Modern India I.P.C

Social liability in India can be defined as an integral part of Indian Penal Code (IPC): Illiteracy, Poverty, and Corruption (I-P-C). Interestingly, although there is an explicit ‘punishment’ for every criminal activity under the IPC: murder, rape or even common burglaries, there is no written cure for I-P-C. Is it something that is incurable? Then why have these factors received serious attention from development economists over the past several decades? Or is it something that we take as granted in India – one of the fastest growing countries in the world? The fact is, the more we take them as granted, the larger will be our inability to think scientifically about these issues.

The cure that I can think will simultaneously reduce I-P-C for any developing country is: ‘Education’. Education comes in three forms: subjective literacy, moral education and self-consciousness. The first step is subjective literacy – the knowledge that can help a country to achieve higher economic growth in the long run. Simple macroeconomics tells us that higher average years of schooling will increase the number of students pursuing tertiary education and this in turn will improve the number of skilled labors in the economy. The net effect is simple: higher skilled labors will generate greater pool of labor force in Research and Development (R&D) and in turn will produce higher rate of innovations and technological progress. The net result is higher economic growth.

The final form of education is self-consciousness. In this form of education, one realizes that he or she has an identity in this world, and also that one can play an important role by contributing positively to the society. However small the role may be, it is still likely to be significant. It is hard to find a formal institution that provides the knowledge of self-consciousness. However, this is knowledge that heavily depends on the other two forms of education. The fulfillment of education lies in this form. 

Many of us complete the first form of education with flying colors, a few pass the second form to some extent, and only few lucky ones reach the third form of self-consciousness. It is in this stage when one shares one’s beliefs with others and finds a way to contribute to the society to make it a better place to live in: an economy achieving both growth and development. 

It is our responsibility to educate people in all three forms. Each of our examples will lead others to pay the virtue forward. Collectively, all our contributions will help India become developed, both economically and morally. These are the questions one must find answers to: is one contributing anything other than tax money to his or her nation? Is one’s identity worth remembering? It is only by answering these questions we can eliminate illiteracy, poverty and corruption (I-P-C). 

The next form of education is moral – the power of knowledge that helps one distinguish between right and wrong, rational and irrational and to achieve ‘growth with development’. However, moral education becomes more effective only when one has some degree of subjective literacy. The lack of moral education creates superstitions, blind beliefs and other kinds of irrational behavior in our daily lives, which has both political and social ramifications. How can we achieve moral education? Indeed, here the learning in early childhood becomes important. The environment of one’s schooling, the role played by one’s family, and finally, the society we live in. This process is self-emerging. Once you find yourself in the middle of a society where everyone else is progressing, you will have an automatic incentive to catch-up.