Tolerance, Reformation And Retribution
It was 7:30 in the evening, I had just joined my first job as a Labour Officer, and I had stayed in the office for work. The security guard came to me in a hurry and said, ‘The police have come to see you.’ The police followed him.
Showing the company identity card, the police officer asked, ‘Did this man work in your company? He threw himself under a train this evening.’ The police found the identity card which had brought them to me.
I will never forget that incident in 1975. The first shift ended at 3.30 pm and soon a security guard brought a young worker to me. The guard had found an item worth thirty rupees in his pocket, obviously the young worker had been caught ‘red-handed’ stealing it.
He was crest fallen, wanted to wriggle out of the situation, and said, ‘Sir, don’t hand me over to the police, I will resign.’ The security guard boasted about how he had caught the worker stealing. The young worker resigned, left in despair. Instead of taking a local train and going home, he had chosen to die under the local train.
‘No forgiving for a mistake’ or ‘He must be punished otherwise he repeat this behaviour’ is the popular thinking. In the corporate world, it is easy to be harsh when you commit a crime of theft because you are playing the role of a judge – an incompetent judge.
Remember the movie ‘Do Aankhe Barah Haath’? In that movie, the jailer trusts his prisoners, and they trust him. It is a story that believes in the goodness of man. This is not a work of fiction. The story is based on the experiment of open imprisonment in Aundh State by Maurice Frydman.
Alokananda Roy, a well-known dancer from Odisha, rehabilitated prisoners by teaching them dance. When she asked for permission to take them to Pune for a program, she got it with great difficulty. The jailer thought that all the prisoners would take advantage of the situation and escape, but Ms Roy had assured them that it won’t happen. All the prisoners did a program in Pune; they went shopping too and then returned to their prison.
How did this happen? What lesson should be learned from that incident?
We call someone who commits a crime a criminal. A ‘crime’ might be committed by a mistake – sometimes because of tempers running high. But it is wrong to say that he is ‘criminally minded’. Most people are not criminally minded by nature. We must recognise the difference.
The point is that it is completely wrong to label a person as ‘criminal’ based on one act, even if it is a crime.
But in the corporate world, when a crime is committed, he or she is dismissed from work at once. In the corporate world, ‘we have a zero-tolerance policy’ is proudly told, and it is unfortunate because that policy is based on the hollow and destructive foundation of ‘we do not believe that man can improve’.
‘Zero tolerance’ policy is actually a ‘100% Intolerance policy.’
The transformation of Valmiki is a well-known story. Just as a man can make mistakes, he can also change due to remorse, and there are examples to prove this point.
Why go too far? Do you know a single person who has not made a big mistake? Autobiographies are replete with blunders of people and that includes great men like Mahatma Gandhi. The question is not who made the blunder, but whether he regrets it, repents it.
In the corporate world, a manager who decides that ‘this man can improve’ is taking a personal risk, because if the person who made the mistake makes a mistake again, the manager will be blamed for it, so taking such a decision will be an act of courage. Personal stakes! Therefore, the zero-tolerance policy is the easiest solution.
It is necessary to have a policy like “People can improve and reform even if they make mistakes and all employees deserve to be trusted” but that is still a dream.
To implement such a policy, it is necessary to have the art of open and meaningful communication. But managers do not have that much time. And they are not that prepared.
In the seventies, ‘Dushman’, a Rajesh Khanna film was released. Rajesh Khanna is a truck driver who kills a man when he drives the truck after consuming alcohol. His victim’s family depends on him for their survival. Therefore, the court sentences him that Rajesh Khanna (i.e. the hero) should live in the deceased’s family and take care of them. While doing so, he understands the terrible impact of his crime and overcomes it.
The story of the film dramatically tells that the reason for people to change is their own thinking, awareness or experience. And we can give that experience to others.
‘You are a good man, even if you have made a mistake, we do not label you as a ‘criminal’’. If the world confronts him in this way, he will definitely change, not only that, but he will be indebted to you for the rest of his life.
Dev Anand’s film ‘Guide’ is based on such a premise. He is released from jail, and sleeps on the steps of a temple in a village. In the morning, a sadhu is passing by, he sees the hero sleeping soundly in the cold and throws his shawl – on which is written ‘Shri Ram’ – on him and leaves. When the people of the village see Dev Anand and think that he is a sadhu, they think that he will solve all their problems. And he also starts behaving in the same way.
Stories are often based on actual events.
People live up to their image. If we take the role of ‘You committed a crime, you slipped but you are not a bad person’, many people will positively transform.
I learnt this the hard way. From the incident of the young worker who committed suicide. He realized his mistake and felt ashamed and thought that suicide was the only way out. A young man lost his life because he stole something worth thirty rupees. I was a young man, twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and I did not know the art of meaningful communication with him at that time. Even if I had known it, he might have lost his job, but I would have been able to get his life back on track.
This will never be possible with a ‘zero tolerance’ or ‘100% Intolerance’ policy. But it would be unrealistic to expect companies to change their policies.
However, we can practice reformation when we are confronted with conflicts. Practising reformation changes our life, it changes us too. Big changes come incrementally. And it will be our contribution to changing the society.
PS: The feature pic of Nelson Mandel signifies importance of tolerance and reformation over retribution. Pic courtesy: Pixabay
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.
Beautifully penned, Sir. Reformation is Justice done with humanity.
I remember Gandhiji saying
” Hate the sin, Love the sinner”. Victor Hugo said” He who opens a school.door, closes a prison”.
There are enough experiments like our own Tihar Jail reformation by Kiran Bedi, and the Halden Prison in Norway.
I loved your last lines about changes in society.
I feel when society reforms a offender, it reforms many not just the offender”.
