GS Paper IV 2016

Aristotle built ethics around eudaimonia, human flourishing through virtue. Inside public office the same ethics takes a working form, impartiality and non-partisanship, without which citizens cannot trust the State.

(a) How ethics contributes to social and human well-being

• Individual flourishing: honesty, self-control and compassion bring inner peace and purpose; for Aristotle, the virtues of character are what a person needs to live life at its best.
• Unselfishness: Swami Vivekananda called the urge to become unselfish "the foundation of morality"; it widens care beyond self and kin.
• Social trust: shared norms let strangers keep promises and cooperate, so markets, courts and policing cost less; this is social capital.
• Protection of the weak: ethics restrains exploitation, discrimination and violence, and extends care to future generations and nature, where law arrives late.
• Cost of its absence: adulterated food, unsafe buildings and communal riots are failures of ethics before they are failures of law.

(b) Why impartiality and non-partisanship are foundational in public services

• Meaning: impartiality is deciding on merit without favour; non-partisanship is serving every elected government and every citizen without political bias.
• Constitutional intent: Sardar Patel told the Constituent Assembly that the service "must be above party".
• Codified duty: the CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964 demand political neutrality and "merit, fairness and impartiality"; the 2nd ARC's 10th Report lists "impartiality and non-partisanship" among core civil service values.
• Equal treatment: citizens trust the State only when rules apply alike to every caste, creed and party; a permanent service can serve each government only if it belongs to none.
• Present-day context: polarised politics, identity mobilisation and social-media outrage pull officers into camps; the ARC found that a change of government often brings wholesale transfers, eroding neutrality.

Examples of impartial, non-partisan service

• Elections: a Returning Officer applies the poll code to the ruling party's candidate as strictly as to the opposition.
• Communal tension: a Superintendent of Police protects both communities alike and acts on evidence, not identity.
• Welfare and contracts: a Collector selects beneficiaries and awards tenders on eligibility alone, records reasons, and accepts a transfer rather than favour a leader's nominee.

Ethics makes a society trustworthy; impartial, non-partisan officers make the State trustworthy. A service above party, as Patel intended, is what lets democracy work for every citizen, whoever governs.

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The 2nd ARC called governance "the weak link in our quest for prosperity and equity". The three terms show why: each sets a higher test than the one before.

(a) Governance, good governance and ethical governance

• Governance: the process by which authority is exercised and decisions are made and carried out, through institutions, rules and the ties among State, market and civil society. The term is neutral.
• Good governance: governance of quality. UN ESCAP lists eight marks: participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and following the rule of law.
• Ethical governance: legality and efficiency joined to moral purpose. Of six governance measures, the ARC rated rule of law and absence of graft "the most directly significant" for it.
• How they build: governance is the mechanism, good governance the standard, ethical governance the conscience. A lawful, efficient eviction that leaves families without livelihood passes the first two tests and fails the third.

(b) Mahatma Gandhi's concept of seven sins

• Source: Gandhi printed the list in Young India on 22 October 1925, as sent by a friend; the 2nd ARC reproduced it in its Ethics in Governance report.
• Logic: each sin is a good thing cut from its moral root, so wealth, knowledge and power turn harmful.
• Wealth without work, commerce without morality: black money, speculation, adulteration and crony deals.
• Pleasure without conscience: consumption that ignores its cost to others and to nature.
• Knowledge without character, science without humanity: the educated fraudster; technology turned to surveillance, weapons or unethical trials.
• Worship without sacrifice: ritual without service, piety that ignores the poor.
• Politics without principle: power sought for its own sake, through money, defection and divisive appeals.
• Lesson for public life: wealth, knowledge and power are trusts held for others, and means must be as clean as ends.

Gandhi also left a test for every file: "Recall the face of the poorest and the most helpless man" and ask whether the step will help him. Good governance is the goal; ethical governance, guided by that talisman, keeps it honest.

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Rawls asked which rules people would choose behind a veil of ignorance, not knowing their own place in society. India's framers faced that question in a society that Ambedkar said was entering "a life of contradictions".

