Much has been made of the inability of Indians to follow instructions while boarding a flight. Just yesterday, an article in the New York Times used it as a symbol of how Indians are inherently selfish and disregard rules without caring about the common good. Having seen this first hand, I can attest to the truth of this. We are without doubt, the worst boarders of flights in the world.
But I disagree that it’s because we can’t or don’t want to follow instructions. Indians behave just fine when abroad. When boarding a flight which has non Indians or westerners on it, they stick to the rules as scrupulously as anyone else. When on foreign soil and amongst foreigners, they don’t jump queues or disregard rules. They do it only when they’re surrounded by other Indians. And many Indians are relieved when they come abroad that people follow the traffic laws and that order is maintained in general. So it’s not that Indians don’t like regulations. They love it when everyone else is following them and they don’t mind doing the same.
And here’s the crux. The real reason why Indians don’t follow rules in the presence of other Indians is that we don’t trust our countrymen to follow them! Following rules is good only when everyone around you is doing the same. It’s nice to stand in a line knowing that your turn will come only as long as you have faith that others won’t jump the queue. It’s the same with traffic rules. If you’re the only guy on the road scrupulously driving within the lanes and following every rule to the “T,” you’re at a massive disadvantage. When you don’t trust others to behave properly, there’s no incentive for you to do so.
This is the secret of the Indian’s refusal to follow rules and behave in a dignified way. Which is why the same person when abroad will behave in one way, but when they return to their homeland, they adopt a different behavior. We have a very low opinion of other Indians and when we’re in a group, we sink to the lowest common denominator in our own minds.
This is quite sad really because it’s a self reinforcing mindset. Say you have a set of Indians who all would like to follow rules, not jump queues, and board flights in a dignified manner. If they don’t trust each other to behave properly, they will all break the rules at the same time since the last one to behave properly loses. Then they come away satisfied that their analysis of their countrymen was correct.
If my analysis is correct, it’s time to stop beating on Indians for being inherently uncivilized, rude, or disregardful of rules. We’d like to not be like that. And when we’re in a society where we know others behave properly, we do the same, reap the benefits, and thank our luck for being amongst such nice people. But when we don’t trust the people around us, we turn into the kind of obnoxious jerks we all like to think Indians really are.
So it comes down to how we view ourselves. As long as we think in terms of “Indians are like this” or “Indians are like that,” it will become a self enforcing idea. When sufficient people change and start having a better view of our fellow men, then things will improve. But it’s not easy. Someone has to take the first step after all and be punished for it. I guess we just need to give it time. A lot of time.
India’s social structure is built for competition. There is always the us versus them. It starts at the family, caste, income level and goes all the way to state, region and finally country.
Indians of various castes, states and regions have little in common with each other. We are all struggling to make a living, trying to get ahead.
Boarding a flight out of order is more of a communication issue. And has to to more with the fact that the current generation of passengers are probably boarding the flight for the first time in their lives.
As time goes passes, people will get used to the idea that the plane will not take off without all of them. The current generation grew up chasing buses and trains and hanging on to doors and windows of various means of transport.
Its a survival mechanism, people need to hurry up in India if they want a seat on the bus or the general compartment.Wait for another 20 years, airline queues will become orderly as infrastructure catches up. Until then, we are like this only.
In reply to required
That’s quite insightful – especially the part about running to catch buses. Though this doesn’t explain why Indians suddenly become the model of discipline when surrounded by foreigners…
In reply to bhagwad
It is an issue of scarcity. India has been an economy of scarcity. There has always been a shortage of everything. I do not think it is so much of competition issue. The plane may not fly without you but if you are among last to board you will not get place to keep your baggage in the overhead locker. Unless we control our population and provide sufficient availability of everything from food to infrastructure, we will be like this. This also answers to some extent, why we behave when in a foreign land. The availability is in abundance.
In reply to Girish
Agreed – competition makes us the way we are :)
Agree with both you and the commenter above that it is a question of circumstance – in India, the only way to get ahead is by pushing, when there are 1 billion people competing for resources, the competition is bound to be intense.
Don’t agree that Indians necessarily do better abroad where rules do work. The NYT example is of a flight in Frankfurt. Here in Hong Kong, I have seen Indians do the same even on flights with a whole set of other nationalities. I have seen Indians, including the older generation in my own family, rush into the train pushing other people away, to get a seat – even when they have to get out a couple of stops away. It comes from growing up in a place where one had to push and shove to get somewhere, or be left behind in the dust. It has become almost instinct… even when I explained that people don’t do that here, and that the train won’t leave without you and if it does, another one will come in 1 minute literally, I notice that particular gleam in the eye of certain people gearing up for the fight of getting a seat.
