Too little too late’ exposes inability to handle ‘midlife blues’

“All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral or fattening”, opined American critic and journalist Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table. In a way, the phrase captures a humorous sentiment about pleasure and indulgence.

That sort of a feeling, something akin to what is called ‘midlife blues’, comes to most people when they are nearing what can perhaps be called the early part of late middle age. A feeling that an experience, or an object, which one always wanted to enjoy, is happening, or becoming available, at a time when it no longer carries the pleasure it had originally promised.

The Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) cars, for instance, which both my children have, are now everywhere, but it has been some 15 years since I gave up driving. The dream of space travel, which one always was attracted by, has also now become a reality. However, it is out of the question as far as I am concerned on account of age related health issues. As is the ability to avail of the offer by my travel agent for a week’s holiday in a ski resort in Switzerland!

Such is the case not only with individuals, but also with institutions and, very often, even with governments of countries.

Many such instances can be thought of in the context of the actions taken by the central and state governments in the past; actions which, unfortunately, continue to persist with. The folly of writing off of loans extended by financial institutions is one such example.

For one thing, loans are meant to be repaid, and write offs encourage default and vitiate the recovery climate. Also, those who avail institutional financial assistance are, usually, financially sound institutions or well-to-do persons, who could well have afforded to repay those loans.

As far as the resource poor are concerned, they almost always have a good reason for being unable to discharge their liability, such as crop failure or a natural calamity impacting on the financial viability of their activities or professions. The worst facet of the pernicious practice is that, having knowingly or otherwise, extended substantial assistance to such borrowers, without observing what, in the language of the financial world, is called ‘due diligence’, the institutions invariably reach a situation of near collapse. And the central and state governments rush to recapitalise them with unholy haste and great enthusiasm, not unaware of the fact that history will repeat itself, first as tragedy and second as farce, as Karl Marx put it.

Then follows a nationwide furore, with a lot of chest beating about how institutions were cheated, and governments misled. Half-hearted efforts are then made to bring the culprits to book, with full knowledge of the futility, on account of the procedural protocols prescribed by domestic law and the extent of international arrangements with countries where such people find comfortable havens.

A classic case of ‘too little too late’, as one can think of, or ‘shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted’, if one prefers that turn of phrase.

Another case in point is the manner in which the central and state governments responded to the crisis created a few years back by the Covid – 19 pandemic, particularly the ‘second wave’, as it was called.

For one thing, the abrupt, and sudden, announcement of a nationwide lockdown, left many institutions, and enterprises, not to mention the general public, totally unprepared for the consequences. The result was a mass exodus of migrant workers, who were left without jobs, or social support, in the urban areas. The government, no doubt, made an attempt to compensate them through what was known as the ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts. That intervention, however, turned out to be inadequate and seen as coming too late.

Another issue was the state of the healthcare infrastructure, especially having regard to the intensity of the epidemic. There were shortages of oxygen, hospital beds and essential medicines, and patients were put to severe distress and suffering as a result. The countervailing measures by the governments, unfortunately, not only proved inadequate but also served to show that had they been taken earlier, thousands of valuable lives could have been saved.

There were other issues like for instance, the perhaps unnecessary export of indigenously produced vaccines, whose shortage was to prove a serious issue later on.

Another was the failure of the governments to prevent activities involving large public gatherings during that period, such as election campaigns, and religious events, which led to an accelerated spread of the virus vector.

The half-hearted, and delayed, response to the issue of acute pollution in the capital city and the inability to develop an adequate, and robust, national strategy for meeting the challenges posed by the emerging phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence, called by many as a ‘double-edged sword’, are also being seen as signs of lack of alertness, and preparedness, on the part of public systems.

Life can also, on occasion, present situations where there is a sense of something being done in a ‘too much too soon’ mode. Quite contrary, in the sense they convey, to the phenomenon being discussed.

There is this story, about a dignitary, who was invited by the administration of a village, to participate in a series of functions spread over a few days. As it happened, however, he arrived too early and the village elders were caught unprepared. Somehow or other, they managed to get their act together, and the visiting VIP began to fulfil his commitments. As he was leaving, an impressive function was got up at the railway station to bid farewell. The village head, while making a speech on the occasion, said, “Sir, we are sorry that on account of circumstances beyond our control, we could not receive you in a satisfactory manner”, and added, “However, we have great pleasure in seeing you off!” The actual intention really was to express happiness at the proper manner in which the farewell function had been arranged. But the statement conveyed a totally unintended impression!

(The writer was formerly

Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)