The republic, self–regulation and Positive Psychology

‘Republic’ means a government by popular sovereignty or self-government as in the case of our dear motherland, India.

This means that a huge group of people comes together to form a system that governs them. This system has to be based on cooperation, trust and belief in the systems created by the people and for the people. All sounds rather excellent. But is it really possible for such a large group of people to cooperate towards a movement that falls into a pattern?

The existence of the ocean lies in the soul and vision of every drop of water in it.

As William Blake says –

To see a World in a Grain of Sand 

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour….

So the existence of our republic lies in the grain of sand and strengthening this grain by Self Governance. What is self-governance? It is ‘knowing’ the right from wrong and doing the right for no expectation of a reward and no fear of punishment. It means that we have to trust our own perception, hone our own judgment, follow rules and guidelines put forth by our own republic and know that we are contributing to the betterment of this large group of people by contributing to our own betterment.

We all know that we are supposed to stand when the signal is red and go when it is green. It is a simple law accepted throughout the world. Is the law a whim of a few people called a government? Clearly not! This law is meant for safety, meant to create harmony on roads, have more predictability in schedules, it is meant for people to stay stress free and enjoy their travel,. All these aspects would clearly lead to better mental health, better time management and obviously to a collective prosperity. Will any person reading this paragraph come up with a negative repercussion of ‘following the signal’ law for the society as a whole? No.

For the last 4-5 years I have been relentlessly asking drivers of all kinds in Mumbai about their reasoning while breaking traffic rules. I have just not had the opportunity to talk to BEST drivers in Mumbai.

The reasons given are, “Chalta hai”, “4 second hi to bacha hai”, “I have checked, there are no cameras on this signal”, “Police toh nahin hai”, “People are honking behind me”. Bikers who assume that the registration of their vehicle comes with absolute immunity of law and rules give best answers. Their revelations are, “I got a bike so that I don’t have to stop at the signal”, “Its just a bike”, “What about my momentum?”

It is interesting that people spend so much time in thinking about cameras, seconds, policemen, etc. every time they JUST HAVE TO STOP AT THE SIGNAL. In the same time, reaping the benefits of the rule, they could do so many other useful things or at least have good mental health with stress free driving. But no! They actually want to waste such an important resource named ‘time’ and to top up the tragedy, they also want to put their own and others’ life at risk.

This is just one example of wasted effort. One can find various such examples all around us. Right from travel to shopping, exercise to diets, lifts to fire safety, from investments to taxes, from making affidavits to accepting an act formed by their own elected government; in every aspect of public life Indians are spending tremendous amounts of emotional and intellectual energy on their aversion towards and evasion of rules.

In one discussion I said that we must follow rules to our best and not bribe officials because we are lazy to go through a documentation process. Completely bypassing my concern, a slightly elderly gentleman said, “But why do officials accept bribe? Is it not their job to refuse it?” if you can see, this is the lamest manner in which we can validate ‘no self-regulation’.

Regulation is inevitable whether by self or someone else. Other regulated people can be easily manipulated because they cannot move beyond punishments and rewards. We fall in the category of tomorrow’s endangered species if we land up getting manipulated by the ‘other’.

If we wish to be proud of our republican state for numerous decades to come, we must follow a few rules and also teach them to our children. Ask –

1. Do I have the information that I need from the most authentic source possible to make my own individual judgment about the situation under consideration?
2. Am I ready to take an extra step towards reading and analyzing the same?
3. Am I ready to allow people to debate with me to add value to my thinking?
4. Am I capable of keeping my emotions in check and allow reason to ride over emotions?
5. Am I doing everything that I can to participate in my environment with responsibility?
6. Do I take pride in practicing before I preach?
7. Can I seamlessly regulate my own behavior and ‘wait’ for others to fall in line?
8. Do I tell myself that I do the right thing because I believe in it and not because it gives me rewards, it avoids punishment or because others are doing the same?

Even if we are able to reach to a ‘yes’ to each of these questions, we have actually realized the true rationale of the glorious Republic we belong to. Are we really a nation of 150 crores head count? Or are we a nation of 150 crores self regulated persons who understand the value of the opportunity of self-regulation as against other regulation?