Given below is the link of an
article that a friend had posted.
http://qz.com/178362/india-crosses-the-moral-line-of-no-return-if-narendra-modi-becomes-prime-minister/
And this was my additional comment on it.
SZ: Unfortunately. Getting ahead on Fear and Hate is easier than
doing it the right way.
And this was the subsequent comment of another person that started the
entire conversation, which some may find interesting.
DM Whom you want to be?
1. Farmer =
2. Farmers Wife =
3. Farmers Son =
4. The Mongoose =
5. The Cobra =
Match those characters with a
suitable options....
You, Common People, Politicians,
India's Future, Narendra Modi, Media, Confusion, Corruption, Inflation, Rahul
Gandhi, greedy people, opportunist, Economy or you can put your own word.
Before that, read the story!!!!!!
Once, there lived a farmer and
his wife. They had a little son. The farmer had a petmongoose. The little boy
and the mongoose were fond of each other. They were good playmates.
One day the farmer was busy at
his fields. The farmer's wife had left to the market. The little boy was fast
asleep in a cradle. The mongoose was lying down near the cradle.
A cobra somehow got into the
house and it was nearing the little boy. The mongoose sniffed the snake and
jumped up. He fought with the cobra. The cobra began to attack. There was a
fierce fight between the cobra and the mongoose. The mongoose finally bit and
killed the cobra.
The mongoose saw the farmer's
wife returning from market. He ran happily towards her to greet her. She saw
blood around the mouth and paws of the mongoose. The farmer's wife mistook that
the mongoose had attacked her son.
The farmer's wife took a long
stick and gave heavy blows on the mongoose and then ran into the house. She was
shocked to see a dead cobra lying on the floor near her son. Now she realised
her mistake.
SZ: So I assume the meaning of the story would be something like
Wife is the voter. Son is the economy. Mongoose is Modi and Cobra are Muslims.
DM: It's upto u (Shoaib)..........what u want to choose!
It's reflects your perception
about the matter.
You are supporting Modi or not
it's pointless.
The moral of the story is don't
land into any conclusion from outside.
SZ: Oh I don't deal with perception (Dear DM). I deal with
probabilities and likelihood in real life. There was nothing wrong with the
column, but when you put up a story, it seems like a nice way to avoid the
tough question on choices. So I extrapolated one possible meaning that you
wouldn't want to consider or like, making the same point, as you wrote -
"don't land into any conclusion from outside."
The truth is you don't need to be
involved but just be near a riot/war/huge-fight (a fight when someone dies) to
know things. Be so near that you can know not the stories through other people
but hear them directly from the horses mouth. The ones who are still alive by
matter of chance or the ones who killed or the ones who lost someone there. If
you don't know and if you haven't seen, don't compare with cliche stories, you
can argue on an ideology but don't compare realities to stories. Reality is
very different.
My understanding is you have
never seen or been near to a riot but if I am wrong, which I certainly can be,
please share your insight and what you have seen or heard and how near were
you.
If not then next time when you
hear of a riot, I suggest you go there. meet people, talk with them. Don't
argue, don't tell them about fairytale stories, just listen and observe. Give
time and then see them again, with time will come perspective and they will
tell you things as a matter of fact in words devoid of emotion but words that
will send chills down your spine. This time it would be different than the time
when emotions were high, that I can assure you. Talk to them in different
places - sometimes at their house, sometimes where they have tea, sometimes
over dinner, sometimes when they would read a piece of news. In that case you
wouldn't conclude from outside.
DM "I will never forget the hand till my death"
This is the comment of my mom
about an incident which took place in her life more than half a century ago.
The moral story which I put up,
its my nephew's 1st Standard Text book story (moral story). It carries a simple
message for those toddlers that "don't land into any conclusion from
outside" which is applicable to us as well & why I put up that story
you come to know at the end of it.
Dear Shoaib, The incident which I
am going to tell you it don't deal with probabilities and likelihood; it's all
about perception of an Individual who directly suffered the fate. A single incident
can be interpreted differently by me, you, mom, Zeeba or someone else &
also the significance of that incident will differ from person to person based
on their perception about the context.
Based on your reply I can assume
that you never directly faced that kind of situation, only heard about it
(directly from the horses mouth) but I did; or to be accurate my mom did.
If I wouldn't have faced those
situation then my answer would have been a biased answer.
