Religion in promoting social change

The Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, last month called on the Catholic Church to exhort its followers to pay their taxes. This was made in response to the rampant tax evasion among Italians (evidence that tax evasion is not the exclusive preserve of the developing countries!). Mr Prodi complained, "when I go to mass, this subject is scarcely ever touched on in the sermons". Apart from its obvious financial implications, tax evasion has evident moral and ethical ramifications, in so far as it encourages free-riding. The honest tax payers end up paying for the evaders also. Tax evasion is therefore sinful! This is a welcome digression from the usual religious debates of our times.

It is an example of perfect harmony of views and convergence of interests between the temporal and the spiritual authorities. There are many other social, political, and legal issues where there exists potential for similar convergence of interests. Littering and pollution are common examples of activities with huge social costs but significant private benefits. Both have moral and ethical implications in that it adversely affects parties who are not in any way involved with those activities.

Controlling activities like litterring, polluting, and more generally those imposing substantial costs on the society, are a major challenge facing our cities. There are numerous such free-riding activities in our cities that are examples of privately imposed social costs - setting up a noisy welding shop in a residential area, encroaching the road margin with a telephone booth, hawking on footpaths and thereby obstructing pedestrians, letting out sewerage directly into the open drain. Further, the social costs imposed by these activites fall more disproportionately on the poor than the rich. It would not be incorrect to even claim that these activities exacerbate poverty! Regulation and penalties have a limited and only incremental effect on controlling such actions. These actions are individual centred, and exercising any control over it requires influencing individual mind-sets. Here religion scores over anything else.

Given the profound influence of the clergy over laity, it will surely be effective if our religious institutions were to preach the virtues of issues like paying taxes and refraining from littering and polluting. In fact, I will stick out my neck and argue that such moral suasion is a much more effective instrument in addressing these issues than any Government policy. I am convinced that a pastor extolling the importance of keeping surroundings clean and refraining from litterring, or more generally indulging in any activity that would impose social costs, would be a more powerful force for social change than anything in the Government armoury.

To those atheists and Marxists, here is a very strong rationale for the existance and utility of God!