Integrity matters

"Please scoop after your dog, even if no one is looking," said a notice in our colony. In one stroke the note appeals to the sense of civic responsibility as well as the virtue of integrity. While the former focusses on common good of the community, the latter is the supreme quality of leadership as demonstrated by Lal Bahadur Shastri in his political and personal life.

Dr Sandeep Shastri, in his book Lal Bahadur Shastri: Politics and Beyond, narrates enlightening incidents from the former prime minister’s life. During one of Shastriji’s numerous jail terms as part of freedom struggle, his daughter Suman fell gravely ill and the authorities granted him parole for 15 days to visit home. Unfortunately within a couple of days after he reached home his daughter passed away. With a heavy heart he performed her last rites and immediately thereafter, even before the end of his parole term, he returned to the jail. Other inmates were puzzled as to why he wouldn’t utilise his full parole term. To their amazement he explained, “Parole was given to me to look after my daughter, who is no more, so it is my duty to return to jail.”

Another instance also illustrates Shastriji’s uprightness. He was the recipient of Rs 50 pension paid by the Servants of People’s Society, the NGO founded by Lala Lajpat Rai to train people in the service of the motherland. When Shastriji realised that his wife was able to save Rs 10 from the pension, he requested the authorities to reduce his pension to Rs 40 so that the excess amount is saved by the society for some suitable cause. Such integrity in people holding public offices is hard to find at any time, not just today.

In our everyday life, we all have opportunities to demonstrate integrity and be true to ourselves. For instance, not cheating in the examination and copying from others even when the invigilator is not looking and we don't know the answers, or returning that extra ten rupees to the vegetable vendor who has given back excess amount as change by mistake would enhance one’s self-respect.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius, a concerned parent bids farewell to his son Laertes with this advice before the young man leaves home - “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”