Yes, You truly reflected the
facts & I totally agree with you but I also want to highlight that you
overlooked few important aspects of it; like PTSD (post-traumatic stress
disorder) & it's effect on human behaviour (Perception), snow-ball effect,
devil's horn effect, fading effect bias, uncontrolled contributing factors etc.
When you are dealing with a sensitive issues like riot/war/death then you need
to consider all the aspects of real life, not a generic view of an incident.
I researched about it long time
back; currently don't have any reference but if you are really interested to
know then you need to spend weeks or even months while researching to come to a
conclusion.
The truth is 'reality is stranger
than friction'.
Few Related Articles
http://www.niu.edu/.../publications/walkerskowronski2009.pdf
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases
If you have time read it.
A brief background about us. I am
from West Bengal; 2nd largest concentration of Muslim Population in India
(wikipedia). I am Bengali; my grand parents & my father immigrated from
East-Pakistan or currently Bangladesh during partition (1947). That time a large
amount of Bengali's didn't immigrated from East-Pakistan immediately, they
stayed back because they loved their home land & also they don't want to
lost all their resources (house, land, shop etc). My mom's family was one of
them.
Though they were the minority
ethnic group in East-Pakisthan/Bangladesh but they were happy. My mom's father
was a post master & her uncle was one of the renowned Doctors in
East-Pakisthan/Bangladesh. It was a joint family & they stayed together in
a very big house. That time they were one of the wealthy family in that town
with lots of land, a store, a nice doctors chamber & few cows. My mom's
uncle had thousands of loyal follower that time & everyone respects them
very much. Everything was fine for next 15yr with some minor problem. From late
1963 to early 1964 the situation in that area started to get intense
(Ref:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_East-Pakistan_riots) but then also it
didn't escalated into an alarming level. Though that period Hindus were banned
to wear shoes, use umbrellas, ride a rickshaw or can't sell their property but
because of their reputation in the town/mohalla no one objected. Even they felt
safe in that area. According to my mom testimony, her uncle used to quote
"this is the safest place; we feel very safe & secured here". But
one night during 1964 riot a group of people came to their house (out of which
few are family friend) killed her uncle without giving him a moment to react;
kill his newly wedded pregnant wife; killed my mom's elder brother & tried
to kill everyone else. My Grand Father took my mom (that time she was only 8yrs
old) with him accompanied by her elder sister (12yr) & her young brother
(6yr) & fled through the back door in the middle of a night (around 2am)
with the help of their servant (Ponchu Da). They have to left that place bare
footed without a single penny in their pocket.
Luckily my grandmother was out of
town & she survived. Later they came to know that they also killed their
loyal servant (Ponchu Da). They walked whole night though the jungle with a
scare in their mind that someone is following them!
In the early morning with the
help of a person they reached the India boarder. Even the help provided by the
stranger is not free of cost, my grand dad have to give him his gold chain in
return. While returning to India my mom saw a truck, full of death body (I
don't need to say who they are) out of which one hand was hanging outside the
truck. The blood soaked hand struck the 8yr old girl so badly the it still
hunts her.
In my first line I referred that
hand.....
Now forget about everything;
Modi, mongoose, cobra, you, me, your religion, my religion everything.......
Just think yourself a 8yr old
girl who lost her elder brother, uncle & aunt (who are equivalent to her
mother & father) just few hours back & in the morning she saw the most
horrible seen in her life.
Mr. Shoaib, can u please shed
light about the probability or the likelihood of her emotion trauma caused by
this incident!
& also can you please answer
some of her unanswered questions.
1. Why they killed my
brother(13yrs)? What he did?
2. My uncle saved thousands of
life but why they killed him who saved their life?
3. Why my uncles childhood friend
(who also studied with him) was among the killers?
4. Why they killed my innocent
aunt or our servant?
She didn't get the acceptable
answer & because of that her perception totally changed about a particular
community!
Is she right or wrong?
Who will decide?
Till now, it's half of the story!
Waiting for your response. After your response I will clarify my stands &
will finish the story.
SZ: She would be biased in all likelihood and would live those
scars. And since you grew up perhaps you too would be completely biased, and in
either case I cant contest with words because its difficult to change
experience with words. But perhaps if and when the time comes will try to
create an example so that your view changes. And I am sorry for the losses in
your family.
