"It means, people who are in high and responsible positions, if they go against righteousness, righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer"
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Power doesn’t just corrupt the powerful, Kalam warns; it weaponizes the very idea meant to restrain them. The line hinges on a sharp reversal: “righteousness” isn’t portrayed as a gentle moral compass but as a force that can flip, harden, and come back as punishment. That twist gives the quote its bite. It’s not piety. It’s a caution about consequences.
Kalam’s specific intent reads as civic guidance aimed upward. “High and responsible positions” is deliberately broad: politicians, bureaucrats, judges, military leaders, even technocrats. The message is less about private virtue than public trust. When those entrusted with authority “go against righteousness,” they don’t merely commit wrongs; they distort the moral order that legitimizes their power in the first place. The subtext is pragmatic: legitimacy is fragile, and ethical violations don’t stay contained. They trigger backlash - public anger, institutional decay, social unrest, history’s verdict.
The phrase “righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer” also signals Kalam’s worldview as a statesman-scientist who believed in nation-building through ethics and competence. He’s warning that moral principles are not decorative slogans for speeches; they are load-bearing beams. If leaders treat them as props, the collapse won’t look like a philosophical debate. It will look like riots, distrust, polarization, and systems that stop working.
There’s a quiet threat embedded here: the higher the office, the more violent the recoil. In Kalam’s moral universe, righteousness isn’t passive. It enforces itself, eventually, through the wreckage left behind.
Kalam’s specific intent reads as civic guidance aimed upward. “High and responsible positions” is deliberately broad: politicians, bureaucrats, judges, military leaders, even technocrats. The message is less about private virtue than public trust. When those entrusted with authority “go against righteousness,” they don’t merely commit wrongs; they distort the moral order that legitimizes their power in the first place. The subtext is pragmatic: legitimacy is fragile, and ethical violations don’t stay contained. They trigger backlash - public anger, institutional decay, social unrest, history’s verdict.
The phrase “righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer” also signals Kalam’s worldview as a statesman-scientist who believed in nation-building through ethics and competence. He’s warning that moral principles are not decorative slogans for speeches; they are load-bearing beams. If leaders treat them as props, the collapse won’t look like a philosophical debate. It will look like riots, distrust, polarization, and systems that stop working.
There’s a quiet threat embedded here: the higher the office, the more violent the recoil. In Kalam’s moral universe, righteousness isn’t passive. It enforces itself, eventually, through the wreckage left behind.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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