We are a "Soft" People

Vinod Mehta in one of his columns in the Outlook magazine, commented on Advani calling the Congress and Manmohan Singh "soft" on terror. He said, "yes, Congress is soft and so is Advani and the BJP". Says no one in India has the gumption to take a tough stand on anything. I agree, we are a "soft" nation and that includes all of us - from politicians, corporate employees, parents, sportsmen to cops on the streets.
Being soft and the "Bechara Bhala Aadmi" has always been glorified in Hindi movies - the good "soft" guy always wins. The soft guys are the superstars in India - Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar - not Harbhajan Singh or Salman Khan and the aggressive baddies. We would never have a Douglas Jardine or even a Ricky Ponting be a superstar in India, they don't quite fit the "humble and soft" image of the Indian superstars.
Our softness extends to several everyday acts, tasks and anything that involves having to bear a little bit of physical pain, stretching ourselves or facing tough emotional circumstances. It includes, not pushing people to work hard, being soft on them - even at the cost of making them lazy!

Parents and Kids
Our softness, starts when we are kids. The only thing we are pushed "hard" to do by our parents is study. Compare the "hard" discipline that kids grow up with at home in the west, we think its being hard on our children if we get them to do things on time (such as having dinner or sleeping before midnight) or to get them to make their own beds, carry their school bags or do anything themselves. Parents who teach their kids to sleep in their own rooms are often considered to be hard (Hitler!) and heartless. Perhaps the very reason why most of us grow up not being able to do things on our own and grow up having no sense of responsibility or accountability!

Softness in the Corporate World
Many of us would have faced the situation of having to deal with under-performing or plain ill disciplined employees. Try getting their immediate managers to take strict actions against these errant employees or worse still, having to fire them for non-delivery. You would find that it hasn't been done even a few weeks after it was first discussed. Managers find this too hard to do, and the same manager who first complained about these employees not delivering find it "hard" to ask the person to leave or "soften" their stands, wanting to suddenly keep the "bechara" employee (in some other group in the company!). Ask even rational thinking employees to do the right thing in these circumstances and they "chicken out", leaving the hard job to be done by the highest level manager where the buck stops!!

Cops and Citizens
My father used to love the cops in Bangalore (the adjust maadi city) because they were "soft" as compared to the cops (earlier) in Pune, Mumbai. Any traffic violations (such as no license!) and they would let you go after a sorry! Even cops, whom we often find to be the bad and corrupt leeches, get soft on many occasions. Consider how much they would have earned in speed-money if they actually got "hard" with many more people and violations in broad daylight. Talk to some of them and they will use some of the "bechara" words to tell you how its not right to take action on bechara hawkers, traffic violators on two wheelers, cycles and other simple people. In spite of all the other hard things we hear about cops and what they do with ordinary citizens, we wouldn't have the chaos on the roads if they actually got tough with law enforcement.

Politicians and Citizens
I have been working on some projects that involve working with Municipal officials (bureaucrats) in Pune. Many of the seemingly "tough" decisions they take (such as having the road divider go the entire length of the road without the gaps near every shop!!) in the course of their day to day work and trying to work to professionally laid out plans are often overturned by local corporators, MPs and other politicians when a few "bechara" citizens complain about this "injustice". I am sure the politicians know well enough that this "overturned" decision will not ensure their victory in the extremely fickle next election. They still go soft! with citizens because they themselves are (soft).

Gentlemen of Indian Sports
Why India doesn't do well in sports, especially the "hard" ones is surely because we are soft with our youngsters. Coaches, parents, teachers and everybody else in the life of the sportsmen. We are supposed to be a nation of "gentlemen sportsmen", with no killer instincts, not able to push ourselves to win that coveted medal! (notwithstanding the odd aggressive sportsmen like Harbhajan Singh). Sportsmen need to work hard, often having to push themselves to the brink of hard physical pain for a few seconds, but then its not for us soft people! This is perhaps the sole reason for our non-performance at the Olympics. Many nations that have a much lower per capita income, worse infrastructure, more corrupt and bungling officials have won golds at the Olympics, but not us, the soft race!

Gardeners
Gardens, often need the owner or maali to be a little "hard" on his plants, such as having to prune them! or having to uproot plants (or even weeds) that have grown in the wrong place. Try this with my gardener and he'll let me know that its OK, its a plant that has a life! Why uproot it or cut it! It needs your patience and insistence that it just needs to be done, before the "hard" act of uprooting the plant in question or pruning it is actually done. Surely, the reason why many of our gardens look unkempt! as compared to the Arabian concept of "paradise"

When we as a nation start facing some "hard" options to grow, make money, to control terrorism, difficult recessionary times or face a war, we may perhaps toughen up and stop being soft! Until then we'll continue being the "softmen" that we surely are.