For your questions there are no
answers except that people who did that were wrong and unfortunately no human
being tried helping your elders. If your mother believes in God of whatever
sort, she should reserve those questions for that supreme being.
But to assume that only you or
your mother have been traumatized is also wrong. My father was a little lucky,
his friends struck him at the right places (during Ranchi Riots 1967) just that
they were doctor's hand and not a butcher's so the cut was not deep enough to
kill him instantly. And then luck favored him and Brigadier arrived at the
hospital, since RMCH is near the cantonment area. Had the army people been 15
min late probably I wouldn't be responding today. The guy who struck first was
his school friend who had come to visit them in college. Why he did he do that?
There is no logical answer. And this entire attempt to wipe out some 34 Muslim
boys was done in the presence of police unit that was deployed in the campus so
that no untoward incident takes place.
Throughout his life after that,
he could never open a bottle with his right hand, because when the senior staff
of the college found him their immediate concern was to save his life and to
work with all casualty that was coming in. No one looked into his fractured
thumb. The hit on his head ensured that the vision from his left eye became
nearly nil, so despite being a book lover and a veracious reader he had to remain
content with only one eye.
Despite this incident my father
never differentiated among his friends based on religion and he never asked me
to do so either. Rather what he taught us (his children) was there would be
some bad people and some good, don't judge them on religion or caste or creed.
And look through events understand what happened? Why it happened? Who
benefited? And how the common person on the road (you and me), we lose out in a
struggle for power, ideology and money where we have no stake.
We too have lost friends and
families to riots. But then we have also seen incidents of hope. Bhagalpur
riots 1967 we lost some very close family friends. Then in 1989 riots Bhagalpur
was really bad and that is when one of our family friend's tenant did what few
would have done. Rioters came and asked the tenants (hindus) to come outside
the house, there were offered to shift everything to a different house on the
same road, and then all owners (muslims) were locked inside and the house was
set on fire and rioters left. Somehow most of the people managed to escape but
they had hidden two children and in trying to run they actually left them. The
tenants son entered the burning house saved the two children. And everyone left
Bhagalpur overnight, the price of saving lives for the tenant too was to leave
the house and the city. They all shifted to Patna.
And similarly there are many
incidents where individuals have put their foot down to save lives, across regions,
across religions in times of madness. I can understand how your mother would
feel contemptuous, so does my mother - she lost her cousin in Benares riots of
1972, and nearly lost the man she was to marry in Ranchi riots.
Some one will have to rise up to
the occasion and do what is right and if we can remove our biases for a moment
we all know when we are right and when we are wrong. I don't know how to
explain, well I hope you can understand.
DM: You are right, people should have reacted the way your father
did. The lack of consciousness, lack of logical thinking is the main problem
not a particular community or people.
Let's finish my story first then
u will understand everything......
I told you before, every incident
can be perceived differently by different individual. My mom developed a grudge
or hatred about a particular community.
Is she right? Obviously not.
People mind alway tend to
generalise every incident.
Here comes the concept called
"The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nicolas
Taleb's. People generalising the incident based on their comfort level or suitability
or mental satisfaction.
Now, comes the analytical part.
You know Shoaib, you were
partially right, I have grown up by listing all those stories & become
biased. I assumed/perceived that all the Muslims are bad because I also didn't
get the acceptable answer. I started to felt that those people who can kill a
child, a pregnant women & a person who saved their life several time they
must be bad & evil people.
So I generalised my thinking
& developed a barrier between me & all the other Muslim friends. In
school I don't even have a single Muslim friend because of the perception.
In class-XI I started developing
friendship with Abdul (My first Muslim friend). We studied in a same school
& also in a same coaching centre. In few months we become good friends.
Then a stereotype warning came from my family, don't mix with Abdul. I tried to
convince then that he is good, he is different, he is not like others but one
statement from my mother drained all my effort & I hit a concrete wall.
I am just quoting her sentence
"you friendship with Abdul is less than a year old; my uncles childhood
friend didn't hesitate to kill him after 30yrs of friendship; then who are
you?"
That time I was determine to
prove her wrong but I didn't have the answers of her questions!
Then I started my research about
the incident.
Do you know what I found?
"The reality is stranger
than fiction"
My uncle was the topper in school
& college but his childhood friend was far behind in term of results,
reputation, assets etc. when my mom's uncle Used to attend patients in his
private chamber his childhood friend used to spent leisure time in his chamber
while appreciating his achievements.
