Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy hearing a P-I-L case made the following observation on 19th Feb 2021:
There could be some unruly delivery men who might refuse to complete the delivery on non-payment of tips, just as there are customers who are difficult to handle, the judges emphasised the need to consider the physical pain undergone by the labourers who deliver the cylinders.
This made me thinking.
In my early years after college, having travelled to western countries for the first time, I was disgusted with these petty bribes (aka tips) in India with delivery boys, telephones lineman, postman during festivals, autowala’s demand for above meter and so on. After running a business for two decades and been through life-experiences, I feel this is not so black n white like I had thought so earlier.
Bribe anywhere is evil. Period.
But we can’t put a delivery boy’s tips or Auto above meter charges on par with the corruption in Government corridors, they are two different things. The idea that the former leads to the later feel hollow (I am eager to hear why you think I am wrong on this).
Society has to start being humane and generous to the labourers and manual workers. If more of us voluntarily and happily start giving tips, just like we do in restaurants, they won’t need to demand.
Yes, I know, when you are proud of your work you won’t like to receive tips and feel they are alms. But with inflation and salaries for these people remaining steady, all this sounds philosophy and not useful to put rice on the plate.
What are a few tens of rupees when we are anyways paying bribes (directly or indirectly) in our life every day in India?
What do you think?
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