The world has changed in very many ways since I was a child. Some fifty years ago, there was a premium on honesty, integrity, and morality. In the good old days, it was not how much money you have, but how you earned the money that mattered.
In those days, winning a race was not half as important as how you won it. If you employed unfair means or cheated to win the race, you would be heckled at and howled by the crowd. And, you would never dare to step out of the field with your head held high. If you won by deception, you would never be allowed to enjoy the glory of that win. On the contrary, people would expose how undeserved your win was and you would be left hanging your head in shame in spite of a win.
If there was an income-tax raid on a house and if the occupant was found to hoard unaccounted money, the person would be ostracized. People would look at them with scorn in their eyes and they would maintain distance with such persons. But, not anymore.
Today, the same people celebrate income-tax raids. They seem to think that income-tax raid indicates that they are stinking rich. That the government too has got wind of this fact. Instead of being ostracized, they may get admission to and social with the inner-circle of who’s who of the city.
If a politician was caught in a sex scandal, he would resign and try to melt away from public glare towards obscurity. Today, the politician may try to get around that with the use of power and money and continue to be part of the ruling dispensation.
Honesty, integrity, and morality have taken a backseat. It is money and power that matters the most these days. It does not matter how you came into that money or power. It does not matter if you used unfair means to get there. All that matters is that you got there.
But, in spite of all these, they may not go too far. There will come a time when they will have to answer for their sins.
As Booker T. Washington said: ‘A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.’
