The human being is fickle minded. He’s totally unconcerned when injustice takes place in his immediate surroundings so long as it does not affect him personally. He’s willing to go the whole hog in crucifying the victim without giving a patient hearing to the victimised individual, who’s undergoing the agony. And God forbid if such a thing were to happen to him, then he’d go around the entire world to convince the others, who lend him their ears, as to how he’s being wronged or victimized, for no fault of his. Why is there such a deviant behaviour in most of us?
I’m reminded of an incident that had happened seven years back, in Bombay. The officer, who was senior to me, was commanding a ship when his coxswain complained about his queer sexual habits. The navy took immediate action in that he was given the option of quietly putting in his papers and leave the service forthwith, rather than face the ignominy of facing a trial by court martial and let the whole world get to know of his lapses. He chose the former and went off to his ancestral village, while his family, consisting of his wife and two daughters continued to stay within the naval environs of Colaba to fulfill certain personal requirements in terms of education and profession – sadly, that became their undoing and they’d to go through hell! The ordeal that the hapless ladies went through amidst a supposedly educated crowd of naval families, in their immediate neighbourhood, was not only barbaric, inhuman and inexcusable but also was, if I were to put it in my own words, a sort of aggressive and relentless ragging!! The family was socially ostracized, people who used to vie with each other to befriend them had become their enemies, overnight – they were not even smiled at. The evening that I’d decided to call on them, just to be with them in their times of gloom, shall ever remain etched in my memory when the three women poured out their agony and wept on my shoulders on the unfair treatment being meted out to them, by all and sundry, and that too for no fault of theirs.
Why do human beings sit in judgment much before the natural justice system has taken its course? Is it to show their contemporaries that they’re indeed on the right side of the law and majority thinking – like trying to be more loyal to the king than the king himself? Or is it that they’re covering their own inefficiencies or inadequacies by finding fault with the others? A phenomenon that will continue to puzzle me - always and every time, because who has given them this right in the first instance?
I’m reminded of an incident that had happened seven years back, in Bombay. The officer, who was senior to me, was commanding a ship when his coxswain complained about his queer sexual habits. The navy took immediate action in that he was given the option of quietly putting in his papers and leave the service forthwith, rather than face the ignominy of facing a trial by court martial and let the whole world get to know of his lapses. He chose the former and went off to his ancestral village, while his family, consisting of his wife and two daughters continued to stay within the naval environs of Colaba to fulfill certain personal requirements in terms of education and profession – sadly, that became their undoing and they’d to go through hell! The ordeal that the hapless ladies went through amidst a supposedly educated crowd of naval families, in their immediate neighbourhood, was not only barbaric, inhuman and inexcusable but also was, if I were to put it in my own words, a sort of aggressive and relentless ragging!! The family was socially ostracized, people who used to vie with each other to befriend them had become their enemies, overnight – they were not even smiled at. The evening that I’d decided to call on them, just to be with them in their times of gloom, shall ever remain etched in my memory when the three women poured out their agony and wept on my shoulders on the unfair treatment being meted out to them, by all and sundry, and that too for no fault of theirs.
Why do human beings sit in judgment much before the natural justice system has taken its course? Is it to show their contemporaries that they’re indeed on the right side of the law and majority thinking – like trying to be more loyal to the king than the king himself? Or is it that they’re covering their own inefficiencies or inadequacies by finding fault with the others? A phenomenon that will continue to puzzle me - always and every time, because who has given them this right in the first instance?
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