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Monday, December 06, 2021

Blame it All on Nand Ghosh*

 

We Hindus have been picturing our evils as an anthropomorphic entity like Ravana, Mahisasura, Duryodhana, Hiranyakashyap etc. We have been celebrating the single act of vanquishing them by burning their effigies, thinking that's a step towards getting rid of the evils of the world. We have been struggling to conquer them for thousands of years.

Modern people create more sophisticated effigies: Rightists, leftists, Bhakt, Hindutva, Libtards, patriarchy, capitalists, socialists, racists ... their number seems to have grown bigger.

I don't say these things don't exist. But picturing all evil in the world as emerging from one such identifiable source -- your favourite one -- is naivette. To think of it as an external to ourselves is a form of denial.
I think, the practice of mapping all evil you see around you to one source is not doing us any good. Instead, let's acknowledge the complexity and multiplicity of the phenomena that lead to social evils. Oversimplification of problems has never led to any real solution. They may create quick improvements, but would soon replace one problem with another.

 

* যতো দোষ নন্দ ঘোষ  -- In Bangla, the proverb talks about the act of finding a single person to blame for all goof ups.

1 comment:

Sambaran said...

Great insight. I am sure that something very interesting in your life has triggered this post.