(a) Rawls's concept of social justice in the Indian context

• Justice as fairness: equal basic liberties for all; inequalities allowed only if positions are open under fair equality of opportunity and they most benefit the least advantaged (the difference principle).
• Constitutional echo: the Preamble promises social, economic and political justice; Fundamental Rights secure equal liberties; Article 38(2) directs the State to minimise income inequalities and eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities.
• Policy echo: reservations apply fair equality of opportunity; MGNREGA and food security apply the difference principle, judged by what they do for the worst-off.
• Ambedkar's warning: from 26 January 1950 India would have equality in politics but inequality in social and economic life; Rawls's second principle speaks to that gap.
• Limits in India: caste, gender and regional hierarchies work through family, custom and village, beyond the institutions Rawls focused on, so equal opportunity stays unfinished.
• Sen's correction: compare real lives and remove visible injustices; judge by capabilities, what people can actually do and be, not by resources alone.

(b) The Public Services Code recommended by the 2nd ARC

• Origin: the 4th Report, Ethics in Governance (2007), asked that Public Service Values be defined for all public servants.
• Three-tier code: the 10th Report conceived a comprehensive Civil Service Code at three levels:

• Core values: commitment to the Constitution; probity and integrity; impartiality and non-partisanship; objectivity; commitment to the public good; empathy for the vulnerable.
• Statutory backing: the values and the Code of Ethics were to sit in a proposed Civil Services Bill, so that they carry statutory weight rather than remain exhortation.
• Assessment: one clear reference for every tier and a basis for training and appraisal; yet existing Conduct Rules show that text changes conduct only with enforcement, leadership by example and protection for the honest.

Rawls supplies the test, whether a policy lifts the least advantaged; the ARC's code supplies the conduct, empathy for the vulnerable written into an officer's duty. Giving it the statutory force the ARC sought would bring administration closer to the Preamble's promise of justice.

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Kautilya made the treasury the lifeline of the State and treated the dishonest official as its quiet enemy. Swachh Bharat shows the other half of governance: changing what people do, not only what the State builds.

(a) Kautilya's views on corruption, the treasury and development

• Treasury first: for Kautilya the treasury is the root of State power; embezzlement weakens the army, stalls public works and defeats welfare, exactly the chain the statement describes.
• Realism about officials: public money is like honey or poison on the tongue, sure to be tasted; and like fish in water, officials cannot be seen "taking money", so detection needs design.
• Forty ways: he listed about forty ways in which officials embezzle, so he relied on accounts and audit rather than trust.
• Inefficiency: a dishonest official delays work and harasses subjects, so revenue falls and resentment rises; corruption is a political danger, not only a fiscal loss.
• Remedies: test ministers through secret allurements and keep only those who refuse; spies, inspection, accounts and audit; adequate pay; swift, proportionate punishment; rewards for honesty.
• Leadership: the king must set the example and rule by law, since a corrupt ruler corrupts the whole administration.

(b) How social influence and persuasion can make Swachh Bharat succeed

• Behaviour first: the Economic Survey 2018-19 notes that the mission was the first to emphasise behaviour change as much as toilet construction.
• Social norms: people stop defecating in the open when their neighbours stop; village-wide ODF declarations turn this into peer pressure without humiliation.
• Role models: leaders, celebrities, sarpanches and teachers who use and clean toilets break the old link between sanitation work and low status.
• Messengers: schoolchildren carry the message home; trained local volunteers persuade household by household in the local language.
• Framing: credible appeals to dignity, health and women's safety, public pledges, and recognition for clean villages turn attitude into commitment.
• Result: official figures later showed rural sanitation coverage rising from 39% in 2014 to 100% in 2019; persuasion lasts only if water, maintenance and waste services follow.

Kautilya's lesson is that public money survives only under vigilance and fair incentives; Swachh Bharat's is that norms, not budgets alone, change conduct. Joining the two, transparent spending and nudges, can now sustain sanitation gains.

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Kant divided morality into a Doctrine of Right, which governs outward acts towards others and can be enforced, and a Doctrine of Virtue, which governs inner motives. Civilised life needs both tools.

(a) How law and ethics achieve a civilised social existence

• Law sets the floor: it defines minimum conduct and enforces it through police, courts and penalties, giving certainty, equality and protection from harm.
• Ethics raises the ceiling: conscience, upbringing and social approval restrain people when no one is watching, and reach motives and private dealings that no statute defines.
• Ethics made enforceable: Article 17 abolishes untouchability and makes enforcing any disability arising from it an offence, turning a moral reform into binding law.
• Different reach: law governs acts that affect others; ethics also covers duties to oneself, such as honesty in thought and self-discipline.
• Mutual need: law needs ethics for willing compliance, or enforcement collapses under its own weight; ethics needs law to protect the honest from the unscrupulous.

