It Is Dark Behind Every “SPOTLIGHT”

EVERY VISIBLE ACT OF GENEROSITY ACCOMPANIES AN INVISIBLE ACT OF INJUSTICE.

He couldn’t believe his ears.

Did he hear it right?

He had just been selected for the national Cricket team!!!

He couldn’t believe it was for real. He couldn’t hide his emotions. His family couldn’t stop themselves from displaying gratitude to the “large-hearted” captain of the Indian cricket team, who gave a chance to this poor, unprivileged cricketer much earlier than anyone would have expected.

“The Indian Captain has shown great generosity in giving the boy who ran on the streets of the village bare-foot an opportunity to walk the streets of London in suit, boot and pride.“,  chimed the teary-eyed parents to all television channels that were crowding them to catch the “Big Day” of this poor but bright youngster.

“We didn’t expect this to happen so soon. There were so many players more talented than our son, but the captain chose humanity over everything else. We cannot forget him ever in our lifetime for this act of humanity and large-hearted generosity“.

Large-hearted?

Generosity?

Really?

When the British Parliament brought in the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition bill in early 1800s, Sir Robert Peel, a parliamentarian, pointed out in the parliament an interesting connection between this bill and the two major fundamental rights in the then British Constitution – Right to Liberty and Right to Property.

What do you think was Sir Robert Peel’s argument?

In a world with limited resources, you CANNOT give anyone anything out of turn without snatching it from somebody.

Everytime any person in any position of power or capacity shows “generosity” to somebody, it is often at the cost of grave injustice to several others.

Ask that cricketer who was probably not so poor, did have shoes to wear, and wasn’t so marginalised, but had far more talent, experience and all the other eligibility criteria as a “player”.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t born sufficiently unfortunate to have fortune favour him.

So what if he felt heart-broken! So what if his family sunk into a gloom!! So what if it would play on his mind and spirit and may be, on his decision to continue playing!!!

Would he be that inhuman to play spoilsport to the joy of his less-fortunate peer?

Shouldn’t he be as large-hearted as his Captain?

Isn’t that the kind of generosity and large-heartedness that keeps the humanity going?

That is the power of SPOTLIGHT. 

TRUTH is where the SPOTLIGHT is. Nothing exists outside what the SPOTLIGHT shines on.

If the SPOTLIGHT chooses to show someone’s grief, grief is the TRUTH of the world.

If the SPOTLIGHT chooses how somebody was showered with great mercy, grace and rewarded with a largesse, it proves to us how there is still a lot of HUMANITY alive in the world.

All the players who were left out at the cost of the player who was the recipient of the Captain’s largesse are expected to behave as the SPOTLIGHT dictates them to.

Every act of generosity hides an act of grave injustice.

Anyone appealing to someone to show a “large-heart” is asking for injustice to be done to others.

A criminal who asks for generosity is demanding injustice to be done to the victims.

A borrower who asks for generosity is demanding injustice to be done to the tax-payers.

The head of a State government who demands justice for his state in terms of extra aid from the Central government, and requests the Central government to show a “large heart”,  is requesting the government to snatch what is due to other states and pass it on to his coffers.

The head of a state government who complains that “the Central government has been unjust to our state” is complaining that the Centre has been equitably fair to the concerns and needs of ALL states in the country.

When religions in  a perpetual victim-mode thank a government for their “large-heartedness”, they are thanking the government for successfully suppressing the rights of other religions, or effectively snatching rights and property of others and handing it over to them.

When such religions complain of subjugation, they are complaining of not being given the unique right of existence that has been apparently accorded to them, and resenting the fact that those who have been supposedly denied existential rights from the Skies are being given a fair and equitable right to exist on Earth.

Such religions don’t complain about injustice against them. They resent justice being done to those who, according to them, lack the right to exist.

Whenever we join the celebration of an unwarranted largesse, we are guilty of supporting injustice!!!

The common ways in which the world perceives “injustice” and “justice” is quite skewed up. For most of us –

Injustice is violation of what we have intellectually and emotionally bought into.

Justice is when others act in accordance with what we have intellectually and emotionally bought into.

Everything given to somebody as an act of grace was snatched from somebody.

It’s just that the SPOTLIGHT pointed to the act of grace, and therefore, grace was all that was invisible. Turn the SPOTLIGHT a few inches and you would see the injustice in an open glaring view.

Generosity and injustice co-exist side by side.

We cannot be part of one, without automatically being part of the other.

We cannot applaud undue generosity to someone without automatically being part of the undue injustice to the ones who were taken away from.

Next time you get bedazzled and bowled over by what any SPOTLIGHT shows you, do pause to check – “what is the dark side that this SPOTLIGHT is hiding“?

Next time you applaud a generous and humane act by anybody in power, do spare few thoughts for the ones who have been taken away from.

When we stop buying into others’ SPOTLIGHTs, we get the necessary disengagement from being pulled by the cogs and wheels running the world in its present form. We give ourselves the sufficient time, opportunity and the intent to – 

1) render the current SPOTLIGHTs ineffective
2) create our own SPOTLIGHTs to expose what those other SPOTLIGHTs were hiding.

As discussed in an earlier post, it takes only one, two or three instances to establish TRUTH. As is for them, so it is for us.

The SPOTLIGHT is here to stay. They are going to use it incessantly.

Our side of the equation only gives us these options – 

What are we going to do with their SPOTLIGHT?
What are we going to do with our own SPOTLIGHT?

Which of the two fundamental rights, Right to Liberty or Right to Property, did Sir Robert Peel refer to in his speech on the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill?

In the context of a discussion on abolition of slavery, the “Right to Liberty” seems more contextual.

Sir Robert Peel argued that the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill violated the “right to property” of British individuals, and hence, petitioned against it!!!

That is what the SPOTLIGHT seeks to achieve.

That’s how the world decides what we should stand for, and more often than not, we oblige!!!

Most of the time, when we give in to our virtuous emotions and take a grand stand for a humane cause, we have just been blinded and bought-over by a well-positioned, brightly-lit SPOTLIGHT.