2016

Impartiality and non-partisanship imply acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving equally well the governments of different political persuasions. An impartial and politically neutral civil service is a defence against the spoils system which has the propensity to degenerate into a system of patronage, nepotism and corruption. An impartial civil service is more likely to assess the long-term social payoffs of any policy whereas the politically motivated may have a tendency to look for short term political gain. It takes decision on merit and is free from any partisan consideration. Further, a non-partisan civil service is also responsible to the Constitution of the land to which they have taken an oath of loyalty.

However, political neutrality is no longer regarded as the accepted norm with many civil servants getting identified with particular party dispensation. Officers cultivate and seek patronage from politicians for obtaining suitable positions post-retirement. Further, civil services is being seen as increasingly politicized with wholesale transfer of civil servants seen with changes in governments particularly at state level. Therefore, political neutrality and impartiality of civil services needs to be preserved for a heterogeneous society like India to function smoothly. Example: Das Commission’s Report 1964 on illegal acts by highly placed officials to curry favour with political heads in Punjab.

Ethics in general can be described as those beliefs or standards that incline one to act or choose in one way rather than another.

Acts and choices that one bases on ethical values serve social and human well being. Human well-being talks about different aspects of one’s lives such as happiness, health, freedom, autonomy etc. Ethical choices promote social and human well-being by being impartial, i.e., no one person’s well-being is regarded as more worthy than any other’s. This can be in the case of business - not keeping profit as the sole objective, technology-making use of innovations and advancements that are constructive and non-threatening to humanity etc. Instead of being hedonist and materialistic, we care about the consequences of our actions on the lives of others. By living a virtuous life, not only does a person live a morally satisfactory life but also ensures that other people are not adversely impacted by his/her actions. Therefore, ethics have an instrumental role in the social and human well-being by contributing to social harmony.

Seven Social Sins is a list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi published in his weekly newspaper Young India in 1925.

Politics without Principles: Gandhi said when politicians (or anyone else, for that matter) give up the pursuit of Truth they, or in the case of parties, would be doomed. Partisan politics, lobbying, bribing, and other forms of malpractice that are so rampant in politics today is also unprincipled. Politics has earned the reputation of being dirty. It is so because we made it dirty. We create power groups to lobby for our cause and are willing to do anything to achieve our goal.

Wealth Without Work: Gandhiji's idea originates from the ancient Indian practice of Tenant Farmers (Zamindari). The poor were made to slog on the farms while the rich raked in the profits. With capitalism and materialism spreading so rampantly around the world the grey area between an honest day's hard work and sitting back and profiting from other people's labour is growing wider.

Pleasure Without Conscience: This is connected to wealth without work. People find imaginative and dangerous ways of bringing excitement to their otherwise dull lives. Their search for pleasure and excitement often ends up costing society very heavily. Taking drugs and playing dangerous games cause avoidable health problems that cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect health care facilities. Gandhi believed pleasure must come from within the soul and excitement from serving the needy, from caring for the family, the children, and relatives. Building sound human relationships can be an exciting and adventurous activity.

Knowledge Without Character: Our obsession with materialism tends to make us more concerned about acquiring knowledge so that we can get a better job and make more money. A lucrative career is preferred to an illustrious character. Our educational centers emphasize career-building and not characterbuilding. Gandhi believed if one is not able to understand one's self, how can one understand the philosophy of life. An education that ignores character- building is an incomplete education.

Commerce Without Morality: As in wealth without work we indulge in commerce without morality to make more money by any means possible. Price gouging, palming off inferior products, cheating and making false claims are a few of the obvious ways in which we indulge in commerce without morality.

Science Without Humanity: This is science used to discover increasingly more gruesome weapons of destruction that threaten to eventually wipe out humanity. The NRA says guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Worship Without Sacrifice: True religion is based on spirituality, love, compassion, understanding, and appreciation of each other whatever our beliefs may be — Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics etc. Gandhi believed whatever labels we put on our faith, ultimately all of us worship Truth because Truth is God.