(b) How their approaches differ, with examples

• Scope: lying to a friend or ignoring a person in need is unethical but legal; using a tax loophole may be lawful yet wrong.
• Ethics moves first: Raja Rammohun Roy campaigned against sati before it was banned in 1829; moral conviction rewrote the law.
• Conscience against unjust law: in 1930 Gandhi marched to Dandi to break the salt law openly and was arrested in its wake; civil disobedience is ethics overruling statute in public.
• Constitutional morality: since then, in Navtej Singh Johar the Supreme Court held that constitutional morality differs from popular perception and is set by the Constitution's text and spirit; the two tools meet in the Constitution.
• Flexibility: law is uniform and rigid; ethics weighs circumstances, as when a doctor bends a procedure to save a life.

Law keeps the floor firm and ethics raises the ceiling. A society that cultivates constitutional morality needs less coercion, because its citizens obey good laws willingly and reform bad ones peacefully.

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"Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated," Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly. Attitudes absorbed silently from family and neighbourhood often lag behind the Constitution, even among the highly educated.

(a) Undesirable values prevalent among today's educated Indians

• Caste and communal prejudice: social distance in marriage, housing, hiring and food survives university degrees.
• Patriarchy: son preference, dowry treated as custom, control over women's mobility and work; the sex ratio at birth was only 929 girls per 1,000 boys in NFHS-5 (2019-21).
• 'Chalta hai' civic laxity: tolerance of petty corruption, queue-jumping, littering and a VIP culture that expects exemption from rules.
• Double standards: demanding honesty from the State while evading tax, paying bribes for convenience and using influence for admissions or postings.
• Status over dignity of labour: contempt for manual work and those who do it; consumption as the measure of worth.
• Apathy: not voting, not reporting wrongdoing, silence at harassment in public.
• Why education missed them: schools taught facts, not reflection on values, so private prejudice coexists with public degrees.

(b) Changing such attitudes and cultivating public-service values

• Society at large: contact across caste, faith and region dissolves stereotypes; campaigns that make the desired act the social norm; laws that are actually enforced; families and schools that reward honesty, not marks alone.
• Start young: the 2nd ARC's 10th Report notes the view that grooming for public service should begin early, since late entrants bring "a 'baggage' of entrenched mindsets".
• Aspiring civil servants: an ethics paper and interviews that probe attitudes; case studies, village stays and district attachments that build empathy for the poor.
• Training with a purpose: official training aims at "right attitudinal orientation", not only skills; ethics should run through every phase, not one lecture.
• Serving officers: Mission Karmayogi (since 2020) moves capacity building from 'rules based' to 'roles based' management; mid-career ethics modules and mentoring by exemplary seniors reinforce it.
• Institutional culture: appraisal that records integrity and empathy, prompt action on misconduct and protection for the honest; subordinates copy what leaders tolerate.

Ambedkar warned that democracy in India was "only a top-dressing on an Indian soil". Family, school, law and civil-service training together can turn constitutional morality into a habit, starting with those who govern.

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"Anger leads to clouding of judgment," says the Bhagavad Gita, and when the intellect is destroyed, "one is ruined". Anger is a natural response to threat or injustice; uncontrolled, it damages the person and everyone around.

(a) How anger leads to negative emotions and undesirable behaviour

• The inner chain: the Gita traces anger to desire, and its fruit to confused memory and a destroyed intellect: a chain that ends in the loss of reason.
• Breeding other emotions: anger held in hardens into resentment, hostility and hatred; anger let out brings guilt, shame and anxiety; the other side's retaliation restarts the cycle.
• Undesirable behaviour: shouting, abuse, bullying, sulking, road rage and domestic violence; the body pays through stress, poor sleep and high blood pressure.
• Personal life: repeated outbursts frighten children and silence a spouse; people manage an angry person instead of trusting him, so he grows isolated and more resentful.
• Work life: an angry officer humiliates staff, so bad news stops reaching him; files stall, teams fracture and citizens at the counter are treated as adversaries.

(b) How anger can be managed and controlled

• Self-awareness: know the triggers and early signs, a raised voice or a clenched jaw, and name the emotion as it rises; this self-awareness is the base of emotional intelligence.
• Pause before acting: breathe, count, step away; never send a reply, sign an order or decide while angry.
• Reframe with empathy: see the situation from the other side, separate the person from the problem, and ask what outcome is actually wanted.
• Assertive expression: state the concern calmly and specifically; use humour to defuse and forgiveness to let go.
• Daily discipline: exercise, yoga, meditation and adequate sleep; counselling where anger is chronic; workplaces that settle conflict early.
• Old wisdom: Kautilya counted anger among the six enemies a ruler must shed to master his senses; Aristotle held that anger must never undermine reason, and that people must learn to feel it in the right way at the right times.

