INTEGRITY -- A REALITY CHECK

Personality is what marks a person, and what one notices at the very first glance. It is very real, but when you look at it closely, it is at best an abstract quality. C'mon, you don't have to be 6 feet plus and built like a prize fighter to have an attractive personality. Come to think of it, EVERYBODY whom you know has that mystic quality, and it is precisely that that has endeared the person to you.

And personality is marked by many traits. Integrity is certainly not the least important of those. At this point it is interesting to check out its dictionary definition. Integrity is the quality of being honest and upright, and firm in your moral principles. As children grow up they pick up yardsticks to measure these ethereal qualities listening to the stories from mythology, and reading little essays on the great personages from history like Mohandas Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Jesus of Nazareth, Gautama Buddha...the list is endless. Once they arrive at adulthood and start facing the barrage of real-world challenges, they will have opportunities to put their ideas and convictions to the litmus test of their consciences. In an overwhelmingly positive manner, in say eight or nine cases out of ten, the individual will choose to tread the path of integrity. That is a statistic that should thrill us to no small extent.

Recently after seeing the word integrity repeated ad nauseum in the news media, I asked this question to myself--Is the average Indian, the "aam aadmi", a person of integrity? Does he have this quality in at least a passable measure to qualify him to be a subject of this "Mahan Bharat desh" ? Before answering that, I thought perhaps I should put the question to a cross section of people I would meet in workaday situations.

My first 'quarry' was the milkman. In our place people who are too lazy to get up early in the morning leave a small vessel or a bottle at the door for him to leave their daily quota.

I accosted him: "Would you steal that stainless steel vessel and claim that you had filled it and left it securely?"

Rather than answering me in a businesslike fashion, he fired a broadside at me: "Why should I?"

"Oh, just like that...you could sell it, make some money and add that to the price of the unsold litre of milk... sort of two birds with one stone..."

He eyed me in a strange way. "Sir, you are being mischievous this morning..."

I knew if I persisted in this line, my friendly neighbours would soon bundle me off to the psychiatrist, and so I hit another tack.

"Suppose you saw someone else steal it, what would you do?"

"Sir, such thievery does not happen in our locality."

"Why?"

"Because we are not like that..."

End of my "integrity check" with him. Stepping out for my morning constitutional, I knew I would soon run into my paper boy. As I turned the corner, there he was riding his bicycle. He was a hardworking poor boy who delivered the paper and ran errands just to scrape togther some money for his studies and books. I put more or less the same set of persuasive questions to him, and he simply shook his head, smiled a wan smile and pedalled off, surely with some trepidation about my 'state of mind' that morning.

As luck would have it, there was our neighbourhood policeman waiting at the corner bus stop. We chit-chatted and slyly I put the question to him in a roundabout manner. Instinctively, he became suspicious and defensive. I reassured him that my questions were purely like those put by the "channel damsels" to the interviewees. He stoutly upheld his honesty and integrity. But what floored me was his quip--"Sir, one thing I will say, the average policeman is more honest than some of our ministers..." and he went on to paint a picture of the 'Force' peopled by stalwart and honest men and women, with maybe one or two bad apples who gave a bad name to the entire gang. I had to agree with him there, though I had my own figures to replace the "one or two" with!

That morning 'walk' was more like standing around and talking to whoever caught my fancy and putting roundabout questions to them along the above lines. My findings after an hour and half of meticulous (...and dangerous! I was in danger of losing my stand as a more or less upright retired 'gentleman'!) "data mining"? The average person has truly solid notions about morality and integrity and, except perhaps in isolated instances of great pressure or temptation, or both, s/he would strive to maintain her/his integrity. And when it came to the question of shielding one who has been openly lacking in the above qualities of personality, they were vehement in their stand that they wouldnt be parties to shielding such.

As I walked back, I couldn't contain my great relief and the thrill of discovery that ALL WAS NOT LOST for India and Indians. If I knew a suitably expressive Latin or Greek tag like 'Eureka', I would have, though clad in my tracksuit and sneakers,  dashed along in a passable imitation of Archimedes! I was happy that I was living in India and in my locality among such upright people.

My mind was racing to grapple with many thoughts. How do you find out if a person has integrity and honesty programmed into him? Should his wife "root" for him? Or, maybe his party should go on repeating the "truth according to Goebels". Ah, the best would be to let some PR firm (no need for high profile Radias here.) unleash a blitz of "personality building ads". Uh, oh... how did my milkman, my paperboy, the police constable and the half a dozen others whom I had "put into the crucible" emerge as persons of integrity? They surely did not wear labels of integrity on their foreheads???

A person as he grows up and interacts with the world, slowly but surely builds up a cache of imperceptible things. Soon they accumulate and add some sheen to his humble personality. It is perhaps something like a brittle skin of glass. One small mis-step, and the whole thing would crumble at your feet, and like broken glass, would cut you deeply. The patina of integrity is, at every step, added to by your little actions.

Integrity is not your birthright.  ("I am the son/daughter of parents of professed and proven integrity!") Nor is it something that you can claim as part of your group ethos. ("I AM a Gandhian, and so...") Claims of ignorance is the last way to acquire it. ("I didn't know anything...") Rather, it is what the "outsider" sees in you, feels in you and respects in you as a result of the sum-total of your actions and reactions. If you behave like a common cutpurse, or worse still, like the PR man of a clever cutpurse, then, even if you are an actor who is "Oscar stuf", it is very difficult to come across with a "convincing performance" that will carry the day. Why, one may ask. Because the average upright Indian knows what exactly he would do in a given circumstance, and it is not easy to hoodwink him/her with niceties.

On second thought, let me "root" for the upright, honest, moral Indian "aam aadmi".

YOU are the ONLY hope for this great and beloved nation of ours!

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