Written long back.. just found it lying somewhere in the hard drive. Long article, read at your own risk.
I have been unhappy, virtually lifeless and restlessly disappointed over quite some time now, a few years so to say. Whatever happiness has been mostly temporary. And yet, what I seek is not happiness but the cure for unhappiness. I keep feeling that we as a generation, as people, as a nation, are losing ourselves. More than anything else, we are losing certain values which we shouldn’t, and losing them with pride. What values do I speak of? I speak of tolerance, respect, understanding, genuineness, depth, substance, selflessness, gratitude and constructive freedom (I say constructive because absolute freedom would mean freedom from these values and from conscience, which I don’t intend to support).
We lack sensitivity; we are not being good human beings. Why has a ‘good human being’ become an oasis in the desert of today’s society? What do I mean when I say ‘good’? I am writing this post well aware of the fact that the judgment of good and bad is not universally the same, and also, being a liberal person myself, I have believed it to be nothing short of an irony to ask others to tread a certain path, to dictate terms or hold strictly defined views of being liberal. But today I feel that inaction of liberty gives way for fundamentalism (the words being merely symbolic of the entire spectrum that I am talking about) to penetrate to the roots of people. An idea of being tolerant towards others can only materialize if people become tolerant by their own volition, and that is not possible till there is even a small group of people that can take undue advantage of the others being tolerant, to further their selfish goals. That is the problem with being on the side of freedom, tolerance, selflessness and respect. It is very easy to leave them all, especially after seeing others live happily leaving it. ‘It is better to make than to break’ used to be the order of the day before, not now anymore. And that is why, I feel it is imminent for each and every one of us to revisit ourselves and further the path of righteousness.
It might seem that I have gone totally cynical, ranting and complaining about everything. I have not. I would have gone cynical if I had made peace with, and digested, all that is troubling me. The ability to reason or justify, which takes us a little higher in terms of civilization, also is the biggest curse to us. I am sure many more others would feel troubled by the things which affect me, but they prefer to find comfort and solace in justifying them, reasoning out how there is no point being troubled by them, and thus, effectively accepting them. We all study and debate and critically appreciate our constitution for the value it gives to individual freedoms, we read about the importance of freedom for personal development of citizens and of nations, but why don’t we get affected when a bunch of people (claimed to be sponsored by the underworld) remote control the State to ensure that Salman Rushdie does not come to India, otherwise he’d be killed, and prevent his virtual presence with a threat of violence. Why do we keep quiet when an honest work in history illustrating the possibility of multiplicity of interpretations of such a text as the Ramayan, is forced to be removed from university syllabus just based on fear from a handful of fundamentalists who might not even know the actual sanctity or the values from their version of Ramayan? Despite all measures, why have the religious and social minorities not moved up the social ladder or the socio-economic ‘standard of life’ ladder after 63 years of the Constitution’s existence? Because if they cease to be minority and all sections of society merge into a common pool, there can’t be a vote bank! Yet we as citizens affected by all this don’t do anything about it.
How many of us can actually stop cribbing about the most insignificant of things in life and feel the pain and misery of millions of people around us? It is not uncommon to see wasted people sitting or lying down on the road with a devastated look on their face. I still can’t forget or forgive myself when I rolled up the window on a poor old woman begging on the road. She looked like she didn’t deserve that treatment at all. She was an old woman and deserved to be cared for. The amount of people unemployed and devoid of opportunities goes beyond my comprehension. A peanut seller on the footpath in Patny sets up his stall on a fine Saturday morning; gives a packet to his kid who happily sits next to him and eats. Imagine living off just by selling peanuts! He has a family to maintain, to provide food to, and can he even imagine affording to send his kid to a school? Meanwhile some college students, excited on a Saturday buy peanuts, shout and bargain and frown and ask for more peanuts at a lesser price; the same students who’d never have even asked for a discount at the showrooms of different brands of which they were wearing clothes and shoes. How can we be so blind to all this? How can we find comfort in ignorance just because we can’t face the truth? But a good man will at the most do his share and give others happiness, he can’t beat these college kids, politicians, corrupt officials and businessmen up and thrust sensitivity in their heads. And that is another big problem we have, to have adopted the wrong means.
