IS INTEGRITY SUPPLIMENT TO GOOD GOVERNANCE OR COMPLIMENT? This essay written by Pradnya Talekar, student of National Law University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, bagged Third Prize in the Online Essay Contest organised recently on the theme "Integrity and good governance" to celebrate the 134th Birthday of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
“Integrity” would be a familiar word even to the youngest readers – it is used by all of us to epitomize honesty and fairness, the hallmarks not only of a good leader but also of a good human being. But how much really do we believe in ‘Honesty is the best policy’. Sometimes we have Krishna’s ‘lie for a higher good’ and still other times we have Bentham’s ‘greater good of greater numbers’ as an excuse to justify our diversion from the principle we other-wise regularly advocate.
Today, and since the earliest civilizations human race has witnessed catastrophic debacles owing to the ceaseless desire to exploit the others for selfish needs. The Mayan sacrifices to the Nazi holocaust to the modern day politics all bow down to prove the same. The question that then rises is whether Hobbes’ description of human nature as ‘short, nasty, brutish and selfish’ is the ultimate truth? Is Justice for the sake of justice as advocated by Socrates a mere optimistic vision of an unattainable utopia?
My conscience does not let me believe that it is in the basic human nature to be selfish and praise-power-seeking trampling all intrusions with an endeavor to exploit every opportunity. But mind you this is the very same conscience which takes a moment to think whenever self interest has to be sidelined to help someone else, or there is an opportunity to do self good by discreet immoral ways. Though I always end up choosing against it but the process that leads to the decision is worth giving a hearing: ‘it is not the just thing to do and may be prejudicial to other’s interests, a fear lurks within me that other’s could do such things which are much more unjust to me- I dread the consequences when this weapon of injustice passes from my hands to someone else.’ Though I choose the just path somewhere I feel it is because I fear I would be at greater loss if someone else were to do the same to me, thus in a way just behavior is also triggered by selfish motives. The true import of ‘integrity’ is usually understood to mean ‘doing the right or the moral act in the absence of watchful eyes’ but this definition also ignores the reasons for the moral action and whether they stem from justice and selfless morality or selfish fears.
All this points to but one most convincing explanation of human nature that given by Rousseau, he says humans have two primordial behavioral instincts self-love and sympathy, and whenever there is a conflict between the two we use our conscience to choose the right option. And he emphasizes that conscience cannot be equated to reason but it is something prior to reason, without any education, comparable to a moral guide. But Rousseau theorises that though man’s natural instincts guide him towards moral and just behavior, man has been seduced by pride and his natural instincts have been corrupted by the greed for more and he blames it all on the privatization of property which has made us selfish greedy persons from ignorant noble savages. Also the only way suggested by Rousseau to revert back to the original human nature is through education. Even Socrates would agree with thi its by his “knowledge as virtue” driven philosopher king concept.
Convinced that human nature can be molded into its original moral form we look at the only available way of reform – education and try to brainstorm as to how can our education system be changed in order to make integrity a part of human nature even in this materialistic world of increasing individualism and privatization.
From the above discussion it is veritably clear that integrity affects every human action and can change the entire course of the civilization. The world wouldn’t have been the same today if the Jews had not been exterminated, had the Britishers thought more about the welfare of the colonies and if the modern day politicians worked for welfare rather than self interest and profit.
The question that now arises is what is ‘good governance’ and by what degree would it change due to the presence of ‘integrity’. Governance is a word with a very value laden word which brings the entire governing mechanism within its ambit and is still much beyond mere government, it is the management of the functioning of a state characterized by service delivery to its citizens through an entire complicated network.
If we try to understand governance in any field – education, poverty alleviation programmes, public policy making, and any other field for that matter, what we see in common is that the governance is not as efficient as it should be. Rajeev Gandhi said that out of every one Re spent by the government only 20 paise reach the desired target. Now Rahul Gandhi has pulled the figure to 15 paise. This itself speaks volumes about the governance process. There is more money spent on leakages than actual need. The ‘authoritative allocation of values’ is done only for serving self interests and it is spiral trap because one act of corrupted self seeking behavior leads to another person doing the same, but what people donot realize that each one of them is a sufferer in the process. It is not only the penny-less destiny deprived tramps who suffer the brunt of mis-governance due to lack of integrity but each person would have stood much richer and earned more profits without this misappropriation. The only seeming winners in this game are the people involved in the governance process i.e the government servants. But that victory too is merely specious because in the end these people end up paying much more than what they would have had the governance been in place. Let me elucidate this with an example, suppose the government sanctions 1 crore for creating good infrastructure for the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools and only 10 lakhs actually reaches the target and there also cheap quality materials are used to build the infrastructure and poor quality instruments n equipments are bought which leads to short duration patchwork arrangement for the schools. Not only have the persons disbanding the money have siphoned it off but everyone has had a share in it including the principals n teachers who were responsible for its spending. But what these people have not realized is that a part of the money earned by them immorally would be spending funding the education of their kids which would have been much cheaper if the leakages in the system were glued. But this is not the effort of a single person but the entire integrated system. Hence the importance of “public integrity”.
Thus governance can be termed as “good” only if it is coupled with integrity not only among the people executing it but also the people who respond to the system in the form of ‘takers’. Many scholars even refuse to extend the status of governance to the political regimes functioning without any integrity. Thus integrity is clearly much more than a mere an independent improvising element to “good governance” but an essential pre-requisite to it. Governance qualifies as good or rather the information and service delivery mechanism through governance can bring smile on every face only if it there is integrity and an ingrained spirit of justice in each one. Thus integrity is a not merely a compliment to good governance but rather a supplement.
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