Leadership determines whether institutions flout or value norms

Education of students was clearly the purpose of one of these institutions. Everything reflected it—the behaviour of its teachers, the way its timetable was organized, the buildings and physical space, and more. In the other institution, almost each one of these things reflected a different underlying assumption. That the institution was in the service of God and the education of students was only an instrument for that. 

While we were completely kept out of it, the religious duties and rituals of its staff took precedence in the timetable and its physical spaces, including decorations, were infused with the same spirit. The most sharply felt difference, and yet the subtlest, was the behaviour of teachers. 

Most of them were good teachers, but seemed distanced from students, who were seen perhaps as subjects in an exercise of serving God. We felt it in their black-and-white notions of right and wrong, as well as bounded empathy for students, which would in extreme cases manifest in an unstated sentiment: ‘You and your problems can’t stand between us and our work for God.’

The punishment regimes were distinct too. In the former, it was reformist, but harsh and vindictive in the latter. As though the student who had ‘fallen out of line’ was wilfully acting against their divinely aimed efforts.

I have also seen similarly differing approaches to institutional functioning that can be attributed to different belief systems in hospitals run by religious institutions. The experience of patients in these institutions, however, does not differ as much. This is perhaps because while a student’s transgressions can be construed as an obstacle to the spirit of service to God in an educational setting, in a hospital, no such attribution of motives can be done for illnesses.

Maybe I am being too harsh on one of my alma maters and oversimplifying matters to highlight my basic point—that institutions function based on certain foundational norms or beliefs, which are embedded in the very being of the place. Most often, these are not even articulated, yet influence the institution. It was a nuanced difference in foundational norms that made all the difference between the two institutions.

All our institutions and institutional systems operate with such norms. We take them as given. Some of them are so seemingly obvious that it becomes very difficult to frame them clearly, and instances of their violation often leave us stumped and inarticulate.

On a winter afternoon, we sat at a tea stall. Across the road was the spanking new building of an educational institution that we had come to visit unannounced. It was locked. There was no reason for that, as it was a normal work day. A few groups of students were also at the stall. They had no clue that we were visitors to their institution. We started chatting and the students told us that the principal and 10 faculty members were in cahoots and did pretty much nothing but take their salary home. 

The institution was always shut. New buildings were built because there was money to be made from construction contracts. No complaints were entertained by anyone because the principal was close to some local politicians. And the place was so far from even the district headquarters that if an officer were to come visiting, the fore-warned principal would open the institution to present a charade of normalcy. The principal also ensured that the student body was irreconcilably divided on caste lines, with his own caste group getting a free pass, including in exams, which suggested a wide conspiracy of corruption.

Gross violations of foundational norms for educational institutions, or for that matter any institution, are not uncommon in our country. In this case, the basic norm is that the institution has an educational and social purpose, and its people must act for these purposes. Digressions from this norm do take place in most institutions because of human frailties or wilful misconduct, but within a range. 

That range departs from the foundational norm, but the norm is not erased. Complete subversion of the most foundational of norms amounts to hijacking the institution for altogether different purposes, and this is possible only when the leadership systematically attempts it.

Leadership makes all the difference. In the case of the two education institutions I went to, the nuanced difference between their foundational norms was maintained by and manifest in their leadership. It was remarkable how that seemingly slight difference, through the commitment of leadership, was so evident in every aspect of how they worked. 

At another end, the locked institution I visited was an exhibit of leadership subverting the most foundational of norms. Such systematic and wilful subversion by leaders happens all too often in our institutions—not only in the education sector but elsewhere too. In the messy reality of our country, there are few safeguards against this phenomenon—other than courageous public vigilance.