Does the end justify being mean?

"THE WEAKER sex is strong precisely because of the weakness of the stronger sex for the weaker sex." This was proved once again in the Tehelka `expose' in which prostitutes were admitted to have been used as a bait to make corrupt officers unfreeze. In other words, even the new spying technology like hidden cameras needed the support of the oldest profession!

This has sparked a debate on ends and means which is a major topic in moral philosophy. The Hindu mythology is full of incidents involving such a debate in many of which the gods themselves were active players. The leading exponent of this moral brinkmanship was, of course, Vishnu (especially his Avatar Krishna). Means of debatable morality were adopted to deprive Karna of his protective earrings and armour, to make him gift away all the protective merit (Dharma) earned by him through his unrivalled philanthropy and to demoralise Drona by telling him a half-truth in all of which Lord Krishna was the prime mover. Woman power in its seductive manifestation was used to deprive the asuras of their share of the nectar of immortality (Amruta), to make Bhasmasura destroy himself, and to disturb Vishwamitra's penance. Rama's killing of Vali is another instance of the use of prima facie unfair means. In all these cases, the use of what, to an average reader, would appear to be the use of an improper means has been justified by all the religious commentators and leaders on the ground that the person who suffered was either a bad person or had done something wrong in the past and his Karma was catching up with him in its inscrutable ways, that evil had somehow to be conquered and that it was all necessary for preserving Loka-kshema.

Induced corruption

In our own times, examples of the use of questionable or controversial means for achieving what are commonly accepted as desirable ends are many. Military spying permits all available means to be used to break into the enemy's secrets including sex power. (Luckily for the military, they do not have to reveal the methods used by them. More important than observing the Ten Commandments, therefore, is for them to observe the eleventh -- thou shall not be caught!) It is common for the police to bribe informers, offering a pardon to one of the accused by making him an approver in order to make him depose against the other accused is also, strictly speaking, an immoral incentive, but legally sanctified. To start with, the courts were reluctant to accept trapping as a legitimate method of catching a corrupt public servant. Their view was that it was intrinsic corruption that was punishable, not induced corruption!

What about Satyagraha of which Gandhiji was the pioneer? Gandhiji was clear in his mind that a law which, in one's opinion, is evil ought to be resisted and defied, and not doing so implies siding with evil. To the British this was a wrong means to achieve a right end and even today governments in our country are telling all agitators the same thing!

In all these cases, where does one draw the line, the Lakshman Rekha, so to speak? In the TV panel discussion on the Tehelka incident, the speakers were of the view that it was for the journalist investigator to draw his own Lakshman Rekha and that this cannot be done by any external body. The matter, therefore, would bear further examination.

Various schools of thought

If one wants to be intellectually fashionable in taking a stand in such matters, there is a whole lot of philosophy on the topic. Some well-known schools are:

* The deontological school prescribes that the means used should harm no one, be fair to all concerned and should be the autonomous choice of the decision-maker.

* The consequentialist school holds that the results should decide whether the means chosen were justified or not. (If the omelette turns out to be good, breaking the egg was justified!)

* The utilitarian school evaluates means by their usefulness in achieving the desired ends.

* The synergistic optimisation school is a refinement of the utilitarian school in that it wants the utility to be not egoistic (selfish) or altruistic (entirely benefiting others) but synergistic (benefiting everyone).

* Benthamism is a more practical version of synergistic optimisation and aims at benefiting not everyone but the maximum possible number of people to the maximum possible extent. (This is what most democracies attempt to do. This is also what makes an elected government think that merely because it has obtained majority of sorts, it alone represents the will of the entire people and can do whatever it wants as long it is in power.)

* Max Weber contrasts ethics of responsibility with ethics of absolute ends clearly leaning towards the former which involves choosing means with a sense of responsibility (meaning, perhaps, a sense of conscience).

* The contextual school believes that the correctness of the choice of means would depend on, and vary with, the context in which the ends are sought to be achieved. (Kali Yuga, apparently, justified approaches which the earlier, more virtuous Yugas would not have approved of!)