Aristotle did not ask us never to be angry, only never to let anger rule reason. Anger at injustice, mastered, becomes steady energy for fair action, the mark of an emotionally mature citizen and public servant.

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Weber's ideal bureaucracy rests on legal-rational authority, whose legitimacy comes from "impersonal rules and general principles". Its official serves without anger or favour; his morality is faithful execution of the rules, not private conviction.

Merits of a separate bureaucratic morality

• Equal treatment: impersonal rules decide a citizen's case, not an officer's sympathies or prejudices.
• Democratic accountability: officials carry out the elected government's mandate; imposing private beliefs would usurp it.
• Role ethics: an office carries duties of its own, such as neutrality, confidentiality and due process.

Dangers of separating it from conscience

• Obedience without thought: Nuremberg rejected 'only following orders'; Arendt traced Eichmann's evil to "thoughtlessness", an inability to see from the victim's side.
• Red tape: rules applied without judgement breed delay and indifference to hardship.

Verdict: rules within constitutional morality

• Indian safeguards: the CCS (Conduct) Rules require oral orders to be confirmed in writing, and Sardar Patel let his Secretaries record notes opposed to his views.
• Dissent through channels: record disagreement on file, insist on written orders, refuse a manifestly illegal order, and use institutional remedies rather than private defiance.

Weber is right that administration needs an impersonal ethic, but not one sealed off from conscience. The ethical officer follows rules, records dissent, and refuses illegal orders, in the service of the Constitution.

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A young engineer must weigh her family's bread against the health of villagers who cannot stop what poisons their river. Silence would make her a quiet partner in the harm.

Stakeholders and ethical issues

• Stakeholders: the engineer and her dependants; villagers downstream; colleagues; the company; the Pollution Control Board, health authorities and courts.
• Dilemmas: duty to family against duty to the public; loyalty to the employer against integrity; security against moral courage.

(a) Why keeping quiet is not morally right

• Greater harm: continuing injury to many lives outweighs her job risk, which is serious but recoverable.
• Persons as ends: Kant forbids treating humanity "as a means only"; silence sacrifices villagers' health to the company's savings.
• Complicity: knowing silence is participation; her seniors' silence reflects fear, not rightness, and the threat of dismissal shows the firm knows it is wrong.
• Law and rights: the secret discharge violates the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; in Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar (1991) the Supreme Court read pollution-free water into the right to life; Article 51A(g) makes protecting rivers a fundamental duty.

(b) Course of action and reasons

Options: silence (complicit), quiet resignation (harm continues), instant exposure (risky, weak proof), or staged lawful disclosure (chosen).

• Document: lawfully record dates, discharge times and effluent data.
• Inside first: a written note to management framed as legal and reputational risk; under the Companies Act, 2013, listed companies must run a vigil mechanism with safeguards against victimisation.
• Regulator and relief: if nothing changes, complain confidentially to the State Pollution Control Board, and alert the district health department for water testing and safe supply.
• Self-protection: legal aid, confidentiality and a job fallback, since her duty to her parents is real.
• Why: it stops the harm at source, stays lawful, gives the company a fair chance and limits risk to her family.

Systemic fix

• Wider protection: the 2nd ARC, which cited whistleblowers such as Manjunath Shanmugam, wanted whistleblower law to cover corporate whistleblowers too; routine effluent checks and village water testing would end reliance on one brave employee.

Her duty to her family does not license harm to strangers. A careful, staged and lawful disclosure honours both conscience and prudence.

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Rawls held that the least advantaged are not objects of charity but people to whom reciprocity is owed "as a matter of basic justice". Adivasis and villagers who give up land for mines and dams are exactly such people.

How I would approach the problem

• Principles: displacement only as a last resort; the affected as partners, not obstacles; no family left a net loser; Article 39(b) directs that community resources serve the common good.
• Stakeholders: displaced families including the landless and forest dwellers; host communities; developers; the government; future generations.
• Method: study past displacements, consult gram sabhas and tribal representatives before drafting, and build on the 2013 land acquisition law rather than start afresh.

