Ethics Case Studies: A Practical Perspective.

From the experience of CSE Mains since 2013, one can say that GS IV or the Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude paper offers more scoring opportunities than the other three GS papers. The reason is that a well thought and well presented answer for a case study question can fetch more than 50% marks. Since almost half of the GS IV paper is essentially based on case studies, scoring well in this section gives a tremendous boost to your Mains performance.

Let us first understand the broad thought behind the purpose of these case study questions. UPSC basically wants to judge our administrative aptitude. The idea here is to test the ability of candidate to understand the situation and make a decision which can be termed as most appropriate, if not a perfect decision. So the focus is not on your writing skills or your theoretical knowledge, but on the thought behind the solution and the administrative aptitude exhibited.

Coming to administrative aptitude, it is necessary to think about the perspective of an administrator. The most important function of an administrator is to tackle the multiple stakeholders and to balance their interests, which can be conflicting at times. For this challenging task, three skills are very important: a) Policy designing and advocacy (framing the most appropriate and holistic policy and convincing the stakeholders about its effectiveness), b) Optimum utilization of resources and c) Ability to frame creative but simple solutions. From the angle of answer writing, these are the aspects that our case study answer should include. With this background, let us discuss some important issues those must be kept in mind while answering Ethics case studies.

1. When there are multiple alternatives for the course of action, remember there is no ‘best’ alternative. You are free to choose any one, provided it is logical, rational and justifiable. Everybody has a certain set of core values which get reflected in this choice. UPSC wants to unearth these values through such questions.

Illustration: You are Municipal Commissioner of a city and you want to do something four round-abouts in the core region of the city which are very crowded, resulting into a traffic jam. The solution you find is to construct roataries/ circles and beautify them. You check up with your finances but find severe crunch there. Here you have many options open viz. Demanding funds to State Government, Pooling funds from MP or MLA, Asking companies to give funds through CSR, Adopt the methods used by other cities etc. You can choose any one and justify it.

2. Always give theoretical backing to the solution you are offering. This theory can be tenets from some philosophical work, quotes of thinkers or articles from Constitution. This will truly add a punch to the answer and save words and time in the answer.

Illustration: As a District magistrate you receive complaint about an NGO “Helping Poor”. You have authentic information that this NGO actually helps homeless poor by providing them meals. The complainant mentions that the NGO takes these people into Government School building for providing meals and has not taken any permission to use school building. So the complainant asks to you to take stern action on the NGO and deny them the permission to use school building. Now here, we should focus that any such action can put the poor in trouble. So instead of obstructing such noble cause, you can call the NGO members and tell them to take the necessary permission. As a theoretical backing, quote Gandhiji’s Talisman: When in doubt before taking any action, recall the face of the poorest and the weakest person.

3. Never assume anything unless and until it is mentioned clearly. Understand whether the question is asking you to think as an officer or a common man. When nothing specific is mentioned, answer from a common man’s perspective.

Illustration: You are travelling in a city bus and suddenly two boys of age group 16-18 start fighting. What will be your course of action? Here, remember that nothing is mentioned about ‘you’. I suggest to take this ‘you’ as a commoner, and then think over it. But if someone visualizes himself/ herself as a Police officer, the course of action may change drastically.

4. Try to identify the focus area of the question. Case studies are often lengthy and hence it is possible that we might miss what is the essence of the question. This will lead to a vague answer, fetching minimum answers. Try to summarize the question and answer to the point.

Illustration: You are in-charge of implementing the Family Planning programme in an area where there is a strong opposition to the present policy. You want to convince the residents of the need for keeping small families. What would be the best way of communicating this message? The question here is about communicating the message, and not about actual implementation of the programme. So the answer should focus on how to persuade the stakeholders.

5. Try to strike a balance of personal values and professional values. Sometimes personal values like compassion, empathy can be at a conflicting position with professional values like efficiency, rule-boundedness. Considering both of them will make the course of action more effective.

