Political attitudes refer to those attitudes towards recurrent political issues like political ideologies, election processes, etc. It determines the opinions and values individuals hold about political issues, events and personalities.
Aristotle believed than every man is a “political animal”. While this is true, a Civil servant must exercise the following forms of attitudinal values while dealing with political issues.
- Non-partisanship : He should not favour one party or the other, either for ideological reasons or for pecuniary or other benefits. He is a ‘servant of the people, working in the government’, so, he must limit his political likings to the personal sphere.
- Neutral : Civil services maintain the chain of continuity when one government goes and other comes. Disregarding which party occupies power, he should tender his honest advice on policy matters based on merits. In being neutral, he is expected to exercise restraint in giving opinions on any political issues.
- Equality : He should treat all political parties as equal agents in democratic functioning.
- Tolerance : He may have personal liking/disliking, but in professional domain he must be tolerant towards all political creeds.
- Transparency & Integrity : He should maintain integrity & transparency in dealing with every political party. This will ensure that he doesn’t fall victim to any manipulations or ill-machinations of competing political groups.
- Accountability – He should ensure zero tolerance to political-electoral corruption.
These will facilitate cooperative governance, an important facet of good governance. This will build a sense of trust & friendliness among all concerned stakeholders, making the Indian democracy a sustainable & resilient one. The 2nd ARC has mentioned that civil servants should work in a non-partisan manner, with politically neutral attitude.
Approach:
- Introduce the crux of the case.
- Mention the behavioural issues faced by migrants.
- Delineate the steps to prevent crimes against children.
- Conclusion.
The above case study pertains to a social crime, i.e., sexual abuse of children, especially that of the vulnerable sections.
Migrants face several behavioural issues when they relocate to cities:
- They are likely to face depression due to physical and financial stress.
- They feel relative deprivation. They feel alienated in cities.
- They are subjected to prejudice leading to discrimination.
- Most migrants suffer due to overcrowding, restricted movements and unhygienic conditions.
- Also, there is negative behaviour conditioning in slums which breed criminals.
- Children in slums are deprived of proper schooling, lack parental care and often a dysfunctional family.
- All these create emotional upheavals in them.
To protect the children from sexual abuse, the following steps can be taken:
- In the short term:
- Organise awareness camps to increase the knowledge of law among people.
- NGOs can be included to reach out the slum people.
- Workshops can be conducted in slum areas for parents to ensure the ways of safety of their children.
- Increase vigilance in the vulnerable areas.
- Strict law enforcement and use of media to highlight the cases.
- Proper legal aid in juvenile delinquencies.
- In the long term:
- Provide them social security to prevent them from falling victims to crimes.
- Ensuring proper schooling to children in slums.
- Rehabilitating those who are victims to sexual or substance abuse by mainstreaming them into the society.
- Developing affordable urban housing for slum dwellers.
- Integrating concerns of vulnerable migrant groups in urban planning.
- Attitudinal changes through persuasion.
Uncontrolled emotions are the key source of such problems. They should be taken into consideration during socialization of all individuals.
