Why We Must Take Sides.

As Indians we tend to accept a lot of things without actually questioning whether they are right or wrong .This has something to do with our educational system which makes us learn things by rote ,and also because of the philosophical postulates of our culture .

‘Jo kuch bhi hota hai ,bhagwan ke wajey se hota hai”(whatever happens is because God has willed it that way),or “Yeh to hamare karma me likha thaa”.(It was a part of our destiny ).We have a theory of reincarnation which hammers it into our psyche that whatever has to happen will happen .So just bear with it well and in your next life you will be rewarded .So we tend to accept .And ,the theory also has roots in Greek Philosophy –with its schools of Epicurean and Stoics .

The above has its advantages .My grandmother put up with a lot of tyranny at home ,slogging it out under a very oppressive patriarchal system .She was one of the most unfortunate human beings I have met in my entire life .She lost her husband ,her grown up son ,her son in laws ,her four daughters and finally passed away a paralytic leaving behind only one daughter from a huge family .I often found her smiling and working tirelessly and she always justified her existence by saying that it was a part of her “karma”.At least the philosophy must have anchored her in a world in which she lost everything at a very young age .

However ,there are people who don’t accept things as they happen –just because we cant stop or change them from happening .And I am glad that we don’t .How can anyone accept tyranny ,lies ,loose morality,corruption ,evil as if they cant be fought ,and because they are a part of our karma ?Some of us keep quiet because there are powerful people who form a part of the evil gang .Some of us keep quiet because it is “politically correct”,to keep quiet .Some of us keep quiet ,collaborate with the wrong to get benefits and then desert the wrong when it starts getting uncomfortable .As if there is a choice !!Rats .!!Read what one of the greatest minds of our times ,Ayn Rand writes .I quote

“The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube.”Unquote .

Amazing words .And spot on .And just read what the Nobel Prize winning writer Elie Weisel had to say .

“ Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.

 In a way, to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman. Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred. Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony, one does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory. And in denying their humanity we betray our own.

Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.”

Absolutely brilliant .And could have only come from someone who endured and fought evil when Hitler unleashed it against the Jews .

And also listen to what the great Einstein had to say .

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” 

Or for that matter the great Conservative thinker Edmund Burke who talked of the “collective wisdom of mankind  

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

When voices are suppressed ,when false propaganda starts to roll ,when lies and allegations start to do the rounds ,then the source of evil gets pinpointed .No matter what one does –the voice must be snuffed out .One cant remain silent and be a spectator –because spectators always want to watch a good game .And no ones business is his /her  business if one is in a public office like that of a politician,a school Principal ,a IAS /IPS Officer ,a actor –anything .It directly or indirectly affects us  and humanity as such .Do anything with your house or property .Do anything with your car ,sarees ,jeans or eat any food you want .But dont mess around with universally accepted ideas which give all of us a level playing field .Remember –no man is a island .