Governance can be described as the process of decision making and the process by which decisions are implemented. Government is one of the actors in governance apart from interest groups, NGOs and civil society organizations etc. Governance is government in action.

Good governance is a form of governance which is:

1. Participatory
2. Consensus oriented
3. Transparent
4. Accountable
5. Responsive
6. Effective and efficient
7. Follows rule of law
8. Inclusive and equitable

It helps in holistic and integrated human development.

Ethical governance implies absence of corruption in governance. Ethical governance is driven by values such as honesty, integrity, public welfare, fairness, selflessness etc.

For governance to be good in the long-run, it is critical that it be ethical governance.

The 2^nd ARC recommends the preparation of Public Service Code for guiding public service employees and manages their conduct.

Through the code, the government should promote public service values and a high standard of ethics in Public Service operations, requiring and facilitating every Public Service employee to discharge official duties with:

1. Competence and loyalty
2. Care and diligence
3. Responsibility
4. Integrity
5. Honesty
6. Objectivity and impartiality
7. Without discrimination
8. In accordance with the law

A ‘Public Service Authority’ is also envisaged to oversee the implementation of the code, violation of the code would invite punishments and penalties.

This code assumes significance since there is no Code of Ethics prescribed for civil servants in India at present, although such codes exist in other countries. The code aims to prevent misuse of official position or information. At the same time, it provides for public servants to serve as instruments of good governance and use public moneys with utmost care.

John Rawls in his theory of social justice attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice. Rawls derives two principles of Justice: the liberty principle and the difference principle.

In his concept of the liberty principle, Rawls explains that each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. In his concept of the difference principle, social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that:

1. They are to be of the greatest benefit to the least advantaged members of society, consistent with the just saving principle.
2. Offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions to fair equality of opportunity.

A important aspect of Rawls’s theory of justice is that decisions on the distribution of resources should be from the perspective of “not knowing” what your own position in life is.If you decide to deprive others because you do not have a particular need, you are not operating in a just way for all of society. If your choices are all about you and your needs, first this is unjust to everyone, and second, you may find yourself at the mercy of others someday.

Through persuasion and social influence an audience is intentionally encouraged to adopt an idea, attitude, or course of action by symbolic means utilizing words, images, sounds, etc. This is because the thoughts, behavior and action of people are influenced by other people in their environment.

The role of persuasion and social influence in the success of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (SBA) is particularly important. The SBA was launched to accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put an end to open defecation. Ending open defecation while on one-hand requires construction of toilets at mega speed, on the other hand it also requires persuading the households to actually use them. Sanitation in India is a behavioural issue which would require a change in mindset of people to adopt safe practices. For this, people need to be educated about the hazards of open defecation.

Persuasive messages via television, radio, Internet or face-to-face communication featuring filmstars, sportspersons and other celebrities exhorting people to change their habits by explaining the damage of poor personal hygiene, littering and open defecation to health of all citizens can go a long way in causing a behaviuoral change.

Corruption is not an exclusive feature of modern times alone. In his Arthashastra, Kautilya provided a graphic illustration of corruption by saying that, ‘just as it is impossible not to taste the honey (or the poison) that finds itself at the tip of the tongue, so it is impossible for a government servant not to eat up, atleast, a bit of the king’s revenue’.

For Kautilya, corruption and administration were integrally linked. He provides a comprehensive list of 40 kinds of embezzlements. Arthashastra states that an increase in expenditure and lower revenue collection was an indication of embezzlement of funds by corrupt officials. He defined self enjoyment by government functionaries as making use of or causing others to enjoy what belongs to the king. This is similar to the current practice of misusing government offices for selfish motives such as unduly benefitting the self, family members, friends and relatives either in monetary or non-monetary form which harms the larger public good.

To check this, he prescribed a strict vigil over the superintendents of government. He suggested professionalism at work to curb the decline in output and corruption. He advocated hefty fines to be imposed apart from the confiscation of ill-earned hordes. Kautilya also proposed that several positions in each department should be made temporary. He favoured the periodic transfer of government servants from one place to another. This was done with the intention of not giving them enough time to pick holes in the system and manipulate it to their advantage. Even today, his thoughts hold merit if corruption as a menace is to be removed from governance.