But the reality was different; he
developed ego & envy against him. Here comes the concept called the
snowball effect. It's was developed over the time, not in a single day. He was
also an doctor but overshadowed by my mom's uncles reputation. He dreamed to
practicing like him but it never materialised in reality. After so many years
the opportunity came in his way to eliminate his competitor & fulfil his
sleeping desire. The person only took the opportunity of riots to fulfil his
grudge & takeover their moveable or non-moveable assets without a criminal
proceeding or any negative publicity which can't be possible in other way. This
type of greedy, selfish, self-centric attitude didn't signify any religion like
Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. Those type of people doesn't belongs to any
ethnic group, they comes under only in one category which is criminals. It
happens with me, it happened with you & also to others. This type of people
was there in the past, is there in the present, will be there in the future.
It's upto you which color you want to put in. This incident happening every day
everywhere.
Some are defining it as
political, some defining it as a communal & some defining it as a cultural
(honour killing) issue.
Whom you want to blame for the
losses is upto you. You can blame your destiny or the god or the country or the
government or the minister or a particular community.
Here the main question......Can
you control it? It's impossible to control human mind or evil thinking. The
incident which occurred in her life cannot be controlled from outside.
Here the contributing factor is
not religion nor political or cultural. It's a criminal intent (uncontrolled
contributing factor) done under the shadow of communal riots.
Just talk with those people who
have lost their life in riots, u will find all of them have lost their home,
assets or other belongings. What you thing those people who is executing the
riots is doing it for ideology? If you think so then you are the biggest fool I
have ever mate. Yes exceptions are there but I can guarantee that most of the
people would have different intension.
But in reality convincing the
sufferer about the real issue is very tough. Even if they understand everything
then also a unconscious negative feeling will be there at the back of there
mind. It's like a time bomb; u need a spark to re-ignite it. In that context
you were right, a good leader need to secure that kind of incident should not
happen but for him it will be difficult to control those criminal minds to stop
exploiting the issues like riots, ethnicity or something else for their
personal gain. I believe except a criminal mind nothing exist in this world
which can influence a person to kill his/her childhood best friend or a child.
Whatever is the reason can you kill you childhood best friend or a child in any
circumstances?
I don't think so.....A sound
human being can't do it any circumstances.
After my finding I shared my view
with parents & created a solid stand point. They are 100% convinced or not
I am not sure but atleast they don't have any problem with my friends &
don't shows the stereotype attitude.
Hope for the best......
Regards
DM
SZ: Your analysis is mostly correct.
Criminal intent can be checked if
the law is based on the concept of 'Justice' and the implementers have decided
to do so. Mostly if I have come to understand correctly, then in a 50 year
history of someone trying to achieve a just kingdom/society/nation then for
about 5-10 years the society actually would witness a phase where criminal
intent is completely checked and there is peace overall. After that either
border wars will start or something will go wrong with society because a new
leader will be born. Since inciting is very easy, may not work with you and I,
but in general giving a speech with negativity and raising the tempo is easy
and for quick success leaders often employ this.
Now well I may be foolish, but
then 'to believe' one has to take a leap of faith and that is the essence of
most religion. I think we are in agreement that most people do not think
analytically, if that assumption is correct, then maybe we can also come to a
common agreement that most people do not analyses their religion and the leap
of faith could be in the wrong direction. Now that is seed of ideological
criminal intent (example: Elements of Taliban in Pakistan (the ones who only
kill innocents), perpetrators of Malegaon blasts and Mecca Masjid (hyderabad)
blasts , KKK (in US) etc.)
You know the cases against such
people should be made under criminal offense rather than terrorism or any other
part of law. But the truth is that the foot soldiers in such organizations
actually have 'weird' belief system. Maybe the leaders of such organization are
more analytical and hence outright criminals but on grassroots its belief --
driven by idealogy.
My observation, so far, has been
that all criminal activity has a reason -- money, power, lust/jealousy,
revenge, mental instability or ideology. At least till now I have not come
across a case which cannot be compartmentalized in one of these categories.
Assuming its only one would be wrong.
I maybe wrong, one can always be
wrong but that is the structure that I follow so far. If you have better
insight then do share.
[p.s. since you read, understand
and perhaps follow Taleb to Gladwell. check out Robert Shiller's - 'irrational
exuberance' and Karl Marx]
