Political Diary

New Delhi, 11 April, 2017

Work, Dirty Four Letter Word

INDIA ON PERPETUAL HOLIDAY!

By Poonam I Kaushish

Revel, its party time honey! Put it down to mid-April madness whereby India seems to be in perpetual holiday mode. Thanks to work being work letter word, notwithstanding Modispeak, “Na mein khali baithunga, na main baithne doonga.” Ki pharak penda hai!

All one needs is an excuse and before one can blink, a holiday is ours for the asking. It comes in various forms; national, restricted, religious, regional, birth and death anniversaries et al. Perhaps it has something to do with our laid back attitude dictated by a don’t-care a damn and chalta hai thinking!

Think. Out of 365 days, the Government works a five-day week. This translates into 104 week-end holidays, three National Holidays, 14 Gazette holidays and 2 restricted holidays. Scandalously, the latter meant to suit the convenience of small religious groups have been converted into two extra holidays for all.

Further, babus are entitled to 12 days’ casual, 20 days’ half pay, 30 days’ earned leaves and 56 medical offs. A grand total of 249 days of relaxation, leaving just 116 working days! For women there is an additional 90 days of maternity leave and two years of child care leave.

This is not the only instance of non-work trend. Of the eight hours normal working day with a one-hour lunch break in Government offices tea time begins from the moment an employee enters his office and continues every half hour till the clock strikes pack-up time. And yet, there is no dearth of overtime!

There are also those with proclaimed aversion to work. They may be found in a canteen corner, pontificating on national affairs over long lunch sojourns extending over two long hours, presiding over unscheduled coffee breaks or giving an intellectual justification for their pet aversion or at the “paan ki dukaan.”

The title for the perennial merry makers is reserved for our Parliamentarians. Besides national and gazette holidays our MPs are entitled to another 36 restricted chuttis. But even this is not enough for them for in their collective wisdom, our Right Honourables gave themselves a ‘break’ from the winter session.

Take Holi and Ram Navmi while the hoi polloi got one day off our jan sevaks treated themselves to a two-day break with the weekly holiday. So what it is crores of tax payers’ money down the sewage drain! Rued an MP: “My wallet will be lighter by some thousands of rupees, which I would have got as daily allowance.” Sic.

Nobody stands testimony to our abysmal work ethics than our judiciary. With over lakhs of cases pending, shockingly, the Supreme Court works for 193 days, High Courts for 210 and trial courts for 245 days a year. So unlike the US Supreme Court which does not have a yearly vacation and hearings are limited to a few months.

With just 9 judges it is able to dispose all cases while our bejeweled 27plus Chief Justice have litany of pending lawsuits which carry on for decades. We don’t want our Justices to be sans vacations, but a little less vacationing and a little more judging would help the cause of justice for all. Happily, Chief Justice Kehar Singh’s announcement of three Benches working during the summer break, litigants hope this trend will continue.

Questionably, can a poor nation afford this luxury of aaram, aaram and more aaram?  Can one live life king-size while fighting for survival? Don’t holidays eat into our national productivity and sap economic strength? Play havoc with the timetables of schools and colleges?

What about the crores lost in trading when banks and markets shut down? Yet another day off, means a slow-down in policy implementation as each nibbles away at the legislative, educational, economic and executive fabric of the nation.    

Should we simply shrug our secular shoulders and pin our endless holidays down to an occupational hazard of a multi-cultural heritage? No. The culprit is none other than our bankrupt politicians who, in a burst of competitive populism announce holidays as a sop to their vote-banks.

Remember VP Singh who announced Prophet Mohammed’s birthday a holiday, no matter no Muslim country lists it as one. Or Vajpayee, to prove his Constitutional credentials, he declared a national chutti on Ambedkar’s birth centenary in April 2000.

God forbid when national leaders die, the Government promptly turns these grave occasions into a farce by declaring a holiday. People gladly take off. Work is suspended and gaiety, not gloom, takes over. Not for them the fact that on such occasions sombre reflections are more appropriate. And considering the surfeit of so-called national leaders, this has become a rule, rather than an exception.

True, none can fault the desire to break free from the rough and tumble of contemporary existence. However, as the saying goes there are no free lunches in life. Every holiday costs the exchequer around Rs 1000 crore by way of industrial loss and business transactions. 

Why is it that nobody seems to think about this problem and come up with a solution? Why, for instance, can’t the Government and banks adopt the principle most private companies follow, of instituting sectional holidays or allowing compensatory offs? Simply because work is at the bottom of the priority list.

In fact, over the years many committees and commissions have tried to curtail the holidays list but to no avail. Recall, the Administrative Reform Commission practical suggestion in 1971 declaring holidays on both Republic Day and Independency Day as unnecessary since both had similar significance was trashed, despite, reasoned argument that an extra holiday meant an extra outlay of over Rs 11crores for maintaining the output level. Of course, the figure has jumped manifold. 

The demand for more leisure augurs well in the affluent West where there is already a big push for a three-day week and a national concern over leisure future. Not so in India. Instead of aping the West in this why aren’t we adopting their niggardliness in declaring national holidays?

In the US, there are no “national” holidays but eight federal holidays. However, each State can declare its own holidays. Britain has a five-day week and eight-and-a-half days of public and ‘privilege’ holidays. The annual leave is a minimum of three weeks.

In Germany, Government offices observe 14 holidays a year, besides the week-end. A Government official is entitled to a holiday varying from three to six weeks a year depending on his age.  Japan has 12 public holidays. Government employees are entitled to 20 days yearly earned leave, in China it is just five days of hard work, not work with thick layers of leisure and absenteeism, as in India.

Alas, we Indians yearn for El Dorado but are not prepared to lift a finger for it. Time now to decide: Do we mean business? Should a Government give itself a long week-end, if the five-day week fails to boost productivity, ensure punctuality and regular attendance?

Remember, indefatigable workers James Boswell and Samuel Johnson. Asked Boswell: “Why do we grow weary when idle? Johnson replied, “because others being busy, we want company’ but if we were all idle there would be no growing weary’ we would all entertain one another.” Can we afford to entertain each other all the time? – INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)