Nitopadesha #3: Judging Decisions

In one of the tales in Nitin Pai’s Nitopadesha, an elephant sees a tiger getting ready to attack a deer and its fawn. If she thumped the ground, the deer and her fawn could escape. But that would mean the tiger would instead attack a stag on the other side. The question of the story: what should the elephant do? Either choice would mean the death of someone.

 

The tale takes us through the way one would assess. Is saving two lives better than saving one? But saving two lives means sentencing the stag to death – who gave the elephant the authority to decide that? Round and round the arguments go. The moment one has an argument for one, there is a counterargument for the other. We might have the luxury of time, but the elephant has to make a choice within moments. Worst of all, not making a choice still leads to the deer’s death.

 

No, it’s not a Vikram-Vetaal story with a right answer. Instead, the moral is to remind us that governance is hard and involves such decisions. Often between multiple bad choices and no perfect solution.  Governance is an activity where some decision has to be made, often from amongst many imperfect choices; and making no decision has consequences too.

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A good for nothing fox, unemployed and lazy, was also a drunkard. One night he was kicked out of the bar. As he walked back home angrily, he fell into a gully and fell asleep. A pig walking by saw a bag of coins by the fox. The pig looked around, realized nobody was looking, and so took the pouch and went off.

 

When the fox woke up, he realized he had been robbed. He went to the constable turtle to lodge a complaint. The turtle scolded the fox saying he was a good for nothing drunkard who created a ruckus and disturbed everyone. If he had been robbed, it served him right. With that, the turtle kicked the fox out.

 

The question of the story: who among the three was the worst of all? The useless fox? The robber pig? Or the constable turtle? Remember these tales are about society and good citizenship, so answer from that perspective.

 

This one isn’t easy since none of the characters are good, but:

“The wrongs of those charged with protecting the law are worse than of those who merely break it.”

Because that results in the system not working as intended, and erodes trust and faith in the system. Once that happens, other negative consequences follow.

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The monkey king had created a huge tent. He called all his subjects and announced that they could all be fitted into it. He first asked all the elephants to go in. Is there any space left, the king asked. Hardly, came the answer. Well, let’s send the monkeys in, said the king. The monkeys were able to fit in. Any more space left, asked the king again. Very little. The rabbits were sent in next. They too could be accommodated. Is the tent full? Yes. The king sent in the mice next. They too could fit in the tent.

 

The moral of this story? The order of doing things matters. Imagine if the animals had been sent in reverse order. It is unlikely everyone would have fit it. So too in governance – certain policies and capabilities have to be built first, others later. Doing them in the wrong order doesn’t work. Nor does trying to do everything at the same time.

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The three children of a frog fell sick after straying into an ancient cave. The one who had gone deepest was in worst shape, the one who stayed near the entrance was least affected, and the condition of the one who had gone a little deep was in between. The frog had come to a famous doctor to cure her children.

 

He prescribed a herb, which was given to all three. The condition of the least affected frog improved immediately; the one in between had some improvement but still remained sick; while the one who had gone deepest barely changed.

 

The moral of this story? Remember, the question is from a policy/governance perspective.

“The effect of a policy should be studied at the margin, not at either extreme.”

After all, the least affected may have gotten all right anyway; and the most affected may have crossed the point of recovery altogether. Their outcomes don’t tell us much, and hence should be ignored when evaluating the prescribed cure.