prasad1
Active member
Conflict of interest is part of the consensual and legal package of modernity. It is only when society rationalises and becomes more functionally systematic, when there is separation of roles and responsibilities that conflict of interest becomes an act of corruption. One has to draw lines between roles and functions. In a more narrow sense it comes to signify a clash of interests between two sets of functional or public roles. The recent Rajat Gupta case was an anthropological curiosity in this context. Rajat Gupta was the Indian enactment of the American dream, his career spanned IIT, Mckinsey and Goldman Sachs. For Indians in India he could do no wrong. Even when he was accused of conflict of interest most Indians treated it as a minor misdemeanor. Corporate dons like Mukesh Ambani and Adi Godrej recited elaborate certificates for him suggesting that conflict of interest was a minor flaw in an otherwise seamlessly successful career. What few noticed was that the lawyer investigating Gupta was also an Indian. The two role models competed for attention with two separate value frames. For Preet Bhrara, Gupta's leaking of information to the fund manager Raja Ratnam was an act of corruption. For Gupta it was an act of ethnic complicity, a sleight of hand trick permissible to a migrant.
Ours is a society suddenly interested in conflict of interest. The media present it as a curiosity, when it has been a way of life. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is not the first of these cases;memory goes back to Shastri, Kumble, and Gavaskar. Gavaskar has a long series both as a commentator and chairman of many cricketing committees. The question was clear. Can one be an independent commentator and a committee member and perform both tasks with equal integrity? It was the board that gave the answer. BCCI vice president Rajiv Shukla claimed that the board did not dictate what Gavaskar spoke. What he forgot to mention was that Gavaskar was always restrained or reticent about his comments about the board. Conflict of interest can be both overt and covert. By separating roles and responsibility we eliminate such a temptation. Independence is guaranteed through division of labour.
TOI- Shiv Visvanathan
Ours is a society suddenly interested in conflict of interest. The media present it as a curiosity, when it has been a way of life. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is not the first of these cases;memory goes back to Shastri, Kumble, and Gavaskar. Gavaskar has a long series both as a commentator and chairman of many cricketing committees. The question was clear. Can one be an independent commentator and a committee member and perform both tasks with equal integrity? It was the board that gave the answer. BCCI vice president Rajiv Shukla claimed that the board did not dictate what Gavaskar spoke. What he forgot to mention was that Gavaskar was always restrained or reticent about his comments about the board. Conflict of interest can be both overt and covert. By separating roles and responsibility we eliminate such a temptation. Independence is guaranteed through division of labour.
TOI- Shiv Visvanathan