(a) Laws are rules of conduct that government creates and requires people to obey. Whereas ethics are guidelines for proper behavior that come from sources other than the government, like personal morals, values or code of conduct established by professional organizations etc. Both law and ethics shape our behavior but ethics often shapes our behavior before laws do.

(b) While both law and ethics shape human conduct, each follows a different approach in doing so. Whereas as laws are more objective, ethics are subjective. Legal standards are mostly negative ie., they usually prescribe not to do something. Ethics on the other hand are more positive and tell what is the right thing to do. For example— Law forbids to harm other people, ethics tell us to help other people.

(a) There are presence of various social practices and human actions in modern educated society because of unconsciously acquired undesirable attitudes and values. Patriarchal mindset widely present in the Indian society subjugates the status of women in society. Caste based discrimination is also an undesirable attitude that gets influence by the social surroundings.
Corruption, dowry system are some of the undesirable values and practices that are influenced by social surroundings.

(b) The role of family, teachers can play a great role in changing the undesirable attitude in the young generation because young generation learn by observing their family members and teachers. Parents, family member should always behave in ethical manner, discourage the unethical practice such as dowry, corruption, discriminations based on caste system.

Ethical and moral education should be given with the elementary education to children in schools.

As per the recommendations of 2^nd ARC report, code of ethics should be implemented with the code of conduct to impart the socio-ethical values in serving civil servants. For the aspiring civil servants, the moral education should be taught as compulsory subject in school and college education.

(a) Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. For many people anger results in negative emotions like irritability, rage, wrath, stress, resentment, hate, loss of confidence, depression etc. Further, anger prevents logical thinking. Usually decisions made in anger are made in haste, and don't hold up well to the light of day. One almost always regrets things said or done in anger.

(b) Uncontrolled anger can lead to several problems—problems at work, in one’s personal relationships, and in the overall quality of one’s life. It is therefore important to manage anger before it leads to other serious problems.

For this, it is essential to understand one’s anger and why it happens. It is about learning and practicing better ways of expressing anger, and knowing how to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Specifically, anger management is about knowing the triggers and early warning signs of anger, and learning techniques to calm down and manage the situation before it gets out of control. A common strategy for managing anger is to distract one's mind from the situation. Try taking long deep breaths, counting to ten, playing soothing music, talking to a good friend etc.

According to Weber, there is a popular perception that public experiences a sense of personal frustrations in its dealing with state bureaucracy. However, such frustration is a by-product of the achievement of other objectives that the public also values highly such as desire to ensure fairness, justice and equality in treatment of citizens – a crucial qualitative feature of modern government that is largely taken for granted. For example, sometimes the detailed information that offends or irritates the individual from whom it is requested is exactly the requirement of efficient and effective administration. This implies that an office-ridden, form ridden, regulation ridden existence is largely in evitable as long as one wants a modern and democratic government.

However, this idea that bureaucracy might be a substantive ethical domain in its own right has been criticised as being inherently unethical. This one sided rationality sustains itself through repressing and marginalising of values. This results in the bureaucracy developing into an elite class at the cost of other sections of the society.

(a) Arguments in favour of not keeping quiet are as follows:

• ‘Business without morality’ is the most important point to be kept in mind so the secretive discharge of highly toxic waste must be made public.
• As a conscience citizen she must keep in mind the right of life of the villagers compelling her to speak. Usually people join such voices/movements against injustice and all that they need is a trigger, in this case the villagers need a spokesperson.
• Company making profits by jeopardising the lives of people at the expense of health of both the river and the villagers is immoral and not ethically right.
• On the question of integrity she must speak up against the company. Discharge of toxic waste is not only morally wrong but is environmental hazardous too.