The one thing I wait is,
Treasure of knowledge from your experience sir.
When I was reading this article, I was expecting police coming and how with courage you faced them but the story had hook and twist and when I started reading from do Ankhein Barah hath guide and so on, I could visualise many incident and one of that was an IAS officer caught red handed taking 10 cr bribe and who wrote a book on “ethics’ and given a lot of “motivational speech’. It also took me through a lot of dilemma when we found adverse report against one of the recent hire and your article was a perfect guide for me stating not to be a half judge. It also remind me another incident in my career where a senior person submitted cab bill from Vile Parle to Andheri for Rs 1500. We knew he is commuting fraud but we always act as per the convenience and as per “business exigencies”.
Thank you and keep us guiding sir.
And last – now I am going to write “intolerance policy” instead of Zero tolerence policy 🙂
An extended benefit of this mindset is the heart for mercy. Mercy is usually unmerited grace or undeserved respite from the hardships of challenge.
While this could well be seen as the entrails of spiritual wholeness, it is a matter of contest still due to the structures and practices of legal instruments. That’s why corporates lose no time to castrate even the first-time wrong-doers.
Those low on the spectrum of moral, emotional or spiritual intelligence fall back on law to reduce their strain in decision making. Their capacity to imagine, feel and make space in their mind and hearts for impact on their ecologies is low. This is why capability is to be preceded by capacity.
Those who cultivate such sensitivity can propose the infinite goodness of the opposite end of the spectrum. Like the abolishing of death penalties even within legal systems.
Man’s obsession with prediction and control militates against being open to the emergent. Even what emerges through forgiveness or compassion for fellow human beings. Tolerance assumes limits. It imposes segmented bounds. Compassion unfolds potential. Nature is often unbounded in this respect.
When we socialise bounds, it reduces short-term cognitive load. It revolts soon after or surely later in long-term emotional load. Exclusion is easy. Inclusion is harder. It requires more than mind and heart. It needs open will.
Thank you for packing the precept within episodes in the popular moulds of culture.
Just sharing another story….a unit head shared his Financials showing profitable operations. When accounts team went through the Financials they realized that he had missed current liabilities or should I shay he deferred payments to show the black line. When I asked….his response…that you guys want to see profit so I showed it. If you asked him about liabilities I would have shared it…..no guilt / no sense of wrong doing / no sense that he is misrepresnting data. The strong sense to win and succeed driving all his action.
So your story ….has too many complexities of values, culture leadership and current ethos ! Commercial and Individua win as a value has has many negative impact on our ethos !
Thank you for sharing sir. It has minded me to continually meditate on self imperfections, and limitations. And using that awareness to check in with oneself if anything more or different should be thought of.
Govind- I love your practical twist to draft an intolerance policy. Great idea…
Superb one. An eye opener and thought provoking.
Thanks for this article Vivek Bhai. The reality is that corporate organizations exist only to make profit and everything in their cultures, is geared to make this happen. People are a resource, like money, raw material, inventory or anything else. That is why they are not called people, but human resource. And treated likewise. After all you don’t ask the coal which furnace it wants to burn in. That is why corporations are the most autocratic and dictatorial of all organizations in our society. That they put on a charade of being ‘democratic’ is nonsense. Litmus Test: After all, which corporation invites employees to elect their managers? All the way to the top all positions of authority are appointed by selection without any consultation with employees and whether employees like those selected or not is immaterial. Which corporation do we know that has managers who come up for re-election? Believe me,if they did, it would do wonders for employee retention, which everyone moans and groans about. Managers play politics to help themselves and their careers, often at the expense of the employees. And when the organization is going through a hard patch, guess who is kicked out in the name of downsizing/rightsizing. The question to ask is, if the new smaller size is the right one, and the organization can still create quality products/services with fewer people, then what must happen to those who hired so many more people than they needed? But that doesn’t. The truth is that people listen with their eyes. They don’t care what you say, until they see what you do.
Thanks Vivek for taking this important subject here
U have brought forth very good examples . Yes, acceptance and moving on is crucial
Our acceptance is also driven by other considerations – social class and reckoning etc etc
Many of us may have forgotten that Fareed Zakaria ,the famous journalist n international renowned news commentator was named and suspended for plagiarism ..( indulged in various writings) .
Bill Clinton was impeached by House of Representatives , not for the ‘incident ‘ but for blocking justice …the Senate did not pass it and he continued his full term
As per news in the public domain, the owner/ promoter of a World recognised Indian whisky brand is none other than the person who served sentence for murder , that made national headlines 20 yrs back !!!
Yes, they have moved on – are today highly regarded by all
Would be good to practice Tolerance and Reformation all around as a way of life
Very rightly brought up issue Sir.
The responsibility lies with the Human Resource Development (HRD) department.
However, the Development “D” is restricted only from the organization’s perspective, the Humans “H” are redundant mute and gagged subjects.
After all, how many times has the CHRO lost her / his job for the cause of employees (whom they are supposed to represent and they are the very purpose of their existence) ?
Yet another masterclass in storytelling, even though it’s your lived experience, the way you weave the context is fantastic and left me with no option but to read the entire piece, at one go. Yet in corporate lives, we make few decisions based on our role for an outcome within the premise of the Factory or establishment. In order to forgive, we must manifest a life-condition of compassion, says my Mentor. In Nichiren Buddhism this is called the life-condition of the bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is someone whose most pressing concern lies with the happiness of others.
TOTALLY AGREE WITH THE AUTHOR,THAT WE SHOULD NOT JUDGE A PERSON BASED ON ONE INCIDENT.TOLERANCE TO OTHERS MIS-DEEDS IS AN ART OF HANDLING INDIVIDUALS ,THAT GOES A LONG WAY IN THE TIME TO COME.