No Longer At Ease - by Chinua Achebe

A story of a young civil servant vying for reforms under Nigerian colonial regime, but later succumbing to corruption himself when faced with personal troubles. It is a story that resonates well with current administrative system of India. On one side, the urge among youth to serve public and on the other hand, the pulls of comfortable life. Conflicted between various values, a majority gives in to pursuit of personal interest.

A promising boy, Obi comes from traditional village family of christian-convert father. Funded by community members, he studies in England to later return and join colonial civil service in Nigeria. Driven by idealism, he initially refuses to indulge in unfair means for personal gains. The desire to develop his people is only matched by his commitment to moral principles. But that do not last very long as his personal life begins to undo itself.

Felling in love with a girl(Clara) from doubtful ancestry, he faces resistance from family and community members. Demands on his resources to keep up the elite life of civil servant proves difficult to contain. Responsibilities towards his ailing mother, retired father and younger siblings, weighs on his income. Further, the requirements of paying back his education loans, taken from community, proves restraining for him. Finally, an unexpected pregnancy delivers final nail in the coffin, after Clara aborts and break up with him.

Juggling between various pulls and pressures, Obi finds his idealistic sensibilities taken away from him. In a culture of acceptance of corruption, he increasingly questions his own principles. What’s wrong with payment if it can help a student win scholarship for studying abroad ? Pressures of keeping up the financial status of civil servant catches up with him as he slip into ways and means opposite to his previously professed ideals.

Why is it so difficult for an educated man like Obi to retain idealism or integrity ? Perhaps, administrative theory has some answers for it.

According to Fred Riggs, developing society is “prismatic” in nature - i.e. it shows heterogeneous traits. Traditional values co-exist with modern values and interacts with each other to produce a situation bereft of consistency of behavior. Society privileges ascriptive norms even as they profess to believe achievement/merit or constitutional values. Furthermore, in globalizing world with its external influences developing world displays conflicting behaviors with even more intensity.

According to Public Choice Theory, bureaucracies are better understood as self-fulfilling rational creatures trying to maximize their benefits even if it costs public welfare. They maximize their budgets, struggle to retain discretionary powers, and feather their own nest whenever possible.

As markets take over the society and globalization marches on, is it logical to expect from average-paying civil servants to don an ethical hat ? Indian system treats it’s civil servants badly where an average tenure of an officer at particular post is very low. It is well proven that “hygiene” factors like salary are only baseline requirements for precluding job dissatisfaction. The real job satisfaction occurs from ability of person to attain peer-recognition, creative work, etc(so-called “satisfiers”). Depriving them of hygiene factors creates incentive for people like Obi to undertake corruption.

However, Obi should not be seen as victim of his circumstances. Where Obi failed was his understanding(or perhaps practice) of idea that public service demands from a person qualities different from private individual. Code of conduct of a civil servant explicitly details about the need to be debt-free. Obi proved to be improvident with his expenses and relationships. What he lacked was Gandhian traits, essential to be good civil servant.

We can say that had Obi been conscious of building set of ‘personal ethics’ in matters of relationships/expenses/lifestyle, Obi could have avoided the drop into abyss of corruption. Also important is his peers/friends, that encouraged corrupt behavior in him. His girlfriend, with her non-intellectual outlook and aspiration for glamorous world, played a role in Obi’s downfall too. I think he also failed in realizing the importance of community institutions when he rebelled against them. These are common mistakes we make in our youthful surge.

Ultimately, Obi had to reckon with choices he made. He couldn’t escape from what entails from these decisions. Credibility takes life time to build but gets destroyed in a moment’s weakness. Obi knew this as he stood facing the judge who failed to comprehend why a young educated and gifted person like him could take a petty bribe of 20 pounds. The amount is just a symbol of how good man or woman can get lost in life.

Just like we all do in life...at least once.