There is something bizarre about a candidate in an election having a casting vote if the hustings end in a tie. Yet this is exactly what the rules and regulations of the Cricket Association of Bengal permit. It is reasonable to conclude that the rules were drawn up on the assumption that the outgoing president would not be a candidate in an election and hence could enjoy the privilege of a casting vote in case of a deadlock. The momentous election to be held on Sunday presents a situation in which Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya, one of the candidates, has the right, as the current president, to exercise a casting vote if the occasion so demands. In other words, in a special situation, Mr Dalmiya can vote to determine the results of the election in his favour. In a narrow legal sense, Mr Dalmiya would be doing nothing wrong if he did use his casting vote in his own favour. But behaviour in public life cannot be based on the law alone. The entire edifice of civil society and civil behaviour would collapse if human behaviour was conducted on the basis of laws alone. Both propriety and morality are above and beyond the pale of law.

On these two criteria of behaviour, Mr Dalmiya would be well advised to relinquish his privilege of the casting vote. He would thus not only gain the moral high ground, he would also create an important precedent for future behaviour. But more than Mr Dalmiya?s personal choice, there is a deeper social point involved here. This is the passing of what can only be described as an unwritten code of conduct. Some of the major codes of social interaction are indeed unwritten. This is as true of political institutions, like the parliament, as it is for clubs and other kinds of associations that human beings form. In India, political institutions and social ones followed procedures that were established in Britain. In Britain many things, beginning with the constitution, are unwritten. A certain mode of behaviour is assumed and followed. This is considered a sensible way of doing things since it is impossible to conceive of every possible legal loophole and then to plug it through a statute. In Indian public life, both political and social, those assumptions are not valid since the unwritten notions of propriety are still fragile and not common practice. Indeed, the entry of more people into public life ? often described as the deepening of democracy by some social scientists ? is threatening the notions of propriety. The process could be described as an erosion of Britishness.

It would be a mistake, however, to trace this erosion to the arrival of new elements, unfamiliar with British traditions, in public life. Many persons, who should know better, have contributed to the erosion by clinging to office till they are challenged, by abusing the power that the office brings to them, by nepotism and by venality. All these have resulted in a collapse of ethics in public life. Mr Dalmiya could retrieve ethics by relinquishing his casting vote. One doubts if principles will prevail over privilege.