For a nation that emerges from the trauma of colonisation, cultivating a sense of self-respect in the oppressed citizens becomes a prerequisite for overcoming the trauma that the citizens have sufffered, and moving forward on a path of rapid growth. It is so because colonial powers trample upon the sense of self-worth and self-respect of the local population with a view to subjugate them, and these must be revived for people to emerge from that oppression.
In our case, the British did this by creating civil and police services that looked upon the general population as subjects and not brethren to be served. They did it partly by employing people from upper castes, who already had a sense of entitlement, as officers, and perhaps, also through training. These 'public servants' then ill treated their compatriots and kept their morale down to make things easy for the rulers. Unfortunately this attitude continues unabated and the public has gotten so used to it that any ill and insulting treatment at the hands of public servants and police has become the subject of jokes rather than indignation. Recall the joke about "suji" and "suji" during the COVID era.
The logical thing would have been to dismantle these services, gradually if so required, soon after independence and create new cadres without a sense of entitlement and with a sense of purpose and service. This was never done and the maai-baap mentality amongst government employees continues unabated till date. This is also the root cause of deep seated corruption in our society because public, as subjects to these rulers, must be subservient and must appease them with gifts and presents. The fact that wherever we have been able to bring down corruption, it has been possible only by reducing or eliminating human interfaces with the the help of technology and not because of any change in the mai-baap attitude, bears it out.
The concept of swaraj, where more and more power is brought closer to people and then people given a chance to audit and provide actionable feed back on the outcomes achieved by the exercise of that power is one way to achieve the said goal. This is opposed to a highly centralized model where the power holders get insulated by intervening tiers.
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