What India faces today is the crisis of integrity. Integrity of behavior in public life has been under a cloud, accentuated by first the way the political establishment has appropriated authority and the manner in which the bureaucracy has stamped its mark on embezzlement of funds. The bank scams of recent years are the tip of the iceberg made up of siphoning off of public money by a plethora of state and central government departments since times immemorial. As a teenager who had started seeing the funny side of misuse of power depicted in cartoons, I remember how the minister's wife would be looking forward to the opportunity for an aerial survey of flood-hit areas while the minister would be licking his lips at the aid material.
The problem with we Indians is that we have always seen only the funny side of corruption and corrupt behavior which includes violating laws, rules and regulations. If our MLA or MP or a minister in our vicinity was not living in a mansion that was getting richer year after year or whose kids did not enjoy having gas or petrol agencies, what good was s/he going to do to his subjects. We have always worshipped people in power. This includes top bureaucrats who can have big houses or cars and staff at their beck and call. Young children see them as idols and work hard to attain the status symbols, by hook or crook.
We do not teach our children values of Honesty, Integrity and Transparency (HIT) either in our families or schools. Parents and teachers exercise tremendous influence over young children. They can be excellent role models for the citizens of tomorrow. But conformity gets the better of them and they let another generation of the future to get lost in the morass of corrupt behavior.
Recently I had a few opportunities to talk to school and college students. I somehow manage to move to HIT. My advice is simple. Never forget what you feel right now is right or wrong, and act ethically in whatever decisions you take in whatever position you are in later on in your life. Don't indulge in corruption because your salary is less. Remember, whatever salary you get, you only deserve that. So don't use it as an alibi for making money or flouting rules. If you stick to rules you will be deemed stubborn or impractical, but so be it. I was just reading about an IAS officer in Haryana who has been transferred 74 times in 34 years. Whatever the political dispensation, he has been at loggerheads with the corrupt, as has been Khemka. Their cases is proof of the fact that we need not wait for messiahs to bail us out.
What we need is Integrity, at any cost. No one can force you to be dishonest. So stick to your personal integrity. It is amazing how scamsters can fly off with public money with ease. As Khemka mentions in an interview recently, the big corporates are at the triumvirate of bureaucracy and polity in this corruption triangle. This has been possible because a lot of people in the banking or regulatory or auditing systems compromised their integrity. It was possible because the bureaucratic and political systems failed to sniff the frauds as they happened one after another. Those in public positions are prone to hiding irregularities to show that everything is fine. Such indiscretions result in gross improprieties like the one India is facing right now.
Will all the money come back or will the absconders be brought to book? That will ultimately not matter as long as we don't have people with integrity in our society and various systems. So let us pick the middle 'I' in my HIT model to begin with.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are personal and in wider interest of the most valued of my stakeholders alone - my students. I hold no grouse against others who may not agree with what I have to say or practice, including those with whom I had the pleasure of interacting in my various official dealings.
The problem with we Indians is that we have always seen only the funny side of corruption and corrupt behavior which includes violating laws, rules and regulations. If our MLA or MP or a minister in our vicinity was not living in a mansion that was getting richer year after year or whose kids did not enjoy having gas or petrol agencies, what good was s/he going to do to his subjects. We have always worshipped people in power. This includes top bureaucrats who can have big houses or cars and staff at their beck and call. Young children see them as idols and work hard to attain the status symbols, by hook or crook.
We do not teach our children values of Honesty, Integrity and Transparency (HIT) either in our families or schools. Parents and teachers exercise tremendous influence over young children. They can be excellent role models for the citizens of tomorrow. But conformity gets the better of them and they let another generation of the future to get lost in the morass of corrupt behavior.
Recently I had a few opportunities to talk to school and college students. I somehow manage to move to HIT. My advice is simple. Never forget what you feel right now is right or wrong, and act ethically in whatever decisions you take in whatever position you are in later on in your life. Don't indulge in corruption because your salary is less. Remember, whatever salary you get, you only deserve that. So don't use it as an alibi for making money or flouting rules. If you stick to rules you will be deemed stubborn or impractical, but so be it. I was just reading about an IAS officer in Haryana who has been transferred 74 times in 34 years. Whatever the political dispensation, he has been at loggerheads with the corrupt, as has been Khemka. Their cases is proof of the fact that we need not wait for messiahs to bail us out.
What we need is Integrity, at any cost. No one can force you to be dishonest. So stick to your personal integrity. It is amazing how scamsters can fly off with public money with ease. As Khemka mentions in an interview recently, the big corporates are at the triumvirate of bureaucracy and polity in this corruption triangle. This has been possible because a lot of people in the banking or regulatory or auditing systems compromised their integrity. It was possible because the bureaucratic and political systems failed to sniff the frauds as they happened one after another. Those in public positions are prone to hiding irregularities to show that everything is fine. Such indiscretions result in gross improprieties like the one India is facing right now.
Will all the money come back or will the absconders be brought to book? That will ultimately not matter as long as we don't have people with integrity in our society and various systems. So let us pick the middle 'I' in my HIT model to begin with.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are personal and in wider interest of the most valued of my stakeholders alone - my students. I hold no grouse against others who may not agree with what I have to say or practice, including those with whom I had the pleasure of interacting in my various official dealings.