We don’t realize that to achieve an end in its true sense, there is always a certain way in which it needs to be achieved. The means are as important as the end. That the end may be decided by the heart, but the means should always be decided by the mind. Look at the anti-graft campaign led by Anna Hazare. The goal of fighting corruption, which hardly anyone could oppose, was made a mockery of by the campaign. People were not being made to change themselves internally, but the anger and frustration of people against corruption was being used to fight only the corrupt public officials with literal force. How long could it have its effect? Can you even possibly end corruption by threatening people at gun point? Look at the Naxal movement. Ignorance and marginalization of certain backward areas by the governments incited the movement. Socio-economic development of backward areas is again a goal which no one can say no to. But they gave up beliefs in democracy and elections, took up arms, and justified violence by the oppressed while criticizing violence of the oppressor. The government could in the first place not understand the problem as violence was resorted to directly, and even if it did understand it, it had the violence to counter in the first place, so development plans became secondary. Even now, the attitude of governments towards such areas is always biased because of the means of naxals which did not go down well with the concept of civilization. And what do we do as citizens? Not give a damn.
It might seem ridiculous now that I have been harping on the fact that we don’t do anything about injustices and miseries in this world without mentioning what is it that we can even do about it? The answer is to change ourselves for the better. To define a value system that sustains diversity and includes everyone’s welfare; to be genuine rather than look for a cover. To not desert our ideals which lie in the foundation of our existence. I can easily wrap this up by saying that sometimes it is better to not consider ideal and practical as two different adjectives, but I know that will make this post half of its worth because we will again go wrong in our means to change ourselves. The option of Mr.Hazare to tie people to a pole and beat them up till they agree to change might not be effective in the long run after all.
One way is to sensitize ourselves, try and understand the plight of others. I can travel in a bus in the city without any music or company just by momentarily living the life of the people I see, to know how they feel. But that again, can only be partly effective, as we love ourselves so much that it is difficult to really leave oneself entirely even for a moment to experience others. Still, if things start concerning someone, making them uneasy, half the work is done. Worst is the case when there is neither any attention/sensitivity nor any feeling of remorse for our actions. So if one is troubled and wants to do something, what is it that can be done? This question has perplexed me for most of my adult life. To even begin introspection, we need to understand that we are slaves of our pre-conceived notions. Judgment, hatred, insecurity, and everything else in the ejusdem generis, is what we need to rid ourselves of first and then make ourselves contributories of justice. It does not mean being totally selfless like a hermit, it only means that we should not be at the other end of the spectrum by being totally selfish either.
We gain education in different disciplines so that we are well rounded, informed persons. But why don’t the
concepts of freedom, mutual respect and tolerance found in our constitution, international law and various other sources ever affect our life? It is because it is very difficult to be in a situation and not think whether I am being affected by it or not. A person will never do anything as long as it does not affect him/her. I have made the same point in a previous post as well, but I still feel there needs to be a specified way for one to even feel affected, even though he/she is not actually being affected, in order to shape his/her value system accordingly.
And for this, I resort to a drug that is so bitter that it takes anyone’s patience away, but is probably the only thing that can control a human for the betterment of society. This drug is uncertainty/ignorance, not of others but of oneself. Just as the ability to justify, being a symbol of mental growth can be a major factor for cessation of spiritual growth, like a double edged sword, even uncertainty, while taking away one’s peace of mind can also ensure that such decisions are taken by humans that benefit all. This is nothing but the theory of justice given by John Rawls. His theory is based on the concept of social contract, i.e. an agreement in which all the people of society arrive at certain rules and agree to abide by them for their collective sustenance and development. To put it simply, he talks about entering into a social contract behind the veil of ignorance i.e. at the time of deciding the rules of society, the laws or the value system which people should agree to, if everyone entering into such a social contract is behind a veil of ignorance, has no idea what he/she will be like when they exist, rich or poor, whichever caste, whichever race, in power or without power, etc., then whatever rules on which people agree will be just and fair for all. Why? Because everyone will be facing an equal amount of risk with an equal probability.
There will be total uncertainty. And if I am uncertain as to which caste I may belong to, or whether under the current social fabric, if I may belong to a lower caste, I will obviously want the belief in caste-based inequality to not exist, or the belief to not be unfavourable to any caste. And if everyone is in the same position as me, everyone would want the same. Similarly, for everything, if everyone has an equal chance of being at the receiving end of the causes of any kind of injustice, everyone would agree to do away with injustice as much as possible. We don’t need to assume the most ideal world, but we just need to imagine us being at the receiving end, and we will be mobilized. Hence, as much as I hate uncertainty in life, I wish everyone could be uncertain about his/her wealth, social status, feeling of possessiveness, love, hatred, judgment, etc. and I hope the values of tolerance, respect, patience and strength are never lost in the ‘changing times and changing generations’ in which we belong and the ones to come.
