My operations management professor said in one of his lectures that the difference between realism and idealism lies in the perception of an entire generation. It is amazing how he managed to capture the very essence of our demise in a single sentence. Our demoralization as a nation began on early, when we started using the phrase, “Chal theek ha, chalta ha.’ (It is ok, because that is how it is). That was the point in our nation’s history when we started categorizing the wrong thing as the right thing as we had labeled it ‘need of the hour’. The example given was that if survival is brought into the picture, then the boundaries between right and wrong fade away. But was it really our survival, or was it the greed of a few that led us into rationalizing a social crime, as something which could be accepted for the greater good? A deeper thought provocation points out that all of us were, in fact, the criminals.
The example my Professor gave was of his father. He said the man turned over the table of an official who asked for an underhand cut from something. The beauty of the matter is that never again, did that official ask for a bribe from my professor’s father. However, when the time came for my professor to pay his property tax, instead of his father, that same gentleman started causing a number of problems saying that, ‘Ona di gal hore si.’ (It was different with him (His father)).
There are only two types of people in this world. Good people and bad people. Good people stop anything bad from happening, while the bad people watch it, when it happens. Each and every one of us is a bad person. We became bad people or criminals when fear starts setting in our hearts. And fear gives way to rationalization. At a government office, where you have to pay a clerk 500 Rs just to pass on your file, you become a criminal the moment you hand over the note. You become a criminal the moment you cut off someone in a line, when you bribe someone to give you an overpriced receipt so you can increase the insurance cut, even when you remain silent as someone else commits a crime in front of you. But these are not crimes you would say. These are just fears onset by continuous social dilemmas that have occurred in our society. And that is the point where we have fallen indeed. We have rationalized the very essence of injustice and let ourselves free from the burden of being a criminal in our own sight.
All of us need to face the criminals inside us, if we truly wish to rise as a nation. We need to understand the very essence of justice and how it needs to be implemented. We need to understand why all the religions of the world speak of justice or the judiciary even before bureaucracy. We are born in a nation that has lost its own identity. We were once part of an empire that punished a ruler the same way as a beggar, if their crimes were the same. Now we commit crimes and walk away thinking it was the need of the hour. The unpleasant truth is the need of the hour lives only in our own minds. We will be a great nation, only if we sacrifice our own comforts and make the hard choices. Even if that means, making 10 trips a month for a job that can be done in ten minutes if you pay that ‘extra’ amount.
