When honesty used to be the best policy

Col D S Cheema (retd)

A close friend of my father from a small town I belong to was an important minister in Punjab in the 1950s. The minister was known for his humility and honesty amongst his relatives, friends, politicians and bureaucratic circles.

It seems some friends and favour-seekers were sitting enjoying the warm winter sun in the lawns of a renowned advocate, whose son later became a finance minister in the Punjab government, when my father's friend walked in to join them. The advocate remarked for all to hear, “Have you ever seen honesty walking? Here it is”. 

The soft-spoken gentleman blushed and sat down after greeting everyone with folded hands. In spite of being a minister for many years and holding portfolios considered cash cows,  to the best of my knowledge, his children have not inherited any assets in and around Chandigarh. 

Whenever I see shining brass plates with his name embedded in bold letters on important buildings which he inaugurated in Chandigarh as a minister, my heart swells with pride of having known him during my formative years. Alas, I have neither heard of nor come across any politician like him since then.

Another incident relates to a Professor who taught me Information Theory at the Institute of Armament Technology, Girinagr, Pune, when I was undergoing all arms Technical Staff Course in 1979. At around 4.30 pm I along with some other students was waiting for him near the car park after the classes were over. We encircled him after wishing him 'good evening' to know some details of the syllabus etc for the examination of his subject the next day. He satisfied all our queries in a polite but firm manner and was about to leave when suddenly he told us that he had to get back to his office for some important work. We were surprised but on his insistence, some of us accompanied him towards the lift. The lift had been locked and the operator was nowhere to be seen. I thought that was the end of it, but the Professor started climbing up the stairs to his office on the third floor. Two of us gave him company. He opened the office, went in and dropped a pen in the pen-holder, came out and started locking the door.  

I didn't understand what he was up to and so while coming down the stairs, I asked him why he could not have waited to drop the pen till the next day. He told us that he did it because he could not have got good sleep having an unauthorised property at his home. 

That incident taught me that one is either honest or dishonest and integrity cannot be measured on a scale of one to ten or as a percentage. Perhaps my crusade against dishonesty during my career in later years is the result of these two lessons, one learnt as a child and the other as a Major in the Army.