What price honesty?

A large number of people of our generation were brought up with the adage "honesty is the best policy". My father followed it to the hilt. He also inculcated that value very deeply into my psyche. However,with the passage of time and the immense change in the socio-economic scenario,the paradigm of honesty appears to have shifted, at both the micro and macro levels. The grey area seems to have grown and the clear demarcations of black or white,have faded. The question is,as is wont to be asked in the new scheme of things, who really is an honest person?

I ask this because, in a sense, all of us are less than 100% honest,so to say. After all,who amongst us does not make personal calls from office telephones, for instance? Or, who does not,once in a while, leave work early to attend to some personal need? Or, who does not use the office car (or the office-maintained car) for shopping or dropping the kids to school? Do all these make us dishonest? If yes, then all of us are corrupt,like I mentioned earlier. If no, then who is a dishonest person? At the end of the day, it remains a matter of perception.

However, it is not my intention to go into a debate in this blog as to who can or cannot be termed dishonest. All I wish to say at this juncture is that there seems to be a widespread area of dishonest influence in the fabric of our present day society. And, evidence suggests, that it is the honest people who have to pay a price, every time! So it seems, anyway!

You do not have to search high and low for instances of this. In 2010 alone 8 RTI activists have been murdered for asking awkward questions...for asserting, as tax-payers, their right to information about public spendings. The RTI Act was instituted to bring transparency in the operations of public offices. What has been the fall-out in extreme cases? Kill anybody who persistently questions corruption!

Remember Satyandra Dubey? He was killed for reporting the financial misdeeds of people who were engaged in a msjor road project.

The Ministry of Shipping's obvious discomfiture at the exposure of the monstrous financial shenanigans of the Kandla Port Trust,is reflected in ample measures, not in repairing,controlling or halting the damage, but in hounding to professional death the only honest person on the scene. His crime? Blowing the whistle on all those raking in the stuff by the bagfuls through infamous means! How does it matter if an upright Deputy Chairman of the Port Trust is without a job today, as long as the scam is perpetuated to ensure the continuous filling of the deep pockets of the scamsters?

Or take the current national mega activity called The Commonwealth Games. According to the media all the stake-holders, including various government agencies, the Union Government, the Delhi government,hundreds of contractors and vendors, have taken the objective of the Games a little too literally - they are dipping their hands into the common wealth that is there on offer in great profusion! I am patiently waiting for the emergence of the jokers-in-the-pack - the Whistle Blowers or the rare honest officials - who will end up being the inevitable scapegoats. I can only pray for their lives!

Although, all this is merely the media's contention so far, it is very very difficult to perceive the organisers of the games to be as innocent as the driven snow! One must not forget the people's penchant for adhering to Samuel Smile's formula - "self help is the best help....." etc, when it comes to making dirty money!

These instances that I have mentioned are only symptomatic of the malaise that pervades the government and public offices of our country. At least, such indeed is the widespresd perception. Government servants, bureaucrats, police personnel, defence forces personnel, et al are forever clamouring for "plum postings" where, more often than not, the pickings are easy. On the other side of the spectrum, who has not heard of or read about mass transfers of public office holders whenever a new minister assumes office? The effort is to always have a coterie of people who will help to perpetuate the channels of illegal gratification, usually in terms of mega bucks. Scam is no more a dirty word. Corruption and bribery, as claimed by the perpetrators, are merely words of imagination used by vengeful people to "malign" others of unblemished characters!

In case my public sector and government friends are feeling hard done by me, please rest assured that I strongly believe, in fact know, that there are a large number of very upright people amongst the same lot. Very true: but this does not absolve the system of its awful stigma of corrupt practices. The thing is, the recent events which I mentioned at the onset, have refocussed attention on the deep-rooted corruption and graft as they exist in today's India.

Not that the much vaunted private sector is not privy to the lure of ill-gotten riches! Not at all! Not in the least!Far from it! The demise of a large number of blue-chip companies can be attributed to wholesale cleaning out of the corporate coffers!

After a career in trans-national and Indian companies, it pains me to say that the disease of corruption is as much present in the corporate world as in the public sphere. The craving for filthy lucre (filthily acquired) is as acute as in any other sector.

I know this because I have had an insider's view for a long time in a trans-national/market leader environment and consequently, frequently suffered for being a stumbling block in the paths of wealth accumulation of various people - right from junior levels up to the very top echelons of management! The saddest part in this is - to my mind anyway - that the moral health of the company's human resource was, by and large, in better shape under the expats than under the Indians!

Where the RTI activists were unceremoniously bumped off,the upright ones in this company had to undergo the indignities like being ignored for promotion, being denied value-added assignments, being overlooked for foriegn assignments,being targeted with single-minded determination for insults and humiliation and,on a few occasions, being hounded out of the organisation! And all the time the cry, the mantra went round " the corrupt shall inherit the earth!"

But do not for a moment think that this environment was peculiar to only the company where I worked. The scenario is typical of a lot of organisations. as I am given to understand by my friends, associates and relations.

And this brings me to my point. Is making enormous sums of money and rising to the "top" by greed, stealth, graft, machinations, sycophancy, politicking,etc, the real hallmark of success? In the same vein, is the failure to reach the dizzy heights of organisational glory due to one's innate honesty,a mark of under-achievement?

IN OTHER WORDS, DO HONEST PEOPLE REALLY HAVE TO PAY A PRICE FOR BEING HONEST?

By practising, the virtue of integrity in their careers, whether at home or at work, I do not believe that honest people had to pay any price for the other people's crimes of corruption. They may not have acquired worldly possessions beyond compare. They may not be moneyed persons by any stretch of imagination. They may have even caused frustrations out of pecuniary embarrassments, every now and then. But I feel sure that they sleep with a conscience free from the headaches of ill-gotten riches. They can look anybody and everybody squarely in the eye without flinching from any sense of guilt. They can hold their heads high and upright with a spotless reputation of honesty - despite the repeated and sustained efforts of the effected people to prove to the contrary.

As against this,in the trans-national company where I worked for over 3 decades, I have been witness to the eventual fall,loss of respect and utter humiliation of ALL those who had corruption flowing through their veins, as it were, and who were hell-bent on marginalising me as I proved to be "inconvenient" to them!. Amazing,as it may seem, every single one of these individuals had to quit the company sooner or later in total disgrace. And this "sack of the rapists" cut across the hierarchy from top to bottom - from members of the Board of Directors to Executive Directors, to Senior Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, General Managers, Managers,other officials. etc, etc, etc.

I cannot help but be convinced that one has to pay for one's sins IN THIS LIFE ITSELF! There is no need to dwell on the possible conditions of these wretched devils as they are today. What suffices is the knowledge that they are living with the awareness that everybody feels that they are nothing more than common thieves and cut-throats. They also remember that everybody in the organisation was privy to their exit in disgrace. These comprise enough loads round their necks for them to carry to their after-lives.

The above state cannot be the lot of only the people who worked in the same company as I. This is a lesson for all who willingly stray from the straight path in search of tainted gains.....NO MATTER WHERE THEY WORK - GOVERNMENT,PUBLIC SECTOR OR PRIVATE SECTOR.

The honest people, therefore, do not have to pay a price. On the contrary,a heavy price is extracted from the corrupt by Higher Designs, tomorrow if not today.

So, at the end of the day, honesty is still the best policy!

Any takers?