Moral corruption has been so rampant for so long in our part of the world that it has now become deeply ingrained in our individual and collective psyche. So much so that in the workings of our daily life it appears as our second nature. Its presence can be witnessed both vertically and horizontally i.e. from bottom to top and from region to region. Besides, no walk of life is unaffected by its polluting touch. It’s found everywhere; in governance, politics, religious establishment, economic interaction and myriad activities of the hoi polloi.

Governance in the name of common good only serves the interests of a few from whose ranks are drawn those who are entrusted with the task of governing. Politics is quintessentially elitist; claim of representing people is a deceit that is practiced and flaunted as a pro-people virtue to the guileless. Religious establishment is the right hand of the forces of the status quo which keep the common people pinned to the promise of a dawn of salvation that will arrive only after the end of life on this planet. Thus it serves as a tool and controlling mechanism in the hands of powers that be as it stresses the virtues of conformity and persuades people to acquiesce to the dictates of the established order.

Economic sphere is absolutely dominated by upper crust of the society and all of its activities are of exploitative and extractive nature motivated by pure greed and misplaced notion of self-interest. And the hoi polloi or multitudes are forced by circumstances to be a part of corrupt practices as a last resort in their bid to ensure a survival strategy for themselves. It’s always the present age that believes that it has fallen victim to depravity. This belief though deceptive is not surprising. The past when it really becomes detached from the present automatically appears as a territory full of bliss and an era filled with romance though in reality things have been neither blissful nor romantic. It’s human perception that makes the past palatable when viewed from a safe distance. Anything past and gone that poses no viable threat is gradually accepted as fetish to be venerated and worshiped with a view to offering it as counterpoint to the ravages of the present. It’s in fact blissful ignorance of the rigours and tribulations of the past that paints the past as blissful.

We get disillusioned when we look at the facts and realities of what happened in the bygone eras. Dangerously sharp edges of realities are softened just as rugged hills are worn down by aeons of geological time. “Farid, these stalks of mustard in the pan though sugar-coated, are poison / some toiled till they dropped, preparing the crop, Others moved in plundering it,” says Baba Farid, the grand old man of Punjabi literature, about the governance of his time in the 12th century. It was plunder in the garb of governance.

“Kings are lions and officials are dogs,” declares Guru Nanak [15th century] in his condemnation of governance of his time. People at the helm were but predators who wanted their pound of flesh. Baba Farid also exposes economic exploitation: “Some have piles of whole meal flour while others have nothing to spice their loaf bread with.”

Economist Ernest Mandel quotes in one of his books the remarks of a Bishop who addresses a gathering of aristocrats in the 14the century thus: “Gentlemen, you are not thieves but what you eat is the fruit of theft.” Shah Hussain aka Madho Lal Hussain [16th century] reveals the essential features of life of elite which Thorsten Veblen later identified as leisure class. “Satiated with luxurious food and dressed in your best, you fatten yourself as a sacrificial goat to Yuma [the angel of death in the subcontinental mythology]”. About clergy and its role in perpetuating the oppressive order we find ample literature.

Guru Nanak points to fundamental dichotomy that bedevils clergy’s claims and practice. “Apparently they[clerics] have their wrap dresses washed but insides they store new poison”. Iconoclastic Bulleh Shah lays bare the connection that has traditionally existed between clergy and business. “Lifting the fringes of your Dhoti [with the objective of preventing it from trailing and getting soiled] you happily rush to the market / you run amok with your knife if paid a dime,” says Bulleh Shah. The quotes have been quoted just to drive home a simple point: things have not been honky dory in the past as we generally tend to imagine they were.

The moral crisis or depravity we are faced with is not something entirely new. We are especially worried because so many societies in the contemporary world gone beyond such crises creating conditions where a person is not necessarily required or compelled to lie, cheat, extract and exploit. But here all from high to low indulge in such odious shenanigans. Now there are diverse views as to why such a moral crisis continues unabated making us distorted and subsequently lesser human beings. This spectacle of all against all has two general explanations. One, the pessimistic view is that there is something fundamentally wrong with our DNA [in local parlance it’s ‘mitti di taaseer] as we have miserably failed to evolve authentic human norms. Two, the optimistic view is that it’s nothing innate. The problem is with the societal structure and ensuing socio-cultural norms such as imposition of a rigid caste system that have had a dehumanising effect.

Caste system coupled with unending series of covert and overt foreign invasions that intervened in the organic human growth and development, have created a sense of extreme insecurity forcing individuals and groups to adopt invidious rules of ‘insidious intent’ to ensure their survival. And bare survival is what they have ended with. There is no human glory about it. Now the question is whether a state of mind perpetuated over a long span of time can become a part of one’s DNA? Anyway the simple fact is that our current neurotic obsessions are a distortion caused by historically created conditions. And distortion cannot be conceived as inbuilt in human psyche or innate human characteristic by any stretch of imagination. Distortion, whatever its causes, is by definition something that can be rectified or eliminated by changing the conditions that breeds it. In human affairs effort underpinned by consciousness is bound to have the patina of success. But the perennial question is who will make the effort? You! “Let your focus be on your action,” exhorts the Bhagvad Gita. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2019