Revision summary
Tolerance is equal hearing of lawful difference; compassion is urgency to cut avoidable pain. They are grown by lived training, mixed postings, and counter courtesy. Appraisal must reward a speaking refusal and a cured grievance, not only force and targets. Leaders who mock a group destroy both virtues in a week. Design of the career fosters character; a homily does not.
Model answer
Introduction
Tolerance is the trained refusal to punish difference that the law allows. Compassion is the trained will to reduce avoidable suffering. Civil servants do not receive them as medals at joining; offices either grow them or starve them.
Body
What must be grown
- Tolerance in service is not indifference. It is equal hearing for caste, faith, language, party, and dress, inside the Constitution’s public reason.
- Compassion is not a leak of the till. It is urgency for the hungry, the displaced, and the injured, using the scheme that already exists, and recording why if it does not.
- Both die in an office that rewards speed of the powerful and delay of the nameless.
How to foster them
- Foundation training should use lived cases, not only maxims: a night in a disaster camp, a day at a pension counter, a visit with a disability audit — then a written reflection that a mentor marks.
- Mix postings so that an officer sees a minority district, a flood belt, and a secretariat desk. Homogeneous comfort breeds contempt of the unfamiliar.
- Language and courtesy drills at the counter: the first sentence in the citizen’s language, a seated wait, a speaking ‘no’. Habit is more powerful than a circular on values.
- Appraisal must score a reasoned dissent, a clean camp, and a grievance closed with a cure — not only acres acquired and ‘law and order’ photographs.
- Leadership example: a collector who never mocks a faith or a dialect licenses tolerance; a collector who jokes about ‘those people’ teaches the opposite in a week.
- Codes of ethics, Sevottam, and citizen charters work when the head of office sits the first hour at the window. Poster tolerance is not fostered tolerance.
- Peer groups and counselling after violent or communal duty prevent hardened hearts. Compassion is also protected by rest and a ban on humiliation as a management tool.
Opinion, stated
- Foster by design of the career, not by a Republic Day homily. What is inspected and posted becomes character; what is only praised in class evaporates in the tehsil.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD T[Training in the field] --> V[Tolerance and compassion] P[Mixed postings] --> V A[Appraisal of fairness] --> V L[Leadership example] --> V
Conclusion
Tolerance and compassion grow when training is lived, postings are mixed, counters are courteous, and appraisal rewards a fair ‘no’ and a cured grievance. Homilies without inspection will not foster either virtue.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Differentiate between: (i) Objectivity and Dedication (ii) Structure and Functions of Attitudes.
Next question in the 2021 paper (Q10). View answer →
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Does compassion mean always saying yes?
No. Compassion explains a lawful no and finds the next legal door. A false yes that later collapses is cruelty.
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Can tolerance include hate speech in the office?
No. Tolerance is of lawful difference. Hate that incites or humiliates is misconduct, not a viewpoint to host.
Same topic · past papers
UPPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2023 · Q8 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
How can liberality and objectivity be fostered among civil servants? Give your suggestions. -
2024 · Q9 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Explain your suggestions to promote tolerance and compassion among civil servants to serve better the weaker sections. -
2023 · Q1 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
What do you understand by Moral insight? How does it help in the moral situation of civil servants? -
2023 · Q13 · UPGS4 · 12 marks
Can Bhagavad Gita be an ethical guide for civil servants? Comment. -
2023 · Q20 · UPGS4 · 12 marks
Describe the strategies that civil servants can employ to overcome resistance to change and effectively persuade stakeholders to support new policies and initiatives.
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