By the way, Mainland Chinese are much reviled in Hong Kong for the same reason, they also push and do this crowd behaviour. Again, a country with billion plus people where systems do not work properly and you have to push and cut rules to get ahead.
In reply to The Bride
Very true. Population certainly has a lot to do with this. I noticed in New York for example where the population density is high, that everyone pushes and shoves irrespective of nationality. So competition for scare resources is certainly a large part of it which is difficult to shake off even when there is none.
But take driving for example. Lots of Indians in the US obey traffic rules even more strictly than their American counterparts – and love the way things work without a hitch. But when they get back to India, they resume their old driving habits…
Also, queues are a tool for fairly managing the distribution of scare resources amongst a large number of people. I would actually think that the more crowded a place is, the more people would find queues useful. But when one doesn’t have faith in other people, then the whole system falls apart.
In reply to bhagwad
Very well said. Apart from the issue of faith in the system, if you are the one standing in queue and some one bypases and get the last ticket (or whatever last), how do you feel? So if we trust that system is transparent, we will behave for sure.
In reply to The Bride
Chinese people are also terrible at waiting in line.
You’re absolutely right Bhagwad. I couldn’t have put it in a better way myself.
Yes, we distrust and compete. Russel Peters said in one of his shows that Indians hate other Indians. We dont hate other Indians, we just want a bigger slice of the pie. That will show the others that we are better than them.
Did you happen to read Aakaar Patel ? :):)
http://www.livemint.com/articles/Authors.aspx?author=Aakar%20Patel&type=wa
In reply to Khalil Sawant
Some interesting articles there Khalil :)
Great analysis. Think you have got it spot on:)
This is a good illustration of the prisoners dilemma and the kind of thing that economic design tries to fix (see: http://sabhlokcity.com/2011/07/economic-design-of-democracy-and-bureaucracy/)
In reply to Sanjeev Sabhlok
True Sanjeev – an excellent demonstration of the prisoner’s dilemma. I thought of putting that in, but wasn’t sure how many readers would understand what I was talking about :)
In reply to bhagwad
:) Again mistrust of other Indians (considering predominantly Indians read your blog)..
In reply to sakthi
Hey, that had nothing to do with Indians! I’m pretty sure that even fewer firangs would have got it :)
In reply to bhagwad
arrey was jus kidding :D
This is a good blog post.. agree with most commentors about coming from a country of a billion people.. But I always feel that family matters more than your country on how you turn out to be as an adult.. Most Indians follow the rules here because they cannot flaunt their association with any biggies when they get a ticket..
In reply to sakthi
Hmm. Perhaps. But I think even those who don’t claim to have important associations disregard rules in India…
I agree. It’s a matter of trust and over-population and competition. And can so totally relate about being the only one to follow the rules and be ‘goody-goody’…I have felt like a total fool in the apartment building, kids’ school, road, shops, family….anywhere, if you don’t take ‘shortcuts’ and rush ahead…you lose and get cursed and laughed at by everyone swarming past you. Still, I follow the rules :(
There are times when I deliberately slow down to let a person or vehicle cross the road, and am met with disbelief and total distrust from that person, and yells and thumps from the vehicles behind me :roll:
In reply to starry eyed
You should be proud of yourself! I wish everyone just did the right thing regardless of what other people thought. Moreover, you then pass this behavior on to your children and hopefully lots of other parents are doing the same :)
In reply to starry eyed
“met with disbelief and total distrust” lol THIS. As if you stopped just so you could look them in the eye before you run over them.
This post reminds me of a recent incident. My BIL was selling his house and the buyer was another Indian. This guy was nitpicking on very small details like a missing light bulb and when my BIL offered to pay for the fixes to be completed by the buyer, the buyer insisted that all be done by the seller and did not take the cash rebate. This has made life a little difficult for my BIL who is very busy with his schedule and 2 kids and now needs to also ensure these very minor repairs are done.
My BIL was ranting that all Indians are “like this only” and he would not want to deal with Indians in the future. The irony (apart from him being Indian too) is that when my BIL buys anything, he wants total paisa vasool. He has persuaded customer service into giving him freebies for very minor things that he made a big deal of, he got the price of his car purchase down by finding hard to find scratches….things like that. And now that he is on the other end of the bargain, he feels pinched. But I doubt he will change his ways, only he wont deal with “Indians”
In reply to Clueless
So true! I wonder whether he, and all other Indians, are aware of this hypocrisy, don’t count it as hypocrisy, or are completely unaware of the irony.
It would be nice if some social psychologist come chip in and throw some light on this :)