GANDHIAN PRINCIPLES AND THE CA PROFESSION

It is true that
quite a few decisions or stands taken by Gandhiji on certain points proved
highly controversial. Some of his views became the subject matter of severe
criticism; so much so that it eventually resulted in his unfortunate
assassination. After all, every coin has two sides. However, the fact remains
that no one questioned his integrity and honest intentions for the good of our
country.

In this article, I will attempt to enumerate
a few of his principles with reference to the conduct of our CA profession. I
compliment the Editor for choosing this very important topic and thank him for
giving me the opportunity to express my views on it.

We are in kaliyug and violating,
circumventing or crushing good principles has become the rule of the day. In
fact, that is the very essence of kaliyug.

God was particularly kind to this country
that he gave us so many towering personalities during our fight for freedom –
Lokmanya Tilak, Veer Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhash
Chandra Bose, Lala Lajpatrai, Bhagat Singh, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami
Vivekananda and hundreds of others in different walks of life. Hardly any other
country would be so blessed. Despite this, unfortunately, we remained poor and
weak in almost every respect. The reason is that the level of the society or a
country depends on the level of the common citizen. These personalities
received not only praise and respect but they were literally revered and
worshipped. However, they were not followed in letter and spirit in day-to-day life. Mahatma Gandhi remained only on the walls of government
offices and courts; and also on currency notes! He was never given a place in
our hearts. The politicians merely used his name for their selfish motives.
Thus, he was physically assassinated only once, but he is now being killed
every day. We CAs are an integral part of the society and I proceed to examine
whether CAs were also a party to this every-day assassination, or they were an
exception to the general rule. I have selected only a few of Gandhiji’s
principles.

TRUTH

The two great values cherished and professed
by Mahatmaji were Truth and Non-violence. Truth was supreme. Even his
autobiography is titled My Experiments with Truth. Truth was dearest to
his heart. Not that he never deviated from the truth, but he had the courage to
confess whenever and wherever he felt that he had deviated. This is his real
greatness.

After all, no one is infallible.

We CAs, unlike lawyers, are intimately
connected with Truth. Our core function in the profession is to attest the
financial position as ‘True and Fair’. I leave it to the conscience (and
introspection) of every reader of this article as to how many times we have
deviated from this principle. It is not only an ethical principle, but it is
our statutory obligation.

Here, I would pause a little to discuss
briefly our Code of Ethics. The motto of our Institute, as recommended by Maharshi
Aurobindo is ‘ya Esha Supteshu Jagarti’. It was adopted from the Kathopanishad.
A CA should be the one who is expected to be awake when the world around is
asleep. Symbolically, Truth is ‘light’ (day) and Untruth is ‘darkness’ (night).
Thus, our very motto and vision as well mission is to pursue the Truth.

In my opinion, the edifice of our entire
Code of Ethics is the three messages given by the ancient Gurus to their
disciples (shishyas). These are enshrined in the Taittireeya
Upanishad.

Satyam Vada – Speak the Truth

Dharmam Chara. Pursue the eternal principles of righteousness
(religion means one’s duty; and not the worship)

Swadhyayan ma pramadah!

Never commit any default in studies or in
updating of knowledge.

This is nothing but our CPE.

Against this, what is commonly observed is
that we not only overlook the untrue things but often become a party to the
creation of false things and certify them to be true. Forget the big scams
where CAs’ active role was exposed, many of the scams were masterminded by the
CAs; but even on day-to-day basis we consciously sideline this principle.

All of us are so familiar with this that the
point hardly needs any elaboration.

NON-VIOLENCE

The second principle dearest to his heart
was non-violence. By non-violence I do not mean merely physical non-violence.
We may not beat or assault any one, or kill any one. We may not torture any
one, or cause injury to any one at the physical level. But indirectly, we may
either overlook or connive at such behaviour, or run away from it. There may be
a few CAs who may be indirectly helping or supporting such acts. Thus, there
are many underworld people, or criminals, or even ‘politicians’ with criminal
inclinations, or traders, or manufacturers engaged in or aiding violence.

