Greed?

The militant attacks in Bombay blatantly show yet again how vulnerable the world has become to the terrorists. The blame game has already begun. Some blame the Pakistanis and some blame the Muslim fundamentalists and some blame the entire Muslim community. Looking at all these things couple of questions arise in my mind. Can we stop these kinds of crazy acts of violence? Is it just to blame people of only one faith for all the maladies in the society?

Evolution follows a simple path of survival of the fittest. It holds good for anything or everything because it is just stating the obvious. In the evolution of human species from animals we took some of the instincts that are inherent in an animal. However we rationalize things that we do unlike animals. We carry the DNA to resist changes in the environment to survive. This basic instinct that is carried in our genes through our evolution from animals to humans is the very source of many problems in the world.

When humans were primitive hunters they fought for their food locally. When the availability of food became scarce because of some natural causes they started traveling and encountered other people. If the new place had abundant food for the new people the society embraced them if not fighting erupted eventually making it the first territorial wars. Even at this stage it was primarily for food.

Humans evolved further and they started exploiting the land not just for food but for other things too. They became greedy and wanted more. This made them to form gangs and groups and then armies in later days. The more they exploited the land, the natural resources, the more they became violent. This is where culture comes into picture. Some people understood the reason behind this and formed strict rules to avoid over exploitation of the natural resources. My speculation is even castes in the Indian society formed because of this reasons.

I would call caste system as the first sociological experiment of the humans. Only one set of people can till the soil for food. Ancient people understood the balance in the ecosystem. People had high regards for the nature, respected it and preserved it. Many rich people intentionally took to poverty after certain age. People praised minimalism. In someway or the other the difference between the rich and the poor was smaller. This brought peace and stability. Territorial wars were fought when people were either unhappy with the over exploiting ruler or severe drought. Sometimes just to keep the army engaged and well trained. In most cases rulers spared civilians as the common people simply don’t care as long as their daily needs are met.

Over a period of time, population growth couldn’t be controlled and availability of limited land made kings to come up with new ideologies to tackle the growing anger amongst people. In my opinion, Buddha who was a king tried the next sociological experiment, “What if everyone becomes a minimalist.” Well his intention was really high. He taught nothing new but dusted off some of the old books with some clarifications and summarizing few detailed rules. Did it succeed? Well at least initially, the experiment proved great in infighting in the country. What it failed to see is the foreign invasion.

The local ideology and social balance started shaking when foreigners couldn’t adapt to the local ideologies and found it tough to understand. The foreigners felt comfortable ruling people whom they understood. So they started the third sociological experiment,” Conversion”. Did they succeed? Like Buddha at least for a short stint in time they definitely had takers.

The new age sociological experiments like Communism, Atheism, etc are also classic examples of how human kind has defined and redefined itself to avoid distorting the balance in nature. Every time some great leader with great intentions comes to make a difference in the society, it goes off balance.

The very reason for this imbalance is the very unpredictable nature of this universe. We, humans are just part of it and we just behave in the same unpredictable manner like this universe. People follow religion or any ideology for that matter that is comfortable to them, mainly to rationalize their incompetence or their losses and sometimes just to kill boredom.

Whenever the nature gets exploited more the very creation of nature, the humans, form the destructive source to bring it back to equilibrium. Today’s world is a classic example of greed. With greed comes utmost poverty and destruction.

In conclusion, to answer my question, we cannot blame one religion or the other for all these deadly attacks but to blame the instability in the society in general. I am confident it cannot be totally prevented but the intensity can be diluted by another sociological experiment to control greed. We need a strong body to fight an infection. What our country needs is a medicine first to improve our resistance to foreign forces.