“It does not matter how slowly you, go so long
as you do not stop”.
Hi friends, today I would like to share the topic on ethical issues, let us know some examples from our indian history, we have discussed many things from medieval to modern era and current events to understand the concept deeply, friends in GS-Mains (paper-4) ethics needs many examples in each and every question, we have to give examples and suitable quotes, based on real incidents to ful fil the demand of the question, so for this thorough knowledge of static part and grip on current issues, prepare well thank you friends.
In 1991 the country
was deep in trouble. The rise of extremism in Kashmir, riots in the country and
the economic crisis of 1991. The Economic crisis was due to rising oil prices
after the gulf war and majorly due to a poor economic policy of nationalisation
of banks, red-tapism, babudom (the rule of babur). It was realised during the Narasimha Rao regime
that country has to bring in liberalisation, globalisation and privatisation in
its policy. After that India witnessed a rise in capital market, surplus
revenues from IT sectors, growth in service sectors and an increase in foreign
reserves. The country was no longer able to change the situation of rising oil
prices and thus it was imperative to change its own policies.
History is full of such examples. Humans have long been a part of a process of evolution, learning new things and rejecting old practices even biologically. Here, we will try to see what are the challenges we face when coming across to a situation and why? we would also understand how at different times in history the statement above has been useful for people in different facets.
“Nothing is as discomforting to the human mind as a great and sudden change”. Change and evolution is a part of nature. At different times in history, the needs of people were different living with limited beliefs. Over the period war, then renaissance led to interaction amongst the different population and spread of knowledge and ideas. This has led to humans to question the traditional beliefs and raise logical, rational reasoning for their existence. In Indian society ending the practice of Sati, Jauhar, inhibitions for widow remarriage, stigma attached to caste, going on foreign land and losing purity were challenged with the coming of British empire and literature to India.
The practice of sati was boycotted by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, he took up the challenge to bring in a change in people’s perception but he got little success. With limited resources and limited means of communicating his ideas to far-flung areas, he resorted to British Govt. to pass an act on same. Thus the change was not brought in by changing perception rather than a law on the same. One has to assess the difficulty of the situation and thus use limited resources for the best outcomes.
During 1970s the population control measures were brought in to control population of India. The intention of the policy was good however the means used to achieve the same were not. Giving govt. officials targets to fulfill and keeping a tight vigil on them led to forced registration to population control camp. This resulted in the failure of then govt. in the next election. NDA government used population management used term family planning and awareness on need to control population as the basis of taking policy further.
However good the intention of an act is without understanding the societal perspective on the issue, the constraints on same change is difficult to bring. So we need to better communicate our ideas and understand their beliefs with empathy and compassion to bring in change and acquire our means reflecting same. Thus the change should start from ourselves and thus translate to other.
To bring in a structural change is easy but to bring in behavioural change is difficult. It is often easy to bring in a set of rules and regulation and good laws in a system to make it more efficient and effective often that does not change ground realities. For example: the move to bring in RTI (Right to Information) was well reasoned however, lack of appointment of PIO (Police Intelligence Operations), improper training of PIO on same and collusive nature of corruption tends to protect the fellow co-worker. The lack of strong values and integrity in an individual change him /her for worse and become part of corrupt practices.
Gandhi ji once said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”. "Swach Bharat" mission is lauded effort of government. The idea of clean spaces. The effort has brought in little change in the attitude of people. The reason being everyone wants to clean society but not by themselves. Behavioural economist have long tried to understand the rationale behind human decision making. People seeing a warning of cancer on cigarette packets do not quit smoking believing that damage would not occur to them but to others. This idea that we are not part of the change and some other is, ingrained and thus it does not translate to changing a situation.
We saw some of the reasons why there is no change in the situation and we also understood it is not always we need to change. As pointed out by the Aristotle’s Eudaimonia one has to use rationally our arguments of what is ‘right’ in a situation by sometimes showing restraint as in losing our integrity and character, and some time using courage to protect a minority from vigilante crowd, emotional empathy to a crowd who is angry on losing a son to police barbaric act, etc. It is using our virtues and assessing where we are weak lies our greatest strength.
One must also keep in mind the limited resources and time that one has in a situation and thus acting for greatest good of greatest number. If there are various issues where we are using a lot of input and energy and the outcome lags behind input, it is better to use the resources and time for some other project. For example constructing a highway amongst tribal and farmers uproar. If are unable to address the fears of these people and the project could be diverted it should be or even if it is shelved it should be since fighting an odd situation lot of paperwork, transactions useless and fear of tribal sentiments used by insurgents or naxalites as anti Indian is of no use as in Bauxite mining by vedanta group of industries, toothukudi in Tamilnadu.
Human have learned to evolve and humans when counter a problem learn to change and adapt. The situations here may not be sufficient but one has to understand the motive behind the act in policy making it is well being of the public in the long run and short run and thus a citizen as part of society should do the same. We need to challenge our beliefs at a very fast pace now, Whether it is LGBT(lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) rights, or Women asking for temple entry, or Nikah Halala or any other constitutional morality should be upheld and traditional beliefs and practices we have been perceived with would challenge to change ourselves.
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