Ye Sach Ya Woh Sach

 

                                

There is a famous anecdote in our mythology which gives us a wonderful perspective about life. In the ancient times, there was a great king with immense influence and fortitude, never had he lost any battle but it so happened that one fine day the neighbouring king, with his immensely capable army invaded this king. The king was facing the biggest challenge of his life, he fought quite aptly but, on that fateful day, misfortune got the better of him and he fell from his chariot, rather abruptly. He was fatally wounded, deep scars with blood oozing out, covered his entire body . Vulnerable as he stood, ran for his dear life and fled away from the battleground. Stealthily he evaded and hid himself in the nearby forest. Dejected he felt, with no energy left in his body, he was exhausted completely, he could not believe that the great king selfishly saved his life and left his army at their fate, sheer cowardice he thought and thus he collapsed. Not only to exhaustion but also to the IMMENSE guilt, he was perhaps breathing his last breath, his heavy eyelids falling upon his eyes slowly and perhaps forever . “LORD WAKE UP, your majesty you were asleep and the words that you were murmuring gave us the impression of fear, guilt and defeat. What happened my lord ?” the Ministers of the king questioned, but the king looked shocked, he was petrified, unable to understand anything and only uttered these words, stuttering. “ YEH SACH YA WOH SACH, YEH SACH YA WOH SACH” unable to discriminate between the two state of existence, was it that he was so exhausted, dejected that he collapsed and started hallucinating ‘ good times or situations ’ where everything was all right, where he never had any defeat as such or is it that he really had a terrible nightmare as the ministers told. What was the truth, therefore he uttered “Yeh sach ya woh sach”. The king was seemingly lost between two eternal dilemma. This story gives us a wonderful backdrop to introspect upon ourselves. We too are like the king where we are often torn between two contradictory realities or even fantasies for that matter.

Do we really know the truth?

We often take it for granted that we know the truth, that we are on the right path, our concept of economy, politics or justice is the best. Many often believe that all religions are false except one and that is his/her own religion. Christianity and Islam propose that there is only one absolute God who is the creator of everything, Hinduism vouches for the existence of many Gods while atheists and Buddhists believe that there is no God. If an alien with no notion of religion is asked to tell what is the truth he would probably utter “ Yeh sach ya woh sach”. Even if you consider politics and economy, you would find yourself in the same situation. If you would have asked Karl Marx , the father of communism, the best way to run the economy, he would say with great conviction “The best way to run an economy is to avoid the rich becoming richer and hand the means of production to the Government”. Contrastingly if you would have asked Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism about the best way to run an economy, he would perhaps suggest you to invest your profits in the hands of rich, so that you may become rich, he would certainly oppose the idea of handing the means of production to the Government, vehemently. Both are absolutely convinced that their idea is bullet-proof, ask an economics student or a political scientist, they would probably utter “Yeh sach ya woh sach”. We often feel that the world has by and large, now ended racism at least theoretically. If you were to ask a white American in the late 17th to 19th century to give citizenship to a black, he would deny that with full heart and consciousness, on grounds of racism, truly believing that the blacks are impure and criminal and are second class humans by God’s will. This looks unacceptable by today’s standards because of the existence of the concept of liberal human rights. However, the situation is only superficially different today, the end result is almost the same. A Congolese would probably be denied citizenship today by the whites on grounds of nationalism or culture, a statistician would probably show that a Congolese person is five times more likely to cause violence than a white American therefore for the sake of the national integrity of America he/she may be denied citizenship. Discrimination has just evolved from racial to cultural, social and economic lines.

Injustice today might have been just in the past. Imagine a man kills someone's daughter/son and the man is found guilty by the court, and as a punishment the man’s daughter/son is killed and not the accused man. By today’s standards of justice, the judgement which ought to be just, looks like a heinous crime, but for someone in 1760 BC in the kingdom of Hammurabbi, that very judgement would seem to be the best possible redemption of justice, even the accused’s family would agree on that. This is because the modern socio-political systems are based on the sanctity and freedom of an individual, where no one is responsible for the good or bad of others, a concept called liberal humanism. But in the ancient times there was no concept such as sanctity and freedom of the individual and thus the ancient judgement.

Contradictions or dual realities/fantasies even happen in science, light was originally thought to be made of particles called corpuscles and later by experiments it was found to have shown wave characteristics, for about 200 years light was thought to be a wave until it was again established by photoelectric effect that light was a particle. Thus the scientific community was found to be oscillating between two realities/fantasies all throughout these years. Physics has still not reconciled between the contradictions between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. So what is the truth, what is the absolute reality, are the scientists wrong, is the present judicial system absolute or not . We can perhaps have a better perspective when we stop judging on parameters of right or wrong.

What’s the Conclusion ?

We may safely conclude that there is nothing wrong or right, only our thinking makes it so. Neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx was right/wrong. Karl Marx was in a situation where his idea was the best and for the time being it was right, Adam Smith too was right in his situation as it had empirical evidence; however both are flawed when they say that their theory was correct at all times and in all places. The right thing or the correct theory was not absolute but was relative, it was successful only in certain times and in certain places. Similarly, Hammurabbi was neither absolutely just nor are we unflawed with our present judicial system, people in times of Hammurabbi were satisfied with their ideology and people today are satisfied with what we have, both misthink their ideology to be the eternal truth. Light was both particle and wave, scientists assumed the principle character as per their convenience and that which satisfied their experimental observation. Racism has only translated into socio-economic discrimination and it may even evolve into other forms in future, but we can safely assume that the present discourses which propose that there is no racism are not true/false, it just depends on our definition of discrimination. We should perhaps stop looking through the lens of right or wrong and reconcile that, that there is no such thing as absolute truth or absolute right or wrong it just evolves like everything else with time.