Main elements of the suggested policy

• Avoid and minimise: alternative sites and designs; the 2013 Act permits acquisition in Scheduled Areas only "as a demonstrable last resort", with prior consent of the gram sabha.
• Consent and participation: a social impact assessment with public hearings; prior consent of 80% of affected families for private projects and 70% for PPP projects; information in local languages.
• The gram sabha's voice: in the Niyamgiri case (2013) the Supreme Court directed that the gram sabha decide on the community's claims before the final clearance for the mining project.
• Fair compensation: market value with solatium, paid in full before eviction; cover sharecroppers, artisans and forest dwellers, who lose livelihoods rather than titles.
• Livelihood rehabilitation: land for land where possible; a house with water, school and health access; a job or skill training with a subsistence allowance until incomes stabilise; resettle communities together so kinship, culture and commons survive.
• Benefit sharing: equity, royalty or annuity; District Mineral Foundations under the MMDR Amendment Act, 2015; preference in project jobs and contracts.
• Institutions: one accountable agency, ring-fenced funds, rehabilitation completed before construction, a database of every affected family, independent social audit and a time-bound grievance forum.

Development is just only when those who pay its price share its gains. Making rehabilitation a precondition, not an afterthought, turns the displaced from victims of growth into its stakeholders.

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The rule demanding documents protects fairness and public money; the scheme exists for women exactly like her. Reason must reconcile the letter of the rule with its purpose.

Stakeholders and ethical issues

• Stakeholders: the destitute woman; myself as implementing officer; the department and the scheme's integrity; other applicants; taxpayers.
• Issues: compassion against rule of law; equity for an illiterate applicant; accountability for public funds; the risk of arbitrary discretion once papers are waived.

(a) A rational way to resolve the dilemma

• Read the rule by its purpose: documents are evidence of eligibility, not eligibility itself; the real question is whether eligibility can be proved another lawful way.
• Alternative proof: a panchayat or ward certificate of age and destitution, any ration or voter record, an affidavit, neighbours' statements and my own enquiry report, all on file.
• Interim relief: food, shelter and health care through other schemes while her case is processed.
• Help with papers: a staff member or legal-services volunteer arranges her age and identity proof; women are among those entitled to free legal services.
• Escalate openly: if the rules still bar her, a reasoned note to my superior seeking relaxation; never falsified records.

(b) Reasons for this course

• Purpose served: verification still keeps out the ineligible, while support reaches the woman the scheme was made for; Article 41 asks the State to provide public assistance in old age.
• Service values: the CCS (Conduct) Rules demand responsiveness "particularly to the weaker section", and the 2nd ARC lists empathy for the vulnerable among core civil service values.
• Dignity: Kant forbids treating a person merely as a means, a file to be closed; Gandhi's talisman asks whether a step helps "the poorest and the most helpless".
• Defensible: each step is documented and approved, so it avoids both cruel rejection and corrosive rule-breaking, and opens no loophole for others.

Systemic fix

• Design for the excluded: self-declaration with local verification for illiterate, destitute applicants, plus enrolment camps, so the next woman need not depend on one officer's kindness.

Rules are means to just ends. Honest verification, open discretion and help with paperwork protect both the public purse and the woman, which is exactly the test the talisman sets.

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Nearly three in ten ever-married women aged 18-49 in India (29.3%, NFHS-5, 2019-21) report having faced spousal violence, often behind respectable faces. Here a kind mentor's abuse sets gratitude against the duty to protect a person at risk.

Stakeholders and ethical issues

• Stakeholders: the wife, whose safety comes first; the boss; myself as a junior; the office and its reputation.
• Issues: privacy against protection; loyalty against integrity; acting on second-hand evidence; my own career risk.

(a) Ignore it as their personal matter

• Consequences: my mentorship and career stay safe; the violence continues and may escalate; I become a silent bystander, and the office learns to look away.
• Assessment: domestic violence is a legal wrong and a public concern, not a private preference. Rejected.

(b) Report the case to the appropriate authority

• Legal route: the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 lets any person who has reason to believe violence is occurring inform a Protection Officer; conduct "unbecoming of a Government servant" is also a matter for the department.
• Consequences: it meets my duty and can bring a protection order, counselling and shelter; but my evidence is indirect, she may not want action, and a sudden complaint may invite retaliation.
• Assessment: right in substance, premature as a first step.

