1. The Devil’s Trinity Reacting to Change
Whenever there is a constructive change in Society there is a conflict. Those in Power do not wish
to give up their powers. In the poem ‘The Longest Tyranny’ the great poet John Dryden(1663)
The longest tyranny that ever sway'd
Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
Their free-born reason to the Stagirite*,
And made his torch their universal light.
So truth, while only one supplied the state,
Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate**;
Until 't was bought, like emp'ric*** wares, or charms,
Hard words seal'd up with Aristotle's arms.
-*Stagirite. Aristotle, so named from his birthplace Stagira.
-**sophisticate. Not pure or genuine; specious.
-***emp'ric. An empiric is one who relies solely on observation and experiment; in the 17th century
this connoted charlatanism and quackery, especially in medicine.
The Church used Aristiotle’s claim till Galileo tested out his hypothesis and proved him wrong. It
took us nearly 1800 years to break free of Aristotle’s falsehood. How can we expect change to occur
overnight? How can the very people who thrive on looting this country be expected to enact laws or to
take steps to reduce their stranglehold on our economy. 162 members of our present Lok Sabha are
facing criminal charges and mind you quite serious ones. Anna Hazare and his followers want law
breakers to enact laws! They are on the right side but their expectations are crazy in this world of two
minute noodles. The Lokpal Bill has waited for 42 years. Can we wait for 1800 years? NO.
Today we see the same falsehood when we hear today’s Sibbals and Tiwaris churning out their
falsehood while Rahul Baba and the PM are mum. We cannot blame out PM as he has kept mum
when the Treasury was being looted be it CWG, 2G or AI or for that matter so many cases. Our PM
has always been the silent spectator. One who sees a crime being committed is as much guilty of the
crime as the one perpetuating it. Rahul Baba is mum and that is also understandable since Mum is ill
and maybe he is in a state of shock. Mera Bharat Mahan in which pilots can buy flying licenses and
actually fly coffin boxes!!!
Every new idea for constructive change is always met with 3 attacks by the devil and his
advocates.Albert Hirschman the Development Economist has listed the three attacks in his ‘The
Rhetoric for reaction:Futitlity, Perversity and Jeopardy’ as,
• Futility: The reform cannot work as the problem is unsolvable.
• Perversity: Any attempt to solve the problem will make it more worse.
• Jeopardy: Any attempt to solve the problem will take away resources and attention from
things that are more important.
We can see our Khurshids, Sibbals, Chaturvedis, Tiwaris arguing endlessly on futility, perversity
and jeopardy of the Jan Lokpal bill. Not that our friends from BJP or the Left or any other
political party are any better; they are all the same. This negative attitude for change and refusing
to see the writing on the wall is their state of mind cut off from grassroot situation as they
continue to sit in their Ivory Tower offices being an island unto themselves. (Apologies to John
Donne- For whom the bell tolls)