None of these lays down a single, common inviolable criterion for choosing the means. The criterion one chooses would depend on the school of philosophy that appeals to one. Even the guidelines of the Press Council of India cover only the content, use, and publication of the information obtained through investigative journalism but not the means permitted to be used for obtaining it. Moreover, being obsessed with means is often criticised as bureaucratic and negative (if not obstructive) whereas being ends- or result-oriented is praised as enterprising and dynamic.

Though, at the outset, the fact that prostitutes were used in the Tehelka operation shocks one, would it have been less unacceptable and shocking if, instead, cash had been paid which the receiver then uses for visiting a prostitute, or hard core blue films had been gifted? (After all, one is salary and the other is a perquisite!). If prostitutes had been used to unearth a planned bomb blast or assassination or to rescue a kidnapped child, would we have found it equally shocking and unacceptable? In the case of Tehelka, they have not exposed any actual scam but only exposed, through a made-up, fictitious business deal, the corrupt proclivities of some politicians and defence officials which, perhaps, was already known. (It is also doubtful whether such fictitious deals can form the basis of prosecution as in some cases courts in the U.S. have not accepted them as a valid basis.) Was it really necessary to resort to procurement of prostitutes just to show that some politicians, government officials have corrupt tendencies?Where do we draw the line and on what basis? Is it really practicable to draw up a hierarchy of ends of increasing importance (from, say, mere snooping to matters of grave threats to national security) and a corresponding hierarchy of means of increasing impropriety (from, say, simple bribing to the supply of narcotics) permitted to be used to achieve the former?

In the case of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, the misdeed came to light because of the unauthorised taping of a telephone conversation, but the press and the American public did not bother about this aspect at all and concentrated, rightly, on the misbehaviour of the President. But in the case of Tehelka, those who stood exposed are trying to divert attention from the real issue to the means used in the expose. (It is like a murderer condemned to the electric chair complaining that AC current is being used instead of DC!) In our country, which is notorious for undeserved sympathy waves, they may even succeed. If they do, it would be the price Tehelka would have paid for its overkill in the choice of means. The Tehelka Editor said in a recent TV show that this was a mistake by his field level investigators. Two thousand years ago, Tiruvalluvar said, "Idanai idanal ivan mudikkum enrarindu" -- that is, one not only has to find a person who can do the job but one also has to know how he is going to do it. In other words, means also have to be decided upon and prescribed in advance. Managerially, means can never be totally separated from ends and have to be tailored to the nature of the end.

Some criteria

If no hard and fast rule can be evolved for selecting the means, at least some criteria can be thought of based on gut feelings and commonly accepted social norms. For example, any means adopted should not

* be illegal or unlawful;

* adversely affect innocent people;

* violate the dignity or the human rights of any persons; or

* offend prevalent social values and sensibilities.

The Tehelka use of prostitutes falls under the third and the fourth criteria above. Whatever the public interest served by the `expose', using a prostitute implies acquiescence in that social evil and accepting her as an available, convenient tool and, therefore, offends human dignity and prevalent social sensibilities and values. Irrespective of any philosophical justification about ends and means, on this count alone the Tehelka operation can be faulted as improper. (On the other hand, if a policewoman poses as a prostitute or a call girl to entice and trap a criminal, it would be a perfectly ligitimate means to adopt which merely exploits the known weakness of a criminal.)

If any investigator feels honestly that in a given situation public interest cannot be served except by violating any of the above norms, then he has to take the responsibility and do what he thinks best, leave it to society to judge him and his actions and take the consequences. It would be difficult for authority to lay down any rules more specific or detailed than these four broad criteria.

It is, however, possible to minimise, if not eliminate, the need to adopt controversial means for obtaining information from or about government. Some State Governments have already passed Freedom of Information Acts which give the citizen the right to obtain information affecting his interests. These Acts, as in other countries, do have exemptions and exceptions, but by citizens making active use of them, infirmities in them can be removed and they can be improved and made to serve the interests of transparency in governance. The other solution to the problem of lack of transparency in government is to pass a Whistle- blowers Protection Act as in some western countries giving legal protection to public servants, under certain circumstances, to approach designated autonomous authorities or even go public to expose misgovernance.

To conclude, we are still unable to say whether ends justify means or not; all that we are able to say is that ends do not justify being mean!

P. K. DORAISWAMY,

Former Special Chief Secretary,

Government of Andhra Pradesh

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