Mentor’s Comment:

Mention about sharing of moral values by community and society members in the form of universal agreement and which cannot be framed by enforcing laws. Bring sufficient example(s) to support your point. How lack of these values and shared agreement among individual and community leads to chaos kind of situation in democracy, governance and trade practices. Conclude with positive notes of inculcating morality from the conscience of people.

 

Model Answer:

• A moral value is a universally accepted principle that governs the day to day living of life. These principles are important in maintaining unity, harmony and honour among people and society.  Moral values are usually communal and shared by the public in general, thus if there is no agreement or obligation among community members no moral values will be established which will lead to chaos.
• Moral values cannot be framed and inculcated by force or by framing laws and regulation. Such external changes will have very limited impact on changing moral behaviour if internal conscience and internal changes does not happen simultaneously.
• For example: dowry is an act of criminal and is prohibited by Dowry Prohibition Act 1961. However, still the practice of dowry acceptance and giving is rampant in various part of India and is seen as a prestige in accepting it. More amounts (in quantity) in dowry lead more prestige to the family giving or accepting it.
• Child labour, by law is prohibited, yet on every step we encounter many children working as labour in daily life. Laws on such prohibition are found to have limited impact because of lack of moral unanimity in our society and also due to unawareness among masses.
• Peace, justice, freedom etc. are considered the democratic values and due to lack of importance of these values among people will lead to the flourishing of vested interests in the society leading to chaotic situation. For example: the constitution of Nepal, at the time of its adoption, does not provide adequate rights to Madhesi people for which the chaos kind of situation was prevailing. This happened due to the lack of government’s obligations and morality towards these people.
• Lack of Ethical practices in trade and commerce, probity in bureaucracy etc. are leading our economic sector towards crony capitalism. For example: 2G spectrum scam, Coal block allocation scam which saw subversion of free market tools. Sahara scam, Sraddha scam and fraud by Vijay Mallya show that every reform is superficial without individual morality.
• Hence, the values of morality and obligations should be inculcated from the conscience of individuals and are to be widely shared which will best serve the purpose. The external control in terms of laws and regulations will have limited impact in governing morality and obligations unless it is commonly believed with consensus.