Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Different Strokes

The thought process that follows an event is usually riddled with instinctive reactions from the heart and not from the head.
Although what you react at the spur of the moment may not always be politically correct but more often than not it is the voice within you that surfaces and is the true face of your character.
The beating up of some Hindu children in Pakistan for drinking water from a mosque is what led me to think.

Instinctively because I am an urban,open minded and fairly well travelled Indian it seemed petty. It is the work of illiterate and small minded people who till today see differences on the basis of religion or for that matter caste colour or creed.

Once the initial reaction wanes and the mind takes over you realize that it's not that petty.
The event has not happened because a few villagers thought that others were unclean or unsuitable. It is in fact a culmination of a collective thought process of a society/mankind that thrives on discrimination.

Politics all over the world divides people in more ways than medically possible. Whether it is through religion or demographics, the better you carve ensures the length of your survival. And it all boils down to survival of the fittest by trying to create an illusion of superiority for those carved.
Now opening the field further and not making this a political issue, I seek to substitute the word politics with "Power Junkies".
Now if you see objectively you can fit in any of the following "America", "Al Qaeda", "Taliban", "Mayawati", "Congress","BJP", "Maoists", "Somali Pirates" ,"Khap" and a thousand others yet the meaning never changes.

I am better than you because my power junkie says so..

Think about it. It applies in every situation where there is power. An office, a factory, ministries, cricket, anywhere where there is a possibility of one showing superiority over the other. Divide and you shall prevail.

It is the ego satisfaction need of humans to seek to achieve power and dominance over other humans. It is when dementia and megalomania takes over that the need to manipulate minds in destructive fashion and to get power through fear dictates the state of our living. Sad but true.