Nepal Makes More News than Bhutan

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle June 2006)

There are many persons who dislike newspapers. If they read one every morning, it is more out of an unconscious habit. And out of a desire that has more to do with what may be called keeping up with the Joneses. The reason for dislike is pretty obvious: most of the news reek of violence, death and destruction—tragedy in short.

Reports become all the more difficult to swallow when they reveal how religion has been degraded. Take the following news for instance: “A powerful bomb exploded at a park in Karachi, killing at least 45 people, during special prayers to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Mohammed.” Shocking indeed! Not only have people lost the fear of religion but they have also distorted religion to serve their own vested interests.

Evil has become a way of life. Short-sightedness has even led us to misinterpret religion for our own convenience. Take the case of divorce, for example. It is a common misconception that there is nothing wrong with talaq (divorce) as per Islam. It is true that Islam provides for divorce. But this needs to be read in conjunction with a hadith of the Prophet: “The most repugnant of things made lawful in the sight of God is divorce.” Which means though Islam provides for divorce as an option, it is only the last resort.

We live in a society that is centred on selfishness. Most of us crave for power though it has become fashionable to tout this craving only as a politician’s vice. Various nefarious means are employed to be saddled in the seat of power. Wads of notes may covertly change hands. Bullets may be pounded into the body of a contender or rival. The impassioned man riding on a wave of ambition can go to any extent of treachery and cruelty.

The softer versions of the evil man indulge in a different kind of malpractice. Theirs is an error of omission rather than one of commission. But the softness lies only in intent. Because as far as consequences are concerned, these may be much more brutal than those of an error of commission. While a murder can annihilate only a single person, a neglect can result in a mass tragedy. If a lack of safety measures leads to a devastating fire, the scene becomes one of a veritable inferno.

Another kind of evil is the one perpetrated in the name of social justice. Reservations have a benign purpose but they often end up only as instruments of strengthening the already strong. For all practical purposes, they are abused by the creamy layer of the community for which reservations are intended. As a result, the power equations don’t get balanced; they merely change.

We are thus surrounded by evil on all sides. We feel ourselves to be in a helpless situation. We wait and watch as if things would improve one fine day when good sense finally prevails on those evil-headed monsters. Or maybe, some of us even think, God will descend in an incarnation and rescue us from our free fall into the abyss of evil.

Well, God is willing and ready. But let us not forget God helps those who help themselves. Let us not forget we are all a party to the evils. They also sin who only stand and wait. So each of us, whether an active sinner or a passive sin-watcher, needs to brace himself up to bring about a change.

We need to emulate the monarch of Bhutan, who is taking initiative on his own to take the country on the road to democracy even though the Bhutanese people want him to continue. Contrast this situation to the one in Nepal, where the monarch is clinging to power even as people try to wrest it from him. How unfortunate that Nepal makes much more news than Bhutan!