(b) Course of action that can be advised to her is as follows:

• Moral persuasion should be the first step. She should consult her colleagues one more time. It is likely that would still not budge but again there is a possibility that she might be able to conscience even one of them.
• The residents of the villages must be made aware about their right to life which includes a healthy life.
• After some ground work like talking to villagers, the health problem faced by them, testing the level of toxicity of rivers a report must be made. She can show this report to her immediate senior to remind the company of the environment laws as well as corporate social responsibility.
• Since profit is the sole aim of the company she can present a case study where companies lost business due to loss of confidence of people.
• She can take the assistance of the local NGO as well as media to create pressure on the company as well other big industries working on similar lines.
• She can inform the district administration of the same wrongdoing and seek their help.
• As a last resort she can file public interest litigation on behalf of the villagers as the toxic level of discharge and take head of the whistle blower’s act.

There is high chance of her loosing the job, so simultaneously she can start looking for a new job since even if the complains go unheard she might not continue in the company on moral grounds.

The rights of adivasis, rural communities, hill dwellers their rights over the forest resources under the Forest Right Act (FRA) must be kept in mind along with various compensations like payment, jobs in the upcoming industries etc.

Though FRA was passed in 2006 according to the Citizens’s Report prepared by Community Forest Rights, only 3% of villages or communities could actually secure their rights.

Approach to be adopted

• Rehabilitation must be fixed according to the community or category of people being displaced which should ensure them basic amenities subject to restrictions for forest protection.
• Even after compensation they should not be deprived of their user rights like forest produce which includes grazing and pastoralist routes etc. For example, Telangana government in total violation of forest rights act has illegalized traditional methods of forest land cultivation, creating a lot of unrest in the area.
• ‘Free informed consent’ of gram sabhas for any government plans to remove tribal/hill dwellers from the forests and for the settlement or rehabilitation package should not be undermined in any circumstance.

Main Elements must include

• Creating awareness among the lot about community right’s provision.
• Ensuring that implementation of laws of community forest provision is undiluted.
• Nodal tribal departments must provide clear instructions to the concerned administrators. However without a strong political will, these instructions almost go unheard.
• Imparting skills to the displaced migrants should be made compulsory along with compensation. This would give them right to decide whether they want to migrate as a labourer or work in the upcoming industry.
• FRA should be a major hurdle for corporate to cross with the intentions of single handed profit making.
• Since most of the tribal states have a poor record of implementation of the compensatory provisions, the FRA must be made more transparent. The concerned authority must be made accountable for non compliance.
• A grievance redressal mechanism must be created wherein the tribals/displaced can openly register their complaints. These should be appraised regularly to dispense those complaints.

Such displacements straight away violate the right to life of the dwellers of such areas. Proper rehabilitation of the displaced population must be ensured.

(a) In the given case, according to enquiry done by office in charge the old women is realy a destitute women and deserves the benefits under social service scheme. So not providing the benefits just because of lack of documents would defeat the noble purpose of this social service scheme itself. Though it may be legally right but morally and ethically it would be wrong. To resolve this dilemma following actions can be taken following rules of law.

• The women is old and illiterate, so just giving directions to complete the documents would not help her. I would ask a subordinate officer to help that women in completing necessary documents, and providing benefits to her.
• Though there may be some delays in completing the document so in this specific condition, I would write to my senior officer and ask permission for some discretionary powers so that I can provide immediate relief to old women.
• This is the specific case that came into my knowledge but there may be lots of similar cases. To resolve these types of cases, I would inform to the senior authorities and ask them to appoint a special officer that would look only the problem related with old and illiterate person who are not able to complete their documents. A special desk in the office can be assigned to these types of cases.

(b) My action would provide the benefit of scheme to old women and would not keep her out of the ambit of benefits just because she is not capable of completing her documents. This action would be compliant to rule of law and would also be humane in nature. My action to inform the seniors to resolve these types of cases would solve the problems for future also. It would reduce the hurdles such as red tapism, bureaucratic inertia in getting benefits of such social security schemes. Rule of Law with inclusion of humanity aspect would be taken care of by this action.

The above situation represents a case of domestic violence by an upstanding government officer against his wife. As an assistant to the officer, the options available to me are:

(a) Just ignore the situation since it is a personal matter: By doing so the situation remains the same and domestic violence against the wife would continue. Being aware of this fact, I should not turn a blind eye and take measures to rectify the situation. Doing nothing would not be ethically and morally right. Further, as a government officer knowing that a law is being violated and not taking any steps to prevent it would also be legally wrong.

