As a human, we build so many relations in our life. The base of all relationships is trust. To trust means to bank on another person because you feel safe with him/her and have confidence that they will not hurt or mess up with you. Trust is the foundation of relationships because it allows you to be vulnerable and open to the person without having to defensively protect yourself. We build relationships with our teachers, our colleagues, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, spouse, siblings, children, parents, in-laws, neighbours, vendors, domestics, and other service providers.
But we see many people around us those who have trust issues. It is difficult to build relations with such people. It can be your boss, partner, children, or anyone else. Trust issues are often connected with negative experiences in the past. Someone who is let down or betrayed by people whom he trusted or someone who had a troubled childhood. It could be his friend, partner, parent, or other trusted figure or institution. The previous experience interferes this person’s ability to believe others.
Many talented and intelligent people’s flair and capacity is wasted because of distrust. One biggest example is of Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar former Minister of Law & Justice of India. On 10th October 1951 Dr. Ambedkar through his speech in Parliament exposed point by point, the real reason for his resignation as India’s Law Minister. It is a highly informative and well interpreted speech which strips Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s mask as a democrat who believed in debate and disagreement. Dr. Ambedkar clinically exposes Nehru as a liar and a habitual breaker of his word, a Prime Minister with zero integrity, ability, and competence but one who was endowed with extraordinary manipulative skills and was skilful backstabber of his own colleagues and friends. After reading this, one would be left with no doubt that Nehru was a Machiavellian like Stalin and Lenin.
Nehru had difficulty trusting others including his relatives which perhaps stemmed from a fear and insecurity and loneliness in his childhood. His two sisters were much younger than Jawaharlal Nehru. And so, he grew up and spent his early year as a lonely child with no companion for his age. M.K.Gandhi supported Nehru in spite of Nehru not being elected unanimously as PM.
Chronic distrust can come from a traumatic incident, an unloving childhood, or experienced betrayal in other relationships. Overcoming trust challenges often involves understanding where these feelings come from. It’s a mental problem that can be corrected by mental health professionals.
The 84-year-old Vijaypath Singhania transformed a small textile business since 1944, into a household name in India, and the Raymond Group today claims to be the world’s biggest producer of high-quality worsted wool suits. For keeping his billion-dollar textile empire in the family, he gifted his 37% equity control of the Raymond Group to his son Gautam Singhania. But their relationship fell apart dramatically. Gautam threw out Vijaypath from his palatial home. Mr Vijaypat now bitterly regrets his decision, which he claims was made because of emotional weakness as father. The incident shows a ruthless and cruel Gautam Singhania who has trust issues.
Trust and law
The best relationship between people is an ethical challenge at the heart of legal practice. How much can we trust each other? How much law do we need? Do unnecessary legal rules replace trust to the damage of a truly civil society? Does increasing legalization help turning every problem, no matter what it is to the court? Has law damaged the fabric of our community? In the case of Singhanias legal battle between the father and son is misapply of law. When a relationship lacks trust, it allows for the potential development of harmful thoughts, actions, or emotions, such as negative attributions, suspicion, and jealousy. Law is not based upon trust, love, belonging. It worsens relationships.
In a hierarchy, it is natural for people with less power to be extremely cautious about disclosing weaknesses, mistakes, and failings especially when the more powerful party is also able to evaluate and punish. Trust flees authority, and, above all, trust flees a judge. Managers are inescapably positioned to judge subordinates. Good managers may be able to confine evaluation to formal occasions, to avoid all trace of judgmental style in other settings, even to communicate criticism in a positive, constructive way. It takes guts to be a “Good” manager.
It can be difficult for love to persist long without trust. It is difficult because one of our most fundamental needs for survival is trust. Without trust, we don’t know who the other person is anymore. The moment trust vanishes, siblings can’t remain siblings; parents and children loose love; friends don’t remain friends. People often just don’t leave relationships if they are attached by trust or invested in them.
