Beyond the ‘unitary method only’ mindset

Summer holidays of childhood entailed long, languid afternoons unfolding in the Nanke courtyard at Patiala, on the old wooden swing that had travelled from house to house with my Nanaji’s postings.

That swing remains our umbilical cord across generations, now cradling our children as well.

While the mothers navigated the historic bylanes of the city for their annual shopping rituals, my afternoons would eventually be interrupted by the awakening of the mathematician in my mother.

With algebra scheduled for the next academic session, seated before the humming desert cooler in the lobby, she introduced me to what I later learnt was the algebraic method: let the unknown be x, frame the equation according to the given condition, and solve.

Chapter after chapter of NCERT algebra dissolved into neat and efficient solutions that June.

When school reopened, our Mathematics teacher introduced the unitary method: assume the unknown quantity to be 1, scale accordingly, and arrive at the answer.

It never quite resonated with me.

I continued solving problems using my mother’s approach, which I felt was faster, cleaner and conceptually direct.

Then came the unit test, in which I was rewarded a resounding zero.

In red ink, it read: “Solve by unitary method.” But my answer was correct.

The logic was sound.

The method, however, was not the one prescribed by the teacher.

At the subsequent PTM, my mother calmly pointed out that I had conceptual clarity and problem-solving efficiency.

What, then, was being evaluated: the mathematics, or conformity to a pedagogic technique?

The incident stayed with me.

The algebraic method was not an innovation.

It was universally accepted mathematics.

Yet deviation from the mandated pathway laid out by the teacher, who was presumably taught the same way by her predecessors, invited penalisation.

This “lakeer ke fakeer” approach, the blind adherence to drawn lines, did not just haunt my classroom.

I now realise that it seeps into institutions across professional and personal lives alike.

In my profession of law enforcement, I have often valued those who speak their mind, especially the boots on the ground who offer inputs, sometimes solicited and often unsolicited.

Clarity frequently emerges from lived experience rather than circulars.

Yet compliance culture can slowly morph into intellectual rigidity, where process overshadows outcome.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are indispensable as they ensure legality, uniformity and accountability.

But when SOPs become ends in themselves rather than frameworks, initiative dies.

The same phenomenon plays out in corporate corridors.

Innovation is applauded in principle but discouraged in practice if it disrupts established workflows.

Start-ups disrupt industries precisely because incumbents cling to comfort zones.

Think of how traditional retail ignored e-commerce for decades.

This mindset, which I label the “unitary method only” approach, taking a cue from my childhood, survives across sectors and throttles growth.

The sharpest minds either self-censor or exit.

Institutions grow when outcomes matter more than orthodoxy.

Institutional growth demands a calibrated balance: procedural safeguards on one hand and institutional elasticity on the other.

Sometimes the problem is not the mathematics.

It is the marking scheme of life, where compliance becomes currency and creativity becomes liability.

Dear teacher, my mother’s algebraic method was never a rebellion.

It was simply another legitimate path to the same solution.

(The writer is a serving IPS officer)
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