I was defiant in my early youth to the extent that I outrightly rejected all lessons and pieces of wisdom which others shared with me. I never accepted anything which my mind had not directly cognized. But I admit that I was wrong in many places.
The world saw much blood. Why? Only because of the lethal worm called hatred, which managed to survive in the unhealed wounds of the past.
A stage of deep reflections and recognitions taught me one thing. That, it’s not a human being’s duty to learn all lessons through his/her immediate experiences. We reach our fullness and true purpose early or at time, when we creatively inject the teachings of wise people, lessons learned by others, morals from history et al. Now, as a father I secretly collect and keep useful life tips and hacks for my babies to be shared with them at various stages of their life, if I am allowed to live through those times.
As school students, we never ventured out to the greeneries to discover the biological facts and principles. We never learned gravity from fallen fruits in our orchard. The business and management principles never came to us from our own failed businesses. It was all passed down to us in the form of written knowledge. We assumed them into our thoughts and land in comfortable spaces, while some may have to wait longer.
The discussion is all about lessons from the past. How did some societies which we envy, achieve their present conditions? How did they manage the hatred which Indian politics seems to dangerously juggle with? Those societies were not beyond basic human reactions from their beginnings. They learned to co-habit through their experiences. For example, let us consider Europe. Once in the timeline the English disliked the French, the French were the enemy of the Germans; the Germans, on the other hand, awaited a chance to attack the Hungarians. At last, all these attitudes which sprouted from the seed of hatred culminated in two large bloody wars.
The world saw much blood. Why? Only because of the lethal worm called hatred, which managed to survive in the unhealed wounds of the past. One friend of mine in Germany said that Germans never discuss Nazism. They purposefully evade any of its remains. Recently the German Chancellor visited Auschwitz campsite as a gesture against the rise of right-wing thoughts.
The search for a new formula of power-sharing gave rise to new kinds of frictions. At some point, unfortunately, all narrowed down to the conflict of faiths. Whose land is it?
Europeans after their cycle of hatred have now settled as an almost single unit. They even have a common currency! Many former giants have lost their shine even after vehemently waging war to protect their master of the world image. All their wars were futile. Nobody won actually. But everybody lost. Children lost fathers. Beautiful ladies were killed. Poor little kids were shredded by bombs and missiles. What for? Just to co-exist peacefully together afterwards.
India has suffered a lot under the colonial reign. All people experienced pain at various levels of intensity. The new social realities changed the age of old systems. New avenues emerged new competitions and problems too. The search for a new formula of power-sharing gave rise to new kinds of frictions. At some point, unfortunately, all narrowed down to the conflict of faiths. Whose land is it?
The land belongs to nature. However hard you assert your right over any piece of land or other resources, certain core realities which would rise in the coming decades will teach entire humanity, the most important lessons yet.
So how do we as a nation like to deal with our unhealed social wounds and resultant hate? By re-creating the experiences which the Europeans once went through or by borrowing the wisdom they learned from their long wars? That, all forms of hatred culminate in co-habiting happily – the true purpose of our species.
