I need to start with the episode within the Mahabharata which triggered the road of pondering proposed on this publish. This is the episode wherein Draupadi is dragged into the Kuru courtroom after she had been staked and misplaced by Yudhishthira, within the cube match between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. It culminated in an try to disrobe her in an open meeting. By any ethical requirements, such an act known as for quick intervention by anyone with a social conscience. And but, no person within the courtroom did something to cease it. According to the acquired account, she was saved by a miracle.
What has bothered me about this account is that we had a scenario wherein all people knew that what was occurring was mistaken, and but no person did something to cease it. I’ve used the phrase ‘moral freezing’ to describe this phenomenon.
The scenario is basically startling when one chooses to replicate on it. All the individuals current within the courtroom had a distinguished background. There was Bhisma, the grandsire; there was Drona, who instructed the younger princes within the arts of warfare once they had been rising up; there have been the 5 Pandava brothers; and there have been the 100 Kaurava brothers. It is true that certainly one of them, Vikarna, objected to the developments going down, however he was shouted down by Karna. Even the king, Dhritarashtra, was current, however one has to add that he was blind and when he was made conscious of the proceedings, he cancelled them. And, to atone for it, requested Draupadi for any boon she needed.
This instance could be thought of archaic, or no less than conventional, however allow us to check out our personal instances. By one account, within the Nineteen Nineties, seven lakh Hindus, usually described as Kashmiri Pandits, had been pushed out of the Kashmir valley. There was a Central authorities in existence, there was a state authorities in existence, there was a district administration in place, there was the police power, there was the Army, there was the judiciary––and nothing was finished to stop their exodus from taking place. How is that this completely different from all of the individuals within the Kuru meeting not doing something when confronted with ethical outrage?
Let us now speak in regards to the occasions which unfolded in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, when reportedly two lakh Karsevaks razed the Babri mosque to the bottom. There was, once more, a Central authorities in existence, in addition to a state authorities, an area administration, a police power, the Army, and the judiciary––and nothing was finished. The whole construction was razed to the bottom, the place now a Ram Temple is being constructed.
Numerous farmers have dedicated suicide in India. Again, all of us would agree that it is a tragic act which should be prevented in any respect prices, particularly when carried out for manifest monetary causes. And but, as within the earlier circumstances, all the varied establishments of presidency had been in existence, together with these of social welfare––and nothing has been finished to stop it. There are stories that the speed of unemployment in India is excessive, and could even be rising. One hears stories of people committing suicide as a result of they didn’t have a job; {couples} committing suicide as a result of they had been each with out jobs; and complete households committing suicide as a result of they had been with out jobs––and but nothing occurs.
The circumstances mentioned within the earlier paragraph are admittedly ‘less visible’ than the egregious ones talked about earlier, however broadly belong to the identical class, as all of them exemplify the identical downside.
What explains this ethical freezing?
One purpose may very well be that individuals really feel compelled by the formal authorized and administrative buildings from intervening, regardless of the morally outrageous character of what’s going on.
There is a civic instance to assist us assume by way of the problem. If we’re in a mall, and against the law takes place in our presence, resembling somebody’s purse being snatched by some miscreant, then most likely a person will intervene. It is apparent that it’s the morally outrageous nature of the taking place which might immediate the intervention. In truth, one can legally perform a citizen’s arrest, and maintain the individual till the police arrive.
Do we’d like a provision of this type in legislation––that an individual has the appropriate to intervene when a morally outrageous act is being dedicated? If such a provision existed below Hindu legislation, then anybody on the Kuru courtroom may have intervened to stop the harassment of Draupadi, as a substitute of nobody doing so. A parallel suggestion, within the case of the expulsion of the Kashmiri Pandits, is more durable to make, due to the dimensions of the operation concerned. But even right here, if residents got here collectively spontaneously to acknowledge the morally outrageous nature of the scenario, then maybe essentially the most outrageous occasions may have been prevented from going down.
However, one comes to the sobering realisation that demography turns into concerned when such an occasion is going down. Individuals may have intervened within the case of Draupadi, however it will have required a big physique of individuals to intervene within the case of the Kashmiri Pandits and the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
Practical issues however, my function in scripting this publish is to suggest that we’d like to create an area for ethical motion in our moral discourse, once we are witness to a morally outrageous act. That is to say, confronted with such a scenario, a person, or a bunch of people, ought to have the appropriate to intervene. It could also be that one is helpless in some conditions, however the essential factor to bear in mind is that no sufferer ought to really feel helpless, even when the scenario is helpless. That is to say, the sufferer should know that individuals care.
One ought to really feel compelled to act as a pure ethical agent, independently of all that could be stopping one from appearing in that scenario. In doing so, the victims will realise that there are individuals with a conscience, and maybe others can also realise that they, too, are individuals with a conscience.
The creator, previously of the IAS, is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal Canada, the place he has taught for over thirty years. He has additionally taught in Australia and the United States and at Nalanda University in India. He has revealed extensively within the fields of Indian religions and world religions.
