Chalta hain???

Mysuru, 8th October 2026

I had the privilege of conducting a 2-day stakeholder management workshop for a renewable energy organisation. The participants' key responsibility was engaging with villagers and farmers on land acquisition matters.

On the way to Mysuru, I was, as usual, occupied with my musings about life, making up stories (mostly hypothetical) about people passing by, and my favourite activity, sleeping.

My commute started in Bengaluru, and after the snail-paced city traffic, I was finally on the Mysuru highway. With the car making full use of its horsepower, I tucked in for the long ride.

And obviously (you knew this was coming), the car came to a grinding halt within 15 minutes. 

A long line of cars, trucks, and whatnot stood still on the highway. After waiting for about 10 minutes, I got out to investigate. Turns out, an SUV had decided to take the wrong side of the road, come hurtling down the wrong lane, and had a mini accident with someone driving in their actual right lane.

With the incident giving me another extra 20 minutes (alas!), I started thinking about a rather peculiar phenomenon: our ability to identify a problem, explain why it is someone else's fault, and then continue doing exactly what we were doing before.

The person driving on the wrong side is clearly at fault. The person who gets hit is the victim. The traffic police should do something. The government should improve road discipline. The authorities should install cameras, build better roads, impose stricter fines and perhaps, if time permits, personally escort us to our destinations.

(Or, if I had my way, ghuma ke laga do to the wrong-side-driving buffoon.)

But somewhere in all this outrage, an inconvenient question remains unanswered:

What was the driver doing on the wrong side of the road in the first place?

And that, I think, is where the problem begins.

We are a country of highly capable people, with an extraordinary ability to solve complex problems, manage ambiguity, negotiate deals and occasionally engage in literal warfare between animals and flora(ifyyk). 

But when it comes to taking responsibility for the most basic things that affect us, our families, our communities and the country at large, we seem to have developed a rather sophisticated philosophy- “Not my job.”

Take seat belts, for instance.

We know what they are for. We know they save lives. We know that the back seat is not some magical zone where Newton himself appears and announces that his laws of physics no longer apply. And yet, how many of us have travelled in the back seat without wearing a seat belt, telling ourselves that it is just a short distance, the driver is driving slowly, or nothing has ever happened to us before?

The last one is particularly fascinating. Apparently, surviving our previous bad decisions is proof that the next one is perfectly safe.

Helmets are another favourite.

I know people who wear helmets not because they value their lives, but because they want to avoid a traffic challan. I've even seen people rush to put on their helmets when they realise the police are approaching. Think about that for a moment. The helmet is not a safety device in this story. It is a prop in a game of hide-and-seek with the traffic police.

We have somehow turned compliance into a game where the objective is not to do the right thing, but to avoid being caught doing the wrong thing.

The question is not whether we know what is right. The question is whether we believe doing the right thing is our responsibility even when nobody is watching.

Then there is garbage.

We attend leadership workshops, discuss sustainability, talk about building a better future for our children and perhaps even post an inspiring quote on LinkedIn about leaving the world a better place than we found it.

And then, during the workshop, we end up drinking atleast 4 plastic bottles, and leaving one half empty as well (I get absolutely livid when this happens), and the icing on the cake- on the way back, we throw a plastic bottle out of the car window because, well, the road is already dirty.

I have heard variations of this argument: “One wrapper is not going to make a difference.”

Of course, it isn't. Neither is one person picking it up. Neither is one person following a traffic rule, refusing a bribe, or choosing not to forward misinformation.

But millions of people making the same calculation at the same time? That makes a difference. Just not the kind we would like. Compounding works here too! 

We expect the municipality to clean up after us, the police to discipline us, the government to protect us, the school to teach our children values, the HR department to build culture, the manager to create accountability, and the next generation to fix whatever we have left behind.

And before you assume that I am writing this from the moral high ground, I am not.

I have my own blind spots. Having two children has made me more conscious of the world we are leaving behind. I have made a few changes, reducing single-use plastic, using two-wheelers or the metro when possible, and making more conscious lifestyle choices. A small win has been that in a nearby sabji mandi where I go every Sunday, all vendors now recognize me as the "bhaiya jo panni nhi lete!"

But there is still so much more to do.

Perhaps that is precisely the point. Responsibility is not a destination we reach. It is a choice we keep making, which brings me to the two days of stakeholder management I was travelling to Mysuru for.

When we talk about stakeholder management, we often focus on how to influence others, build trust, communicate better, and bring different people together towards a common goal. We discuss how organisations must understand communities, how leaders must listen to employees and how governments must engage with citizens.

All of that is important. But stakeholder management also requires us to recognise something fundamental: we are not merely stakeholders in someone else's actions; we are stakeholders in the outcomes we collectively create.

The farmer cannot be expected to trust an organisation that refuses to understand his concerns. An organisation cannot assume that having all the necessary approvals automatically earns it the community's trust. And constructive engagement requires stakeholders to be willing to participate in finding a way forward. Of course, responsibility is not always equal. An organisation with greater power and resources has obligations that an individual farmer may not have. Shared outcomes require participation, but accountability must reflect each stakeholder's role and responsibilities.

Responsibility cannot be a one-way street. Ironically, unlike the highway I was on, it should not have a wrong side.

Yet, in our everyday lives, we seem to have confused being a stakeholder with being a spectator. We want a say in what happens. We want the benefits of a well-functioning society. We certainly want the freedom to point out everything that is wrong with it.

But when it comes to doing our bit, we wait for someone else to take the first step.

The government should change. Organisations should change. Communities should change. Our colleagues should be more accountable. Our leaders should set better examples. Our children should grow up differently.

And we? We shall wait patiently for all of them to change first.

Perhaps the bigger problem is not illiteracy. It is what I would call “adopted illiteracy”  being educated enough to understand what is right, but unwilling to take responsibility for doing it.

We can be educated, professionally accomplished, articulate, and perfectly capable of explaining the world, yet somehow forget the simple responsibility of being part of it.

We can be brilliant at our jobs and irresponsible in our lives. And perhaps that is the most uncomfortable contradiction of all.

A better country will not be built only by better policies, better infrastructure, better institutions, or better leaders. It will also be built by ordinary people who stop treating responsibility as someone else's job.

Wear the helmet because your life matters, not because a police officer might see you. Wear the seat belt because the people who love you expect you to return home, not because a camera might issue a challan.

Put your garbage where it belongs because a clean street is everyone's responsibility, not because a municipal worker will eventually clean it up.

And the next time something goes wrong, before asking who is responsible for fixing it, perhaps we can pause and ask ourselves two more difficult questions:

Have I contributed to this problem?

And is there something I can do about it?

Perhaps we don't need to wait for everyone else to change.

“Let me do my bit” might be the best thing possible. 

Think about it!!!