Our attitudes towards life, work, other people and society are generally shaped unconsciously by the family and the social surroundings in which we grow up. Some of these unconsciously acquired attitudes and values are often undesirable in the citizens of a modern democratic and egalitarian society. (a) Discuss such undesirable values prevalent in today’s educated Indians. (b) How can such undesirable attitudes be changed and socio-ethical values considered necessary in public services be cultivated in the aspiring and serving civil servants?

Attitudes and values are largely acquired unconsciously through family, caste, community and schooling. In a modern democratic and egalitarian society, several such inherited dispositions sit uneasily with constitutional morality even among the educated.

(a) Undesirable values prevalent among educated Indians

• Casteism and communalism dressed up in subtler, 'respectable' forms.
• Patriarchy and gender bias — son-preference, restrictions on women, tolerance of domestic inequality.
• Tolerance of, and even admiration for, corruption, nepotism and favouritism.
• Sycophancy toward power and disdain for those below.
• Poor civic sense — indifference to public property, cleanliness and rules.
• Valuing status, connections and display over merit, competence and honest work.

(b) Changing them and cultivating public-service values

• Value-based education and moral reasoning from school onward, developing critical reflection rather than rote conformity.
• Socialisation through exemplary role models and ethical leadership — conduct that is seen, not merely preached.
• Structured training — the LBSNAA foundation course, Bharat Darshan and field immersion — to build empathy across caste, class and gender.
• Codes of ethics and conduct, and institutions that reward integrity and penalise its breach, aligning incentives with values.
• Reflective self-awareness, exposure to diversity, and sensitisation programmes to unlearn prejudice.

Attitude change is gradual and lifelong; it works best through a combination of persuasion, example and institutional reinforcement rather than command. For civil servants especially, internalising impartiality, empathy and probity is what converts inherited prejudice into constitutional conduct.