One such regrettable attitude is that the time, which is nothing but a function of life itself, of people occupying positions of importance, is somehow more valuable than those of the unfortunates, who have to meet them. Hence the ubiquitous queues before the offices of any petty official. Instead of feeling ashamed that because their offices are run so badly that people have to meet them to redress their grievances, our petty tyrants feel a sense of misplaced pride that they are so important that "lesser" mortals have to waste their time in queuing up before them.
This arbitrary allocation of "subaltern" status to the ruled as opposed to the "rulers" (which itself is an anachronism in a presumed democracy), apart from violating human dignity enshrined in the Constitution, is causing loss of millions of manhours of productive labour of people waiting in queues for goods & services which are after all, their birthright.
Even after waiting till eternity, there is no guarantee that the applicants work will be done. Two examples, one from films & one from real life may drive home the point. In the Kannada film "Tabbaliyu neenade magane", the village schoolmaster wants to meet the tahsildar, but is refused by the ubiquitous flunkey on the stool outside the door. But when he meets his friend the rich landlord, he takes him inside pronto!
The other example is the real life experience of the famous "serial" entrepreneur Capt. Gopinath. When he went to Delhi for some clearance, the official looked at his watch after a few minutes & said he had a meeting. This repeated many times, until the good Captain brought pressure from another lobby to expedite the matter!
Rather than a high GDP, the eradication of such mindsets, will tend to make our country a developed one.
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