India is warm, generous, intelligent and deeply civilisational in spirit. But perhaps we have begun to confuse visibility with value, noise with confidence, and performance with pride.
A growing unease surrounds ethical standards in Indian public life. The concerns appear different on the surface: conduct by some Indian tourists abroad, the NEET paper leak and the anguish it caused students and families, and the tendency of some intellectuals and commentators to defend policies or failures that deserve deeper moral scrutiny.
Yet these are not separate problems. They point to a common erosion of ethical responsibility. Civility, accountability and intellectual honesty may operate in different spaces, but they rest on the same foundation: the ability to act rightly even when law, fear or punishment does not compel us.
We often speak of corruption as if it exists only in money, contracts and public office. But there is also corruption of conduct, responsibility and thought. It is visible when citizens mistake culture for entitlement, when officials hide behind legality instead of accepting moral accountability, when intellectuals turn every failure into a defensible policy choice.
India is warm, generous, intelligent and deeply civilisational in spirit. But perhaps we have begun to confuse visibility with value, noise with confidence, and performance with pride. A civilisation is not preserved by loud claims, but by the silent practice of its values.
This is why example matters. Behavioural science shows that conduct is shaped not only by rules, but by modelling, social norms and the standards society rewards. Those in authority therefore set behavioural cues that others may imitate. Long before modern scholarship named this as behavioural modelling, Indian thought had already recognised it in Bhagavad Gita that expressed this principle with clarity:
यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः ।
स यत्प्रमाणं कु रुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते॥
“Whatever a person of influence does, others follow; whatever standard they set, the world follows.” Bhagavad Gita 3.21
And this is why accountability matters. When an examination system affecting millions of young people is compromised, the issue cannot be reduced to whether a particular minister, official or institutional head personally leaked the paper. Public office is not only about personal innocence. It is also about institutional responsibility.
A resignation in such a case need not be an admission of criminal guilt. It may simply recognise that public trust has been broken. It says that when students’ futures are damaged under one’s watch, one does not wait for courts to define the minimum threshold of liability. One accepts moral responsibility.
We have become too comfortable with technical defences: can guilt be proved, has the court ordered it, is there direct evidence, is there a procedural escape? These questions matter legally, but they are not enough ethically. Legality is the floor, not the ceiling. Public life cannot survive if accountability begins and ends with legal liability.
The same erosion appears in public reasoning. Economists, academics, lawyers, policy commentators and television experts increasingly defend decisions not because they are right, coherent or ethical, but because they can be attached to a larger priority: growth, national interest, security, reform, efficiency or stability.
Governance is difficult and often requires trade-offs. But trade-offs are not moral absolution. Growth cannot justify every injustice. Stability cannot excuse every institutional failure. National interest cannot become a blanket under which accountability disappears. Reform cannot mean that experts stop asking who suffers, who benefits, who pays the price, and whether the process is fair.
Indian thought has long linked education with responsibility. The Taittiriya Upanishad reminds students: “सत्यं वद। धर्मं चर। स्वाध्यायान्मा प्रमदः”..
“speak the truth, practise righteousness, and do not neglect learning.” The more educated and influential a person is, the greater the obligation to ensure that knowledge becomes ethical conduct.
This is not only an institutional problem. It is also visible in ordinary public behaviour. Recent debates about Indians abroad and civic sense have been uncomfortable. Sweeping judgments about Indians as inherently uncivil must be rejected. No community should be judged by its worst examples. But rejecting unfair generalisations should not prevent self-reflection.
Have we normalised a culture where assertion is mistaken for confidence, volume for celebration, and disregard for authenticity? Dancing, singing, gathering and celebrating are part of culture. But culture also requires judgment. Freedom is not the right to intrude. My celebration cannot become someone else’s discomfort.
Civility is not westernisation or colonial submission. It is not about becoming less Indian. It is the ethical discipline of living with others. It begins with the simple question: how does my behaviour affect another person? We have become too impressed by success and too forgiving of character, celebrating achievement, power and intellect without asking whether they are ethical, restrained or principled. We teach ambition and confidence, but not enough accountability or humility.
The Gita does not ask us to escape the world. It asks us to act rightly within it. Dharma is conduct. It is restraint in public space, accountability in public office and truthfulness in public reasoning. India does not lack intelligence, ambition, lawyers, economists, civil servants, academics or commentators. What it risks losing is the ethical centre that gives all these their worth.
If we want a civil society, we must create higher moral standards at the top and deeper ethical habits in everyday life. A civilisation is not preserved by being loudly claimed. It is preserved by being lived rightly.
*Dr Neeti Shikha is a legal academic based in the UK. The views expressed are personal.
