The one certain thing in governance (life): Trade-Off

I recently had a conversation with a group of activists on the state of women safety in my district (Charkhi Dadri) and how we can go about strengthening the awareness and enforcement of POSH and POSCO laws. The discussion was fairly unstructured with multiple tangents and at one point shifted towards the misuse of these laws, with one of the attendees going on to state that the majority of cases under the act tend to be false.

The point raised, although exaggerated, wasn’t without merit. False cases under POSH are pertinent. In implementing POSH guidelines, as part of one of my modules, this thought has crossed my mind multiple times- Will this intervention only make things worse? I must clarify that my apprehensions pertained to my own ability to implement POSH with the right essence and face issues like false cases, and not towards the need of the law itself.

But a similar question has dictated my decision-making process for a long time now- does the uncertainty that accompanies anything new, overweigh the possible benefit that we are trying to derive out of it?

Working with the administration probably gives you a clearer view of this trade-off at work, better than any other place can.

An operator is not achieving the desired targets. You could pull him up well and ensure immediate compliance, but what if he takes that same tone while dealing with the public or maybe focuses on that target at the expense of helping a poor citizen? So maybe let’s just have a nice conversation with him and try to impose the importance of that one target. But then what if he never prioritizes that one target over others imposed by stricter authorities?

There is a persistent problem in a department. You are sure that your solution is better than what that departmental head has come up with (well, this evaluation in itself involves so many trade-offs - INCEPTION ALERT!). What do you do? You use your authority and ask the head to go ahead with your suggestion. But If they don’t feel good about the solution, they will never implement it with full commitment and might just go with compliance, result being that beneficiaries suffer. So, maybe just let them go ahead with their solution. But I know that it’s not good. The beneficiaries will suffer!

INDECISIVENESS.

One word that has (present tense) loomed over my head. And as they say, not making a choice is a choice in itself. A fair number of times, this indecisiveness has resulted in consequences worse than what I imagined in any of the visualized scenarios. But as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of learning. With the constant collateral consequences came the insight of their inevitability and the realization that a perfect solution hardly exists.

Decision-making in government (and by extension, life) involves choices. My economics teachers in 11th grade made us recite verbatim every day- ‘Resources are scarce and they have alternate uses’. It seemed trivial then- not anymore. It’s the eternal truth. Some loss will accompany any gain. Perfection is a good reference point but optimization is the reality. And well if you’re only going to focus on the losses, sooner or later you’re gonna arrive at the same solution that Thanos did.

While this realization has certainly helped with improving my peace of mind, and (I’d like to believe) my decision-making ability, the biggest add-on has been to my empathy towards government functionaries. What I realize now is how easy it is for an outlet to focus on one particular negative aspect of a decision or action, and even easier for a targeted citizen to believe that aspect to be the only reality. And I would even go on to include seemingly absolute evils like corruption in the same. Considering the scale that the government works at, what is actually a very small, unavoidable negative aspect of a considerable benefit, if focused with the right tact, can be made to look like a massive deliberate evil. And please don’t get me wrong. I’m not endorsing that those who oppose it are in the wrong- for that small aspect might well mean for them- their whole life’s savings or well, their life.

All I endorse is understanding, communication and if possible, collaborative optimization. I appeal for a comprehensive evaluation of any and every decision/policy/action that we may come across. And lastly, I hope, for those of you struggling under the weight of indecisiveness like me, that this realization eases you of at least some of that burden.