Values and Influence of Religion in Public Administration

Sunder (a retired officer of the Indian Administrative Service) explores the influence of religion, primarily Christianity and Hinduism, on the formation of values in the Indian Civil Service in British India and its successor after independence, the Indian Administrative Service, as it relates to the problem of administrative corruption, which she argues has become a major problem following the 1980s after years of relative incorruptibility. She conducts the investigation by reviewing the history of the Service from the formation of the East India Company onwards, examining the influence of religious and secular moral thought on British society and its reflections in the Codes of Conduct of the Service, analyzing a survey concerned with the existing ethical values of the Service offices of Karnataka, considering the roots of these values in the ethical teachings of the Hindu scriptures, and finally offering an evaluation of the causes of administrative corruption as stemming from the officially prescribed values and operative values of the members of the Service. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)