The trouble with a knee-jerk reaction is that it not only fails to address a problem at hand, but complicates matters as well. The response of the Karnataka home minister KJ George to Wednesday's horrific attack on a woman at a Bangalore ATM is precisely that. The minister, in his infinite wisdom, has asked banks to post guards at these kiosks within three days, or shut them down. In his desperation to sound pro-active, George has failed to see a number of things.
First, for a city with 2500 ATMs where a fourth don't have security guards, it may be more than a tad difficult for banks to find both the right number and right kind of such personnel. And all within three days, because the minister asserts so. One is not even beginning here to talk of the number of licensed operators or personnel available in the city. The words 'logistics' and 'feasibility' don't figure in his lexicon. Second, the nitwitted threat to shut down ATMs, if many indeed have to down shutters even temporarily, will invariably inconvenience people the most. ATMs might have come into being primarily to ease the workload and traffic at banks, but those made life easier for people too. A minister probably doesn't have to visit ATMs to withdraw cash; we can't expect such men to understand what it means for an ordinary person to have a less complicated life. The other, undesirable fallout can be that of banks resorting to knee-jerk reactions in turn. Already, there are a number of banks in Bangalore that coerce customers to write down their mobile numbers and email addresses at ATM counters. Privacy and security be damned, and let rude and crude guards rule the roost.
The reason why politicians resort to knee-jerk reactions is two-fold: one, the inordinate pressure to come up with a face-saving gesture to a crisis; and two, the need to shift the blame on to a scapegoat. Wednesday's ATM attack has woken up George from a stupor and made him react. All these days when ATM vending machines in Bangalore were either being broken into or even being lifted away, he lay in a lethargic slumber. At his press meet on Wednesday, the minister did not reveal why his ministry has so far been unable to weed out unruly and criminal elements. His government, on the other hand, is adept at setting deadlines — from promising to rid the city of garbage to filling up potholed roads. The torpid Congress dispensation has come a cropper on all deadlines that it set for itself. The regime has now realised that it is better to impose deadlines on others. The minister could have come up with temporary measures and taken it up at the national level. The issue of safety of ATMs cannot be that of Bangalore alone.
The ability to solve a problem lies in the faculty to understand it in the first place. You need perspicuity of the mind and the knack for seeing the bigger picture. Or else you come with measures that throw the baby away with the bathwater.
