Quiz OB-I (20 per cent)

Ramachandran (2019, August 1) reviews Rajat Gupta’s book where he mounts a discursive
defence for himself against the allegations of insider trading for which he was convicted.
Gupta claims that he was blinded by a sense of trust with respect to his business partner
Rajaratnam, for which he paid a huge price in terms of his downfall. The claim of trust being
the cause of the erosion of reputation situates trust as a dangerous act of faith. Gupta’s
narrative suggests that it is always better to be on one’s guard rather than engage in an act of
trust. By blaming trust for his own lapse of judgment, Gupta appropriates a sense of
innocence and naivete for himself.

Are claims of trust advanced to present some figures as being naïve so that they can be
absolved of culpable acts of wrong? How do we interpret wrong, and isn’t the very
imagination of wrong problematic in crafting stark black and white binaries about action?
Which other concept may present a nuanced imagination of behaviour than a sense of right
and wrong? Eventually, are imaginations of trust embedded in creating binaries of right and
wrong? What happens to social relations as a result of these binaries between right and
wrong? What can we displace trust with to craft more progressive social relations and
transgress the boundary between right and wrong? What is the imagination of social relations
that emerges when the boundary between right and wrong is transgressed? How do we
engage with Rajat Gupta’s unethical actions beyond the boundaries of right and wrong so that
we are still engaging with a critique of his deeply problematic discursive defence?

Kindly restrict your answer to some of the above questions to about 500 words. This is not a
hard limit. If you feel you need to exceed the limit or submit a shorter submission, kindly feel
free to do so.

You can submit your responses over email to srinathj@iimidr.ac.in by September 12, 2019,
23:59:59. Kindly make appropriate references to all your sources, including any personal
conversations you may have had, which you are borrowing from. The act of writing is an
acknowledgement of all that we borrow from, for thought is nothing, but a re-arrangement of
our intellectual borrowings.

Reference

Ramachandran, Sanjana. (2019, August 1). Inside story: Rajat Gupta’s appeal to the court of
public opinion. Caravan. Accessed on September 5, 2019 from
https://caravanmagazine.in/business/rajat-guptas-appeal-court-public-opinion.