A part of my group of friends is socially concious, may be hyper-concious to make up for the lack of the same in others. We talk about how people litter on the roadsides, spit and urinate with gay abandon, jump signals as if asserting a fundamental right, blah blah. These things put us off. Wait, let me talk for myself. These things put me off but are not reasons enough to lose hope or hate the people of this country.Then I read articles like "Another Bakery, Another Parzania". I wonder why do we use phrases like "Don't act like an animal" or "He is an uncivilised animal". Without generalising, I would say that even in the wild, I have not seen (as in seen on Discovery or National Geogrpahic) animals kill if they are not hungry. When hungry, animals turn animals - hunting to survive. But they do not kill to satisfy their ego or kill because the other species does not confirm to their beliefs.
Before brandishing the list of ever increasing number of billinonaires, the "overflowing" coffers, the increasing sales of luxury cars - let us spare a thought to the question if we are acting as humans at all. Unless we have redefined traits of basic "human behaviour". I can hear a few voices raising the same animal instinct propounded by Charles Darwin "Survival of the fittest" and "Doing everything to survive". Good point but I personally see it more as a red herring rather than a justifiable line of thought. My personal opinion is "Nothing in life is bigger than life itself". So no amount of reasoning can justify you taking someone's life. If you disagree, may be you could see if your reasoning is skewed to see only what you want to see or only what others want you to see. Are you at least that reasonable?
PS: The article that prompted this post is part of a new fortnightly feature on The Hindu. My suggestion, track the feature to preserve your sanity.
About the author: Harsh Mander is an ex-IAS. He resigned from the civil services protesting the 2002 Godhra riots. There are points of view which differ on the reason for his resignation and you can read about them at hvk.org. (The reason for giving this reference here is to clarify that the author was already aware of the purported "other side of Harsh Mankad" and did not write a "blind secular post". There are many more websites and interviews which talk about the good things Harsh Mankad has been doing. A simple search in Google would be all you will need).
Let us see some old Doordarshan videos to drown our guilt in the spirit of national integration.
Before brandishing the list of ever increasing number of billinonaires, the "overflowing" coffers, the increasing sales of luxury cars - let us spare a thought to the question if we are acting as humans at all. Unless we have redefined traits of basic "human behaviour". I can hear a few voices raising the same animal instinct propounded by Charles Darwin "Survival of the fittest" and "Doing everything to survive". Good point but I personally see it more as a red herring rather than a justifiable line of thought. My personal opinion is "Nothing in life is bigger than life itself". So no amount of reasoning can justify you taking someone's life. If you disagree, may be you could see if your reasoning is skewed to see only what you want to see or only what others want you to see. Are you at least that reasonable?
PS: The article that prompted this post is part of a new fortnightly feature on The Hindu. My suggestion, track the feature to preserve your sanity.
About the author: Harsh Mander is an ex-IAS. He resigned from the civil services protesting the 2002 Godhra riots. There are points of view which differ on the reason for his resignation and you can read about them at hvk.org. (The reason for giving this reference here is to clarify that the author was already aware of the purported "other side of Harsh Mankad" and did not write a "blind secular post". There are many more websites and interviews which talk about the good things Harsh Mankad has been doing. A simple search in Google would be all you will need).
Let us see some old Doordarshan videos to drown our guilt in the spirit of national integration.
Humans are driven by self-preservation, just like any other animals. It is the formers' luck that the latter haven't got the sixth sense.
ReplyDeleteAnimals kill not only for food, but also for territory (ex. lions) and for that matter because another object moves (ex. shark). They also show compassion to comrades (ex. elephant) and to members of other species (ex. elephant and dolphins).
So, I begin to wonder why we stereo type animals as crude, or mean and humans as inherently better. I think a much more appropriate word that is in vogue anyway is "ass hole". It forms a perfect parallel. Good and bad are both in humans and animals. So are assholes! :)