“What happens in war?” young Indira Gandhi once asked her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. He said, “Education and the economy collapse.” She asked further, “And then?” He replied, “Morality collapses.” Curious, she pressed on, “And when morality collapses?” Nehru’s answer was simple yet profound: when morality fades, society loses its sense of justice, democracy, and virtue.
People can survive scarcity or hardship, but a collapse of ethics allows the wicked to dominate, and a dignified life becomes almost impossible.
After two world wars and decades of technological progress, the threat of another conflict still looms. Violence and disregard for moral norms seem to grow even in established democracies.
Here in Goa, we witness our environment and civic spaces giving way to concrete and corruption, as peaceful dissent is often ignored or suppressed. Amid rapid advances in AI and automation, one question emerges: can we truly rely on technology to uphold morality, or must it remain a human responsibility if society is to flourish?
