Lions and Deer of the Social Jungle

Dharma of Social Jungle: The greatest punya (good deed) of the social jungle is to protect one’s own interests at any cost.

 

Sin of the Social Jungle: Pap (sin) of the social jungle is to allow one’s own interests to be harmed under any obligation, duty or weakness arising out of the hypotheses of religion, morality, ethics or any other type of socio-religious injunction.  

 

Anti-socials, politicians, business magnates and others of their ilk are the social lions—a suitable personification of those fierce lions roaming in the jungles. Their ravenous appetite for power, perks and status needs and requires them to prey upon the poor weaklings, i.e., social deer. The social deer comprise the abject and still poorer personifications of those grass-grazing herds of deer in the jungle who just nibble at the grass blades; who are inherently weak products in the game of evolution. So the social deer are intrinsically weak and churn out virtues of the lameness and moralist talk, by creating the great facades of evil and sin (these are mere hypothesis), constructing the majestic and disillusioned citadel of religion and ethics—the fearful songs of the escaping and the fleeting hordes of masses.

 

All this also boils down to the question of being practical or impractical. As simple as that! If somebody is brave enough to defy the blinding hypotheses and naturally nurture his self interests at any cost then it is just a simple occurrence of somebody being a social lion. While the one who is constrained from following this duty to the self due to the weaknesses arising of the limitations at the levels of physique, mental power, social compunctions or family bindings forcing him to compromise the real duty to the self, he then becomes the fodder to satisfy some lion’s appetite; becomes a mere inconsequential step in the staircase of somebody’s ascension to the peak of power and glory.

 

Judges—the so called upkeepers of justice on earth—are the most efficient and practical men (thus a fantastic breed of lion who are untamed and unchecked in any manner). At every step of the ladder of dispensing justice, they have to pamper injustice just to reach higher and higher. The talk of justice is too idealist and impractical. The hypothesis of justice survives to act as a sort of opium for the masses. Practical judges very soon realize that the elements like integrity, honesty, morality, commitment to the so called virtues are no aids to one’s entry to heaven; rather in the field of social jungle they are simply the antonyms for armour, swords, shields and lancers to cut down the fellow self-interested fighters. Just imagine the fate of a soldier devoid of all these weapons! He is just there to fulfil the natural function of getting cut down. Our day to day social survival is simply a battle for protecting self-interests in which deepest, mostly invisible and sometimes blood-soaked, cuts are inflicted on fellow human beings.

 

Here is this social lion, all adorned with the impressive mane of justice and crowned with the duty to protect the deer! He is still hungry to ascend a few more steps on the social ladder. To become a bigger lion, he is simply required to eat more and more deer. And he has done exactly the same! Very cleanly, smartly and without batting an eyelid! He smoothly feasted on 102 deer. The very same poor herd of weak, impotent, cowering, justice-lorn group that had pleadingly looked at his face for two years in the Court of Justice. The poor group always unaware that it was nothing but the morsel for the satisfaction of his gluttony. In one merciless stroke—as all practical steps must be to qualify for success—he ate 102 lambs and burped away to further glory with new, vigour, health and criminality (the most virtuous trait to become a bigger, stronger lion), to eat still fatter preys at the higher seat.

 

For full two years, these poor lambs had looked at his indifferent face seeking some tiniest trace of mercy. But how can a lion go against its nature? They never realized that the wise owl perched on the highchair found them just tiny frogs to be eaten to muster up more nocturnal hunting prowess. Suddenly, swiping away all the gibberish, hypothetical talk of the weaklings, and bravely bracing himself up with the tidings of war weapons, he gave smart piece of winsome battle skills and mowed down all those disillusioned fools and weaklings who had come running to his cave, seeking life where only death had all the business to do. So to escape from one lion (the newly installed Chief Minister of Haryana) they landed up in the den of another lion. And lions will be lions. If sheep run from one den to another, it saves energy for the lions as well. So the Assembly of this lion, amply proving its status of being the regal court of the mighty canines, just sanctioned the luncheon of the grassy subjects under its domain. The King lion just proved his ruling status—an able commander of a still mightier Lioness (the de facto ruler of India ruling India through a proxy paper tiger) eating still tastier livers in the higher capital. Her Highness, the top-most lioness, has longer teeth to taste even the mane-covered flesh of these lesser lions.

 

Jungle lions fight to keep their territories and the bunch of female cats. Social lions, especially the political social lions, are pitched against a tougher task. But they have far more chickened humanity to lunch upon and then wage the battle.

 

While the bull fight it out for the higher stakes, the grass tufts at their feet get inevitably trampled and mowed down and mix in the dust of nothingness and ignominy. Similarly, this group of 102 hardworking lambs, always pleading that it will be of great Civil Service to the lion got trampled upon.

 

The advisers and soothsayer rushed to preach that still there was a mightier den ruled by a stronger lion who can get the injustice undone. But they forget that mightier lions perched upon still higher seats are still more efficient hunters. After all they rose through the same battle. Even if they unnaturally have some pity for the battered, bruised and blood-soaked horde and say ‘Mercy grated!’, it will still rub chilly on some lonely conscience left out in the joint humiliation. What is the use of reaching the spring of justice if every step on the path forces you to forget the fundamentals of your life, the very sinews that grew with you? You just become identity-less. It is just like peeling off one’s own kin. What is the use of getting justice if on availing it—if one is lucky to avail it after all—you turn blind and spiritless by the time you are shown the make-believe fruit?   

 

PS: The deer horde comprises the 102 successful candidates in Haryana Public Service Examination, 2004. They were denied appointment by the mighty lion, the Congress Chief Minister of Haryana who proudly prodded the state judiciary (partner hunters) to carry out his intention of not allowing them appointments. With equal gusto he servilely pampered the ego of the supreme lioness, the Congress President, to rule as the unquestioned ruler of the state. As is to be expected, the state and its lions won. The candidates lost. The lions won...the deer lost. What else can happen?!