(c) My own approach

• Verify and keep confidence: no office gossip.
• Speak to the boss: privately and respectfully, name the behaviour, point to its legal consequences and suggest counselling or anger management.
• Reach the wife: through a trusted woman colleague, tell her about One Stop Centres with Women Helpline 181, and free legal aid for victims of domestic violence; her consent and safety guide each step.
• Set a limit: if violence continues or she asks for help, inform the Protection Officer or police at once.
• Why: care ethics attends to the vulnerable person in a relationship, not just the rule; this path gives him a chance to change and protects her without exposing her.

Recommendation: begin with (c), move to (b) the moment safety requires, and never choose (a).

Loyalty to a mentor cannot outrank a person's safety; a verified, staged response secures the wife and my integrity better than silence or a hasty complaint.

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Gandhi's trusteeship held that wealth made through trade and industry does not wholly belong to its maker; beyond an honourable livelihood, it belongs to the community. ABC Ltd's plant tests that idea: a real public good, planned without the consent of those who will bear its costs.

Stakeholders

• ABC Ltd and its shareholders; present and future employees; Vikaspuri's residents and panchayat; incoming migrant workers; local traders and farmers; the Government, which offers a five-year tax holiday; the judiciary; the local environment.

(a) Issues involved in the case

• Development against disruption: jobs and growth for a backward region against a rising cost of living, inward migration and the loss of a tranquil social order.
• Unequal distribution: savings and tax benefits flow to shareholders, while residents bear the adjustment uncompensated.
• Consent and voice: residents were informed after the decision, not consulted before it, so their right to be heard shrank to public relations.
• CSR as persuasion: using social responsibility to manage protest turns a duty into a tactic.
• Governance gap: the Government ignored the residents' plea, pushing them to court and adding delay and mistrust.
• Sustainability: energy-efficient technology is a real good, but housing, water, sanitation and policing for a larger population are unplanned.

(b) Meeting the company's goal and the residents' concerns

• Engage before building: a social impact study with public hearings; a joint committee of the company, panchayat, residents and district administration; mediation to settle the case early.
• Stakeholder governance: since then, the MCA's National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (2019) ask businesses to "respect the interests of and be responsive to all its stakeholders".
• Share the benefits: training and job preference for local youth, contracts for local suppliers; the Companies Act, 2013 requires qualifying companies to spend at least 2% of average net profits on CSR, with preference to "the local area", so let residents choose the priorities.
• Manage the change: worker housing and transport so migration does not overwhelm the town; land-use rules against speculation; independent environmental monitoring; a time-bound grievance cell.
• Align incentives: link the tax holiday to verified local jobs and community commitments, and publish progress.

The 2nd ARC called the alignment of business with social values "the essence" of CSR. Growth planned with a community, rather than announced to it, protects ABC's cost advantage and gives Vikaspuri jobs, services and a voice.

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The 2nd ARC captured Saraswati's paradox: voluntary organisations "often feel harassed" by legal obligations, yet regulators "have not been effective" in regulating the sector. Good control must be strict on misuse and light on honest effort.

Why some control is needed

• Trust and money: voluntary bodies handle donor and public funds and serve vulnerable people; the ARC noted frequent "misuse of tax provisions, fraud and poor governance".
• The present failure: multiple permissions, unclear rules and wide discretion create delay and openings for bribes, deterring the honest and rewarding those who pay.

Measures for due control without coercion or corruption

• Single window: one online portal for registration and every approval, clear checklists, published time limits and deemed approval when a limit lapses.
• Risk-based regulation: the ARC proposed exempting bodies with small foreign receipts from registration in favour of an annual return, so that authorities could concentrate on large foreign funding.
• Credible accreditation: an independent accreditation agency, ideally led by the sector itself, with procedures not so complex as to breed "harassment, delay and corruption".
• Transparency over inspection: online disclosure of accounts, board and funding; social audits with beneficiaries; codes of conduct by NGO networks.
• Accountable officials: a citizen's charter for NGO services, digital file tracking, an appellate authority, a hearing before any penalty, and vigilance action on bribe demands.
• Partnership: the National Policy on the Voluntary Sector (2007) treats NGOs as partners in development; consult them on the rules that govern them.

What Saraswati herself can do

• Use the law: refuse bribes; under the RTI Act an information officer must respond within 30 days, so she can track her file; since 2018 the amended Prevention of Corruption Act spares a person compelled to pay a bribe who reports it within seven days.
• Collective voice: join NGO networks to press for reform rather than withdraw.

Control should follow money and outcomes, not intentions. Clear, time-bound and transparent rules let the State keep its oversight while honest volunteers like Saraswati keep building schools.

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