What do each of the following quotations mean to you in the present context?
- (a)“The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it has any evil in it; but whether it has more evil than good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.” — Abraham Lincoln
- (b)“Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- (c)“Falsehood takes the place of truth when it results in unblemished common good.” — Tirukkural
Approach · directive: “what do they mean”
What it asks · Give the meaning of each quotation in plain terms and link each to public life today.
The question has 3 parts — answer each
- (a) Explain the meaning of Lincoln's quotation on weighing good and evil in the present context
- (b) Explain the meaning of Gandhi's quotation on anger and intolerance in the present context
- (c) Explain the meaning of the Tirukkural quotation on falsehood and the common good in the present context
Open with · Each quotation asks for judgement: weigh good against evil in policy (Lincoln), keep anger and intolerance out of understanding (Gandhi), and let the common good decide when truth and falsehood clash (Tirukkural).
Cover
- (a) Meaning: no policy is wholly good or wholly bad; the test is whether its good outweighs its harm, and that judgement must be made again and again, not once.
- (a) Application: impact and cost-benefit assessment before decisions such as dams, subsidies or tax changes, with harms reduced and reviewed, avoiding both blind acceptance and blanket rejection of imperfect policies.
- (b) Meaning: anger clouds reason and intolerance closes the mind to other views; understanding needs calm, patience and a willingness to listen.
- (b) Application: officers must hear complainants and critics calmly; in society, hate speech, mob violence and polarised debate block dialogue, and tolerance and empathy resolve conflict, as in Gandhi's ahimsa.
- (c) Meaning: Kural 292, on veracity: a falsehood that brings only faultless good for all can count as truth; an act's worth lies in its effect on the common good, not in literal accuracy alone.
- (c) Application: a doctor withholding a shock, or a police officer misleading kidnappers to save a life; valid only if the motive and result are wholly selfless and no lawful option exists.
Close with · Together they call for balance, calm and selfless truth; the Supreme Court's 2018 Aadhaar and mob-violence judgments show them as live tests of governance.
Add value (verified)
- Supreme Court, Aadhaar judgment (26 September 2018): the case required balancing two facets of the same person's dignity, personal autonomy and privacy on one side and a dignified life through welfare on the other. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India (Aadhaar), Supreme Court, 26 September 2018 ↗“It is the balancing of two facets of dignity of the same individual. Whereas, on the one hand, right of personal autonomy is a part of dignity (and right to privacy), another part of dignity of the same individual is to lead a dignified life as well”
- Supreme Court, Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India (17 July 2018), on mob lynching: rising intolerance and mob violence cannot be allowed to become the normal way of life. Tehseen S. Poonawalla v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 17 July 2018 — Indian Kanoon ↗“Rising intolerance and growing polarisation expressed through spate of incidents of mob violence cannot be permitted to become the normal way of life or the normal state of law and order in the country.”
- Dhammapada, verse 5 (tr. Acharya Buddharakkhita): hatred is never appeased by hatred; by non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. Dhammapada, Yamakavagga: Pairs (verses 1-20), tr. Acharya Buddharakkhita — Access to Insight ↗“Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.”
- Tirukkural, Kurals 291-292 (Veracity), G.U. Pope's translation: truth is speech free from the least evil to others; even falsehood has the nature of truth if it confers a benefit free from fault. Tirukkural with G.U. Pope's English translation — Project Madurai e-text ↗“Truth is the speaking of such words as are free from the least degree of evil (to others). 60 292 Falsehood may take the place of truthful word, If blessing, free from fault, it can afford. Even falsehood has the nature of truth, if it confer a benefit that is free from fault.”
- Kant: refraining from making lying promises is a perfect duty to others. Kant's Moral Philosophy — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗“We will briefly sketch one way of doing so for the perfect duty to others to refrain from making lying promises and the imperfect duty to ourselves to develop our own natural talents.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2018, GS Paper IV — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 552 words (UPSC limit 150) · Minimalist IAS
Each quotation asks for judgement rather than a rule: weigh good against evil in policy (Lincoln), keep anger and intolerance out of understanding (Gandhi), and measure truth by its effect on the common good (Tirukkural). Together they describe the temper a public servant needs.
(a) Lincoln: judging the preponderance of good over evil
- Meaning: almost no measure is wholly good or wholly evil; accept or reject it by whether its good outweighs its harm, and keep re-judging, because policy is a compound of both.
- Present context: a dam brings irrigation and displacement; a subsidy brings relief and fiscal strain. Impact assessment, cost-benefit analysis, mitigation and periodic evaluation are Lincoln's "best judgment" turned into administrative practice.
- Courts weigh too: in the Aadhaar case (2018) the Supreme Court framed its task as balancing "two facets of dignity": privacy and autonomy on one side, a dignified life through welfare on the other.
- Guard-rails: count who bears the harm, not only its total, so that a majority's gain does not silence a minority's loss; build in review clauses for course correction.
- For the official: neither the cynic who rejects anything with a flaw nor the zealot who accepts anything with a benefit, but a mind that weighs, decides and keeps watching.
(b) Gandhi: anger and intolerance as enemies of understanding
- Meaning: anger clouds reason and intolerance closes the mind to any view but one's own; correct understanding needs calm, patience and the willingness to be corrected.
- Present context: polarised social media, hate speech and mob violence show how quickly anger replaces enquiry. In Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) the Supreme Court warned that rising intolerance and mob violence cannot become "the normal way of life".
- Ancient echo: the Dhammapada teaches that hatred is "never appeased by hatred", only by non-hatred; Gandhi's satyagraha rested on the same refusal to hate.
- Application: hear grievances and critics calmly, treat criticism as information, negotiate with protesters rather than label them, and answer falsehood with facts; emotional intelligence and self-regulation are working skills of administration.
(c) Tirukkural: falsehood and the common good
- Meaning: Kural 291 defines truth as speech free from the least evil to others; Kural 292 therefore lets even falsehood take truth's place if it confers "a benefit that is free from fault". Speech is judged by its effect, not by literal accuracy alone.
- Present context: a doctor who softens a grim prognosis, a police officer who misleads kidnappers to save a hostage, or an authority that briefly withholds a detail that would cause panic acts within this teaching.
- Strict conditions: the motive must be selfless, the benefit faultless and for all, and no truthful option available. A lie that also serves the liar, such as hiding an official failure or spreading propaganda, is not "unblemished".
- Against Kant: Kant treats refraining from lying promises as a perfect duty; the Kural allows a narrow, consequence-based exception. In public life honesty and transparency remain the default, and any exception must survive later scrutiny.
| Quotation | Core value | Test for today |
|---|---|---|
| Lincoln | Prudent judgement | Weigh, mitigate, review |
| Gandhi | Calm tolerance | Dialogue before force |
| Tirukkural | Truth as non-harm | Selfless, faultless benefit |
Lincoln asks for balance, Gandhi for calm and Valluvar for selfless truth: together, practical wisdom. The Supreme Court's Aadhaar and mob-violence judgments of 2018 show these are not old maxims but live tests of governance.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify) — a little fuller than exam length, so every part of the question is covered; in the hall, keep the structure and trim the detail. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.