Illustration: A clerk in your office is often found drunk on duty and does not work for whole day when drunk. Your subordinate puts up a file of disciplinary action against him before you, recommending his dismissal on grounds of inefficiency. However you personally feel that every addict is actually a patient who needs chance to reform. What will be your decision?

In this case you feel sympathy for the clerk. But his inefficiency at the expense of public money cannot be tolerated either. So a middle path would be to inflict a less severe penalty like giving a warning and sending him on compulsory leave for some days and handing over his salary to his family after he joins.

6. Natural justice is a very important principle that should not be neglected. Whenever you are suggesting any big decision in the answer, ensure that you are giving fair chance to all the stakeholders to present their case. Further make sure that you are not judging yourself or the institution/people you represent.

Illustration: Suppose you are a Class I officer. One of your clerks comes late to office almost everyday, and sometimes stays absent without prior consent. What action will you take?

Here the officer must give a chance to the clerk to explain his/her case (except some very urgent situation). After that the decision must be made.

Illustration: You are promoted from DySP to Additional SP in year 2012. One day the SP hands over a case of 2009 to you in which a Police Inspector, on the DySP’s order allegedly violated human rights of a person by arresting him in the midnight. To your surprise, you notice that you were yourself the DySP who gave this order. Further you know it clearly that the person arrested was an illegal arms supplier who had to be arrested as soon as possible. So you are convinced that the Inspector was not guilty in this case. What will be your course of action? In this situation, the Additional SP is in fact judging his/her own order. This goes against Natural Justice. So the best option would be to inform the SP about the scenario and request him to hand over this case to some other competent authority. Whether the order was right or wrong is a separate issue, which should be decided by that authority.

7. Focus on how the available resources can be used optimally. Do not cite lack of resources as a reason for inaction. At the same time take care that you are not underutilizing resources. In such questions, first step can be a quick survey of resources, including human resource and time.

Illustration: You are travelling in a bus and a co-passenger suffers from heart stroke. In this situation, first ask whether there is any doctor travelling with you in the bus (survey of human resource). If not, then move ahead with options like giving CPR, directing driver to take bus to the nearest health centre/hospital etc.

8. Certain sections of society who are more vulnerable than others must be given special consideration. g. Poor, Women, Minority, Backward classes. This does not mean that we should generalize or blindly favour them.

Illustration: As a Municipal Commissioner you have served notice to shop owners encroaching on the roadside. However one of those shop owners meets you and requests for three days time to move his material since his wife is in ICU and he needs to attend her. He shows you her medical reports too. In this case you can give a three day relaxation to the concerned person considering his problem, after verifying the issue. But sternly warn that this does not mean he will be spared. This should not affect your stand on other encroachers.

Illustration: You are a doctor in PHC and have only one dose of medicine left. You will get the new stock within 2-3 days and this medicine is not available in medical stores. Two people, viz. son of the wealthiest shopkeeper and son of a poor farmer are asking for it. In such case rather than taking emotional decision by outrightly favouring the poor, decide on the basis of who needs the medicine more urgently. Here the decision should be driven by professional values. But if you find that both of them are at same state of health, then priority can be given to the poor.

9. Whenever the issue of reasonable restrictions on Fundamental Rights comes into the picture, remember a rule: If using fundamental right by an individual/organization is curbing fundamental rights of other individuals/organizations, it becomes reasonable to put restrictions on usage of such fundamental right.

Illustration: You are a Police Inspector and you get a complaint from a cooperative housing society. Many families complain that a certain person with political background in the society regularly organizes meetings and programmes which create lot of disturbance. There are senior citizens and students residing there and these meetings cause deteriorating impact on their life. The person on the other side claims that these meetings are essential as a part of his political career and he has a fundamental right of assembly. In this case this person’s actions are actually curbing the right to peaceful and dignified life of other residents. So you can direct the political person to stop conducting these meetings in the society.

