WikiLeaks is bad bad CSR

My colleague Amelia Timbers rightly pointed out that even though WikiLeaks is a non-profit it sill falls under the regulations of CSR. Her compelling article about the connection between CSR and WikiLeaks can be read here. Here in India, WikiLeaks is pretty much all over the news as I imagine it is everywhere else as well. One of the primary news reels here is how India was 'betrayed' by the US.

A day ago, the first of the 3,038 cables sent from the US embassy in New Delhi was uploaded. The timing is most unfortunate because it follows hot on the tails of Obama's first presidential visit to India. A cable from current ambassador Timothy Roemer points out India showed no willingness to attack Pakistan even after the Mumbai 26/11 attacks. According to popular newspaper, The Hindu, "The communications expose the depth of U.S., Russian, and European fears about extremists laying their hands on Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Not just that. They tell about the tensions over Pakistan's "diversion" of U.S. Coalition Support Funds for operations in the tribal areas. They reveal how Pakistani leaders see the U.S. as a key player in internal politics and at the same time expose American helplessness in dealing with a country where the Army calls the shots and runs four militant networks, one expressly for use against India."

So this is my gripe with WikiLeaks: As an organization, it certainly does have a corporate responsibility towards its stakeholders and its intention of making classified material public is not without merit. However, it is not some petty scandal it is choosing to make known, it is releasing information that is classified 'national security'. Hell! It is international security. Releasing sensitive information about the Indo-Pak situation is abuse of its power as a whistle-blower.

Indo-Pak relations are already fraught with problems and tensions have frequently reached boiling points. Throwing fuel into the fire, intentionally or not is not responsible organizational practice and it is not good CSR. The role of a whistle-blower apart from making information known is to act in a socially responsible and mature manner which WikiLeaks has not done.

So far, India has acted with typical restraint. This is an issue that may or may not blow over, it is still too early to say. The fact remains that in an overzealous pursuit of free-information WikiLeaks has added another straw on the proverbial camel's back of Indo-Pak relations.

CSR is for most part about transparency. However when an organization uses the value of transparency to affect potentially explosive situations, it is an ostentatious display of sheer disregard for social responsibility. Messing with already fragile international relations is definitely a CSR move that would be suicidal for a corporate. I don't see why WikiLeaks should be allowed to get away with it.