Rule by committee

Residents welfare or cooperative societies, particularly those sprawling developments where a visionary developer decided that one society was not complicated enough and therefore created multiple societies within the same premises, are indeed among the most fascinating institutions ever created.

Think about it. A group of perfectly normal people buy apartments, move in with dreams of peace, greenery and community living, and within a few months, find themselves participating in something that resembles a combination of parliament, a start-up, a courtroom, a reality show, and occasionally a medieval kingdom.

A handful of brave souls volunteer for the managing committees. They begin their journey wanting to improve the community and soon discover that lifts, leaks, licences, landscaping, legal notices, labour issues, and resident expectations operate under the laws of quantum physics.

Another much larger group makes the wise decision not to contest elections. They then generously devote their time to explaining how every decision by the committee could have been taken better, faster, cheaper, and with greater vision.

Committee members gradually develop the belief that they are carrying the community on their shoulders. The rest of the residents gradually develop the belief that the committee is the reason the community needs carrying.

WhatsApp groups become remarkable centres of higher education. Within them reside experts in finance, law, governance, security, architecture, animal behaviour, event management, horticulture, geopolitics, and human psychology. Many of these qualifications are acquired between breakfast and lunch.

Every issue eventually finds a way to split into camps. Pet lovers and pet critics. Tower D and Tower E. Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3. People who want change. People who want stability. People who want transparency. And people who want transparency only from others.

The most fascinating phenomenon emerges when communities start defining “us” and “them”. Walls already exist. Then the invisible walls are built. A gate becomes a border, an access card becomes a visa. A visitor becomes a potential threat. A neighbouring society becomes a foreign nation.

The committees discuss barriers, restrictions, and control mechanisms with the seriousness usually reserved for national security councils. Initially everyone agrees. Then something inconvenient happens. People start interacting. They share elevators. They walk together. Children become friends. Pets become friends. Some even discover that the “other side” contains perfectly reasonable human beings.

Two schools of thought

This creates a crisis, as nothing is more dangerous to a territorial dispute than familiarity. Soon two schools of thought emerge within a committee. One believes boundaries must be defended forever as principles are at stake, and the other begins to suspect that the neighbours may not be enemies and that empathy is not a security risk.

Managing committee meetings become interesting. Voices become louder. Positions become firmer. Some committee members who are spectators choose sides. A few sensible people quietly exit the battleground altogether, having discovered that mental peace offers a higher return on investment than ideological victory.

Eventually one side prevails. It always does. The victorious camp celebrates. The defeated camp retreats. And few months later everyone discovers that the waterlogging remains unchanged, the false fire alarms still go off, the lifts still break down occasionally, and life goes on exactly as before.

The unofficial power centres are even more fascinating. The people who hold no position, carry no responsibility, sign no documents, attend no vendor meetings, and assume no accountability. But they can influence an entire debate in one sentence, “Let’s put it to vote as we know what many residents want.” No one ever meets these “many residents”. But their influence is undeniable.

And there is also another highly influential group. You can find any one of them say, “I don’t live in the complex currently, but still have strong views.” Their physical absence rarely diminishes their emotional participation.

Then there are the aristocrats of community living. The residents who believe maintenance charges are a universal exemption certificate. They will not clean up after themselves as someone is paid to do it. They will leave pet waste behind when no one is watching since housekeeping exists. They will flick cigarette butts and bread crumbs into landscaped areas as gravity is free. They will abuse security guards for enforcing rules as ownership, in their view, comes bundled with feudal privileges.

Irony is remarkable. People who passionately demand dignity, accountability, and respect from institutions occasionally struggle to extend the same courtesy to the guard standing at the gate.

History teaches us that kingdoms had courts. Modern societies have WhatsApp groups. The cast has changed. Human nature hasn’t. And, interestingly, beneath all the noise, almost everyone is trying to do what they believe is right.

The committee wants progress. The critics want accountability. The activists want causes. The power centres want influence. The experts want attention. And the silent majority just want the water pressure, lifts, and Wi-Fi to work.

Somewhere amid all this, the words “cooperative” and “welfare” quietly sit in the name of the society, patiently waiting for their turn on the agenda.

Community living is not about eliminating disagreements. It is about remembering that neighbours are not enemies, criticism is not contribution unless accompanied by participation, and authority is not leadership unless accompanied by humility. In the end, no one really owns the society. Everyone is merely temporary custodians of a place that will outlive committees, factions, victories, grievances, elections, and even the most passionate WhatsApp debates. And that perspective, unfortunately, is not available on the residents’ group as a downloadable PDF.

yesudas@ynatransformation.com