Ethics Case Study: Rajapuram is a border district. Jhara and Biru, its two major communities, are in continual conflict with each other. The social fabric is fractured and demands mending. …

The ethical issues to be addressed

• Impartiality has already failed. The rivalry has entered the administration and police, so the state is no longer a neutral arbiter but a suspected participant. Restoring perceived neutrality is the precondition for everything else, not a later refinement.
• Duty to protect life first. Deaths are occurring and supplies are cut. The immediate obligation is to both communities equally, and visibly so.
• Equal treatment under conditions of unequal power. Formal even-handedness can entrench an existing imbalance in land, resources and representation; but visible tilting destroys legitimacy. Holding both is the hardest part.
• Justice against order. Quick restoration of order may require deferring accountability for the violence; deferring it too long tells victims their loss does not count.
• Use of force. Requisitioning CRPF is ethically defensible where local forces are compromised, but force must be proportionate, non-discriminatory and accountable.
• Truth and rumour. In communal conflict, misinformation kills. Managing information honestly is a life-saving duty, and suppression usually backfires.
• External exploitation. A neighbouring country may fuel insurgency, which raises the stakes but must not become a pretext for treating either community as suspect.
• Relief camp equity. Separate camps risk unequal provisioning becoming evidence of bias.

Options open to Rajan

• A. Rely on the local administration and police. Merits: fastest, uses local knowledge. Demerits: they are compromised; any action they take will be read as partisan by one side and will deepen distrust.
• B. Impose a heavy security clampdown first — curfew, mass preventive detention, force-led control. Merits: may stop violence quickly. Demerits: alienates both communities, risks excesses, and buys order at the cost of the legitimacy needed for a settlement.
• C. Move straight to political negotiation on land, resources and representation. Merits: addresses root causes. Demerits: impossible while violence continues and supplies are cut; talks under duress fail.
• D. Sequenced approach — neutral force to secure the humanitarian corridor, visible rebalancing of the administration, equal relief, then structured dialogue.

The recommended course: D

Rajan's own instinct — open the highway first — is correct, and the sequence matters as much as the content.

• Requisition CRPF for the corridor and camps. A neutral, non-local force is the right instrument precisely because local units are compromised. Frame it publicly as neutrality, not escalation.
• Reopen the highway as a humanitarian act, serving both communities' food and medical needs. This is the least contestable first move and demonstrates impartiality by deed rather than assurance.
• Rebalance the district team visibly. Move officers with demonstrated partisanship out of operational roles, and constitute mixed teams so no decision has a single-community face.
• Equalise relief measurably and publish per-camp provisioning data. Publication is what converts an assurance into a verifiable fact.
• Investigate violence even-handedly. Register cases from both communities on the same standard; selective FIRs are the fastest route to losing both sides.
• Build a joint civilian structure — a peace committee with respected figures from both communities, women's representatives and traders who share an interest in reopening the economy.
• Counter rumour with a single verified information channel, issued in both languages, rather than a blanket communications shutdown that fuels speculation.
• Escalate the structural questions. Land claims, resource allocation and political representation are beyond a DM; document them and refer them upward while managing the immediate crisis.

Protecting his non-partisan image

Perceived neutrality is built from symmetry, transparency and distance: identical treatment of parallel incidents, published data on relief and arrests, use of a non-local force, mixed teams, refusal of hospitality or private meetings with leaders of either side, and a written record of every major decision with reasons. Our note on communal violence covers the administrative playbook.

Conclusion

Rajan cannot resolve conflicting land claims in a fortnight, and should not try. What he can do is make the state credible again — by acting first where both communities' interests coincide, treating parallel wrongs identically, and putting his reasoning on record. Impartiality in a polarised district is not a stance one announces; it is a pattern that accumulates from decisions that can be checked.