I know a CA, a practicing Jain, refused to
do the work of a slaughter house. I don’t mean to suggest that no CA should
render service to such a business so long as it is a socially accepted and
lawful business. It was only an indicative observation. At the same time, a CA
should use discretion in selecting a client and have the courage to say ‘No’ to
certain types of clients.

SELF-RESPECT

Gandhiji’s struggle against humiliating
treatment in South Africa is well known. In fact, that was his debut in public
life. That made him a leader.

Today, CAs receive humiliating treatment
from government, bureaucrats and even clients. They are taken for granted by
all these people. Politicians make even public statements against the whole
profession. But we have no courage to raise our voice against such humiliation.
We are not assertive. We cannot put our foot down on the nonsensical things. We
have made our signature very cheap. Many of the CAs do not themselves keep the
respect of their own signature, then why and how will others respect it?

One of the reputed agencies had expressly
notified in one of their documents, ‘Please avoid bringing Chartered
Accountants’ certificates as the same are often found unreliable!’  No one pulled them into the court of law
for this.

The manner in which we go begging to the
Finance Minister every year for extension of due date is indeed very
humiliating. Government should understand that this is a chronic or systemic
problem and not the fault or inefficiency of CAs. We are not capable of making
strong and assertive representations but we merely beg mildly. Lawyers for
flimsy grounds have the audacity (or courage?) to boycott the proceedings of
the court.

Even transporters are so organised that they
make the government bend in their favour. We, as a profession, never show this
kind of strength of unity and collective action. The reason may be that we are
not perceived to be indispensable.

CHARACTER

By character I do not mean merely moral
character in a physical sense. Character is the result of honesty and
integrity. Courage comes out of this character. It is well said: ‘If one salutes
oneself, one need not salute anyone; but if one pollutes oneself, one has to
salute everyone!’

We blame bureaucrats and police personnel
for corruption. Unfortunately, we feel that corruption means only bribery.
Actually, the worst form of corruption is corruption of thoughts – our evil
thoughts. If we observe, when we come across any law or regulation many of us
first think of loopholes. We always think of ways and means to bypass it.
Often, our profession is perceived as the one that ‘manages’ everything.

Even our mandatory CPE hours many CAs try to
‘manage’ by hook or by crook. This is nothing but corruption. We CAs are
financial ‘police’. Had we performed our duty consciously, the extent of
financial scandals or debacles could have been minimised. But audit as a
function was never taken in its true spirit or with enough stringency by many.
It was seen either as mere compliance or even as a ‘tool’ to get loans from
banks. Accepting fees without doing justice to the audit is also corruption.

Gandhiji did propagate defiance of ‘black
law’ or unjust law. But that was an open and transparent movement against the
Britishers in the interest of the country. It was not meant for achieving
anybody’s selfish, vested interests. Unfortunately, even our judicial system
also never understood and performed its role meaningfully. Both the principles
of judicial system, viz., ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and ‘justice
hurried is justice buried’, are violated conspicuously every day. CAs and the
legal profession are sister professions and both the ‘sisters’ have often
worked hand-in-hand in dismantling or crushing the very foundation and purpose
of the respective professions. This is the tragedy and we have no courage to
speak against it. We take pride in playing with words and crippling the system
by any means without any scruples.

PATRIOTISM AND NATIONAL
SPIRIT

Winston Churchill, who is responsible for
deaths of several million Indians, had observed, ‘India is not a nation, but
only a population!’ The question is — Do we represent our national character?
CAs are supposed to provide intellectual leadership to the society. Gandhiji
had the courage to swim against the flow. We are not only swimming with the
flow, but often remain in the forefront. Examples are plenty if we study all
the scams that have occurred so far. The intellectual class often ridicules the
concepts like patriotism. We have to ask ourselves how do we display a national
spirit?

When there was burning and communal violence
in Noakhali, Gandhiji had the courage to go there alone and observe a fast for
peace.

LEADERSHIP

CAs are rarely perceived as thought leaders.
You hardly come across any CA who is influencing opinion in society or of the
common man. Have we ever attempted to influence or mould the thinking of our
clients? We always ‘follow’ the clients’ thoughts. A leader has to be
‘proactive’. Why are we always reactive?

