Although India has been supposedly “liberalized” for over 15 years now, the new

reality does not seem to have percolated down to our politicians and our labour
courts. A minor news report, published on Sunday, provides one more illustration
of this.

The report states that the Maharashtra Home Department has asked public
prosecutors to withdraw judicial proceedings against four Air Traffic Controllers
(ATC), who had been charged with dereliction of duty and endangering the lives of
members of the public. Calling a flash strike in 1999 the four men had instructed
ATC officers not to give any signal to planes with respect to landing and take
off. This resulted in 22 airplanes hovering over the airport at the same time, for
lack of instructions from the ground – a serious safety hazard.

In my opinion, this action by the ATC speaks of irresponsibility of the highest

order. The controllers were literally playing with the lives of hundreds of
innocent passengers. If a major air disaster was averted, it was only due to the
skill of the pilots and the grace of God. In any other civilized country, the four
men would have been charged with culpable manslaughter, prosecuted and probably
sent to jail.

This is India, however, the workers’ paradise. To their credit, the judiciary
twice held – at the High Court and Supreme Court level – that the four men be
prosecuted and sentenced. Indeed, the accused were initially dismissed from
service by the Airport Authority of India. So far, so good. It is what happened
later that is inexcusable. After a suitable period, the management reinstated them
on “humanitarian grounds”. Humanitarian grounds – are they serious? Did the
accused display even a shard of humanity when they intentionally put hundreds of
innocent men, women and children at grave risk? No, all they were concerned about
was a bigger pay packet. And now the ‘benevolent’ state government has compounded
the felony by asking for withdrawal of judicial proceedings.

No one is disputing that the right to strike is guaranteed by the constitution of

India. What is often lost sight of is that, with this right comes responsibility.
A strike is a weapon given to labour to wrest reasonable demands from the
management – and their dispute is limited to the management. Under no
circumstances are they justified in inconveniencing or endangering the general
public, who are not a party to the dispute. Yet, this is precisely what happens,
frequently and with impunity. And it is not just the labour unions. Our political
parties are renowned for enforcing illegal bandhs – and shutting down the city –
at the slightest opportunity to score brownie points. This has not only caused
severe inconvenience to the general public – who may or may not support the cause
of the bandh, but are forced to remain indoors and miss work nonetheless – it has
also been known to cause casualties. There have been recorded instances of
seriously ill patients dying, because ambulances were not permitted to ply the
roads. It is a shameful state of affairs. Yet, when the so-called law makers
themselves break the law with impunity, there is little recourse available to the
public.

The failed experiment of Nehruvian socialism was given a decent burial a long time
ago. India is on its way to becoming a world power, not because of our
politicians, but in spite of them. Populism may win votes, but it has been proved
to have disastrous consequences time and again. It is about time our “leaders” got
the message.