Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sounds impressive, officialese, bureaucracy at its best, generally signed between the high and mighty, governments, corporates, honchos from the industry and so on. But frankly the only understanding that this piece of paper has is, that it must remain on paper only. If it was to be implemented in all earnestness then the purpose of the memo is defeated. It is a ‘memo’ which is ‘random’ in nature and creates only ‘misunderstanding’. Those of us who have either been in bureaucracy or have suffered at their hands will understand, how any memo is composed and drafted with a single minded devotion and dedication to obfuscate and confuse the issue at hand. If in our youthful exuberance, we as much as even attempted to clear the air, then a sound rap on the knuckles was served by the seniors and were reminded to watch ‘Yes Prime Minister’, the famous British sitcom of the eighties. The banter between Jim Hacker, the PM and Sir Humphrey, his Principal Secretary was not just hilarious but also ironical as it showed the bureaucracy in the government a mirror. Having inherited their legacy, our babus have not just mastered the art but have become even better than them.
Anyway, these days, it seems to be not just fashionable to sign MOUs with anyone and everyone, but it also appears to be a reflection of hard work and dedication to the organisation. So IITs, our premier educational institutes go ahead and sign one with captains of the industry, industry in its turn signs one with the ‘sarkari’ scientists the DRDO, who sign up with bankers for the finances and so on. The Armed Forces have also caught the bug of late and one hears of only MoUs being signed left right and centre. There are supposed to be milestones which become more of millstones around the neck, guidelines which are sidelined and benchmarks which are just benched and no marks for guessing the end result. Most of these MoUs remain just that, a memo which has only little understanding of what actually needs to be done.
But MoUs are not just a national pastime, but international too, as is evident each year at Davos, when our leaders are off on the annual jamboree, where they ink these MoUs by the dozen or may be in scores, with promises of investments worth millions of dollars worth. Frankly, we have yet to witness even some pennies and shillings forget about the millions of greenbacks. The mandatory handshake provides a good photo opportunity and together with the impressive looking folders, make for a wonderful prop for such an occasion. The signature style of sitting down for signatures on the dotted line is customary and one sticks to traditions in such matters, as the leaders are right behind them to applaud the monumental occasion. The bigger the organisation, more the MoUs, wonder what do they do with all the paper which they consume in these deeds, obviously they can’t be sold in ‘raddi’ as that would let the cat out of the bag. These days we have heavy duty shredders to do exactly the same thing, which too would have been procured after some MoU would have been signed, but for a change would have fructified, to prove exceptions is the rule.