Economic theory and the tragedy of human life!

I am reminded of an incident way back during my college days. A shop owner on the campus had a skirmish with one of the students. The students retaliated by looting the shop. They seemed to be more interested in laying their hands on the jars of Cadbury's chocolate and jeans in the shop than anything else. This was a prestigious institute and the students were from respectable families.

Almost 25 years later, it sounded rather odd that similar incidents should take place amidst the carnage in Gujarat. Only this time there was not much to choose between the respectable and the lumpen elements!

The law of entropy continues to take its toll-from disorder to more disorder. The voice of reason has been lost somewhere. In addition, people continue to justify a wrong based on another wrong. Those who do raise a voice are deemed to have political motives and hidden agendas. The result is that human life has come to be the cheapest commodity in the politico-religious gamesmanship. The teachings of the mahatma are obviously lost on his own people. 

What worries more is that it is exactly the same kind of events that had us fighting amongst ourselves and kept us enslaved for centuries. Obviously, we have not learnt from our mistakes! What worries even more is that we are really not bothered about eliminating the root cause that seems to be pushing us more and more into this quagmire.

We seem to be bothered more about window dressing the contents of books as per our own whims and fancies rather than whether our government run schools are doing what they are supposed to. Only education can bring about greater tolerance among people and a greater ability to see things for what they are. 

However, who is to set the standard? Our leaders have not managed to set any kind of example-not even in parliament. If they can resort to acts of vandalism and violence in the parliament, what are we to expect from the people they lead in their constituencies?

For all the talk about keeping tainted people out of politics, none of the major political parties has had the courage to demonstrate the will to lead by example. So who are we to blame?

Well! That reminds me of something. Strange that we have not yet proclaimed that there is a foreign hand in all this! That would have been the simplest of explanations. Moreover, it would have been acceptable to all! So why has not the government decided to offer this explanation?

Is it a situation of being once bitten twice shy? The external threat plank has not really worked in the assembly elections. Is it that the government is now worried that the charm of the terrorist plank has worn off? Alternatively, is it that it suits its purpose to let people draw obvious conclusions? Are we then to believe that what has happened in Gujarat has the tacit approval of the government? 

This world is livable only because of one thing-the trust between man and man. Despite the fact that trust is now a rare commodity and continues to be depleted by the day, the world continues to survive because of trust alone. 

The fractured verdict in UP is an indicator of the fact that divisive tactics based on religion; caste and creed will only breed mistrust among people and cannot lead to a stable solution. It is unfortunate that peoples' expectations were belied when they did repose faith and trust in one party.

It is sad when we are only moved when there is a motive of deriving political mileage out of an occurrence. A game is being increasingly played by political parties. In there intent to score over rivals, they seem to have forgotten that it is lives of human beings that they are playing with.

So where are we to go from here? Nowhere really.

It really does not matter. On the day of the carnage, the finance budget continued to get more coverage on most channels. Star news was the only channel that seemed to be seized with the gravity of the whole situation. The others continued with their pre-arranged schedule of covering the budget. How much the industries stood to gain or lose was obviously more important than a few hundred lives of innocent people!

Goes to reinforce the simple economic law of demand and supply-even if it applies to human lives! Can not blame anyone but yourself, can you? With supply of people far out doing demand, human life has to come cheap. Add to it the fact that we have not been able to do much to improve on the quality of the mass-produced humans, and it becomes apparent why no one bothers about the value of life. After all, who bothers about a litter of pigs? It is the tiger that rules. Maybe the HRD ministry should bother more about educating people on 'economic theory' than meddling with a 'history' nobody wants to learn from!