Our attitudes towards life, work, other people and society are generally shaped unconsciously by the family and social surroundings in which we grow up. Some of these unconsciously acquired attitudes and values are often undesirable in the citizens of a modern democratic and egalitarian society. (a) Discuss such undesirable values prevalent in today's educated Indians. (b) How can such undesirable attitudes be changed and socio-ethical values considered necessary in public services be cultivated in the aspiring and serving public servant? Discuss.

(a) Undesirable values among educated Indians

• Caste distance often survives a degree: endogamy, a separate cup, or a joke at a Dalit colleague can sit beside a human-rights lecture.
• Gender contempt appears as dowry negotiation, interruption of women in meetings, and blame of the survivor rather than the harasser.
• Communal stereotyping is forwarded as “forwarded as received” by people who would demand a footnote in a seminar.
• Credential arrogance treats a farmer or a clerk as a lesser mind, which is educated snobbery rather than merit.
• Shortcut worship treats a paid seat, a donated mark, or a tout as cleverness, not as theft of a public good.
• Display consumption and contempt for sanitation workers show that literacy did not teach trusteeship of the street.
• These are often unconscious because the family never named them as wrong.

(b) Change in society and cultivation in public servants

• Name the attitude in training with local cases, not only with imported slogans, so that the unconscious becomes discussable.
• Mix hostels, sports, and work teams across caste and gender so that contact, not only a chapter, does the teaching.
• Enforce the law that already exists: anti-dowry, POSH, SC/ST atrocity provisions, and service rules on courtesy.
• Public servants need a curriculum of constitutional morality, field time with the poorest, and mentors who reward a clean file over a connected one.
• Appraisal should mark integrity and citizen dignity, not only revenue and ribbon cuttings.
• Recusal, rotation, and punishment for a communal or caste remark in office teach faster than a poster.
• Family outreach is limited, but an officer’s own home example still matters; a service that winks at dowry in the colony will not lecture the district.
• Cultivation is therefore law plus example plus mixed experience, repeated until the new habit feels normal.