The sources of information behind
such 'campaigns' are interesting stuff the way they are dug into and collected.
Such informed campaigns are run
with no concern of or respect for rechecking and reconfirming the facts. Most
of such 'informed campaigns' go without the ethical requirements of going out
in the field to cross-verify the information, because the intent is pre-fixed
mostly.
In case of cross-cultural
critics, the methodologies of such campaigns are designed in cultural isolation
and the folks never bother to know and understand the context associated with
the place or attached with the person's identity. They flimsily analyse and
process the information based on their own cultural contexts and ethos looking
at the facts from the spectacle of their own societies (or their own prejudices,
that goes for the inland folks).
They simply don't care about the
contextual interpretation of 'how, what
and why' of the 'what they intend to do'.
They don't care to understand the
historical and the prevailing cultural context to get into the localized,
contemporary context of a tradition/custom/activity/method/process of a place.
And all 'makes' of critics, they
criticise the Greats and sometimes go unrestricted in their choice of words to
express their displeasures (anger or prejudice, alternatively or arbitrarily). They
criticise the Greats even if they are no more physically present among us.
But does it matter? The Greats
never believe in defending something that is so utterly misplaced or something
that will obstruct them in their duty and responsibility to reach out and heal
the humanity. The Greats don't respond because their emotive responses are
concentrated on helping others.
Mother Teresa or the Mahatma,
they kept on working for the well-being of the poorest of the poor. Souls like
them who leave the aspirations of their material lives, how can they be blamed
of being selfish or prejudiced or indulging in misappropriations? Almost of the
Indians would not be aware of the Mahatma Gandhi's family tree after the
Mahatma, the Great who got us Independence, the soul who kept on working for
the last person of the society first. How can we see the Mother in a negative
light when she spent her whole life in a small room without any material
possessions? After leaving her family at 18, she never saw her mother again.
Yes, the Greats, they can and they
go wrong, for they are humans like you and me, but who are we, the men of the material
world, soaked up in our individual lives, absorbed by our own petty problems,
who never venture out to feed even a single needy person, let alone helping the
dying ones, to question the motives of the Greats?
Yes, the Greats, being humans
like us, they all have their own limitations. Yes, they do win over them and
manage them much more efficiently than us. But that doesn't mean they cannot
err. They are as much entitled to err like all of us are. They cannot expected
to be all-knowing or versatile.
But, then who is perfect? And
don't we criticise even God?
All the Greats who have walked so
far, none of them was perfect, and never even claimed. In fact, being the human
beings like you and me, they were always fallible, till the very end. Yes, they
rose to become Great, but, intrinsically, they were the human beings who worked
on their Good Self to dominate their Weak Self so effectively that they became
God-like for us. Yes, but they were not Gods. The Weak Self was very much alive
within them and that let the Greats remain among us, something they always
aspired for.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began
as a fallible man, like all of us, and he remained fallible, like all of us,
through his journey with life, from an early married boy to the Father of the
nation, Bapu, to the Fatherly figure of the human conscience, he remained
fallible.
But unlike almost of us,
including the folks who run campaigns to discredit and dishonour the Humanity's
Greats, he always spoke of it, and he always atoned for it with his personal
austerity and self-discipline, inflicting the severest pain on himself.
All of the true Human Greats, the
healers of the Humanity, were like him or he was like them, and all to come
will be in the same league.
The world is not going to be
moved, to be swept emotively or ideologically by a single soul and the true
Greats never intended so. They all did and would be doing what the Humanity
needs the most, caring for the billions of the needy, taking care of the
emotional poverty and the chronic hunger. We elect leader even after knowing
their follies. And we blame them who work selflessly for the issues that we
create from nowhere. A research study criticising Mother Teresa after 16 years
of her death in 2013 based on interpretation of a 1981 incident blaming her
supporting the Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier who passed away last week,
while comfortably forgetting what she did for Humanity tells us this only, and
bewares of such a mindset.
Give the Greats the liberty to
remain humans . They crave for it in their private moments. Give them their
freedom to remain fallible. Give them their moments to introspect. They deserve
it after committing their lives for others, to us.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com
