Cogito Ergosum

A drop in the ocean, an atom in the universe, an experience in a lifetime may mean nothing when seen superficially but we forget that the real power of the very same single little thing maketh the ocean, the universe or even a life. We tend to see what is existent but at the very same time neglect what is non-existent or at least seem to be non-existent. Stars are bright little objects in the dark sky. A human eye can admire the aesthetics of a bright clear sky with several little twinkling stars. But, unfortunately nobody admires the darkness without which stars have no meaning of their own. There is a need to question things, to look beyond the boundaries, to break away the shackles of the unknown to admire what is neglected, what we don’t know.

Lord Acton said, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, but do we ever think what makes it true, why power corrupts? The moment we talk about the corruption of power, we make a serious fundamental attribution error to the same. The term power in itself is a very relative concept which depends on the degree or extent of the powerlessness of the people. In other words the concept of being powerful is inversely proportional to the state of powerlessness. When we say one is powerful we also have to understand that the other is weak. So when we question power being corrupted don’t we forget to blame ourselves for the occurrence of the same? We forget that somebody dares to exploit us because we let him/her exploit. Who is responsible?

India, a nation with the GDP growth close to the double digits, a nation ranking 8th in the number of billionaires, the largest demography of an ambitious middle class in the world, a nuclear power and as anticipated, soon going to be the most powerful nation state in the future . Wow! Wonderful!!
But have we ever tried to understand, what does the notion of development is, to a man who is not even sure whether he will be able to get stomach full of food the very next day? The man I am talking about is not a single man but 270 million people of India who live below the poverty line or more than 770 million people who spend less than Rs20 per day ( Arjun sengupta report). I am sure that each and every single man mentioned above looks ahead for a life which is ensured of social, economic, political and above all food security.

Again, who is responsible? Isn’t it we, the common man who definitely failed to check the holders of power to act in the most efficient way, to act for the inclusive sustainable development of the country? Worse things happen because we let it happen; we don’t even bother to question just because it happens to our neighbor. But we forget that even we are also a neighbor of someone. Having 2.4 million places of worship may or may not be bad but having such a number when the number of schools does not cross 2.1 million, is definitely a matter of greater concern.

We talked about the shining star in the beginning and also about the much hyped shining India cocept. Well, although both are shining but there is a fundamental difference between both of them. Darkness for a shining star is a boon but for a country like India, it is nothing more than a mere curse. The agentic state has to be shunned rather everyone has to stand together to prove their mettle and let the contractors of the nation know that we are not and we will never be a mere silent spectator of the whole episode. I, the common individual with you, am an entire population, a single drop which can maketh the ocean of an equitable , just society….Amen