10. In situation-reaction type questions, try to involve the local authority before taking action. Everybody has a marked jurisdiction and this must be respected.

Illustration: You are Tehsildar of XYZ tehsil. While travelling in your neighbouring tehsil ABC, you notice a truck illegally transporting sand. You get down and find that the truck is dangerously overfilled and is vulnerable to mishap. Here, you are outside your territorial jurisdiction. But the option of ignoring the matter is also ruled out. So you need to take some action, but before that, it is better to take the through the local administration in charge. So you can stop thevehicle and hand it over to the proper authority. A simple call to the local Tehsildar will initiate the action. If required you can always escalate the matter to the seniors.

11. In case of decisions, be firm but not rigid. Some questions have situations where you need to change your stance. If you are convinced, do not hesitate to change the stance for better. But do not change your fundamentals. Also remember when the situation is about to out of hand, status quo can also be one of the probable solutions to make things stable.

Illustration: As a newly appointed Chief Officer of a Municipal Council, you are very ambitious about an ongoing IHSDP housing project where 400 poor families will get houses. It is your dream project and you have actively publicized it in the media. The work is now up to foundation level. Suddenly one day, a clerk comes with a shocking information that the land used in the IHSDP project is not on the name of Municipal Council. It belongs to a Temple trust which is now dysfunctional. The clerk assures you that nobody from the trust will raise the issue and the project will go on smoothly. You realize this is a blunder and your image and reputation is at stake. The staff is advising you to keep mum and avoid ignominy. Now in this situation, the better choice will be to accept the mistake and stop the work. Changing a stance will cause some issues for you but you are avoiding a big matter in the future. Take the stakeholders in confidence and come out in the media with justification.

12. In answers where you are finding solutions, look out for sustainable solutions, rather than patch works. Think futuristic and avoid narrow approach. Foresight is very essential in decisions as you are not always in a position to supervise.

Illustration: You are a ZP CEO expecting a transfer in 2 months as your tenure is getting completed. Before leaving the post, you are trying to find out ways to improve quality of education in secondary schools. One of your BDOs comes with an idea of providing education related magazines in all school libraries. But you are afraid that if you give funds for this purpose, somebody in the line will misappropriate it once you get transferred and the students will get nothing. In this situation, the problem is about promptly delivering the magazines and maintaining sustainability. A solution would be to ask industries/ banks in the district to donate magazines (instead of funds) to schools on a monthly basis. To ensure sustainability you can form a committee with leading industrialists/ bankers and few senior officials.

 

These points will help you in the thought process but the real skill lies in the way of presentation. For that you need conceptual clarity, consistency in thought and of course lot of writing practice. For practice, you can use the Ethics case studies from Mains papers or Decision making questions from Prelim papers. Another important thing is that while answering the question where you are asked to evaluate multiple options, prioritize with the most preferable option first. Spend more words and time in this option. For better scoring, try to attempt case studies first and then go for the theory questions. While writing answers, maintain a tone that is optimistic, solution-oriented and pragmatic.

To conclude on a philosophical note, two things must be kept in the mind while answering such ethical questions, in exam or in reality. First, good and bad co-exist in the same person/ thing. There is nothing absolutely good or absolutely bad, barring very few exceptions. Good and bad are relative concepts. What is good in a particular situation can be bad in other situation and vice versa. So better stop judging people/ things as good or bad. Our judgments are basically our perceptions about them, which can be right or wrong. As Amish puts it in the Shiva Trilogy, “There is your truth and there is my truth. As for the universal truth, it does not exist.”

Secondly, the real world is full of constraints. These constraints lead to bounded ethical behaviour. The real skill of an ethical person is to maximize the ethical value of human behaviour. In fact these constraints create hard times; and only in hard times one’s ethics and character can be tested. And one who stands on this test, is the true champion.

 

You may also like to read another blogpost by the same author https://abhijitraut10.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/a-crazy-crazy-ride/