In a video shot on an Indigo flight, around 15 people can be seen feasting on homemade snacks served on disposable plates, the airplane aisle randomly turned into a personal fiefdom. Theplas and dhoklas were passed around with people moving busily between rows without a care in the world for the passengers who weren’t invited to this makeshift party. Unsurprisingly, the Internet weighed in, mostly to lament a chronic Indian malaise — an utter disregard for cabin etiquette, and manners in general. The questions have been raised before: Why is even basic self awareness nonexistent among Indians? How is it that we feel no discomfort at the thought that our actions might inconvenience others?

An enterprising girl I knew had started “etiquette” classes for 4- to 10-year-olds. The “coursework”, other than learning the distinction between “Can I” and “May I”, was never to interrupt someone while they are talking (bless her), and learning to queue up. These are lessons that should be inculcated at home, except, sadly, in our dog-eat-dog world, Indians see education as a race to excel in Maths and Physics, not integrity or consideration for others.

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There seems to be an inbuilt insecurity — probably the legacy of scarcity — that if we don’t grab and seize the benefits meant for everyone, we’ll fall by the wayside. It’s not entirely untrue. Fifteen lakh students compete for 18,000 undergraduate seats at IIT. The scene is no different for government jobs, Bollywood, law, art and pretty much every career one can think of. Making it big involves a clever mix of talent, luck, effort and, more often than not, unscrupulous rule breaking.

This bitter knowledge percolates into all aspects of our lives. Most of us have come to the conclusion the benefits accrued by shoving and pushing our way to the front, outweighs the costs. So, if some passengers are affronted by the aromas of chutneys and traditional snacks on a plane, who cares? It’s not like they can do anything about it. In the same vein, we honk away and jump red lights with alacrity and, much to the horror of foreigners, feel entitled to break into the garba on a German metro. Repeated studies have shown, as the stakes go up, so does the rate of transgressions. For example, doping prevalence is way higher at the Olympics than at the Commonwealth Games. Modern thinking cynically goes, when faced with a difficult situation, one must do the right thing for oneself.

In the age of AI, it is a depressing reality that the bar for unethical practices has been dramatically lowered. Students don’t see using ChatGPT to submit assignments as fundamentally wrong. The excuses are everyone else is doing it, so we don’t have a choice. Perhaps, we need to acknowledge that circumstances play a role in behaviour too. Life is too much of a struggle to expect students to get by on an ordinary grade. If the perception is, there are no rewards for being average but honest, how should we live? The only way to get people to think beyond their own selfish ambitions is to develop a moral compass at the school level itself. In the convent I attended till I was 10, Moral Science was a daily period. Stories from The Bible and the Mahabharata demonstrated lessons of perseverance and bravery and subtly built perspective among awestruck children. We developed a set of values and a respect for rules. The personal glories and mistakes of, say, a Yudhisthir, depict universal human experiences across generations, providing a blueprint for a life well lived. Others’ trials and travails convey a precious truth, that we are all the same; we don’t, necessarily, need to trample on anyone to get ahead.

The writer is director, Hutkay Films