Thus, if any new regulation is proposed in
bill form – be it by government or by our Institute – we seldom study it from
the point of view of creating public opinion for or against it. Do we bother or
even push enough to give our suggestions and express our apprehensions
effectively at the right forum and at the right time?

I firmly believe that our country has the
real inherent expertise in the accounting field. Unfortunately, non-Indians are
dominating the scene. Many of the so-called accounting standards may lack
logic, purpose or consistency. They may not be relevant in the Indian context.
We only keep criticising them but accept them with a ‘slave’s mindset’. The few
firms who have vested interests in thrusting these regulations on us attract
our talented members by offering hefty packages. In our fight for freedom, many
intellectuals consciously remained away from the attractive jobs offered by the
British government. Today, our intelligent CAs are tolerating the stressful if
not torturous treatment in these so-called ‘professional firms’ who are doing
nothing but ‘business’ in an unscrupulous and unfair manner.

Gandhiji in his newspaper ‘Harijan’
influenced and moulded public opinion into the desired channel for the benefit
of the society and the country. How many CAs are into journalism doing such a
job? On TV channels, when there are discussions or debates on social or national
issues, the presence of CAs among expert panellists is conspicuous by its
absence – meaning, CAs are never perceived as social leaders! Are we not
concerned with social and national issues?

SIMPLICITY

Simplicity should not be merely a ‘style’,
it should be a way of life. One can be essentially simple. Simplicity is
expressed in thinking, writing, expressing and all aspects of living. Is there
real simplicity in drafting of our regulations or pronouncements? Is there
enough clarity? Is there enough truth and forthrightness? Are we either
offensive or defensive? We find that all such texts are full of ambiguity. It
is our duty to compel the concerned persons to make it simple.

We often see very pompous and showy offices
of CAs. For a professional a reasonably decent office set-up is sufficient. But
in the craze of showmanship, many professionals compromise on principles. In
the process they also move away from nature in their day-to-day life. Many CAs
work as ‘brokers’ quite contrary to the principles of Gandhiji.

LOVE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Gandhiji staked
his entire life for the freedom of the country. He fought for independence. Are
CAs really independent in their profession? If our client pays the fees for his
own audit, can we really afford to be independent? It is an obvious conflict of
interest. In our Code of Ethics there are items of misconduct based on the
‘conflict of interest’. When there is no effective independence in attest
function, the foundation of the profession itself gets crippled. All
complicated regulatory measures are of no use.

SENSE OF JUSTICE

Gandhiji fought injustice. When he started
practising as a lawyer, he was particular in accepting only those cases where
he believed that the truth was on his client’s side. He used to verify it
first. If at a later date his client turned out to be false, he used to give up
the brief. Do we have the courage to do such a thing? The business assessees
for whom we fight tooth and nail with the tax department – are they really on
the right side of the law? What are we shielding by using the best of our
professional skills?

CONCLUSION

Readers may wonder why I am so critical or
sceptical about the situation. Actually, the entire society is behaving more or
less in the same manner – that is, against the principles cherished and taught
by Gandhiji and other towering personalities. In fact, I see that there is a
lot of hypocrisy all around. In our motto, the CA profession has been equated
with the ultimate Truth – the Brahman or the Atman. But in
reality? The less said the better. For that matter, all the professions have
failed and succumbed to the pressure of kaliyug.

I have no particular grudge against the CA
profession as such. The observations made in this article would apply with
equal force more or less to all professions and occupations. In my humble
opinion, CAs have proved no exception to the general conditions of kaliyug.

However, CAs have the capability and
training to look through and see what is happening, the direction in which
things are headed and also future implications.

The only remedy is to remember the real
heroes this country had produced a few decades ago and follow their path
consciously and religiously. Even when the situation looks bleak, when we look
at Bapu’s life we see that he stood for what he believed to be true even
if it meant to stand alone. This reflection and marching towards finding what
is true should be our dandi march towards restoration of values
in each of our circles of influence.