At the same time, by not informing on my boss, I would be ensuring my job security since he is I already have a good tuning with him.

(b) Report the case to the appropriate authority: If I do so, my boss may come to know about my involvement and as his junior, he could make things difficult for me at work.

On the other hand, by informing the authorities about the situation, I would be ensuring that the suffering of the wife is ended and my boss is made accountable for his actions. This is legally, morally and ethically the right course of action.

(c) Approaching the wife and making her aware of her rights under Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005: Since the wife is uneducated, she may not be aware of her legal rights and therefore, informing here is important so that she can herself file a case against her husband. In the second option stated above, I would be filing the complaint as a third person which can weaken the case. Also, being ignorant about her rights, if the boss threatens her, she may get cowered and not speak the truth. Hence, apprising her of her rights is necessary so that she can state her case without fear to the authorities.

At the same time I would also engage with my senior to help change his mindset by explaining to him the implications of his actions and also getting him in touch with his relatives and friends to persuade him to see the wrongness of his behavior so that he is dissuaded from doing something similar in future.

(a) Ways to satisfy company’s goals to address resident’s concern:

• Environment impact assessment should be conducted in the first place with a non partisan approach.
• Government and Company must work in tandem to ensure that the problems of the residents are taken care of through the CSR programs. However, CSR programs alone will not be able to do much, so correct initiatives must be taken by the government too.
• Legislative Representative of the area should accompany the company officials when information camps about the project are set up to develop a sense of belief amongst the residents. If the residents are convinced that the intentions are as genuine as the talks they will not be bothered with the project.

Issues involved in this case

• Due to limited livelihood options increased cost of living for the people most of which might belong to lower middle class strata or below will become a major problem to handle.
• Since the area is already underdeveloped resources like land, water, public services like health, education, a planned sewer management system will be inadequate. An under planned area with sudden migration of people will not be able to cater to the basic needs like health, resident or education for the people which is known to have long term effects.
• Though the company claims to tackle all the difficulties through CSR, construction of basic infrastructure can take a lot of time which may further add to the chaos.

(b) Blockade always arises due to lack of faith and doubt on the intentions of the company which is always, seen as profit making. To negate this company should adhere to its promises which in turn will be benevolent for both the parties. Such cases bring in the question of right of life versus development of community. For example lands were acquired by the Andhra government for developing the capital city of Amravati and they were promised that 20% of their land will be returned after being developed. Such initiative instill confidence in people and they would eventually not oppose such development.

First of all developmental process like these aimed at imparting knowledge to rural poor community which will eventually help them in achieving a better standard of living should be encouraged.

Saraswati and her friends were all determined to bring about a positive change through the medium of NGO. They should be facilitated with all possible support in a stipulated time to ensure that their passion is not thwarted.

Posing unnecessary hindrances by creating excessive bureaucratic clearances to block the slightest likelihood of wrong doing is recurring news in case of NGO with malicious intentions these days. However, they should not create roadblocks for those with genuine intentions.

Methods that can be adopted:

• Laying out simple rules applying to all new entrants as well the existing ones. Reducing red tapism experienced in form of exhaustive paper work and clearances from various departments.
• Strict action against complaints regarding intentional blocking of entry of new NGO by a concerned authority in lieu of bribe and personal favour.
• Recently many NGO's have faced cancellation of their registration under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010. These cancellations have been widely criticized. The government has been charged with stalling ground level work which is carried by NGOs. In order to avert such situation transparent system for both grant providers and receivers of such funds should be created.
• Regular appraisals of NGO by government officials must be conducted to verify the purpose, nature of work and practices followed by NGOs to ensure credibility of an NGO.
• Trust deficit created between NGOs and the government, both questioning each other's intention must be worked out as the common man suffers the most in between as visible in the case of Saraswati.

Government and its official through NGOs and their personnels must ensure that the policies/programs of the former reaches the downtrodden, rural as well as in remote areas so they both need to work in tandem to achieve development.