We are creatures of habit; traditions are expected events and daily routines become automatic. But change, even for a good cause, jolts us in uncomfortable ways. Change in our life perpetuated by external agency makes us feel as though we have lost control on our territory
At first it is shock, then confusion, a desperate need to defend one’s views, attempts to reason out the inner anxiety, followed by a sense of crisis, and after a while, acceptance. Often this somewhat is the trajectory of emotions we ride on when faced with change — for better or for worse — that is triggered by an external agency. Of course besides this, there could be various degrees of resistance, ranging from subtle to outright hostility.
In the past, there have been large political events, driven by leaders of politics or of civil society, that have manifested in change of status quo for thousands of citizens. When the Berlin Wall was brought down on November 9, 1989, with the thawing of the Cold War, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced that starting midnight, citizens of the German Democratic Republic were free to cross the country’s borders. What this really meant was that Germans on both sides were instantly thrust into a system where they had to sink or swim. For example, the erstwhile East Germans coped with higher rents, expensive food, no job guarantees, and an overall higher cost of living. Whereas the hard-earned taxes of those on the West were now to be spent on bringing up to speed their new fellow citizens from the East, availability of jobs in the flourishing West Germany would be shared with the newcomers from East Germany, and the culture of the land would most definitely change.
The same can be said for the fall of dictatorships and subsequent change of regimes in the Middle East during 2010-2012. The uprisings in Tunisia, libya, and Egypt were indeed largely people’s movements, but all citizens in these countries were neither involved nor desirous of the changes that ensued during and after each of the revolutions. Dictators were brought down by civil society leaders but the consequential changes in society and economy, especially in libya and Egypt, have hardly been rosy. Ordinary citizens have been left to cope with massive changes in their day to day lives.
In all cases, when faced with change caused by, say, such large political events, or a Government policy, an employer, or a loved one at home, individuals react with emotions. Each of us has differences in our overall tolerance for change. Some of us are euphoric and enjoy it, while some others abhor it and prefer doing what they are used to — routine, tradition, status quo.
I can think of a few reasons why we react emotionally to change. We are creatures of habit. Traditions are ‘expected’ events, daily routines become automatic, but change — even for a good cause — jolts us in uncomfortable ways. Change in our life perpetuated by an external agency makes us feel as though we have lost control on our territory. It interferes with our personal autonomy and self-determination. Moreover, a change that is imposed suddenly, with no time to get used to the idea or prepare for the consequences, is generally resisted. It is easier to say “no” than to say “yes”.
Change also questions our competence: Can I do what this changed scenario demandsIJ If we doubt our competence to cope with the change, it makes us feel ignored, sidelined, incompetent, stupid. We might outwardly express it all as scepticism about whether the new scenario will work or not, but actually, on the inside, we are worried whether we ourselves will be able to cope with the new changed scenario. Will we miss what used to beIJ
Change is resisted because it can hurt too. When a new company management replaces an old one, jobs can be lost. When a new Government policy curtailing current practices is brought out, then our actions are forcefully restricted and so it causes us inconvenience. Further, if there is mistrust in the decision-maker or even a sliver of doubt about the reason or expected results of the change, then the resistance to the change may also be combined with us fearing the unknown.
In India, within a span of 48 hours last week, there were the Supreme Court pronouncements on two issues. One, on October 9, was a ban on sale of firecrackers in Delhi through the Hindu festival of Diwali until November 1, 2017. Second, on October 11, the clause, which was a part of India’s law on rape that said intercourse between a man and his wife was permissible as long as she was over 15 years of age, was changed. The judgment said that girls under 18 would be able to charge their husbands with rape as long as they complained within one year of being forced to have sexual relations.
The second pronouncement was welcomed by India’s urban elite — because it would hardly change their lives. Around 320,000 of our little girls in India, barely 15 years of age, are currently married and have given birth to two children already, but they live mostly in rural India. For the families and communities that these girls belong to and tens of millions more in the pipeline, the Supreme Court pronouncement is a significant change to their traditional lifestyle, aspirations, expectations, and plans.
But it is the first pronouncement — the ban on sale of firecrackers for a few days — that raised a furore. The elite vociferously debated for and against the ban. The intent of the ban, its legitimacy, the moral basis of it, predicaments of the efficiency in implementing it, were all thrashed out publicly. Bafflingly, even though the past few Diwalis, our lungs have been choked with particulate matter (PM) released by the crackers and we can barely see through the toxic smog each year even during the week after Diwali, some intellectuals brought out data and pie charts to show that, in fact, firecrackers are harmless.
So resistant are we to change that logic belies us. They argued that the single largest contributor to air pollution is road dust — accounting for 56 per cent of PM 10 and 38 per cent of PM 2.5,vehicles add another 9 per cent to the PM 10 pollution and 20 per cent to the PM 2.5 pollution. Domestic fuel burning adds another 12 per cent. Indeed Delhi’s problem is compounded by the fact that it is surrounded by States such as Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh, where fields are burnt after the harvest to clear the stubble. So why only ban firecrackersIJ
Of course, it is hard to say to what extent firecrackers are responsible for the overall pollution in Delhi. But it is equally tough to decipher to what extent the right given to girls under the age of 18 to charge their husbands of rape helps the overall gender inequality in India.
The Indian elite also questioned why more intelligent measures were not taken to restrict the use of crackers, instead of an outright ban that curbs our freedomIJ But would anything less than a Supreme Court judgment have worked to stop marital rape of underage girlsIJ
The ban on sale of firecrackers will be difficult to implement, and our elite went to great lengths explaining why they thought so, and therefore reasoning that the Supreme Court should not have enforced the ban. There were several arguments against the ban, published by metropolitan intellectuals on their Twitter feeds and Opinion Editorials, that even analysed the impact of the ban on the Indian economy, asking why it was not implemented in all cities in India, and so on and so forth. But the rights given to our little girls living in conservative villages charging their husbands of marital rape will be far more excruciating to implement. Do we imagine that just a court pronouncement will give power to a 15-year-old to stand up against a patriarchal familyIJ It would probably take a few generations for her rights to move from court papers to her life. So should the court not have made this pronouncement to stop the marital rape of underage girlsIJ
We hear from the elite, loud and clear, with their arguments peppered with theory and jargon. They complain about the change they have to now suffer of not bursting firecrackers with joy on a festival to kill our lungs. The families of the 320,000 girls do not have a voice. Yet, in both cases, these citizens — belonging to two very different economic and social brackets — will have to accept the change and roll with it gradually, largely for their own good.
The writer is the CEO of Sustain labs, a sustainability incubator. She is a Global leadership Fellow alumna of the World Economic Forum. Her debut book published by Penguin Random House releases in January 2018