The Fourth Monkey

20 May 2010,

"See no Evil,
Hear no Evil
and Speak No Evil"
exhorted Mahatma Gandhi, the father and architect of our freedom,nation and people.
At 1billion plus we have a lot of say in what happens in the world.
As a potentially a great power atleast people power, as the biggest English speaking country in the world,
We could have much more say if we so chose.
After sixty plus years of independence, we quote Mahatma Gandhi at every opportunity.
We quote Jawaharlal Nehru, Tagore, and Indira Gandhi and many others to SUIT our convenience.
To convince ourself we are practising the ideals they advocated.
These are just balms to our guilty souls.
Lets see what we are doing.
Gandhiji Did not say
do not see what you should see,
do not hear what you should hear ,
do not speak what you should speak?
did he?
Because these three S's Sight, speech and sound, are essentials of two way communication between human beings and the world.
Loss of any one sense, -sight, speech or hearing makes us disabled human beings.
we fail to perceive 1/3 apporximately of the world with each loss of sense.
Now let us see what we have done with this piece of wisdom Mahatma Gandhi gave.
We have conveniently misinterpreted it to suit us.
The misuse of power, corruption, political rot, murder, mayhem, total disrespect for rule of law, blatant violations,
of cultural and social values, destruction of the environment by blind pursuit of lucre and "modern" automobile driven life
WE DONOT SEE.
The constant irreversible destruction of our very important sense- hearing- by noise by blind(literally) worship of modernization,
honking, industrial noises, "city" living, etc
WE DONOT HEAR
WE DONOT SEE OR HEAR,
WE ALSO DONOT SPEAK. for fear of what might happen?

We practise a gross distorted version of "speak now or forever hold your your peace!"

It is a well known fact that children born deaf will not be able to speak.

But we have chosen to be dumb even about things we should be constantly concerned about
the evils that are happening around us.


We have added a fourth monkey.
A very shameful monkey. A do nothing monkey.
Totally unconceivable and incomprehensible to Mahatma Gandhi.
One of the greatest Karmayogis the world has ever known.
Even in the wildest of his imagination.

WE DO NOTHING.
We do not do even when we can, What we can.
We wait for others to come by.
We are still waiting after sixty years of spoon feeding, someone to come by and spoonfeed us.
Successive governments will spoon feed us, atleast some of us at the cost of the others.
For VOTES SAKE. Not for who you are or what you have become or what the society has made of you.
We will wait for the mythical hindu Eternity.
for ever?

The fact that we are sitting with our arms crossed around our paunch- even those in the early 20s now a days have a respectable paunch of a 50 year old of the old days!
WE DO NOT ACT.
We are the most fatalistic, pessimistic people.
For ever looking for excuses not to do our minimal duty.
What is worse is we do not let others do their duty either.
Have you seen the way traffic violators argue for hours with the authorities about the pittance 100 or 200 rupees fine?
"It is not about the money......
it is the principle...
. ...I will apologize ...... but penalty please excuse sir....."
we are willing to grovel, beg even apologize to save that 100 rupees!
But our "sense of shame" does not extend to standing up.
and saying we violated a civic law which endangers, inconveniences, disrupts others lives and we will pay the penalty.
After all our penalties are peanuts.
10,000 for killig a human being while driving drunk!
However the pride makes us to beg, influence, grovel to ground zero so we can get away with the violation.
What is more many of us boast about that as an accomplishment?
How we subverted justice!
Particularly rubbing it into those who choose to pay the penalty dignifiedly?
We pervert justice, truth, law and order through influence in this land of Satyameva Jayate and
as if that is not enough we scorn and scoff those few who abide by law.


We crown our inactions, with the pearls of Hindu wisdom.
Karmani yeva adhikarah te, maa phaleshu kadachana.
your right is to work only and not to the fruit thereof.
Birth and death are the only two certain things in life.
or everything is predestined.

what else can be done by 1 billion Indians instead?

Practise Swami Vivekananda- "Awake, Arise, Stop not till the Goal is reached".

Practise Reinhold Niebur-
- atleast as much as we can?

Have the courage to act when you can and pray for the wisdom to know what you can do and what you cannot.
Atleast have the COURAGE to do things that you can and ACT.
and NOW.
M B Nataraj
2010.