Relevance: The topic is a part of UPSC CSE General Studies Paper-IV Ethics syllabus. Concepts are particularly relevant in the theory section. Aspirants will also find the article useful for their Essay paper and situation-based questions in personality tests. Moreover, the article’s essence will help aspirants professionally and in life. Nanditesh Nilay writes for UPSC Ethics Simplified fortnightly. The first article will be a concept while the second article will be a caselet, based on the concept. Don’t miss the ‘Post Read Question’ below. What is trust? Trust is our firm belief towards an idea, a person or, even a thing. In its simplest form, it is the beliefs rather than expectations that root the trust. In infancy, we trust our parents as we stumble towards them learning to walk, a family trusts each other, neighbours trust each other when they switch their lights off. When trust erodes, things begin to crumble. What is public trust? In the public domain, trust becomes public trust - an expectation from government agencies or public servants. Somewhere this kind of trust is a weaker form of trust as to simply believe that others will do good for us, without necessarily knowing what the action of good or ‘doing good’ entails for the people across. When we talk about public trust, we are referring to all those value-based relationships among people or between government and citizens which are important for any kind of democratic government. Every citizen expects that their representatives and public or private officials must carry those values of trust which create a trust relationship between a trustee and a trustor. A society needs trust like glue, a nation depends on institutions and leaders it can trust. However, the outcome can be either trust or distrust. What kind of trust relationship do we witness nowadays? (a) Trusting the brands Today the compass of trust is everywhere. We all so easily trust Zomato or Domino’s for our dinner. You get your orders delivered, in time which wasn’t expected in our last generation. We receive, open and feast without a tinge of doubt. The next morning, we go for a walk and trust our Apple watch or Google Fit in our phone. We know there is something that listens to our heartbeats and tirelessly counts our steps. We trust in it and that very trust motivates us to walk more, and our wristband is so caring that it always alarms us to discontinue the habit of sitting for long hours. Surprisingly, if the same caution or orders had been from our seniors or parents, our egos would have become stiffer. However, in today’s world, it seems that we trust these bands and other health accessories more than anything else. We read, listen, count, feel and follow them – we trust them. We trust that our new home in a multi-storied luxury society will bring us comfort and happiness. We trust the Amul chocolate - a gift for someone you love. We fell in love after taking a bite of that chocolate. Bisleri means water and ‘Thanda’ means Coca-Cola. They are capable of quenching our thirst and so we trust them. From food to fabric, trust is the only guiding kindle around. We know that wearing a shirt with a crown logo is nothing less than feeling like a king, and without any hesitation we wear Raymond. It makes us look confident. We trust all of them. Although the nations around the equator have not understood the magic of a cream that makes a lady fair in a week, people across the world trust that cream. Trust begets hope, and in a developing nation like India where there is an inferiority and superiority complex due to those long years of colonialism and loot, hope was always on the dimmer side and so was trust. Gradually over the last few decades, the Indian middle class began depending blindly on everything which is essential for their survival. Ironically, we trusted not only the product but also the person who at that time was associated with and accompanying that product. Do we imagine that a Domino’s or Zomato’s employee would have opened the food before delivering it? Or do we feel that sitting at Haldiram’s and waiting for dosa is a suspicious act because we don’t know who is preparing and how much hygiene is being followed? No, we never appear in a state of doubt. Dosa and Pizzas are powerful enough to convince us that till the time they are being served by any person, trust prevails. The whole environment appears secular. We are mostly not bothered much about knowing who is delivering the Domino’s Pizza or MacDonald Burger to our homes - we just need them, that's it. We have blind faith in them which comes from trusting the brand. (b) Trusting the virtual world The next to win our trust are those virtual platforms where millions of followers wait to recognise and get recognised. It is the next destination of the journey of our trust. We trust the blue ticks. We trust those virtual interactions and gladly spend our most precious hours on those platforms. We believe that the moment we post our selfies or breakfast images there will certainly be a few likes. What a moment! It is better than those daffodils or Wordsworth walking into those woods. We trust those responses, emojis, and those networks. We always live in the state of hope that all those virtual dots are nothing but real. So, when we see the compass of trust, we find it is towards the market and virtual platforms. Market and that virtual world have controlled all human interactions and quietly took the softest and the most powerful identity of human beings i.e. trust. So, we trust brands and virtual processes. Trust has travelled towards a product, a service, a thing we have paid for. But what about people? That’s where the problem lies. How much do we trust people? We failed to trust human beings, for we divided people into various strata and clusters in the name of caste, class, religion, geography and so on. Our attitude takes a different turn when we engage with people, especially in influential profiles and powerful positions in society. Now, trust in the next part of its journey, travels from products and processes to those with profiles and positions, with blue ticks and followers. We learn to influence and impress those people without bothering or feeling ashamed. This modern-day society needs results and something that can take care of their identity. Trusting those influential profiles made the communication hopeful and anybody who sat on those responsible chairs was trusted. Why trust has not looked towards that last person waiting to redefine his or her identity? Maybe that poor face is not assisted by those virtual platforms or Pizza plates. They don’t have anything to prove for their honest heartbeats. They don’t have a Nike or an Adidas but they can walk towards their roots. In the Covid-19 time, migrants only trusted their emotions and their families in their villages. They did not trust the cities and their urban employers. Even walking without Google Fit, they emerged as the fittest of all. They trusted labour over prosperity. Trust will have to look towards them and review its pattern of movement and interaction. It doesn’t have to always travel up the hierarchy ladder, it can travel down too. Isn’t it? Maybe then the state of public trust will be hale and hearty. Why must good governance build trust between people and government? Researchers have identified that in low-trust societies ethical values are not shared, so moral consensus and public trust are missing. An important aspect of such societies is the continuous decline in people’s social-political trust. If politics and governance create an environment of happiness and oneness and define them as a representation of service – the value; trust will be travelling through a different route - it will travel down too. As human beings, we know it’s easier to trust than mistrust. That is something good governance should take note of and work on it constructively. After all, everyone in the governance sector - ministers or bureaucrats - have to deliver on the expectations of the citizens – the expectations which are based on hope and trust. And therefore it is rightly said that good governance must build trust between people and government. When common citizens trust a civil servant they not only expect her to merely perform her duties but they see her with a lot of hope and provide her an opportunity to be an agent of change in the society, something which most of you would answer in front of the interview panel when they ask you – why do you want to join Civil Services? All you future civil servants should not just quote it in your essays, ethics or interviews but also make it a principle of your life once you step into bureaucracy. Finally, trust should not be a road less travelled by in the public domain as Robert Frost rightly said, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled.” Now after seven decades of independence we hope to witness a high-trust society where trust will wish and travel through that road which is more humane and has been less travelled. This journey can help to evolve public trust. And simultaneously help to evolve a civil servant too. Post Read Question: Trust is the fulcrum around which our lives revolve. Discuss. Edited by Manas Srivastava (The writer is the author of ‘Being Good and Aaiye, Insaan Banaen’. He teaches courses on and offers training in ethics, values and behaviour. He has been the expert/consultant to UPSC, SAARC countries, Civil services Academy, National Centre for Good Governance, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Competition Commission of India (CCI), etc. He has PhD in two disciplines and has been a Doctoral Fellow in Gandhian Studies from ICSSR. His second PhD is from IIT Delhi on Ethical Decision Making among Indian Bureaucrats. He writes for the UPSC Ethics Simplified (Concepts and Caselets) fortnightly.)
