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Analysis: A Personal Decision

BW Online Bureau Apr 29, 2015

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Senior executives in every industry often face dilemmas between what is right and ethical, and what is expedient for business. Unfortunately, resolutions to such dilemmas don't come from outside; they come from within. The prevailing national culture of widespread exploitation, dishonesty and lack of ethical values makes the choice difficult. Volumes written through the ages on morality, ethics and governance have not made it any easier. Naren Kant's conversations with the dramatis personae in this episode raise many points, some of which I will attempt to address from my own perspective. In the prevailing culture, we tend to justify our unethical behaviour on the basis of others' unethical behaviour and the lack of sensitivity on the part of the state to provide services that it is supposed to with the taxes collected. The question then is: how do we clean up the system? Kant's conversation with his masseur, Deepak, reiterates the reality that good and evil are both parts of human nature. Greed (a part of evil) flourishes when there are causes and conditions that allow it to do so. Profiteering occurs because there are either insufficient laws or ineffective implementation of existing laws to deal with the menace. In an age in which being wealthy is more important than being honest, where do we start? In his seminal work, The Anatomy Of Power, John Kenneth Galbraith identifies three sources of power: 1. Condign power, through which wrongdoing is punished; 2. Compensatory power, through which desirable actions are rewarded; and, 3. Conditioned power, by which people are persuaded that what is being proposed is desirable and good for the largest number. In the current situation in India, none of the powers is in play as far as ethics are concerned; wrongdoing need not attract punishment if you are clever, rich or powerful. Compensatory power is not exercised. On the contrary, people of dubious character are frequently given the highest awards and positions. Dishonesty is often rewarded, for example, through amnesty schemes. Conditioned power (trying to convince people to be honest) carries no conviction, because those who propagate it are perceived as crooks. Kant does not have to look far to "...find out what lay at the heart of the desire to thieve...". For undesirable occurrences, causes have to be prevented and conditions have to be created that do not allow the situation to prevail. In India, the government has lost its moral authority and we are using that as an excuse to indulge in unethical practices. Morality is personal. A person who wants to be morally upright neither needs approval from society nor conditions conducive to morality. Anna Hazare is a case in point. By setting a personal example, as Mahatma Gandhi did, he wields moral authority that is more powerful than legal authority. Ethics is all about business and social interactions based on the belief that the self and all others deserve equal consideration. In India we tend to put the self before others. We often do not realise that our behaviour, which may give us short-term advantage, actually harms long-term interests. That is what makes us disregard traffic rules and fiddle with electricity meters. In the book Games Indians Play, V. Raghunathan gives us interesting glimpses into our character and why we often shoot ourselves in the foot. Amish Panday's answer to Kant's question raises the issue of what to do when bad laws are enacted. If people have an institution or a mechanism that can help redress the situation, they would turn to it. But when those very institutions are compromised, or people do not have access to them, then inventive methods are used to dodge the law. Specifically, as far as the industry is concerned, our chambers of commerce generally kowtow to the authorities and do not have the sagacity to put the interest of the poor before that of their members'. On the other hand, perverse laws open the floodgates for illegal gratification for those in authority, who then have a vested interest in the continuance of such laws. I do not think there is any society where people like paying taxes. But the degree of abhorrence for taxes is inversely proportional to the quality of services we get from the government.  When any attempt is made to clean up the system, vested interests thwart it. Very few bureaucrats or politicians are interested in streamlining systems to ensure that leakages are minimised. Even the business sector would like to protect its turf, sometimes at the cost of the nation. Remember the Bombay Club at the time of liberalisation? As a microcosm of society, Delana mirrors the helplessness and confusion of a people at odds with society. Even if the rot starts at the top, what Naren and all of us need to understand is that revolutions often start at the bottom. Unless we change, we may be headed for anarchy. Nripjit Singh (Noni) Chawla is an independent management advisor. An alumnus of IIM Calcutta, he has worked for 20 years in ITC and was the managing director at Max India (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-04-2011)