Corporate social responsibility, as we know it, hasn’t quite worked, either in India or outside. Most programs reveal an underlying commercial or public relations motive, and achieve little. If you ask me, corporates should stop the pretense and get on with their primary business. They will win far more praise if they merely reveal a conscience, act morally and exercise good judgement. This, to my mind, counts for corporate social action, by far a better choice than corporate social responsibility.

 This is what we saw from Infosys, surely an exemplar in our fragile society.  This week, the IT major suspended one of its employees after he and his wife were arrested for allegedly torturing their 15-year-old maid in Bangalore. Infosys communicated its action against Pallav Chakraborty to all its employees and said it would terminate Chakraborty if he is found guilty in court.

Child labour and the abuse of domestic workers are among India’s worst problems. We simply cannot have the educated class preying on the young not their own. Just so that we don’t live under any illusions, let me remind you that child labour is rampant across urban India, where the middle classes can’t live without domestic help.

Infosys’ action is a warning not only to all its employees not to employ child labour but to the entire educated class. It also is a warning not to abuse domestic help, whether underaged or not.

Despite passing a law in 2006 banning banned employment of children under 14 as domestic help or as restaurant workers, the governments, predictably perhaps, have done a poor job of enforcing it. A recent study by an NGO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, revealed that until April 2008, only 1,700 cases of violations were discovered across the country; and only a paltry 138 prosecuted.

Clearly, we have ways to go before eradicating this scourge but the key thing is: governments alone can never accomplish it. We need corporates like Infosys to play a role simply by acting against errant employees, and for each one of us to act responsibly, too. For example, we can make sure nobody in our apartment complex employs underaged children, or abuses any domestic help; we can boycott restaurants that use underaged workers and/or abuse them. When it is clear that the law and governments cannot enforce this law, it is up to us to socially stigmatise or commercially punish the offenders.