowing personally as many as possible of them.” This is a universal leadership attribute and holds good for all times. One’s own name is music to the ears and a good boss should address his staff by name. In appropriate situations he should add prefix and suffix to the name, such as Mr. So and So or Ramchandra Babu or Mukherji Saheb. So that grievances, if any, are nipped in the bud easy accessibility is a must. An aggrieved person cannot open up before a haughty and domineering boss, Give him a patient hearing but heed thy own counsel. “He should be shy of making promises but, if he makes one, he should always perform it.” Being polite and graceful is one thing but he cannot afford to have favourites, and he has to let that be known and seen. Being foreigners the British could not be accused of nepotism, a charge our officialdom now is vulnerable to.

If noblesse oblige was valid for the British masters, it is more so today for our bureaucrats who enjoy a privileged position in society. It may not be in their hands to solve everybody’s problems but their compassion can be a balm for the bruises. There is no scope ever to be uncouth and abrasive. Being polite and courteous always pays. Grace never goes out of fashion.

Sudhir Kumar Jha

(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna @gmail.com.)