chapter of his book, Truth and Transformation. Mangalwadi
will infect politicians, bureaucrats, managers, operators,
tells of his first trip to the Netherlands from his native India,
and the maintenance staff… Soon your public transport
where his host said, “Come, let’s go get some milk.” They
will resemble ours: frequent breakdowns will slow down
walked to a nearby dairy farm and entered the milk room,
not only the transport system but also your roads, efficiency,
where no one was present. Mangalwadi’s host filled his
and economy.’”
jug with milk, then took down a bowl full of cash from a
Mangalwadi says morality is the “floundering secret” of
windowsill, put twenty guilders into the bowl, took some
the West’s success. Our economic system rests upon trust
change, put the bowl back, and started walking away.
that people will pay, and not misappropriate funds, bribe, or
“I was stunned,” Mangalwadi wrote. “Man,” he declared
extort. Without this trust, economic and political systems
to his host, “if you were an
become cumbersome, expen-
Indian, you would take the
sive, and fatally flawed.
milk and the money.” Then
Mangalwadi’s fundamen-
Mangalwadi poses two
tal question is a timely one
important questions: “Where
for every American: From
did this morality come from?
where did American morality
Why isn’t my society equally
come? Where did the kind of
trustworthy?”
trust come from that allowed
Mangalwadi later relates
my wife and I to “pay the bear,”
a much different experience
with no one in sight? The
in Amsterdam. There he
forgotten fact is, it was the
wanted to buy a bus day-pass
fruit of a Christian consensus
from a machine. The instruc-
which assumed that a living,
tions were in Dutch. Two
omnipotent Judge sat above
young women visiting from
all, knew all, and held all
America were nearby, and
people equally accountable
"The more citizens there are who lack
Mangalwadi asked how to
to His benevolent Code of
get tickets. The women said
Conduct. Living in accor-
internal control under God, the more
they had been riding around
dance with that Higher Law
calls
there
will
be
for
external
Amsterdam for a week, and
was right, and flouting it
controls—under man."
no one checked for tickets.
was wrong. In fact, at one
“Why do you want to get
time, the Judge and His Code
tickets?” they asked.
provided meaning itself for
“Their shamelessness shocked me more than their
the two most critical words missing from American vocabu-
immorality,” relates Mangalwadi. “They represented the
lary today: right and wrong.
new generation, liberated from ‘arbitrary’ and ‘oppressive’
As the Judge and His Word are increasingly non-factors of
religious ideas of right and wrong. University education
morality in this country, we can expect to see more citizens
had freed them from commandments such as ‘You shall not
like the two young Americans Mangalwadi encountered in
steal.’”
the Netherlands.
He goes on: “‘It is wonderful,’ I said to them, ‘that there
In 1852, Robert C. Winthrop, a descendent of John
are enough commuters who pay so that the system can carry
Winthrop, and 22nd Speaker of the United States House of
some who don’t. Once your schools succeed in producing
Representatives declared: “Men, in a word, must necessarily
enough clever commuters, your country will catch up with
be controlled either by a power within them, or by a power
mine [India]. You will have to have ticket inspectors on
without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm
every bus and have super-inspectors to spy on the inspec-
of man, either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.”
tors. Everyone will then have to pay more. But corruption
In our former days, the concept of “self-government
won’t remain confined to the consumers; it is a cancer that
under God” defined liberty among leaders such as John
12